There are two things that will lose the election for Democrats if they don't get them under control.
Infighting and arguing over who the candidate should be.
The "All is lost" attitude.
If people don't stop fighting and trying to convince themselves that it's not worth it to go to the polls then this is game over.
I feel as if not enough people are saying this.
Infighting is a bane. Back when I was on Reddit I got fucking downvoted into oblivion multiple times for pointing out that the Left's biggest problem, both now and historically, is how we can never agree on anything. That whatever faults the Right has, they will come together just to shit on someone else. If us on the Left stood up in unity we would be a literal human tsunami flooding the bullshit that is the Republican habitual diatribe. Second, and louder, is apathy, as you said.
Starting to wonder if throwing League of Legends level of insults at people might get them angry enough to vote just to show me what's what.
It's because the Democratic party is a coalition. The Democratic party ISN'T LEFT. It's a party made up of moderates (right wingers) and liberals.
It's essentially two different political philosophies trying to operate within one party.
Which is why ranked choice voting allows people to better represent their candidate preferences. All the variety of political opinion can’t be represented in two parties.
First past the post got us in this mess and it sure as shit ain't gonna get us out of it. I'll take a straw poll over what our current system is.
Ranked Choice voting allows for the kind of direct democratic action as we just saw in France and what they finally got around to doing in the UK with the most recent elections.
However, it's against the best interest of the current politicians in power.
How do we get Ranked Choice on ballot when the DNC won't even use it in their primaries?
The French are also FPTP, they just convinced most of the potential spoiler candidates to fall on their swords for the good of the nation.
The politics here in the EU are just as messy, there's simply a thin veneer of ..something, class, perhaps, that trump managed to completely remove from American politics.
What happened in the UK is a genuine bright spot, though. I couldn't stand Sunak, but at least he behaved like a fucking adult when the time came.
It very much does feel like Trump gave the right permission to be their worst selves in public. The Republicans of the 90s and 00s were perfectly happy to use racism and jingoism and white grievance to win votes, but they either used dog whistles or pretended they were speaking an "uncomfortable truth". Now that it's been accepted that being horrible in public can make you president, they don't need to play that game anymore and they love it.
And all it took was that one little break. The European right is probably one successful brash racist away from being just as bad. There have been some close calls already.
You get it by coming together. The smart politicians, and the hungry ones, will back the measures if there is enough open and consistent popular support. Remember that it is about power. Political power starts and ends with numbers. Make it more valuable to some to support a change and they will become an ally.
However, this is done only through us coming together in unity, or under one or two strong leaders.
The other problem with Democrats is they have terrible fucking strategy. Then they get this bright fucking idea to take a page out of Biden's handbook. In what conceivable world was it a good idea to run an 81-year-old who all but promised to be a bridge candidate to a younger generation?
Yeah, guys, let's "rally" blindly around the guy for whom 75% of the fucking electorate find is not cognitively fit to run for a 2nd term. Real genius strategy. It's like they completely forget about low-info undecided swing voters.
It's like they ALWAYS employ the wrong strategy 2 cycles too fucking late.
Isn't it kind of the nature of the left to bicker with itself though? At some level, conservatism seeks to preserve an existing system, or at the extreme end, bring back a system recently removed. There's some room for infighting between the most and least extreme there, but for the most part, it's a goal that is easy to unite for. But the left, at it's most basic level, seeks to change things. And changing things is not a goal that inspires unity quite so well, because to change things, one needs an idea of what things should be changed to, and what you think things should be may not be what someone else thinks things should be, even if you both want change. If it so happens that what someone else wants to achieve is in your view even worse than the status quo, then you can't afford to unite with that person, because there is the risk that your efforts will further a goal you find even less tolerable than what you get by doing nothing, even though what you both want is change.
This isn't aimed specifically at you. I'm very likely guilty of this myself.
What you've said here highlights what I feel is the fundamental issue of unity for those on the left: We are all so damned certain we're the smartest in the room, to some extent anyway. We can box up and ship our opinions largely through the use of actual vocabulary. We can do real research. Many more of us have degrees, or are otherwise interested in some more academic form of hobbies, careers, and lend our strengths towards artistic approaches. Now this isn't universal and there are gigantic nodes of people who stand outside this generalization and yet still consider themselves not Republican, if not clearly left-leaning. There is at least a grain of truth for the majority.
It isn't that we bicker. We are so divided that each of the groups we belong to must, in their own way, be correct, or be offended. Just look at Biden: The majority on the Left call for equality and justice for individuals with barriers/disabilities. We yap on and on about their strengths and capacity to be incredible in so many ways. Then the instant Biden verbally fucks up we wholly ignore all the immense good he has done in favor of "Old man can't word properly!" and immediately draw lines.
What the fuck.
Yeah, that's a radical example and somewhat incorrectly used in the context of this discussion, and yet it does highlight why we get so fucked over so often. I've backed up and seen the whole forest for what it is and would really appreciate it if everyone else stopped attempting to cram their oversized heads into the nearest tree, all the while yelling about how their tree is somehow both wholly different and also the best tree. We're all in a fucking forest and Hexxus is torching the place. The problem is even those of us choosing the forest FOR the trees are at risk of being burned. All because the intelligent fools can't hear us yelling while their heads are shoved up an Ent's ass, blind in their false wisdom.
Gah, so angry.
The thing I'd like to see more of is people (outside of here) admitting they're voting for Biden even tho he's not ideal. We all know who trump is, and Biden gets a lot of flack, and I think it's going to persuade a lot of people from going out and voting.
People need to know that it's acceptable, encouraged even, to vote for the guy who isn't as bad, even if you don't like him. Just because you don't agree with everything he says or does, you agree with him more than the other guy.
Im in some groups with some trumpers, and I'll throw out memes making fun of trump, then they just say stupid incomprehensible things about Biden and I say "lol good one" and they don't know what the fuck to do
Infighting and arguing over who the candidate should be.
Agreed.
I don't care if its Biden, Harris, or anyone else you put up. But yall need to pick fucking somebody and stick with the pick.
I'm sticking with Biden and Harris in that order until someone gives me a better option. And after weeks following the last debate, no one has given me a seriously better option.
This choice is a problem. You have become a single issue voter. For, or against Trump. That's it. The whole system is awful but the fact they won't put anyone up who's better than Biden is disgusting
And no blame to Republicans who elected Trump?
Its fine. I'm Republican and am pissed at my own party (voted for Nikki). Its a two party system. If you don't like Trump the one to blame is the party who is putting Trump in power, sorry to say. Self flagellating over Biden is counter-productive.
If you don't demonstrate loyalty to your party, then you can't obtain political power. Its just a basic rule of politics.
Oh no, there's blame there. But you can't punish them for it. We can and should make it known to democratic leadership how impotent they've been and how badly they've been doing their jobs.
That's part of the democratic process. An important one too.
In any other situation, Id understand. Maybe not agree, but understand. But right now, and so long as Project 2025 remains a threat, the stakes are simply too high. Some of us have our lives riding on this. Im trans, Ill be dead or a homeless illegal in the event we lose.
The political system right now is simply good cop and bad cop.
Bad cop(republicans): i'll shoot you.
Good cop(Democrats): vote for me, I'm your only choice to stop him from shooting you (but it's in my best interests to let him threaten you forever, so you'll vote for me)
Both will forever suck. Both are fascists. We need better options
Infighting and arguing over who the candidate should be.
The “All is lost” attitude.
"Democrats must fall in love; Conservatives must fall in line."
The hand-wringing is normal: it's a characteristic, core to the democratic party but almost completely absent from the Republicans where it's replaced by loyalty.
The funny thing about the "fall in love, fall in line" bit is that the GOP obviously doesn't like Trump and would rather have a more predictable, controllable candidate, but there are too many cultists "in love" with Trump specifically for them to ditch him.
And Democrats ignore the axiom entirely and keep ordering their constituency to fall in line.
The GOP absolutely loves Trump. They say they don't like him but often parrot and amplify his talking points.
The GOP loves the votes that Trump brings in, not Trump.
I don't think there's much of a difference between the two with the flip flopping and rhetoric that has been rampant since 2016
I can dig up more direct quotes if you like, but suffice to say the GOP are all in on the Trump brand. I don't think the difference is the nuanced argument you would like it to be. Lots of high ranking Nazis in the post war era talked about how much they hated Hitler. Fascism is a self serving ideology, they love you until they have no use for you, look at how Ben Shapiro is currently floundering for a modern example.
Infighting should definitely be avoided. So they should agree on a different candidate as a unified party
The two things are the same thing. If you hadn't worked it out it's a general lack of faith in the democrats ability to accomplish anything.
They've had a whole term to do anything and what they did was a load of nothing except political grandstanding.
Whole they did that the supreme court wiped out decades of precedent and women's rights.
Their response was "go vote". But we already did that and the Dems did nothing. Their whole plan so far has been "well shit, vote harder I guess".
But there's worse.
He's ideologically toxic.
Biden is backing a genocide. Trump would too, we know that, but I don't want to vote for abyone backing a genocide.
There is no anti-genocide option, and moral grandstanding will just mean ANOTHER one at home. Surely, if youre so passionate about genocide being a bad thing, youd want to mitigate if you can when thats the only option available
If the only options are large genocide and larger genocide. I'm sorry, they don't have my vote.
Ill remember that when im sitting in conversion camp
Then remember as well that the Dems had ample opportunity to ban conversion camps and they didn't do it either.
Fam. Im not gonna blame the KPD for the holocaust, or the Tsarists for the holodomor
You're missing option:
3. Completely ignore reality and pretend Biden has a snowballs chance in hell of wining.
Unless they can arrange a new primary to replace Biden as the candidate before the convention, then the course of future history has already been set.
They could easily find a winning candidate, but will not because the party leadership would rather see Biden lose than to lose the campaign funding provided by capitalist PACs. Therefore "all is lost" is a realistic attitude.
The time to start thinking about what you'll do in a post-Democracy USA was almost 10 years ago when we were put on this path by a DNC who needed to ensure Hillary could have "Her Turn" at the presidency and sponsored Trump as they imagined him to be an easy opponent.
Those who are still in Denial, please proceed to Anger.
This is pure delusion. A rushed primary now does not in any way guarantee a win. The process will be chaotic and uncertain. The army of shitty oped writers will go to work asking "what do we really know about ____". They'll dig up innocuous shit from their past that make good headlines. After all of that the favourable a and hypothetical polls will not count for much. Acting like Biden stepping down is a sure way to win had no basis in reality.
Should he have announced he wasn't going to run a year ago ? Yes. But we're past that now.
This is pure delusion. A rushed primary now does not in any way guarantee a win.
Failing to run a primary doesn't guarantee a win either. All it guarantees is that the incumbent gets less screen time before the election.
The process will be chaotic and uncertain.
I don't pretend to foresee specific details, but the general arc of history is as apparent as it has been for the last 8 years.
The army of shitty oped writers will go to work asking "what do we really know about ____". They'll dig up innocuous shit from their past that make good headlines. After all of that the favourable a and hypothetical polls will not count for much.
Acting like Biden stepping down is a sure way to win had no basis in reality.
Likewise, keeping your head in the sand and pretending that Biden could still win in November.
Should he have announced he wasn't going to run a year ago ? Yes. But we're past that now.
No we aren't, the convention isn't until September. The DNC could announce a different candidate today if they wanted, but they don't want to.
I think the DNC does, but only if Biden steps down. A hostile takeover would be pretty damaging. There's lots of insiders and major political players giving non-answers because they're not idiots, they saw the debate, they see the polling, they know he's dragging down other candidates. But under current rules, if Biden wants the nomination no one can do anything about it, so they're hedging their bets because it's very likely grandpa's ego will force them to campaign for him after all.
It should not be this hard to beat Trump. I'm so tired of sub-standard candidates.
The minority party being allowed so much influence is the problem. We need more voting laws to stop this ASAP.
Ranked choice works well in my city (San Francisco). Just wish it could realistically --- given the political uphill battle --- be applied to federal elections.
The monkeys paw curls. Texas has implemented more laws to stop minorities from voting
It should not be this hard to beat Trump. I’m so tired of sub-standard candidates.
I'm pretty sure reasonable people everywhere have said that about populist candidates in general. And yet you have to ask, if they are so easy to beat why would any reasonable person either vote for them or not vote at all, even if the alternative sucks. Knowing the stakes, WHY?
Voter apathy in the Democratic Party is what will kill it. There are far more liberals than there are conservatives, but about half of liberals just don’t vote. It’s ridiculous and incomprehensible.
Agree 100%
Is it apathy or acquiescence?
It's apathy. They don't care about politics because they imagine it doesn't affect them.
I don't think that's all of it. They don't care about politics for a lot of different reasons, part of it being how angry it makes people, how frustrating it is, and how powerless they feel when they think about it. At least those are the things that make me wish I could be free and happy like them.
It's completely comprehensible. Since 2000, the impression has been that if you're not in a swing state, your vote doesn't matter. This impression, whether factual or not, has been helped along by candidates and the media. Factor in that we have two conservative parties, one that is dashing towards fascism, and the other sometimes wears a rainbow sticker while casually strolling towards fascism, and it's completely understandable why many on the left don't vote. It's not a helpful mentality, but depression rarely is helpful.
I 100% voting for Biden now. I hate this voting system.
The worst part is cognitive decline is real. We’re seeing it.
.
Trump and Biden are only 3 years apart.
.
3 years.
.
The difference is, Joe surrounds himself with competence. He picked a VP who wouldn’t make a terrible President. He also doesn’t have shitty impulses to play with big government military toys at baseline that he’s falling back on right now.
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Can we say the same for Trump? What does his less competent more impulsive at baseline ass do in full cognitive decline?
.
And yet we’re sitting in this geriatric hole. With a China-Russia-Korea alliance looming, plus whatever the fuck is happening on the daily in the Middle East. Our neighbors are cool, thankfully, but conflict doesn’t need to be neighbor based or on the same continent these days. Yea, we have shit in our own house and it stinks, but the rest of the globe isn’t going to stop existing while we fight it out.
.
Complacency and inertia are scary. And that’s what’s been running the DNC for years.
Biden is being selfish period. If it is about the team, then why Biden. Biden gets on television saying only he can do it. That he is the only one that can beat Trump. If he is the CEO of the Democrats, then they can change the CEO and keep the same employees.
You’re not wrong.
.
This is what complacency and inertia gets us, this horror show where we all need a good scream and cry. RBG was a Queen right up until she banked on waiting for Hillary before retirement. I get it, wanting the first female President to a point her replacement, but she fucked up, miscalculated. Even the best of us fucks up, and Joe isn’t firing on all cylinders any more. Expecting him to think as well as either of us, going forward, would be a mistake.
.
Jon Stewart podcast it was brought up that white male establishment guys like Joe probably arent capable of just handing power to a black woman. I mean, historically in America, how often have we seen that, if ever? Again, inertia rules the day.
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A lot of things should happen, but inertia rules people. Some people go their entire lives and then die without ever really moving outside of the inertial force of their own little existence. DNC has exponential momentum gathered on its inertia, its like, oh shit, I just had an image of The Boys pop into my head, the scene where Hughie’s GF is killed by A-Train. Can the DNC stop? They’ve been running on this lazy momentum for a while now.
Jon Stewart podcast it was brought up that white male establishment guys like Joe probably arent capable of just handing power to a black woman.
He was vp to a Black President, what kind of idiocy is this?
Biden can't be racist, he has a black friend!
Biden said that 50 other democrats could beat trump. I believe him and i don’t even know who he is talking about.
He said that a while ago, but when there might actually be another discussion about a different Democrat beating Trump he says he's the best, all while losing.
He already did it once. And he's done a pretty good job as president, though the media doesn't really cover this fact. I think he can do it again.
He's done okay for someone who has compromised with Republicans to give them concessions in order to get legislation passed. His stance on Israel has been detrimental to his campaign. He's taken on some easy wins like marijuana reclassification. There is a lot of issues with current legislation that hurts middle-class workers still that he hasn't done anything about. People face these issues regularly in the workforce, which doesn't build trust. He hasn't done enough to ensure a win against Trump, and the polls show that.
I blame the media. Obviously they are not on Biden's side, obviously they are not going to publicize his victories. He's made more progress on issues I care about than any president in my lifetime. I think Bernie would have been way, way better.
I'm curious, what issues do you care about that you believe he's made more progress on than any candidate in your lifetime?
Infrastructure
Going after monopolies
Student loan forgiveness
Marijuana decriminalization
General economic direction
So Infrastructure Bill gives $65 billion to companies monopolies... yet, they've ran out of money for ACP:
It gives $110 billion for roads, bridges and other major projects... and a bridge that spans just 0.67 miles costing 10 billion dollars and construction expecting to take 10 years. So, we're talking maybe 10 small bridges, as the costs keep increasing.
The antitrust thing is a good start, but Biden has gave too much leniency to the courts which the higher courts were stacked by Trump. Unless Biden were to do something about the Supreme Court, like most cases... Big business and corporate donors will prevail.
Same with student loan forgiveness. It is a good start, but it has been overturned time and time again in the courts. Furthermore, it doesn't deal with how majority of companies who are now "paying" for school for employees and then owning them for a long duration despite poor and unsafe working conditions. Biden has largely failed on improving employment & benefit legislation which has been broken.
Marijuana decriminalization: Marijuna is still illegal under federal law and has not yet been decriminalized. His change in classification would not actually decriminalize it under federal law.
General economic direction: Have you looked at housing prices recently? Biden's economy benefits the wealthy and hurts the middle and lower class workers. Inflation has increased significantly above wages.
a good start, but
a good start, but
"Should we vote for him to keep going? Nah, let's just undo every bit of progress because life is not perfect yet" - leftists
Fuck that cutting off your nose to spite your face bullshit.
Biden has made more progress on all of these issues than any other president in my adult lifetime. PROGRESS. Not "instantly made everything perfect" .
Biden has us moving in the right direction. More of that please.
Say it with me. Biden needs to step aside for a different candidate for Democrats to beat Trump.
No.
Say it with me. Russian and Republican trolls need to stay in their parents basement and keep to themselves.
Trolls need to stay in their basements and not lie. Now your turn.
I'll say it to I'm blue in the face:
Either party can guarantee victory by running literally anyone except Biden or trump.
*Obviously not Hillary tho
If Biden steps down, trump is toast if he stays.
If trump steps down, there goes Biden's entire campaign.
The crazies want Trump.
Who are they going to vote for? If Trump isn’t the Republican candidate, you think they would vote for a Democrat?
They'd vote for Trump. We both know he wouldn't stop running. Vote splits, dems win.
The pro-trump crazies aren't the majority of the Republican party anymore.
One of them literally just shot him a couple days ago in case you haven't heard...
The pro-trump crazies aren't the majority of the Republican party anymore.
this is an underappreciated truth, but they quite clearly control the party. the dems need to give a reason for a solid majority of people to get off their asses and vote - apparently the threat of a literal fucking fascist takeover isnt quite enough.
"I'm not trump!" is typical dem fantasy BS at this point. the maga crazies taste blood and are about to frenzy feed.
this is an underappreciated truth, but they quite clearly control the party
Moderate Dems don't represent the Dem party either. But they control it.
Both parties are controlled by the most rightwing factions, even tho most of the voters don't like it.
So we end up with most people voting against someone and not for anyone.
That's how we end up with 2/3s if the country not being happy if either of the two main parties win.
Why are you so certain that people would instantly vote for a new candidate more than the incumbent president? I have only seen polls saying the exact opposite.
Regardless, time is ticking out. If a new candidate is gonna have time to build any sort of support or momentum, they need to get started yesterday and hit the ground running, the election is just getting closer.
I have only seen polls saying the exact opposite
An incumbent with what? A 34% approval rating?
Biden isn't a normal incumbent he's literally a historically unpopular incumbent...
And for months now polls have been showing a smaller gap between almost anyone else and trump.
Like, do you not understand this is Biden with the campaign and DNC behind him versus people who can't even say they're thinking about running yet?
You don't think that would give them even a 5% boost?
I've seen polling that says that Michelle Obama wins by like 20 points, but I'm not stupid enough to believe that polling.
There's so much "not Trump" feeling in this country, but running a doddering octogenarian against him decreases those people willing to vote for "not Trump". I'm absolutely voting for the Dem candidate, but I have some very real concerns about it.
There's four months to go, that's a long time to campaign. We've gotten used to these super campaigns but countries routinely hold them inside a couple months.
While the US campaign cycle is more extended than other countries', even then the people who are going to be the main candidate for their respective parties (party leaders for example) are usually known well in advance and have managed to build up a reputation with their constituents before they even start campaigning. In this situation, you'd have to start way further back.
I'm not saying it's the wrong way to go, but everyone should be aware that changing candidate to someone completely new this close to the election absolutely won't be a cakewalk.
We have plenty of party leaders. We're not starting with unknowns. The people we're talking about are 90 percent of the way there.
Dems: So hillary then? Gotcha.
Hillary with Joe as VP, then in 2028 they'll say it has to be Hillary again because for some reason no one under 70 has enough experience...
I just like reminding myself that it can always be worse.
Naw, let's really monkey paw this, Hillary/Schumer, with 3 more sham primaries. Although I'm not sure there would be a party that long if they kept going at that.
Then name a name.
Who has that kind of charisma and name recognition, with no baggage, that they can storm in like the Koolaid man and take this election?
No? Yeah, I didn't think so. You have been shitting on Biden every thread, even non-Biden related posts, for this entire election year and have never offered an alternative.
You'd have to be blind not to see the news articles dropping names for the past few weeks.
Whitmer
Newsom
Shapiro
Walz
Buttigieg
Generic Democrat
Even Harris polls better than Biden
Whitmer, Shaprio, Walz, Buttigieg all don't have the nationwide name recognition needed to hit the ground running with so little time before elections.
Newsom only has name recognition because the Right has been demonizing him for years because they recognized him as a threat. We'd just have a repeat of Hillary.
I'm not saying that these wouldn't make decent candidates in a normal Primary time frame. But it would spell disaster to pivot to any of these candidates this late in the race.
Four months is not "so little time". And I agree that Shapiro and Walz have branding issues, but 4 months, the entire news media and DNC war chest would be enough to solve that. Newsom doesn't have nearly the baggage Hillary had either. Hillary had baggage going back to 1992. Newsom has baggage from ~5 years ago? At that point there's no one qualified to run, not even Biden.
It's short enough time that a new nominee would literally be disqualified from the ballot in some states.
The only state that requires certification before the convention is Ohio. A state we aren't counting on and have little to no chance to win unless we suddenly run Reagan 2.0.
There's 49 other states that would still be in play, including all of the normal blue states and swing states.
Ohio even passed a special exception to extend the deadline to after the convention, though it's unclear from the news I read whether there might be some risk of it being overturned by the court if Democrats needed it.
Oh I don't think anyone is really depending on Ohio to keep its word on that. But there's definitely a cursed timeline where Harris is the nominee out of the convention, Ohio withdraws their promise, and Democrats get close enough with a write in campaign that it's plausible she would have taken Ohio. Cue more political violence.
At any rate I'm sure that has no chance of happening in our timeline, none whatsoever. Definitely not.
Well, they did pass the law. It's just whether it can be invalidated in courts because they poisoned it with a provision to bar permanent residents (green card holders) from contributing to campaigns, which is likely unconstitutional. In a normal world, the individual ban would be thrown out, as it doesn't really have anything to do with ballot registration, but there's little reason to think the Supreme Court wouldn't rule in a way that disadvantages Democrats.
This is a lie. It's been a lie, and you should know better by now rather than repeating it.
Literally true. In Ohio for sure that I'm aware of
Nope, it's a lie. The date to appear on the Ohio ballot is still in the future. A new candidate could appear on it without issue.
I'll let some shit slide, but you just keep doubling down here
The properly-completed and signed forms must be filed no later than 4 p.m. on December 20,
2023 with the Ohio Secretary of State’s Elections Division.
That's for primary candidates. Maybe actually read the source you're quoting before you "double down". There are no states with requirements that would prevent a new candidate from appearing on the general election ballot.
Reporting you for misinformation.
Fucking LOL. Hears some trivia on social media that reinforces his biases and doesn't wonder why no legitimate sources point it out as a problem and then jumps to calling the mods for "misinformation" when his wrong fact is rejected.
There are no states with requirements that would prevent a new candidate from appearing on the general election ballot.
What as a fucking independent? As a "minor political party"? (deadline for those is Aug 7 btw)
The deadline has passed for anyone other than Joe Biden to be the Democratic nominee, and the deadline is rapidly approaching for ANYONE to be on the ballot, of any party.
I suppose the DNC could just nullify all its own rules and send a different candidate to the Secretary of State within the next 3 weeks. How well do you think that would play over? "DNC rigs its own process to force through [candidate name here]".
I'm entirely serious. The Republicans can rally around a criminal billionaire and still expect to take the white house, so why can't the Democrats run an intellectual Canadian? I trust the guy that coined the term "enshittification" a whole lot more than the politicians who have been enabling it, anyhow.
If you're "entirely serious" in the literal sense, just to be super clear the answer to "why can’t the Democrats run an intellectual Canadian?" is that a Canadian is disqualified from the office of the President in the Constitution. Unfortunately, they didn't think to prohibit megalomaniac felons. That's apparently on us. :(
The writers of the 14th Amendment did, but for some reason they figured the president didnt need to be called out specifically in the final draft; probably figured it was obvious the president is an officer of the state. But well, we know how scotus took that
The sad thing is, I do think you're serious, and it speaks to the overarching theme of REALLY REALLY STUPID voters this election, on both sides.
Then maybe it's time for you to admit that there's nothing Democratic about elections in this country and to start treating them with the contempt that they deserve.
Elections don't exist to pick leaders, that's a mere side effect of their real purpose: the reification of the implied consent of the governed.
As I said
I trust the guy that coined the term "enshittification" a whole lot more than the politicians who have been enabling it, anyhow.
Cool so he has your vote. Who else? As expected the people who want Biden to bail at the 11th hour have no actionable plan.
The problem with demanding "actionable plans" is that the only person who could enact them is the DNC chairperson, who currently reports to the incumbent.
Is from Canada.
That's a plus for me.
I like Doctorow too. I subscribe to his podcast. But he's ineligible.
So?
This is America we're talking about. The rule of law is more of a guideline, really.
I'm now imagining a debate where the republican candidate is red faced screaming and the democrat candidate is turning blue due to screaming and forgetting to breathe.
If you really don't want to do it, you could just win handily and then resign the first day and hand it off to someone else.
I'm also surprised at how much worse some Biden alternates do in the polling given people's reported desire for a switch, but maybe in time they'd have a higher support ceiling than Biden as people get more familiar with them.
What a lot of news doesn't report is the Undecided/Don't Know category grows in lockstep with the drop in existing support for these other names. Trump's support stays locked on at ~40-44 percent. So what's really happening is a name brand gap. Some people just don't know these other candidates and that's easily solvable with four months and the DNC's entire war chest.
That could certainly be the case, I was trying to get at that with the second part of the comment. I'll link the poll below directly for people where that can be seen easier. I wish we had some more people who already could poll better though. I was also hoping that Trump's support might drop some with some of the other choices though, with some moving to the not sure category when a different democrat was proposed. Unfortunately it was looking like the "not sure" people are mostly coming from the previously Biden category, with Trump staying locked in at 40 like he is with Biden, or even higher for some of them. Michelle Obama was the only to get that to drop, and only to 39%.
The "wouldn't vote category" also dropped by a percent or 2 for some of them, so a few voters at least might be pulled of the sideline with a new candidate if they can manage to keep all the Biden voters. It was pretty impressive for Michelle Obama again, lowering from 8% to 4% not voting for the poll-takers in the case of Michelle Obama. She seems to pull her extra support over Biden from the current "won't vote" and third party voters. Some of the other potentials also peeled off a percent or two from the third party voters too into the not sure category. These are the people that really need to be convinced if we're going to beat Trump, and some of them at least seem to at least think about it when a new democrat is proposed.
I feel like both parties are trying as hard as they can to lose this election.
Statement dreamed up by the utterly deranged.
Biden should have dropped out in ‘23 and allowed for a real primary contest. Instead he and his neoliberal ilk shouted down anyone talking sense, and now his ego will cost America everything. Congrats Joe, you’ll go down in history after all.
Assuming that is true; what's your proposal to fix this now?
Whitmer/Bootyjudge 2024
No! Butt YES!
We broke it, and now it's your fault for not knowing how to fix it.
Blame the left for everything. Swing so far right that we implement project 2025 before Trump even takes office. Win over all right wing voters. Biden wins again gg no re.
I highly highly doubt Biden has another half decade of useful life left.
The proposal is get him to step aside. Sooner the better.
And replace him with who?
Honestly. Someone with a clean record on genocides would be a good start.
Great, that sounds like a winning plan. “We’ll just find someone”. Definitely will be stronger against Trump that way.
It's funny cause, that's on them to find a better candidate
Meanwhile with no alternative from the dnc your efforts only serve to support trump. Your progressive paradise will never be realized. It’s been stated to death but stop letting perfect stand in the way of good.
That would be the FIRST step in the process, not the second. You get a parachute first, THEN jump out of the plane. Not the other way around.
You plan the jump first asshole, and they don't have a plan.
Sure, you're right. You have a good one.
Well, go find a candidate. Then we can take the option seriously. Till then, you're just shouting without helping.
Any participation in the discussion helps. Otherwise we stagnate with 80 year old leadership and end up here again in 4 years.
It wouldn't surprise me if there isn't an election in 2028 if Trump wins.
Which is why it is so essential we get it right. And the fact there's even discussion about it means Biden's the wrong guy for the job.
There is noone who can unambiguously win. Most voters are fascists. Thats the reality the dnc must politic around
Most voters are fascists.
They aren't! Left leaning voters are a majority, the problem is we're suffering under a biased electoral system and a lot of them have lost faith in the potential for government to actually do things for them so many don't turn out. Issue polling is usually even further left. Stir them up and give them hope for the future rather than just saying "what are you gonna do, he's worse" as they jettison another ideal to chase the center. It's a huge problem that right now we're not up 3-4%, because we need to overshoot to manage the EC bias, and that's not because the country has gained a lot of fascists, it's because he's lost a lot of black, Hispanic, Muslim, and youth votes.
Note I said VOTERS, not PEOPLE. If you dont turn out, you are not a voter
The undecided voters who need to be won are suburban boomers who like Israel. Sorry, we live in hell, thats how it is
You don't think some Muslim voters in Michigan are "undecided"? This naïve idea that politics is a 2D line and the only gettable votes are in the middle is a plague on modern politics.
I think they're severely outnumbered by said boomers, and just as fucked as my trans ass in the event of a republican win
I mean I'm not going to not vote. Maybe I'm unusual, but I learned how to juggle being a nihilist without any hope with still doing the right thing a long time ago.
The case may be that no news development can dramatically change the race’s trajectory because the partisan bases for the two candidates are broad and firm, and the “double haters” in the middle will continue to double their hate.
If the contours of the race remained fixed, its outcome may hinge upon the quality of their two parties’ get-out-the-vote operations
Agree with you completely on these points.
The undecided voter is a myth, I've never met one.
It's from the article which nobody seemed to read. I also happen to believe it's true.
Was wondering why you had it in quotes! Ha.
The real truth is in the comments.
I indented them. In any case,the polls are not changing. Still close with slight margin inside the error rate for Trump. I too believe this will be a get out the vote election.
Trump getting shot at has helped his side's "get out to vote" equation though.
That's what scares me. They're invigorated by recent events. I don't think they're any larger than before, but they're definitely more motivated now.
True, but three months is a lifetime in US politics. Add to that,Biden has built out local offices to handle GOTV. Trump hasn't
A "lifetime" sounds like plenty of time to make Biden compete in some primary debates
There's only one more debate in September. He'll do fine.
I remember when Hillary's campaign was "doing fine" too.
The Democrats can't afford to take the risk of trying to play it safe, not after the decade we've had. They need a sure thing, and that means they need to hold a primary.
There is no sure thing. There have already been primaries
No there haven't.
The one guy who tried to primary Biden got run out of the party entirely.
JD Vance means Trump + Republicans are doubling-down on extremism, anti-Ukraine feelings and more.
We have a serious shot at this. Everyone stay focused, we can get through this together. The overplay of the Republicans will be on display in the coming month. But Democrats absolutely need rise to this challenge for us to stand a chance.
why do you keep getting your posts removed by the moderator?
Ha. Must be tough being a Mod, don't you think?
I mean, are you doubling up the posts in the same sub with the same links? is it personal? keep seeing it happening
Well, sometimes it is personal, but not lately
Look at the disapproval ratings. That will tell you who will win or lose.
Not really dude
The idea that “who doesn’t like Biden” is uncorrelated with “who answers the phone to random numbers”, or that who does answer the phone and answer the questions that suddenly emerge from the other side is perfectly correlated with who will show up and vote in November, both seem unproven to me
I see polls are unreliable again. Until someone says Biden should step down, then you have polling on alternate candidates that is the word of God Almighty.
Selectively believing in data that proves your point and denying data that challenges is is republican level shit, and they wonder why people are fed up with mainstream Dems.
Arguments can be wrong in multiple ways
“The polls are not reliable, but even if they were, they don’t show what you say they show” is not two contradictory statements that invalidate one another
(There’s a whole separate issue that confounding factors make the polls bad metrics of the overall reality, but you can still look at relative difference within the same poll from week to week or candidate to candidate and it’s useful to a certain extent)
Pretty sure I have made both of those points multiple times in the last few days when talking about polling
Couple days ago, you demanded to know who would be an alternate for Biden, and announced that for any answer, you would post some of the polls you selectively find credible when they confirm your existing biases. Here's the alternates. Provide your garbage polls that aren't any good because polls are worthless.
Harris. Newsom. Franken. Buttigieg. Whitmer.
The chart is from this which was sent to me by one of your allies in an effort to prove that Biden was cooked.
There ya go. Polls are accurate as long as they say what you want.
Hey cool we're back around to the very first comment you sent and the reply I made
You can go back up there on your own, and imagine that I replied with what I said last time, and then you don't have to reply because you already said what you had to say in response. Victory! It is the end of the conversation.
Hey cool we’re back around to the very first comment you sent and the reply I made
Hey, you confirmed it to be true.
Well problem is most of the polls are general popular opinion votes, but US presidential election is not a straight popular vote. As such the general "who majority of the nation like" doesn't really matter. Secure states are secure, so you might as well not ask their opinion and leave them out of opinion poll. Focus even on voting district levels in states the use electors to elect the electors and so on.
Problem is such polls are really hard work.... Almost no one does those and instead tries to read tea leaves out of general opinion polls. Polls which simply don't have the granularity of data to make conclusions. You need to ask "what is mood in this swing district in this swing state". After you have first added up the secure states, well with some looking of "are our old estimates of what are secure states for blue or red correct". Not that opinion wise all states aren't purple, but as far as election system results go there absolutely is blue and red states.
As I understand even in USA maybe one of two whole nation granular polls are done, with the actual amount of data to actually conclude how the actual electoral votes split. Given as said, since in some cases it isn't "you have to go down to state by state". Nope "we have to go district by district since this state has weirdo way of electing electors or adding up the totals."
Polling is archaic. It no longer works. People lie to pollsters now. Even exit polls are getting it wrong.
See you next time a poll says something you like.
Not me, I've written off all political polls, for some years now.
Reminds me of a line from a song: "It's not in the paper, it's on the walls."
Not me, I’ve written off all political polls, for some years now.
Ok.
Exactly. "Who doesn't like Biden" also isn't the same as "who won't vote for Biden." I think Joe is an incredibly weak candidate and wish he would step aside, but I'll still vote for him in a heartbeat for the good of the republic.
Any source that protects Biden right?
Bwahahahahahaha! Yeah, right.
Yes. Biden can still win.
The Easter Bunny and Santa are real too and know you've been good so you'll get lots of presents.
There are two things that will lose the election for Democrats if they don't get them under control.
If people don't stop fighting and trying to convince themselves that it's not worth it to go to the polls then this is game over.
I feel as if not enough people are saying this.
Infighting is a bane. Back when I was on Reddit I got fucking downvoted into oblivion multiple times for pointing out that the Left's biggest problem, both now and historically, is how we can never agree on anything. That whatever faults the Right has, they will come together just to shit on someone else. If us on the Left stood up in unity we would be a literal human tsunami flooding the bullshit that is the Republican habitual diatribe. Second, and louder, is apathy, as you said.
Starting to wonder if throwing League of Legends level of insults at people might get them angry enough to vote just to show me what's what.
It's because the Democratic party is a coalition. The Democratic party ISN'T LEFT. It's a party made up of moderates (right wingers) and liberals.
It's essentially two different political philosophies trying to operate within one party.
Which is why ranked choice voting allows people to better represent their candidate preferences. All the variety of political opinion can’t be represented in two parties.
First past the post got us in this mess and it sure as shit ain't gonna get us out of it. I'll take a straw poll over what our current system is.
Ranked Choice voting allows for the kind of direct democratic action as we just saw in France and what they finally got around to doing in the UK with the most recent elections.
However, it's against the best interest of the current politicians in power.
How do we get Ranked Choice on ballot when the DNC won't even use it in their primaries?
The French are also FPTP, they just convinced most of the potential spoiler candidates to fall on their swords for the good of the nation.
The politics here in the EU are just as messy, there's simply a thin veneer of ..something, class, perhaps, that trump managed to completely remove from American politics.
What happened in the UK is a genuine bright spot, though. I couldn't stand Sunak, but at least he behaved like a fucking adult when the time came.
It very much does feel like Trump gave the right permission to be their worst selves in public. The Republicans of the 90s and 00s were perfectly happy to use racism and jingoism and white grievance to win votes, but they either used dog whistles or pretended they were speaking an "uncomfortable truth". Now that it's been accepted that being horrible in public can make you president, they don't need to play that game anymore and they love it.
And all it took was that one little break. The European right is probably one successful brash racist away from being just as bad. There have been some close calls already.
You get it by coming together. The smart politicians, and the hungry ones, will back the measures if there is enough open and consistent popular support. Remember that it is about power. Political power starts and ends with numbers. Make it more valuable to some to support a change and they will become an ally.
However, this is done only through us coming together in unity, or under one or two strong leaders.
The other problem with Democrats is they have terrible fucking strategy. Then they get this bright fucking idea to take a page out of Biden's handbook. In what conceivable world was it a good idea to run an 81-year-old who all but promised to be a bridge candidate to a younger generation?
Yeah, guys, let's "rally" blindly around the guy for whom 75% of the fucking electorate find is not cognitively fit to run for a 2nd term. Real genius strategy. It's like they completely forget about low-info undecided swing voters.
It's like they ALWAYS employ the wrong strategy 2 cycles too fucking late.
Isn't it kind of the nature of the left to bicker with itself though? At some level, conservatism seeks to preserve an existing system, or at the extreme end, bring back a system recently removed. There's some room for infighting between the most and least extreme there, but for the most part, it's a goal that is easy to unite for. But the left, at it's most basic level, seeks to change things. And changing things is not a goal that inspires unity quite so well, because to change things, one needs an idea of what things should be changed to, and what you think things should be may not be what someone else thinks things should be, even if you both want change. If it so happens that what someone else wants to achieve is in your view even worse than the status quo, then you can't afford to unite with that person, because there is the risk that your efforts will further a goal you find even less tolerable than what you get by doing nothing, even though what you both want is change.
This isn't aimed specifically at you. I'm very likely guilty of this myself.
What you've said here highlights what I feel is the fundamental issue of unity for those on the left: We are all so damned certain we're the smartest in the room, to some extent anyway. We can box up and ship our opinions largely through the use of actual vocabulary. We can do real research. Many more of us have degrees, or are otherwise interested in some more academic form of hobbies, careers, and lend our strengths towards artistic approaches. Now this isn't universal and there are gigantic nodes of people who stand outside this generalization and yet still consider themselves not Republican, if not clearly left-leaning. There is at least a grain of truth for the majority.
It isn't that we bicker. We are so divided that each of the groups we belong to must, in their own way, be correct, or be offended. Just look at Biden: The majority on the Left call for equality and justice for individuals with barriers/disabilities. We yap on and on about their strengths and capacity to be incredible in so many ways. Then the instant Biden verbally fucks up we wholly ignore all the immense good he has done in favor of "Old man can't word properly!" and immediately draw lines.
What the fuck.
Yeah, that's a radical example and somewhat incorrectly used in the context of this discussion, and yet it does highlight why we get so fucked over so often. I've backed up and seen the whole forest for what it is and would really appreciate it if everyone else stopped attempting to cram their oversized heads into the nearest tree, all the while yelling about how their tree is somehow both wholly different and also the best tree. We're all in a fucking forest and Hexxus is torching the place. The problem is even those of us choosing the forest FOR the trees are at risk of being burned. All because the intelligent fools can't hear us yelling while their heads are shoved up an Ent's ass, blind in their false wisdom.
Gah, so angry.
The thing I'd like to see more of is people (outside of here) admitting they're voting for Biden even tho he's not ideal. We all know who trump is, and Biden gets a lot of flack, and I think it's going to persuade a lot of people from going out and voting.
People need to know that it's acceptable, encouraged even, to vote for the guy who isn't as bad, even if you don't like him. Just because you don't agree with everything he says or does, you agree with him more than the other guy.
Im in some groups with some trumpers, and I'll throw out memes making fun of trump, then they just say stupid incomprehensible things about Biden and I say "lol good one" and they don't know what the fuck to do
Agreed.
I don't care if its Biden, Harris, or anyone else you put up. But yall need to pick fucking somebody and stick with the pick.
I'm sticking with Biden and Harris in that order until someone gives me a better option. And after weeks following the last debate, no one has given me a seriously better option.
This choice is a problem. You have become a single issue voter. For, or against Trump. That's it. The whole system is awful but the fact they won't put anyone up who's better than Biden is disgusting
And no blame to Republicans who elected Trump?
Its fine. I'm Republican and am pissed at my own party (voted for Nikki). Its a two party system. If you don't like Trump the one to blame is the party who is putting Trump in power, sorry to say. Self flagellating over Biden is counter-productive.
If you don't demonstrate loyalty to your party, then you can't obtain political power. Its just a basic rule of politics.
Oh no, there's blame there. But you can't punish them for it. We can and should make it known to democratic leadership how impotent they've been and how badly they've been doing their jobs.
That's part of the democratic process. An important one too.
In any other situation, Id understand. Maybe not agree, but understand. But right now, and so long as Project 2025 remains a threat, the stakes are simply too high. Some of us have our lives riding on this. Im trans, Ill be dead or a homeless illegal in the event we lose.
The political system right now is simply good cop and bad cop.
Bad cop(republicans): i'll shoot you.
Good cop(Democrats): vote for me, I'm your only choice to stop him from shooting you (but it's in my best interests to let him threaten you forever, so you'll vote for me)
Both will forever suck. Both are fascists. We need better options
"Democrats must fall in love; Conservatives must fall in line."
The hand-wringing is normal: it's a characteristic, core to the democratic party but almost completely absent from the Republicans where it's replaced by loyalty.
The funny thing about the "fall in love, fall in line" bit is that the GOP obviously doesn't like Trump and would rather have a more predictable, controllable candidate, but there are too many cultists "in love" with Trump specifically for them to ditch him.
And Democrats ignore the axiom entirely and keep ordering their constituency to fall in line.
The GOP absolutely loves Trump. They say they don't like him but often parrot and amplify his talking points.
The GOP loves the votes that Trump brings in, not Trump.
I don't think there's much of a difference between the two with the flip flopping and rhetoric that has been rampant since 2016
This article from 2022 sums it up nicely
https://archive.is/KlbZW
I can dig up more direct quotes if you like, but suffice to say the GOP are all in on the Trump brand. I don't think the difference is the nuanced argument you would like it to be. Lots of high ranking Nazis in the post war era talked about how much they hated Hitler. Fascism is a self serving ideology, they love you until they have no use for you, look at how Ben Shapiro is currently floundering for a modern example.
Infighting should definitely be avoided. So they should agree on a different candidate as a unified party
The two things are the same thing. If you hadn't worked it out it's a general lack of faith in the democrats ability to accomplish anything.
They've had a whole term to do anything and what they did was a load of nothing except political grandstanding.
Whole they did that the supreme court wiped out decades of precedent and women's rights.
Their response was "go vote". But we already did that and the Dems did nothing. Their whole plan so far has been "well shit, vote harder I guess".
But there's worse.
He's ideologically toxic.
Biden is backing a genocide. Trump would too, we know that, but I don't want to vote for abyone backing a genocide.
There is no anti-genocide option, and moral grandstanding will just mean ANOTHER one at home. Surely, if youre so passionate about genocide being a bad thing, youd want to mitigate if you can when thats the only option available
If the only options are large genocide and larger genocide. I'm sorry, they don't have my vote.
Ill remember that when im sitting in conversion camp
Then remember as well that the Dems had ample opportunity to ban conversion camps and they didn't do it either.
Fam. Im not gonna blame the KPD for the holocaust, or the Tsarists for the holodomor
You're missing option: 3. Completely ignore reality and pretend Biden has a snowballs chance in hell of wining.
Unless they can arrange a new primary to replace Biden as the candidate before the convention, then the course of future history has already been set.
They could easily find a winning candidate, but will not because the party leadership would rather see Biden lose than to lose the campaign funding provided by capitalist PACs. Therefore "all is lost" is a realistic attitude.
The time to start thinking about what you'll do in a post-Democracy USA was almost 10 years ago when we were put on this path by a DNC who needed to ensure Hillary could have "Her Turn" at the presidency and sponsored Trump as they imagined him to be an easy opponent.
Those who are still in Denial, please proceed to Anger.
This is pure delusion. A rushed primary now does not in any way guarantee a win. The process will be chaotic and uncertain. The army of shitty oped writers will go to work asking "what do we really know about ____". They'll dig up innocuous shit from their past that make good headlines. After all of that the favourable a and hypothetical polls will not count for much. Acting like Biden stepping down is a sure way to win had no basis in reality.
Should he have announced he wasn't going to run a year ago ? Yes. But we're past that now.
Failing to run a primary doesn't guarantee a win either. All it guarantees is that the incumbent gets less screen time before the election.
I don't pretend to foresee specific details, but the general arc of history is as apparent as it has been for the last 8 years.
Op-eds and headlines are bullshit. Watch the DNC chairperson to see where the party is headed: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/dnc-chair-claims-biden-put-on-a-masterclass-during-error-laden-press-conference/ar-BB1pRTxA
Likewise, keeping your head in the sand and pretending that Biden could still win in November.
No we aren't, the convention isn't until September. The DNC could announce a different candidate today if they wanted, but they don't want to.
I think the DNC does, but only if Biden steps down. A hostile takeover would be pretty damaging. There's lots of insiders and major political players giving non-answers because they're not idiots, they saw the debate, they see the polling, they know he's dragging down other candidates. But under current rules, if Biden wants the nomination no one can do anything about it, so they're hedging their bets because it's very likely grandpa's ego will force them to campaign for him after all.
It should not be this hard to beat Trump. I'm so tired of sub-standard candidates.
The minority party being allowed so much influence is the problem. We need more voting laws to stop this ASAP.
Ranked choice works well in my city (San Francisco). Just wish it could realistically --- given the political uphill battle --- be applied to federal elections.
The monkeys paw curls. Texas has implemented more laws to stop minorities from voting
I'm pretty sure reasonable people everywhere have said that about populist candidates in general. And yet you have to ask, if they are so easy to beat why would any reasonable person either vote for them or not vote at all, even if the alternative sucks. Knowing the stakes, WHY?
Voter apathy in the Democratic Party is what will kill it. There are far more liberals than there are conservatives, but about half of liberals just don’t vote. It’s ridiculous and incomprehensible.
Agree 100%
Is it apathy or acquiescence?
It's apathy. They don't care about politics because they imagine it doesn't affect them.
I don't think that's all of it. They don't care about politics for a lot of different reasons, part of it being how angry it makes people, how frustrating it is, and how powerless they feel when they think about it. At least those are the things that make me wish I could be free and happy like them.
It's completely comprehensible. Since 2000, the impression has been that if you're not in a swing state, your vote doesn't matter. This impression, whether factual or not, has been helped along by candidates and the media. Factor in that we have two conservative parties, one that is dashing towards fascism, and the other sometimes wears a rainbow sticker while casually strolling towards fascism, and it's completely understandable why many on the left don't vote. It's not a helpful mentality, but depression rarely is helpful.
I 100% voting for Biden now. I hate this voting system.
The worst part is cognitive decline is real. We’re seeing it.
.
Trump and Biden are only 3 years apart.
.
3 years.
.
The difference is, Joe surrounds himself with competence. He picked a VP who wouldn’t make a terrible President. He also doesn’t have shitty impulses to play with big government military toys at baseline that he’s falling back on right now.
.
Can we say the same for Trump? What does his less competent more impulsive at baseline ass do in full cognitive decline?
.
And yet we’re sitting in this geriatric hole. With a China-Russia-Korea alliance looming, plus whatever the fuck is happening on the daily in the Middle East. Our neighbors are cool, thankfully, but conflict doesn’t need to be neighbor based or on the same continent these days. Yea, we have shit in our own house and it stinks, but the rest of the globe isn’t going to stop existing while we fight it out.
.
Complacency and inertia are scary. And that’s what’s been running the DNC for years.
Biden is being selfish period. If it is about the team, then why Biden. Biden gets on television saying only he can do it. That he is the only one that can beat Trump. If he is the CEO of the Democrats, then they can change the CEO and keep the same employees.
You’re not wrong.
.
This is what complacency and inertia gets us, this horror show where we all need a good scream and cry. RBG was a Queen right up until she banked on waiting for Hillary before retirement. I get it, wanting the first female President to a point her replacement, but she fucked up, miscalculated. Even the best of us fucks up, and Joe isn’t firing on all cylinders any more. Expecting him to think as well as either of us, going forward, would be a mistake.
.
Jon Stewart podcast it was brought up that white male establishment guys like Joe probably arent capable of just handing power to a black woman. I mean, historically in America, how often have we seen that, if ever? Again, inertia rules the day.
.
A lot of things should happen, but inertia rules people. Some people go their entire lives and then die without ever really moving outside of the inertial force of their own little existence. DNC has exponential momentum gathered on its inertia, its like, oh shit, I just had an image of The Boys pop into my head, the scene where Hughie’s GF is killed by A-Train. Can the DNC stop? They’ve been running on this lazy momentum for a while now.
He was vp to a Black President, what kind of idiocy is this?
Biden can't be racist, he has a black friend!
Biden said that 50 other democrats could beat trump. I believe him and i don’t even know who he is talking about.
He said that a while ago, but when there might actually be another discussion about a different Democrat beating Trump he says he's the best, all while losing.
He already did it once. And he's done a pretty good job as president, though the media doesn't really cover this fact. I think he can do it again.
He's done okay for someone who has compromised with Republicans to give them concessions in order to get legislation passed. His stance on Israel has been detrimental to his campaign. He's taken on some easy wins like marijuana reclassification. There is a lot of issues with current legislation that hurts middle-class workers still that he hasn't done anything about. People face these issues regularly in the workforce, which doesn't build trust. He hasn't done enough to ensure a win against Trump, and the polls show that.
I blame the media. Obviously they are not on Biden's side, obviously they are not going to publicize his victories. He's made more progress on issues I care about than any president in my lifetime. I think Bernie would have been way, way better.
I'm curious, what issues do you care about that you believe he's made more progress on than any candidate in your lifetime?
So Infrastructure Bill gives $65 billion to companies monopolies... yet, they've ran out of money for ACP:
https://www.fcc.gov/acp
Does these companies actually use the money to expand broadband?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/10/25/broadband-subsidies-coronavirus-aid/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2024/02/isps-keep-giving-false-broadband-coverage-data-to-the-fcc-groups-say/
It gives $110 billion for roads, bridges and other major projects... and a bridge that spans just 0.67 miles costing 10 billion dollars and construction expecting to take 10 years. So, we're talking maybe 10 small bridges, as the costs keep increasing.
The antitrust thing is a good start, but Biden has gave too much leniency to the courts which the higher courts were stacked by Trump. Unless Biden were to do something about the Supreme Court, like most cases... Big business and corporate donors will prevail.
Same with student loan forgiveness. It is a good start, but it has been overturned time and time again in the courts. Furthermore, it doesn't deal with how majority of companies who are now "paying" for school for employees and then owning them for a long duration despite poor and unsafe working conditions. Biden has largely failed on improving employment & benefit legislation which has been broken.
Marijuana decriminalization: Marijuna is still illegal under federal law and has not yet been decriminalized. His change in classification would not actually decriminalize it under federal law.
General economic direction: Have you looked at housing prices recently? Biden's economy benefits the wealthy and hurts the middle and lower class workers. Inflation has increased significantly above wages.
"Should we vote for him to keep going? Nah, let's just undo every bit of progress because life is not perfect yet" - leftists
Fuck that cutting off your nose to spite your face bullshit.
Biden has made more progress on all of these issues than any other president in my adult lifetime. PROGRESS. Not "instantly made everything perfect" .
Biden has us moving in the right direction. More of that please.
Say it with me. Biden needs to step aside for a different candidate for Democrats to beat Trump.
No.
Say it with me. Russian and Republican trolls need to stay in their parents basement and keep to themselves.
Trolls need to stay in their basements and not lie. Now your turn.
I'll say it to I'm blue in the face:
Either party can guarantee victory by running literally anyone except Biden or trump.
*Obviously not Hillary tho
If Biden steps down, trump is toast if he stays.
If trump steps down, there goes Biden's entire campaign.
The crazies want Trump.
Who are they going to vote for? If Trump isn’t the Republican candidate, you think they would vote for a Democrat?
They'd vote for Trump. We both know he wouldn't stop running. Vote splits, dems win.
The pro-trump crazies aren't the majority of the Republican party anymore.
One of them literally just shot him a couple days ago in case you haven't heard...
this is an underappreciated truth, but they quite clearly control the party. the dems need to give a reason for a solid majority of people to get off their asses and vote - apparently the threat of a literal fucking fascist takeover isnt quite enough.
"I'm not trump!" is typical dem fantasy BS at this point. the maga crazies taste blood and are about to frenzy feed.
Moderate Dems don't represent the Dem party either. But they control it.
Both parties are controlled by the most rightwing factions, even tho most of the voters don't like it.
So we end up with most people voting against someone and not for anyone.
That's how we end up with 2/3s if the country not being happy if either of the two main parties win.
Why are you so certain that people would instantly vote for a new candidate more than the incumbent president? I have only seen polls saying the exact opposite.
Regardless, time is ticking out. If a new candidate is gonna have time to build any sort of support or momentum, they need to get started yesterday and hit the ground running, the election is just getting closer.
An incumbent with what? A 34% approval rating?
Biden isn't a normal incumbent he's literally a historically unpopular incumbent...
And for months now polls have been showing a smaller gap between almost anyone else and trump.
Like, do you not understand this is Biden with the campaign and DNC behind him versus people who can't even say they're thinking about running yet?
You don't think that would give them even a 5% boost?
I've seen polling that says that Michelle Obama wins by like 20 points, but I'm not stupid enough to believe that polling.
There's so much "not Trump" feeling in this country, but running a doddering octogenarian against him decreases those people willing to vote for "not Trump". I'm absolutely voting for the Dem candidate, but I have some very real concerns about it.
There's four months to go, that's a long time to campaign. We've gotten used to these super campaigns but countries routinely hold them inside a couple months.
While the US campaign cycle is more extended than other countries', even then the people who are going to be the main candidate for their respective parties (party leaders for example) are usually known well in advance and have managed to build up a reputation with their constituents before they even start campaigning. In this situation, you'd have to start way further back.
I'm not saying it's the wrong way to go, but everyone should be aware that changing candidate to someone completely new this close to the election absolutely won't be a cakewalk.
We have plenty of party leaders. We're not starting with unknowns. The people we're talking about are 90 percent of the way there.
Hillary with Joe as VP, then in 2028 they'll say it has to be Hillary again because for some reason no one under 70 has enough experience...
I just like reminding myself that it can always be worse.
Naw, let's really monkey paw this, Hillary/Schumer, with 3 more sham primaries. Although I'm not sure there would be a party that long if they kept going at that.
Then name a name.
Who has that kind of charisma and name recognition, with no baggage, that they can storm in like the Koolaid man and take this election?
No? Yeah, I didn't think so. You have been shitting on Biden every thread, even non-Biden related posts, for this entire election year and have never offered an alternative.
You'd have to be blind not to see the news articles dropping names for the past few weeks.
Whitmer
Newsom
Shapiro
Walz
Buttigieg
Generic Democrat
Even Harris polls better than Biden
Whitmer, Shaprio, Walz, Buttigieg all don't have the nationwide name recognition needed to hit the ground running with so little time before elections.
Newsom only has name recognition because the Right has been demonizing him for years because they recognized him as a threat. We'd just have a repeat of Hillary.
I'm not saying that these wouldn't make decent candidates in a normal Primary time frame. But it would spell disaster to pivot to any of these candidates this late in the race.
Four months is not "so little time". And I agree that Shapiro and Walz have branding issues, but 4 months, the entire news media and DNC war chest would be enough to solve that. Newsom doesn't have nearly the baggage Hillary had either. Hillary had baggage going back to 1992. Newsom has baggage from ~5 years ago? At that point there's no one qualified to run, not even Biden.
It's short enough time that a new nominee would literally be disqualified from the ballot in some states.
The only state that requires certification before the convention is Ohio. A state we aren't counting on and have little to no chance to win unless we suddenly run Reagan 2.0.
There's 49 other states that would still be in play, including all of the normal blue states and swing states.
Ohio even passed a special exception to extend the deadline to after the convention, though it's unclear from the news I read whether there might be some risk of it being overturned by the court if Democrats needed it.
Oh I don't think anyone is really depending on Ohio to keep its word on that. But there's definitely a cursed timeline where Harris is the nominee out of the convention, Ohio withdraws their promise, and Democrats get close enough with a write in campaign that it's plausible she would have taken Ohio. Cue more political violence.
At any rate I'm sure that has no chance of happening in our timeline, none whatsoever. Definitely not.
Well, they did pass the law. It's just whether it can be invalidated in courts because they poisoned it with a provision to bar permanent residents (green card holders) from contributing to campaigns, which is likely unconstitutional. In a normal world, the individual ban would be thrown out, as it doesn't really have anything to do with ballot registration, but there's little reason to think the Supreme Court wouldn't rule in a way that disadvantages Democrats.
This is a lie. It's been a lie, and you should know better by now rather than repeating it.
Literally true. In Ohio for sure that I'm aware of
Nope, it's a lie. The date to appear on the Ohio ballot is still in the future. A new candidate could appear on it without issue.
I'll let some shit slide, but you just keep doubling down here
https://ballotpedia.org/Ballot_access_requirements_for_presidential_candidates_in_Ohio
Reporting you for misinformation.
That's for primary candidates. Maybe actually read the source you're quoting before you "double down". There are no states with requirements that would prevent a new candidate from appearing on the general election ballot.
Fucking LOL. Hears some trivia on social media that reinforces his biases and doesn't wonder why no legitimate sources point it out as a problem and then jumps to calling the mods for "misinformation" when his wrong fact is rejected.
What as a fucking independent? As a "minor political party"? (deadline for those is Aug 7 btw)
The deadline has passed for anyone other than Joe Biden to be the Democratic nominee, and the deadline is rapidly approaching for ANYONE to be on the ballot, of any party.
I suppose the DNC could just nullify all its own rules and send a different candidate to the Secretary of State within the next 3 weeks. How well do you think that would play over? "DNC rigs its own process to force through [candidate name here]".
Cory Doctorow.
Lmfao
I'm entirely serious. The Republicans can rally around a criminal billionaire and still expect to take the white house, so why can't the Democrats run an intellectual Canadian? I trust the guy that coined the term "enshittification" a whole lot more than the politicians who have been enabling it, anyhow.
If you're "entirely serious" in the literal sense, just to be super clear the answer to "why can’t the Democrats run an intellectual Canadian?" is that a Canadian is disqualified from the office of the President in the Constitution. Unfortunately, they didn't think to prohibit megalomaniac felons. That's apparently on us. :(
The writers of the 14th Amendment did, but for some reason they figured the president didnt need to be called out specifically in the final draft; probably figured it was obvious the president is an officer of the state. But well, we know how scotus took that
The sad thing is, I do think you're serious, and it speaks to the overarching theme of REALLY REALLY STUPID voters this election, on both sides.
Then maybe it's time for you to admit that there's nothing Democratic about elections in this country and to start treating them with the contempt that they deserve.
Elections don't exist to pick leaders, that's a mere side effect of their real purpose: the reification of the implied consent of the governed.
As I said
Cool so he has your vote. Who else? As expected the people who want Biden to bail at the 11th hour have no actionable plan.
The problem with demanding "actionable plans" is that the only person who could enact them is the DNC chairperson, who currently reports to the incumbent.
Is from Canada.
That's a plus for me.
I like Doctorow too. I subscribe to his podcast. But he's ineligible.
So?
This is America we're talking about. The rule of law is more of a guideline, really.
I'm now imagining a debate where the republican candidate is red faced screaming and the democrat candidate is turning blue due to screaming and forgetting to breathe.
I know Michelle Obama doesn't want to run, but like, please Michelle? Would you think about it? Things are getting pretty desperate here. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2024/07/03/michelle-obama-would-beat-trump/74289680007/
If you really don't want to do it, you could just win handily and then resign the first day and hand it off to someone else.
I'm also surprised at how much worse some Biden alternates do in the polling given people's reported desire for a switch, but maybe in time they'd have a higher support ceiling than Biden as people get more familiar with them.
What a lot of news doesn't report is the Undecided/Don't Know category grows in lockstep with the drop in existing support for these other names. Trump's support stays locked on at ~40-44 percent. So what's really happening is a name brand gap. Some people just don't know these other candidates and that's easily solvable with four months and the DNC's entire war chest.
That could certainly be the case, I was trying to get at that with the second part of the comment. I'll link the poll below directly for people where that can be seen easier. I wish we had some more people who already could poll better though. I was also hoping that Trump's support might drop some with some of the other choices though, with some moving to the not sure category when a different democrat was proposed. Unfortunately it was looking like the "not sure" people are mostly coming from the previously Biden category, with Trump staying locked in at 40 like he is with Biden, or even higher for some of them. Michelle Obama was the only to get that to drop, and only to 39%.
The "wouldn't vote category" also dropped by a percent or 2 for some of them, so a few voters at least might be pulled of the sideline with a new candidate if they can manage to keep all the Biden voters. It was pretty impressive for Michelle Obama again, lowering from 8% to 4% not voting for the poll-takers in the case of Michelle Obama. She seems to pull her extra support over Biden from the current "won't vote" and third party voters. Some of the other potentials also peeled off a percent or two from the third party voters too into the not sure category. These are the people that really need to be convinced if we're going to beat Trump, and some of them at least seem to at least think about it when a new democrat is proposed.
https://www.ipsos.com/en-us/only-michelle-obama-bests-trump-alternative-biden-2024
I feel like both parties are trying as hard as they can to lose this election.
Statement dreamed up by the utterly deranged.
Biden should have dropped out in ‘23 and allowed for a real primary contest. Instead he and his neoliberal ilk shouted down anyone talking sense, and now his ego will cost America everything. Congrats Joe, you’ll go down in history after all.
Assuming that is true; what's your proposal to fix this now?
Whitmer/Bootyjudge 2024
No! Butt YES!
We broke it, and now it's your fault for not knowing how to fix it.
Blame the left for everything. Swing so far right that we implement project 2025 before Trump even takes office. Win over all right wing voters. Biden wins again gg no re.
I highly highly doubt Biden has another half decade of useful life left.
The proposal is get him to step aside. Sooner the better.
And replace him with who?
Honestly. Someone with a clean record on genocides would be a good start.
Great, that sounds like a winning plan. “We’ll just find someone”. Definitely will be stronger against Trump that way.
It's funny cause, that's on them to find a better candidate
Meanwhile with no alternative from the dnc your efforts only serve to support trump. Your progressive paradise will never be realized. It’s been stated to death but stop letting perfect stand in the way of good.
That would be the FIRST step in the process, not the second. You get a parachute first, THEN jump out of the plane. Not the other way around.
You plan the jump first asshole, and they don't have a plan.
Sure, you're right. You have a good one.
Well, go find a candidate. Then we can take the option seriously. Till then, you're just shouting without helping.
Any participation in the discussion helps. Otherwise we stagnate with 80 year old leadership and end up here again in 4 years.
It wouldn't surprise me if there isn't an election in 2028 if Trump wins.
Which is why it is so essential we get it right. And the fact there's even discussion about it means Biden's the wrong guy for the job.
There is noone who can unambiguously win. Most voters are fascists. Thats the reality the dnc must politic around
They aren't! Left leaning voters are a majority, the problem is we're suffering under a biased electoral system and a lot of them have lost faith in the potential for government to actually do things for them so many don't turn out. Issue polling is usually even further left. Stir them up and give them hope for the future rather than just saying "what are you gonna do, he's worse" as they jettison another ideal to chase the center. It's a huge problem that right now we're not up 3-4%, because we need to overshoot to manage the EC bias, and that's not because the country has gained a lot of fascists, it's because he's lost a lot of black, Hispanic, Muslim, and youth votes.
Note I said VOTERS, not PEOPLE. If you dont turn out, you are not a voter
The undecided voters who need to be won are suburban boomers who like Israel. Sorry, we live in hell, thats how it is
You don't think some Muslim voters in Michigan are "undecided"? This naïve idea that politics is a 2D line and the only gettable votes are in the middle is a plague on modern politics.
I think they're severely outnumbered by said boomers, and just as fucked as my trans ass in the event of a republican win
This will be a blight on his record like Ruth Bader Ginsbergs refusal to step down is on hers
I mean I'm not going to not vote. Maybe I'm unusual, but I learned how to juggle being a nihilist without any hope with still doing the right thing a long time ago.
Why does that crow have a wifebeater?
Steve beats his wife, clearly.
That’s incredibly selfish… but it’s your right
Agree with you completely on these points.
The undecided voter is a myth, I've never met one.
It's from the article which nobody seemed to read. I also happen to believe it's true.
Was wondering why you had it in quotes! Ha.
The real truth is in the comments.
I indented them. In any case,the polls are not changing. Still close with slight margin inside the error rate for Trump. I too believe this will be a get out the vote election.
Trump getting shot at has helped his side's "get out to vote" equation though.
That's what scares me. They're invigorated by recent events. I don't think they're any larger than before, but they're definitely more motivated now.
True, but three months is a lifetime in US politics. Add to that,Biden has built out local offices to handle GOTV. Trump hasn't
A "lifetime" sounds like plenty of time to make Biden compete in some primary debates
There's only one more debate in September. He'll do fine.
I remember when Hillary's campaign was "doing fine" too.
The Democrats can't afford to take the risk of trying to play it safe, not after the decade we've had. They need a sure thing, and that means they need to hold a primary.
There is no sure thing. There have already been primaries
No there haven't. The one guy who tried to primary Biden got run out of the party entirely.
JD Vance means Trump + Republicans are doubling-down on extremism, anti-Ukraine feelings and more.
We have a serious shot at this. Everyone stay focused, we can get through this together. The overplay of the Republicans will be on display in the coming month. But Democrats absolutely need rise to this challenge for us to stand a chance.
why do you keep getting your posts removed by the moderator?
Ha. Must be tough being a Mod, don't you think?
I mean, are you doubling up the posts in the same sub with the same links? is it personal? keep seeing it happening
Well, sometimes it is personal, but not lately
Look at the disapproval ratings. That will tell you who will win or lose.
Not really dude
The idea that “who doesn’t like Biden” is uncorrelated with “who answers the phone to random numbers”, or that who does answer the phone and answer the questions that suddenly emerge from the other side is perfectly correlated with who will show up and vote in November, both seem unproven to me
I see polls are unreliable again. Until someone says Biden should step down, then you have polling on alternate candidates that is the word of God Almighty.
Selectively believing in data that proves your point and denying data that challenges is is republican level shit, and they wonder why people are fed up with mainstream Dems.
Arguments can be wrong in multiple ways
“The polls are not reliable, but even if they were, they don’t show what you say they show” is not two contradictory statements that invalidate one another
(There’s a whole separate issue that confounding factors make the polls bad metrics of the overall reality, but you can still look at relative difference within the same poll from week to week or candidate to candidate and it’s useful to a certain extent)
Pretty sure I have made both of those points multiple times in the last few days when talking about polling
Couple days ago, you demanded to know who would be an alternate for Biden, and announced that for any answer, you would post some of the polls you selectively find credible when they confirm your existing biases. Here's the alternates. Provide your garbage polls that aren't any good because polls are worthless.
Harris. Newsom. Franken. Buttigieg. Whitmer.
The chart is from this which was sent to me by one of your allies in an effort to prove that Biden was cooked.
There ya go. Polls are accurate as long as they say what you want.
Hey cool we're back around to the very first comment you sent and the reply I made
You can go back up there on your own, and imagine that I replied with what I said last time, and then you don't have to reply because you already said what you had to say in response. Victory! It is the end of the conversation.
Hey, you confirmed it to be true.
Well problem is most of the polls are general popular opinion votes, but US presidential election is not a straight popular vote. As such the general "who majority of the nation like" doesn't really matter. Secure states are secure, so you might as well not ask their opinion and leave them out of opinion poll. Focus even on voting district levels in states the use electors to elect the electors and so on.
Problem is such polls are really hard work.... Almost no one does those and instead tries to read tea leaves out of general opinion polls. Polls which simply don't have the granularity of data to make conclusions. You need to ask "what is mood in this swing district in this swing state". After you have first added up the secure states, well with some looking of "are our old estimates of what are secure states for blue or red correct". Not that opinion wise all states aren't purple, but as far as election system results go there absolutely is blue and red states.
As I understand even in USA maybe one of two whole nation granular polls are done, with the actual amount of data to actually conclude how the actual electoral votes split. Given as said, since in some cases it isn't "you have to go down to state by state". Nope "we have to go district by district since this state has weirdo way of electing electors or adding up the totals."
Polling is archaic. It no longer works. People lie to pollsters now. Even exit polls are getting it wrong.
See you next time a poll says something you like.
Not me, I've written off all political polls, for some years now.
Reminds me of a line from a song: "It's not in the paper, it's on the walls."
Ok.
Exactly. "Who doesn't like Biden" also isn't the same as "who won't vote for Biden." I think Joe is an incredibly weak candidate and wish he would step aside, but I'll still vote for him in a heartbeat for the good of the republic.
Any source that protects Biden right?
Bwahahahahahaha! Yeah, right.
Yes. Biden can still win.
The Easter Bunny and Santa are real too and know you've been good so you'll get lots of presents.