Doesn't matter what the headlines or the opinion polls say. Vote like democracy depends on it!
I voted for that bowl of tapioca once and I'll do it again.
I'll likely vote someone else in the primaries though.
There will not be a primary
This is the problem, DNC is refusing to hold a primary and is hell bent on forcing one of the only dem candidates who can lose to Trump upon us.
This is mostly about Biden’s ego - he thinks his legacy requires 2 terms. But what of his legacy if he loses the election, and democracy, all at the same time?! It’s madness.
Call your reps. Call the whitehouse. Demand a primary be held so this Titanic can avoid that MASSIVE orange iceberg, because it’s dead ahead right now and we’re barreling towards it.
This is the modern tradition. He's the incumbent. We need to support him. He's already proven he can beat Trump by a wide margin.
Not sure if sarcasm or?…
Biden barely beat Trump in 2020. It was by 40k votes in 5 swing states, and the latest polling shows Biden down badly in those same states this time around.
Imagine thinking that Trump is in any way, shape, or form, better for you and your family than Biden.
Conservatives and Republicans: hate working class people, hate people that rent, hate minorities including women, want to privatize every last piece of American society so you'll have to subscribe to your alarm clock and appliances.
It's the illusion the maga crowd clings to. They think the economy was better under Trump and they think that relates to prosperity for them. The truth is that the economy really only indicates how the market is for the wealthy. But they don't see that. Trump, like nearly all GOP, is fully prepared to strip mine this nation of all resources possible, which would me amazing for the economy. 🙄
Trump prints trillions of dollars. Loses election, then blames biden for fixing his mistake.
It's fucked..
Welcome to every election cycle since Regan.
Repubs fuck the economy and blame the Dems for trying to fix it.
I generally agree except I think Bidens secretary of treasury screwed the pooch by not borrowing more longer term debt at low interest rates. So now we're paying 1T per year in interest.
The whole system is completely fucked right now.
Well, Manchin wasn't gonna let him do what they originally planned to do. We would be in a very much better position if that investment had happened.
Ah yes, the obligatory "the other guy is worse" post. We know the other guy is worse. That doesn't mean democrats shouldn't pick better candidates.
Well besides being old he's not really doing so bad tbh. Who else would you put up for election? Jon Stewart?
Biden could have done what’s best for the country and been a one term president. I’ll still vote for him but not because he’s some amazing leader or anything.
So they did it to themselves if they lose.
I don't know, I think the situation is more nuisanced. I didn't vote for Biden in the primaries (I did in the general), but I have to admit he's accomplished a lot more than I anticipated he would. At the time I just wanted a president who wasn't a complete train wreck.
I'd be all in if he was younger, but even so, I'm not sure what the best option is. If Biden stepped aside, I'm not sure the Democrats' ability to win in 2024 would go up. Incumbents have an advantage for sure, and there isn't an obvious choice to replace him. The most important thing at this point is that Trump doesn't win. Whatever situation maximizes the chance of him losing is good with me.
the aituation is more nuisanced
You got that right!
I agree, Newsome would have been a good candidate. Hell there are half a dozen good candidates that are half Bidens age. If Dems loose, I agree they did it to themselves by letting Biden run again.
Newsom is too Cali.
I don't totally disagree, but he's a straight white man who is really wonky/can dive into the weeds of legislation and is affable. He has a potentially broad appeal with the coasts and Midwest.
I see that point of view. Out of curiosity, though, do you think there’s an obvious next in line on the bench? The only person I can think of as a no brainer for electability is Michelle Obama.
Edit: I’m confused as to why my comment has been so controversial. I think it’s because people are misreading my claim. I am saying that Michelle Obama is obviously one of the most electable alternatives to Biden. The polling corroborates this. She is well liked and has 100% name recognition. Seriously, even if you hate her, as an objective empirical fact, she is obviously one of the top contenders for electability.
I am not claiming that she is likely to run or that she wants to run, etc.
Do you think, that maybe, if Biden had chosen to support another candidate, all those "Blue No Matter Who" types would dog pile people not supporting that candidate?
they've had four years to figure that out. That they can't... is either a sign of gross incompetence or of intentionality. either way, at a certain point, you need to stop and realize the way it's not worked for 30+ years is... not working and maybe it's time to change things up a bit.
Do you think, that maybe, if Biden had chosen to support another candidate, all those “Blue No Matter Who” types would dog pile people not supporting that candidate?
It depends on how far to the right the candidate is. Get far enough to the left, and they start bein' like "Party Unity My Ass" and start forming PACs to get Republicans elected
EDIT: I see centrists don't like being reminded of their proudest moment: trying to get McCain/Palin elected because they didn't get their first choice in the '08 primaries.
I mean, you're not entirely wrong for sure. I'm gonna upvote because it's a really good point, worth thinking about. But I do disagree, somewhat. Trump isn't McCain. The majority of D voters are looking for someone more left, and the ones who aren't, are definitely driven by beating Trump. It's the party leadership that is mostly a problem here. If Biden went rogue and endorsed a leftist, which he wouldn't do, the DCCC Democrats would be desperately scrambling to undermine that candidate, any way they could, even at the expense of losing to Trump. But that's also, I think, kind of aside from Ensign Crab's point, as if Biden had chosen to support another candidate, it would not be a leftist.
It wouldn't have to be a leftist. Obama wasn't, and the same people who now scream "no matter who" were screaming "party unity my ass" and raising money to legitimize Sarah Palin at the time.
She does not want to hold public office. As you may recall she wasn't treated very well.
At the beginning of his term, I'd have said they were lining up Harris; black, woman, young, and they made her highly visible in the first few months. I thought for sure they were going to spend 4 years lining her up for 2024. Biden would gracefully bow out citing his age, ride the 1/2 term election cycle, and badaboom: first female president.
And then she faded away. I don't know what happened; she didn't poll well, or do well, or polling showed D chances sank without an old white guy in front... but it makes me kinda sad, because I thought it was a good strategy, and it'd be nice to have a run of diversity in the White House.
She was the least (or very close to it) popular candidate in the primary and people are surprised she didn't get more popular? She is very much the definition of diversity hire, what she is checks all the boxes, what she's done is massively unpopular to the majority of democrat voters.
I swear it's like she freaked out at the idea of the attention and just faded out of existence. It's so annoying cause she crushed people to get where she is and does nothing to make good use of it
Kamala is just not good for anybody. She has a bad record of imprisoning people with similar skin tones to hers for victimless crimes and not much of substance to offer. The Diversity Hire excuse is not good enough for the office of President, there should be some good content of character within the person at least.
They made her visible with shit no-win issues. She was put on securing voting rights, fixing the border, and recently solving gun violence. Meanwhile the big spend-money bill passes and she's no where to be seen. I also thought the intention was for her to inherit from Biden, but then they kind of just screwed her over and over.
I'm really hoping Gretchen Whitmer runs in 28 but for this cycle it would probably be Newsome. Sherrod Brown would be great but he is the only person in Ohio that could keep that senate seat blue. Manchin probably runs off Biden isn't there. Harris and buttigieg are"in line"but personally I can't stand either.
Tats a really hard question. I guess Newsom or Whitmer if we’re talking politicians that seem to be up and coming. But I can think of many other candidates that I would like to see take the position even if they aren’t as electable. Tammy Baldwin, Mark Kelly, he’ll even Adam Schiff, even though he couldn’t win in the general.
Biden is fine but he looks and sounds horrible quite a bit of the time. There is nothing exciting about his policies and I feel he has way too much baggage.
Gavin would probably be the best pick. But if we’re making up scenarios, hell put Tom Hanks in there or Jon Stewart like that other commenter said.
Really I’ll always be bummed about not having Bernie but that ship sailed as well.
I’m not a super leftist, more of a left leaning no centrist. Still reason, passion, radical change for what a leader could and should be like really get me fired up. The policies are important but we all know that the president is a figurehead as much as it’s a powerful position. I’d rather see someone call the citizens of the country together and be a fighter for even the same type of incremental changes that Biden professes to embrace and maybe have a signature mission.
I do feel that his administration is chock full of smart and professional people. As a leader and a figure he’s just old and gross. Haha.
As other commenters have pointed out, anyone but a conservative would be fine. They all fuckin suck with their evangelical positioning and horrible policies. Trump being the nastiest of the pile.
Uh... Haven't we been screaming that Biden is a pretty bad candidate since he took office and begging him to not run for re-election?
This is a surprise to who?
Even Obama said Biden shouldn't run in 2020, but when it seemed like Bernie Sanders would win, he put in the calls to get other candidates to drop and support Biden, who became the democrats' only hope.
I'm starting to think that loosing this election is the dnc's plan.
It's what the oligarchs want I suppose.
"we don't want an octogenarian! We want a fascist orange septogenarian!"
I'm sure we can find a 50 year old white man that will allow the oligarchs to steal wealth from everyone! Why can't we let them run!?
All by design.
Voting for Biden or any Democrat is like voting for a car salesman. They're there to sell you corporate bullshit. Voting for Trump or any republican is like voting for a used car salesman. They're trying to sell you old non working pieces of crap or shitty russian knock offs.
Wake up call for who? Will the Democrats ever wake up and give their base something to vote for, instead of "hey, the other guys's worse, whaddya gonna do?".
What the hell are you talking about???
The dems have absolutely given us things to vote for: infrastructure act, record low unemployment, union support with the pres visiting the picket line for the first time ever, we have the best inflation rate across all of the G7.
Yeah it’s not enough but that’s on the contrarians more than anything else.
The fuck you talking about
They're repeating right wing propaganda, that's what's up.
Mmmm, no. I heard that Biden and his ultra-centrist party have done nothing to stop deforestation in the Messia region of
Mozambique. I'd rather have Trump and vote my conscience than allow globalists like Biden to ruin the Earth.
(just in case... /s)
Haha. Perfectly captures the tune of many Democratic voters. It's the nature of it though. Isn't it? The Democrats are broad coalition of like-minded but not monolithic people. The Republicans are a hive mind, cultivated and fed fat on a strict diet of outrage and propaganda media by the billionaire class.
America is becoming increasingly radicalized on both ends, the leftists must side with the center-right neoliberal while the fascists get to vote for fascists.
It isn't surprising to see disappointment from leftists, even if they still absolutely should vote for the lesser of two evils.
Then they promised billions of dollars of orphan killing aid to Israel, because they just can't resist being neoliberals.
Yes, they're better than a party full of fascists and fundamentalists, but so is a suit full of roadkill and excrement.
That doesn't mean people need to enthusiastically cheer as we hurtle towards oblivion.
I just think the Dems suck at advertising it. Hell, I think Biden is trying for at least some student debt relief.
You aren't wrong, in a way. I'm nearing fifty and Biden is arguably the most progressive president in my lifetime. The problem is, that says more about the quality of presidents in my lifetime than it does about Biden, and with the climate crisis and encroaching global fascism, we don't have anymore time to wait. The Democrats are doing more, now, because pressure from the left has convinced them that they have to, but the leadership is still dragging their feet in defense of corporate profits as much as they can. The fact that they are doing more doesn't mean it's time to lower the pressure - it means the pressure is working, and we need to dial it up.
I don't really agree with you, but even if I did... "advertising it" is a big part of politics! It's called messaging, and it's important. You have to get people excited to vote for you. They need to feel like you're fighting for them. If you can't manage that, then don't blame people for not voting for you.
Yeah, but there's a couple things wrong. First, the Dems are trying to DO things, which is exceedingly difficult with a Republican Congress that can't even agree on a speaker.
But also, DOING things just doesn't get that much attention.
Fixing the threatening hyper-inflation after the PPP was pretty damn important, but they obviously can't advertise that because there are side effects. Our economy is returning to being based on real shit rather than make believe Venture Capital bullshit. That's a painful process, and of course the rich and corporations refuse to feel any of the pain (at least immediately). They're attempting to pawn all the pain off onto the working class, partly in the hope that they'll get more corporate tax cuts to "stimulate the economy".
They're getting more EVs made in America. The significant tax credit for EVs require that most of the car be made here.
They're fixing our crumbling bridges and roads. That doesn't get much attention, and if it does it'll be a part they've failed to address.
Amtrak is building out passenger rail lines that are actually relevant to me. It's not building metro systems in several medium US cities that need it, but it's a start.
You know a way that's much, much easier to get attention? Maybe the Dems should just pick a minority and spout fear and hate. That really plays much better with the public. Just put up a loud mouth who every other day spouts such incredibly dumb shit that the news HAS to cover it. That's a winning messaging strategy.
I can't afford an EV. I can't afford a house. I can't afford gas. I can't afford groceries. I can't afford health insurance-- actually, I can afford the minimum insurance I am required to purchase, but it is basically worthless. This is the kind of shit I don't hear/see much convincing from Democrats. Yes, fuck the fascists in the Republican party. Unfortunately, fascism can look like an 'answer' for these kind of problems. If we don't want people to fall for that trap, we need popular politics coming from the left.
I can’t afford gas. I can’t afford groceries.
What do you expect any president to do about that?
President specifically, nothing. Government and a political party as a whole? Fix the problem.
There's lots of ideas as to how to fix the problem, and though I have my own and have preferences, all that ultimately matters is that every single person in the country has a good place to live, food, and healthcare, and generally speaking, the ability to participate in society as much or as little as they choose.
Maybe voting for fewer Republicans would be a good start.
I expect someone running for president to sound like they give a fuck about that, and (once elected) to use their position as the party leader to constantly marshal their forces towards real solutions to those problems.
They don't suck. They just don't get any help from corporate media or social media.
All corporate media is right wing media.
I also think people cling to the negatives. With student debt relief, everyone was cynical as hell at the time and still attacked the Dems.
Biden wiped the debt. Republicans filed a lawsuit and a Republican judge overturned the order.
Biden used the weakest legal reasoning he had available to cancel a fraction of existing student loan debt even though debt relief advocates were telling him not to. That made it easy to challenge in court.
Ya that one was on Biden. No idea why he chose that way to remove student loan debt.
They give money to run ads for the most insane GOP people so they can have easier opponents, they wanted Trump to win the primary because it would have made the GOP a laughingstock. Problem is over time this emboldens and normalizes this faction, and now it's just this death spiral where they can't change or the other faction will win, it's like this logical inevitability at this point. Dems said it loud and clear in 2016 they will choose a candidate friendly to donors over one that could easy win against Trump.
The article could have, but didn't, make the point that our politics and the rhetoric surrounding it today serve the right by subverting faith in democracy, and by exhausting likely voters' critical faculties:
Yesterday, David Roberts of the energy and politics newsletter Volts noted that a Washington Post article illustrated how right-wing extremism is accomplishing its goal of destroying faith in democracy. Examining how “in a swing Wisconsin county, everyone is tired of politics,” the article revealed how right-wing extremism has sucked up so much media oxygen that people have tuned out, making them unaware that Biden and the Democrats are doing their best to deliver precisely what those in the article claim to want: compromise, access to abortion, affordable health care, and gun safety.
One person interviewed said, “I can’t really speak to anything [Biden] has done because I’ve tuned it out, like a lot of people have. We’re so tired of the us-against-them politics.” Roberts points out that “both sides” are not extremists, but many Americans have no idea that the Democrats are actually trying to govern, including by reaching across the aisle. Roberts notes that the media focus on the right wing enables the right wing to define our politics. That, in turn, serves the radical right by destroying Americans’ faith in our democratic government.
There's also the tendency for people to assign to the incumbent all of the problems that happen on his watch- at this point, even with material improvements for most people, it's a hard sell to convince people that they're better off when every bit of right-wing media is devoted to telling people they're worse off and the mainstream media just both-sides it like there isn't one party trying mightily to end American democracy.
So sad that after so many failings, they still cannot learn! Do what's right, not what's personally profitable, you scumbags.
Do you want trump? This is how we get trump.
If you want to prepare, watch The Handmaid's Tale. Probably less entertaining when it's real life.
Exactly, the best thing Democrats or anti-Trump voters can do right now is blame the party for it's own failings rather than shame the left voters they need who are on the correct side of every issue. I view that as more a confession than anything. Too often this turns in to "oh you care about ____, well that's how we get Trump, get off your high horse and live in reality." Well now that blank is genocide, so they can't say this and save face anymore. Even though the US is always supporting this type of foreign policy, and you can rant about it all day if you're on the left while they shame you for caring, you're only taken seriously by Democrat voters when it's not able to be brushed under the rug as a minor issue.
Just think about how this is framed, "damn, this genocide is really bad for... Biden's polling." If that's the main concern of someone's here then you've already lost.
The "Biden sucks" narrative is a little out of control at the moment. I hope his team pivots to highlight all of his successes around the time Trump is getting tossed in prison. That should hopefully be enough juxtaposition for even the most terminally online idiots in this country to not vote for the meme candidate again.
Part of the problem also is that centrist Dem voters are single issue queens and will refuse to turn out if they don't get their way on certain issues, and a lot of them are drawing lines in the sand over Israel/Palestine right now. In case anybody hasn't be paying attention, let me assure you, Trump will not end the war in the middle east. If anything, he will accelerate it. If you're unhappy about Biden supporting Israel but calling for an end to hostilities, boy are you going to be upset if Trump takes the White House and endorses full-on genocide of Muslims in the west bank and complete Russian supremacy in Ukraine.
The centrists are much happier than the leftists with Biden, I've seen more voter apathy among leftists who are tired of voting for center-right candidates while right wing extremists get to vote for fascists that openly support them.
I wasn't exactly an enthusiastic Biden voter last go-around, I thought he was probably past his prime even in the primaries and think his VP is pathetic, BUT there's not even a choice going into 2024. You've got one guy who already staged one insurrection attempt, is openly planning to turn the US into a fascist dictatorship, fumbled the US's pandemic response, gave US secrets away rival countries, is likely beholden to one of our biggest global adversaries, had almost no actual accomplishments to speak of during his term, and consistently breaks the law on a daily/weekly basis. And then you've got a middle-of-the-road, generic politician who has actually racked up some achievements in the past four years, but has a tendency to put his foot in his mouth from time to time. The Israel-Palestine thing is essentially a continuation of US policy for the past few dozen years, yeah it sucks and wish we could do something more than giving them more weapons and just limply saying, "Could you please kill civilians maybe not so fast, just ease up a little bit?" But yeah, Trump would likely give them the ok to just start nuking Gaza/West Bank and might even offer US nukes for the job. Trying to pressure Democrats to change course on Israel by essentially handing the election over to Trump will not help the Palestinian cause any, the same way that being pissed off about Bernie Sanders and sitting out 2016 basically handed Trump and the GOP a SCOTUS majority (note: I supported Sanders in the 2016 primary).
I don't see it as a vote for Biden, rather a vote against Trump
My question is who are they asking for these poles?
People who are willing to answer a call from an unknown number then answer questions for 15 minutes.
So, basically nobody under the age of about 40.
48 and don't even answer known numbers.
😂
Similar age and service business owner and I don't take calls from unknown numbers either. If it's important they can leave a message.
Worse: people who answer the call on their land line.
But those are the people who vote as long as they have a pulse. Don't get complacent. That's one of the reasons we had a Trump administration in the first place.
Damn, dude. Why you gotta do my like that? I grew up on (dial up) internet, dammit.
Maybe their strategy for getting votes could be something better than "the other guy is worse".
That's pretty much all they have.
Nobody has ever really been excited about Biden, and there isn't a clear heir for the Dems either. Bernie is ancient, and while there's a lot of love for AOC from the base, she's perceived as too far to the left for the swing voters.
The Republicans are REALLY good at identifying potential threats early and attacking them. They did it with Hilary for decades, and they've already started with AOC's generation. The only one they really missed since the 90s was Obama, but he pretty much came out of nowhere.
That's absolutely not true. Dems and Biden administration have a lot of good ideas, and they do a lot of good shit, genuinely good, important shit. The thing is, they are terrible at advertising it, and their good shit is not enough because the country deep in trouble, so probably they could do more, and they definitely need to do more. But to say that they don't have anything is not only untrue, but also very dangerous
The Democrats need a guy in a baseball cap who just, totally gets you bro.
But the sad reality is that doesn't generate excitement.
And Trump was so bad that "He's not Trump" legitimately is the best reason to vote for Biden no matter what his record is, so it's hard to focus on the rest.
Sadly I think this country is so right wing, that they will literally vote for Adolf Hitler before letting a woman be in charge.
Ok so it starts with you. Volunteer with your local voting rights groups and get people registered to vote. Work their social media teams. Go to high schools and go register those turning 18. Voting rights groups are well known for this useful work.
I really appreciate your call to do something. I personally don't think we can vote our way out of this, but we all need to do something. Anything. Whatever we can and feel called to do. This isn't the dress rehearsal.
Well, maybe. If everyone hadn't voted though in the last midterms etc. or even the most recent races, we'd be doing a lot worse now.
i wonder sometimes what it would be like to cut my intestines with a pair of scissors
That would be less painful than another trump presidency
I'm just imagining domestic terrorists getting pardons and emboldening more and more.
Go to conservative forums, people are out for blood. desperate for a scape-goat like the people of Germany in the 30s
To who? The convicted felon? Or maybe it's that Florida governor who is pissed off the largest Media company in the world?
There is nothing in the rules that says a Felon can't play basketball! I mean be president.
A question to American Lemmy users: from what I can tell you are Democrats for the vast majority : would you consider voting for a Republican president if you aligned with his ideas, or if the Democrat candidate was an unredeemable piece of shit? The two party system makes zero sense to me because it doesn't seem, at first glance, that they're a huge overlap, people are not willing to go to the other side often, it seems. .. what's the point of having debates and stuff then?
Before the Tea Party movement in the Republican party, yes I definitely could have been convinced to vote for a Republican candidate. I was actually intending to vote for John McCain for president because at that time in history, both parties really did still have their crazy branches, but the relatively rational adults who knew how to compromise for the good of the country still ran the show, and I was genuinely concerned that Obama didn't have enough political experience to be president.
Then McCain nominated Sarah Palin for his Vice President. That was such a pandering, cowardly, caving to the will of the utterly ignorant, insane extremists in the Republican party move that I voted for Obama. And then the entire Republican party got so mad that a black guy was president that they collectively lost their whole fucking minds.
Republicans no longer want to govern. They want to break things and stay in power and that's it. That's their entire platform. There's nothing to debate because they literally aren't even trying to DO anything useful. Their entire political position right now is "do the opposite of what Democrats want." They have nothing to vote FOR. People who vote Republican right now are doing so only because they're voting against the bogeymen in their own heads.
That was John McCain's single greatest mistake. Actually I'd bet it was the national GOP party that forced it. In any case, I really thought that they believed they found the magic sauce and could get both the Tea Party yahoos and the establishment as well.
Before 2016 I was definitely in the camp of looking at both major parties as well as any third parties. I was voting for who I thought was the best despite whatever party they were in.
However, 2016 really opened my eyes to what the Republican party is. They are a party that isn't allowed to have different ideas. You follow the party line and do what you are told or you will be kicked out. Even republicans I thought might have cared for this country would have taken a stance but they didn't. They tucked their tails and bent the knee.
I will never ever vote for a Republican. I can see clear as day what they are now and it isn't good. They aren't able to hide who they are anymore.
You can have debates in the Republican party. You can in the democratic party. Which unfortunately makes the Dems a weaker party because it isn't a cult you are allowed to have a different opinion. The democratic party is basically all the sane adults that are left. It's not just the "left" anymore it's those in the center or those who didn't go far right with the Republicans. The Dems will spend the next year attacking each other and fighting within the party because they aren't unified and told what to think by one leader. So not all Dems will turn out.
It seems voter like to dismiss everything the democratic party does if they don't line up with them completely on every issue. The voters find one reason to vote for Republicans and ignore the rest of party line.
They aren’t able to hide who they are anymore.
It used to be all back room whispers and dog whistles from the top brass running the party until one guy shows up and says all the quiet parts out loud, and now the mask has fallen completely off
Yeah 2016 changed me from Green Party to Democrat, and literally the Green Party turned out to be taking bribes from oligarchs to cut votes. But that just makes me bitter. I dont have someone i want to vote for i just have a party i have to try and vote against.
It's a miserable existence trying to compromise on everything you care about and let parties of rich assholes do whatever they want because you have no other choices other than stagnation or damnation.
The governing systems are so broken I almost just wish them to break entirely to get people who so comfortably ignore it to care but instead it will just hurt lots of people who apparently half of them desire it anyways as long as it hurts someone they think deserves it. Yay, we live in the middle ground of new mafias and shit conditions and crumbling society in a boiling planet. What a fucking joke.
American politics didn't used to be the polarized team sport it is now.
We're seeing the ultimate culmination of the Southern Strategy: Get with the preachers who run those "god says hate the blacks" churches that the South is full of, pay them to say "God says vote the Republicans in so we can use the government to take it out on the blacks." Fast forward 60 years, and take a look around.
It was certainly that, but people kept the nasty stuff quiet and pretended to be dignified. Now nobody hides that nonsense.
Within the Democratic party, there's debate about how to handle climate change. There are people who advocate for slow, cautious changes and still see fossil fuels having a small role to play in the future. There are others within the Democratic party that want more drastic action, and make a huge government spending program to try to rapidly move the US energy to renewables (even naming it after one of the biggest US government programs made during the depression). That's normal politics. And it's all within the Democratic party.
The GOP mostly deny climate change exists. A few GOP members suggest that climate change is happening, but is a natural event not caused by man.
The recent house drama from the speakership battle was caused because 10 nutjobs didn't want to fund any social programs and wouldn't approve the budget. Most GOP compromised and made a TEMPORARY budget proposal that the Democratic reps would vote for. This caused the hardliners to remove the speaker. Because he had the audacity to compromise on a TEMPORARY budget.
Removing policy aside and just looking at behavior, many GOP members do not believe in compromising to get things done. There's attempts to not hold elected officials accountable (unless they are from the other party). It's very little cooperation and more retaliation.
A single GOP senator didn't like that the US military would reimburse a servicemember's travel for medical care if they lived in a state where some reproductive treatments weren't available. This one senator has single-handedly denied 360 military promotions and nominations to military positions. The Senate has historically tried to make it where being the minority party still had some power, so the rules let this happen (the other GOP senators on this committee weren't blocking, just the one guy).
The Democratic senators became so fed up they decided to change the rules to prevent a single committee member from blocking promotions. While most GOP senators publicly condemn this guy, many said this rule change was too much. So it looks like the rule change vote will be along party lines, although the #1 GOP senator has said it might be necessary to vote through to get the military back on track.
The last GOP senator really known for being reasonable and wanting to work collaboratively (McCain) died. He was respected by both parties until Trump came along, and now the GOP don't really hold his legacy in high regard.
Sorry, a lot longer than I intended, but it's a pattern showing no desire to try to govern effectively. Putting all issues of policy aside, I think it's a bad idea to vote for the GOP.
Let me put it this way, anyone who still identifies as a Republican is not worth voting for. If you can look past the fascists, racists, nazis, misogynists, fanatical religious nut jobs and still go "yeah, I'll associate with these people", then there is something irredeemably fucked up about you, and I'm not going to vote for you. Sure, democrats aren't perfect, but they tend to throw out their trash, instead of giving it a megaphone and a fancy committee seat.
There IS some degree of factionalism within the two party system. It is much more pronounced in the Democratic Party. Ever since Reagan in 1980, the Republican Party's factionalism became severely diminished. The Libertarians are kind of their most loosely held affiliation.
The primary system is largely designed help direct and influence the political platforms of the two parties. The two parties have made some significant pivots and switches over its history.
But far more importantly however: What has really happened is the Citizens United and lesser known Speechnow decisions by the US Supreme Court effectively legalized corporate buyout of the American electoral system.
And now we got fascists.
As a gay person, let me rephrase your question:
Would you consider voting for the party of people who have always dedicated themselves to hating you and making you suffer as much as they can get away with legally?
I'm registered NPA. I think, generally, everyone should be represented. I have voted Democrat, Republican and independent. Although the past couple elections I have voted straight Democrat because the Republican party has seriously taken a fascist turn.
So, the issue we see is that the republican party has often run democrats, and then had them flip to republican after election.
I don't trust most democrats either at this point.
Oof, could you give an example? Not calling you a liar; I'm just a young person trying to catch up lol
Synema and Manchin are the two biggest recent examples. They ran as dems but side with the GOP when convenient.
If you're looking at the Senate it's actually the other way around in the last decade. With the house and other offices it's much harder to say who does it more. I don't think it's any sort of conspiracy or playbook, just something that makes the news and sticks in people's memory when it happens... It's a betrayal after all.
Thanks! I didn't think to search Wikipedia; that was really helpful :)
Christ. In 2023 there was 1 Republican who swapped to Democrat.
In the same year there was 12 Democrats who swapped to Republican.
Nope. No issue with the parties at all. Only one is clearly the problem for sure.
The answer, unequivocally, is "Abso-fucking-lutely." But, you phrased the question wrong because you assume that people that vote Democratic are Democrats. They are not. Something like 20-30% of people who vote exclusively or near exclusively Democratic consider themselves Democrats, whereas Republican voters are around 50-60% for their respective categorization.
This isn't particularly strange if you think about the authoritarian vs anarchical political dichotomy these two voter bases lean to for more than a second. The real problem with that is that Republicans, as a general rule, would never align with socialist values. So, while technically they could, anyone that claims to be a Republican with my values is almost entirely likely to be lying.
But, you missed a big thing in American politics: The moderate voter. We have a large group of people who consider themselves moderate, for reasons that all range within the realms of apathetic ignorance to willful ignorance. These people have either no moral quandaries with either particular side, are general unaffected by politics in a way perceivable to them, or are people who lean one way but do have moral quandaries with that side. Debates between parties are for them, which is why it's about presentation, media sound bites, and moderate views.
Anyway, hopefully that answers your question!
People who go online on sites like Lemmy to discuss politics are usually strongly in favor of one party over the other. However, not everyone who votes in elections is like that. There are many moderate or swing voters. Presidential elections in particular are decided by a few key swing states. There is also an expectation that the Congress and the Courts could be a check on each other and on the President, so sometimes people vote for a candidate that they don't fully agree with. Debates aren't always about which candidate or party has a more agreeable stance on the issues, but rather which issues are the most important.
Right now? Absolutely fucking not. In the past? No, probably not.
One thing to note is for all our partisan noise, the USA is a nation of centrists. If either party would put up a candidate that didn't pander to the extremes of their party they'd win in a landslide, but that doesn't make for very good down ticket fundraising and that's what it's all about.
No Democrat or Republican gives any shit about the actual country. All they're interested in doing is making themselves rich.
My problem is that since the first time I've been able to vote, the Democratic party has shown they don't care about who the people may want. They will actively suppress whoever isn't their chosen one. And there are cases where they fund ads for their crazy opposition instead of building a meaningful case for their candidate. I voted for Biden originally, and I will not vote for Trump now, but I need more than "vote for me because I'm not the other guy", especially the second time around. If Trump wins, it's because the Democratic party shot themselves in the foot. Party cohesion is made by leaders who listen to their constituents.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
And while he's downplayed the role his advanced age could have on his ability to lead, polling's revealed that more than three-fourths of US adults think he's simply too old for another four years in the White House.
The publication said that some of those around the president have advocated for him to walk shorter distances and ditch his dress shoes for more comfortable ones, sometimes sneakers, to lower the risk of him falling.
A poll released in early November by the New York Times and Siena College also showed Trump leading the Democratic president in five of six battleground states.
If he can regain the trust and support of his 2020 electorate, especially the young voters who voted for him in droves but hate how he's handled the conflict in the Middle East, he's got more than a fair shot at winning reelection.
Additionally, Trump, the party's leading candidate by a wide margin, is currently fighting a mountain of legal battles after getting charged with 91 felonies by grand juries across the country throughout 2023.
The Supreme Court's decision in 2022 to overturn decades of precedent for abortion access has also led to Democratic voters turning out in record numbers, especially when abortion-related referendums are on the ballot like in Ohio and Kansas.
The original article contains 718 words, the summary contains 214 words. Saved 70%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
Well, senate. We've know we were loosing the senate for 6 years, since these are the people elected in 2018 right when people started to come to terms that Trump wasn't competent.
The white house will be decided by three groups of 12 people and the delegates at the RNC when Trump can't accept the nomination in person due to being in jail. "What if all three find him innocent?" Then like the petulant man-child he is, he will do something right after the 3rd acquittal to celebrate being un-jail-able that will cause his immediate arrest.
*losing
Of course they could lose them. They are senile and old. They probably lose all sorts of shit
Well past time for one of those historical shifts to a third party.
Doesn't matter what the headlines or the opinion polls say. Vote like democracy depends on it!
I voted for that bowl of tapioca once and I'll do it again.
I'll likely vote someone else in the primaries though.
There will not be a primary
This is the problem, DNC is refusing to hold a primary and is hell bent on forcing one of the only dem candidates who can lose to Trump upon us.
This is mostly about Biden’s ego - he thinks his legacy requires 2 terms. But what of his legacy if he loses the election, and democracy, all at the same time?! It’s madness.
Call your reps. Call the whitehouse. Demand a primary be held so this Titanic can avoid that MASSIVE orange iceberg, because it’s dead ahead right now and we’re barreling towards it.
This is the modern tradition. He's the incumbent. We need to support him. He's already proven he can beat Trump by a wide margin.
Not sure if sarcasm or?…
Biden barely beat Trump in 2020. It was by 40k votes in 5 swing states, and the latest polling shows Biden down badly in those same states this time around.
Snap out of your delusion
Polls don't mean dick. Please don't repeat 2016.
Imagine thinking that Trump is in any way, shape, or form, better for you and your family than Biden.
Conservatives and Republicans: hate working class people, hate people that rent, hate minorities including women, want to privatize every last piece of American society so you'll have to subscribe to your alarm clock and appliances.
It's the illusion the maga crowd clings to. They think the economy was better under Trump and they think that relates to prosperity for them. The truth is that the economy really only indicates how the market is for the wealthy. But they don't see that. Trump, like nearly all GOP, is fully prepared to strip mine this nation of all resources possible, which would me amazing for the economy. 🙄
Trump prints trillions of dollars. Loses election, then blames biden for fixing his mistake.
It's fucked..
Welcome to every election cycle since Regan. Repubs fuck the economy and blame the Dems for trying to fix it.
I generally agree except I think Bidens secretary of treasury screwed the pooch by not borrowing more longer term debt at low interest rates. So now we're paying 1T per year in interest.
The whole system is completely fucked right now.
Well, Manchin wasn't gonna let him do what they originally planned to do. We would be in a very much better position if that investment had happened.
Ah yes, the obligatory "the other guy is worse" post. We know the other guy is worse. That doesn't mean democrats shouldn't pick better candidates.
Well besides being old he's not really doing so bad tbh. Who else would you put up for election? Jon Stewart?
Does anyone not think that?
The people who think fascism could never come here, I guess?
The people who think now is the time to make a moral stand by voting 3p
Those people should probably take a look at the Nazi march that went down in Wisconsin yesterday if they think it's not or can't happen in the US.
A shocking amount of news never makes it out.
Wait you can lose elections? Shit ..
The Democratic party leadership doesn't seem to understand it
Biden could have done what’s best for the country and been a one term president. I’ll still vote for him but not because he’s some amazing leader or anything.
So they did it to themselves if they lose.
I don't know, I think the situation is more nuisanced. I didn't vote for Biden in the primaries (I did in the general), but I have to admit he's accomplished a lot more than I anticipated he would. At the time I just wanted a president who wasn't a complete train wreck.
I'd be all in if he was younger, but even so, I'm not sure what the best option is. If Biden stepped aside, I'm not sure the Democrats' ability to win in 2024 would go up. Incumbents have an advantage for sure, and there isn't an obvious choice to replace him. The most important thing at this point is that Trump doesn't win. Whatever situation maximizes the chance of him losing is good with me.
You got that right!
I agree, Newsome would have been a good candidate. Hell there are half a dozen good candidates that are half Bidens age. If Dems loose, I agree they did it to themselves by letting Biden run again.
Newsom is too Cali.
I don't totally disagree, but he's a straight white man who is really wonky/can dive into the weeds of legislation and is affable. He has a potentially broad appeal with the coasts and Midwest.
I see that point of view. Out of curiosity, though, do you think there’s an obvious next in line on the bench? The only person I can think of as a no brainer for electability is Michelle Obama.
Edit: I’m confused as to why my comment has been so controversial. I think it’s because people are misreading my claim. I am saying that Michelle Obama is obviously one of the most electable alternatives to Biden. The polling corroborates this. She is well liked and has 100% name recognition. Seriously, even if you hate her, as an objective empirical fact, she is obviously one of the top contenders for electability.
I am not claiming that she is likely to run or that she wants to run, etc.
Do you think, that maybe, if Biden had chosen to support another candidate, all those "Blue No Matter Who" types would dog pile people not supporting that candidate?
they've had four years to figure that out. That they can't... is either a sign of gross incompetence or of intentionality. either way, at a certain point, you need to stop and realize the way it's not worked for 30+ years is... not working and maybe it's time to change things up a bit.
It depends on how far to the right the candidate is. Get far enough to the left, and they start bein' like "Party Unity My Ass" and start forming PACs to get Republicans elected
EDIT: I see centrists don't like being reminded of their proudest moment: trying to get McCain/Palin elected because they didn't get their first choice in the '08 primaries.
I mean, you're not entirely wrong for sure. I'm gonna upvote because it's a really good point, worth thinking about. But I do disagree, somewhat. Trump isn't McCain. The majority of D voters are looking for someone more left, and the ones who aren't, are definitely driven by beating Trump. It's the party leadership that is mostly a problem here. If Biden went rogue and endorsed a leftist, which he wouldn't do, the DCCC Democrats would be desperately scrambling to undermine that candidate, any way they could, even at the expense of losing to Trump. But that's also, I think, kind of aside from Ensign Crab's point, as if Biden had chosen to support another candidate, it would not be a leftist.
It wouldn't have to be a leftist. Obama wasn't, and the same people who now scream "no matter who" were screaming "party unity my ass" and raising money to legitimize Sarah Palin at the time.
She does not want to hold public office. As you may recall she wasn't treated very well.
At the beginning of his term, I'd have said they were lining up Harris; black, woman, young, and they made her highly visible in the first few months. I thought for sure they were going to spend 4 years lining her up for 2024. Biden would gracefully bow out citing his age, ride the 1/2 term election cycle, and badaboom: first female president.
And then she faded away. I don't know what happened; she didn't poll well, or do well, or polling showed D chances sank without an old white guy in front... but it makes me kinda sad, because I thought it was a good strategy, and it'd be nice to have a run of diversity in the White House.
She was the least (or very close to it) popular candidate in the primary and people are surprised she didn't get more popular? She is very much the definition of diversity hire, what she is checks all the boxes, what she's done is massively unpopular to the majority of democrat voters.
I swear it's like she freaked out at the idea of the attention and just faded out of existence. It's so annoying cause she crushed people to get where she is and does nothing to make good use of it
Kamala is just not good for anybody. She has a bad record of imprisoning people with similar skin tones to hers for victimless crimes and not much of substance to offer. The Diversity Hire excuse is not good enough for the office of President, there should be some good content of character within the person at least.
They made her visible with shit no-win issues. She was put on securing voting rights, fixing the border, and recently solving gun violence. Meanwhile the big spend-money bill passes and she's no where to be seen. I also thought the intention was for her to inherit from Biden, but then they kind of just screwed her over and over.
I'm really hoping Gretchen Whitmer runs in 28 but for this cycle it would probably be Newsome. Sherrod Brown would be great but he is the only person in Ohio that could keep that senate seat blue. Manchin probably runs off Biden isn't there. Harris and buttigieg are"in line"but personally I can't stand either.
Tats a really hard question. I guess Newsom or Whitmer if we’re talking politicians that seem to be up and coming. But I can think of many other candidates that I would like to see take the position even if they aren’t as electable. Tammy Baldwin, Mark Kelly, he’ll even Adam Schiff, even though he couldn’t win in the general.
Biden is fine but he looks and sounds horrible quite a bit of the time. There is nothing exciting about his policies and I feel he has way too much baggage.
Gavin would probably be the best pick. But if we’re making up scenarios, hell put Tom Hanks in there or Jon Stewart like that other commenter said.
Really I’ll always be bummed about not having Bernie but that ship sailed as well.
I’m not a super leftist, more of a left leaning no centrist. Still reason, passion, radical change for what a leader could and should be like really get me fired up. The policies are important but we all know that the president is a figurehead as much as it’s a powerful position. I’d rather see someone call the citizens of the country together and be a fighter for even the same type of incremental changes that Biden professes to embrace and maybe have a signature mission.
I do feel that his administration is chock full of smart and professional people. As a leader and a figure he’s just old and gross. Haha.
As other commenters have pointed out, anyone but a conservative would be fine. They all fuckin suck with their evangelical positioning and horrible policies. Trump being the nastiest of the pile.
Uh... Haven't we been screaming that Biden is a pretty bad candidate since he took office and begging him to not run for re-election?
This is a surprise to who?
Even Obama said Biden shouldn't run in 2020, but when it seemed like Bernie Sanders would win, he put in the calls to get other candidates to drop and support Biden, who became the democrats' only hope.
I'm starting to think that loosing this election is the dnc's plan.
It's what the oligarchs want I suppose.
"we don't want an octogenarian! We want a fascist orange septogenarian!"
I'm sure we can find a 50 year old white man that will allow the oligarchs to steal wealth from everyone! Why can't we let them run!?
All by design.
Voting for Biden or any Democrat is like voting for a car salesman. They're there to sell you corporate bullshit. Voting for Trump or any republican is like voting for a used car salesman. They're trying to sell you old non working pieces of crap or shitty russian knock offs.
Wake up call for who? Will the Democrats ever wake up and give their base something to vote for, instead of "hey, the other guys's worse, whaddya gonna do?".
What the hell are you talking about???
The dems have absolutely given us things to vote for: infrastructure act, record low unemployment, union support with the pres visiting the picket line for the first time ever, we have the best inflation rate across all of the G7.
Yeah it’s not enough but that’s on the contrarians more than anything else.
The fuck you talking about
They're repeating right wing propaganda, that's what's up.
Mmmm, no. I heard that Biden and his ultra-centrist party have done nothing to stop deforestation in the Messia region of Mozambique. I'd rather have Trump and vote my conscience than allow globalists like Biden to ruin the Earth.
(just in case... /s)
Haha. Perfectly captures the tune of many Democratic voters. It's the nature of it though. Isn't it? The Democrats are broad coalition of like-minded but not monolithic people. The Republicans are a hive mind, cultivated and fed fat on a strict diet of outrage and propaganda media by the billionaire class.
America is becoming increasingly radicalized on both ends, the leftists must side with the center-right neoliberal while the fascists get to vote for fascists.
It isn't surprising to see disappointment from leftists, even if they still absolutely should vote for the lesser of two evils.
Then they promised billions of dollars of orphan killing aid to Israel, because they just can't resist being neoliberals.
Yes, they're better than a party full of fascists and fundamentalists, but so is a suit full of roadkill and excrement.
That doesn't mean people need to enthusiastically cheer as we hurtle towards oblivion.
I think they do: https://www.whitehouse.gov/therecord/
I just think the Dems suck at advertising it. Hell, I think Biden is trying for at least some student debt relief.
You aren't wrong, in a way. I'm nearing fifty and Biden is arguably the most progressive president in my lifetime. The problem is, that says more about the quality of presidents in my lifetime than it does about Biden, and with the climate crisis and encroaching global fascism, we don't have anymore time to wait. The Democrats are doing more, now, because pressure from the left has convinced them that they have to, but the leadership is still dragging their feet in defense of corporate profits as much as they can. The fact that they are doing more doesn't mean it's time to lower the pressure - it means the pressure is working, and we need to dial it up.
I don't really agree with you, but even if I did... "advertising it" is a big part of politics! It's called messaging, and it's important. You have to get people excited to vote for you. They need to feel like you're fighting for them. If you can't manage that, then don't blame people for not voting for you.
Yeah, but there's a couple things wrong. First, the Dems are trying to DO things, which is exceedingly difficult with a Republican Congress that can't even agree on a speaker.
But also, DOING things just doesn't get that much attention.
Fixing the threatening hyper-inflation after the PPP was pretty damn important, but they obviously can't advertise that because there are side effects. Our economy is returning to being based on real shit rather than make believe Venture Capital bullshit. That's a painful process, and of course the rich and corporations refuse to feel any of the pain (at least immediately). They're attempting to pawn all the pain off onto the working class, partly in the hope that they'll get more corporate tax cuts to "stimulate the economy".
They're getting more EVs made in America. The significant tax credit for EVs require that most of the car be made here.
They're fixing our crumbling bridges and roads. That doesn't get much attention, and if it does it'll be a part they've failed to address.
Amtrak is building out passenger rail lines that are actually relevant to me. It's not building metro systems in several medium US cities that need it, but it's a start.
You know a way that's much, much easier to get attention? Maybe the Dems should just pick a minority and spout fear and hate. That really plays much better with the public. Just put up a loud mouth who every other day spouts such incredibly dumb shit that the news HAS to cover it. That's a winning messaging strategy.
I can't afford an EV. I can't afford a house. I can't afford gas. I can't afford groceries. I can't afford health insurance-- actually, I can afford the minimum insurance I am required to purchase, but it is basically worthless. This is the kind of shit I don't hear/see much convincing from Democrats. Yes, fuck the fascists in the Republican party. Unfortunately, fascism can look like an 'answer' for these kind of problems. If we don't want people to fall for that trap, we need popular politics coming from the left.
What do you expect any president to do about that?
President specifically, nothing. Government and a political party as a whole? Fix the problem.
There's lots of ideas as to how to fix the problem, and though I have my own and have preferences, all that ultimately matters is that every single person in the country has a good place to live, food, and healthcare, and generally speaking, the ability to participate in society as much or as little as they choose.
Maybe voting for fewer Republicans would be a good start.
I expect someone running for president to sound like they give a fuck about that, and (once elected) to use their position as the party leader to constantly marshal their forces towards real solutions to those problems.
They don't suck. They just don't get any help from corporate media or social media.
All corporate media is right wing media.
I also think people cling to the negatives. With student debt relief, everyone was cynical as hell at the time and still attacked the Dems.
Biden wiped the debt. Republicans filed a lawsuit and a Republican judge overturned the order.
Biden used the weakest legal reasoning he had available to cancel a fraction of existing student loan debt even though debt relief advocates were telling him not to. That made it easy to challenge in court.
Ya that one was on Biden. No idea why he chose that way to remove student loan debt.
They give money to run ads for the most insane GOP people so they can have easier opponents, they wanted Trump to win the primary because it would have made the GOP a laughingstock. Problem is over time this emboldens and normalizes this faction, and now it's just this death spiral where they can't change or the other faction will win, it's like this logical inevitability at this point. Dems said it loud and clear in 2016 they will choose a candidate friendly to donors over one that could easy win against Trump.
The article could have, but didn't, make the point that our politics and the rhetoric surrounding it today serve the right by subverting faith in democracy, and by exhausting likely voters' critical faculties:
source
There's also the tendency for people to assign to the incumbent all of the problems that happen on his watch- at this point, even with material improvements for most people, it's a hard sell to convince people that they're better off when every bit of right-wing media is devoted to telling people they're worse off and the mainstream media just both-sides it like there isn't one party trying mightily to end American democracy.
So sad that after so many failings, they still cannot learn! Do what's right, not what's personally profitable, you scumbags.
Do you want trump? This is how we get trump.
If you want to prepare, watch The Handmaid's Tale. Probably less entertaining when it's real life.
Exactly, the best thing Democrats or anti-Trump voters can do right now is blame the party for it's own failings rather than shame the left voters they need who are on the correct side of every issue. I view that as more a confession than anything. Too often this turns in to "oh you care about ____, well that's how we get Trump, get off your high horse and live in reality." Well now that blank is genocide, so they can't say this and save face anymore. Even though the US is always supporting this type of foreign policy, and you can rant about it all day if you're on the left while they shame you for caring, you're only taken seriously by Democrat voters when it's not able to be brushed under the rug as a minor issue.
Just think about how this is framed, "damn, this genocide is really bad for... Biden's polling." If that's the main concern of someone's here then you've already lost.
Task: literally impossible.
The "Biden sucks" narrative is a little out of control at the moment. I hope his team pivots to highlight all of his successes around the time Trump is getting tossed in prison. That should hopefully be enough juxtaposition for even the most terminally online idiots in this country to not vote for the meme candidate again.
Part of the problem also is that centrist Dem voters are single issue queens and will refuse to turn out if they don't get their way on certain issues, and a lot of them are drawing lines in the sand over Israel/Palestine right now. In case anybody hasn't be paying attention, let me assure you, Trump will not end the war in the middle east. If anything, he will accelerate it. If you're unhappy about Biden supporting Israel but calling for an end to hostilities, boy are you going to be upset if Trump takes the White House and endorses full-on genocide of Muslims in the west bank and complete Russian supremacy in Ukraine.
The centrists are much happier than the leftists with Biden, I've seen more voter apathy among leftists who are tired of voting for center-right candidates while right wing extremists get to vote for fascists that openly support them.
I wasn't exactly an enthusiastic Biden voter last go-around, I thought he was probably past his prime even in the primaries and think his VP is pathetic, BUT there's not even a choice going into 2024. You've got one guy who already staged one insurrection attempt, is openly planning to turn the US into a fascist dictatorship, fumbled the US's pandemic response, gave US secrets away rival countries, is likely beholden to one of our biggest global adversaries, had almost no actual accomplishments to speak of during his term, and consistently breaks the law on a daily/weekly basis. And then you've got a middle-of-the-road, generic politician who has actually racked up some achievements in the past four years, but has a tendency to put his foot in his mouth from time to time. The Israel-Palestine thing is essentially a continuation of US policy for the past few dozen years, yeah it sucks and wish we could do something more than giving them more weapons and just limply saying, "Could you please kill civilians maybe not so fast, just ease up a little bit?" But yeah, Trump would likely give them the ok to just start nuking Gaza/West Bank and might even offer US nukes for the job. Trying to pressure Democrats to change course on Israel by essentially handing the election over to Trump will not help the Palestinian cause any, the same way that being pissed off about Bernie Sanders and sitting out 2016 basically handed Trump and the GOP a SCOTUS majority (note: I supported Sanders in the 2016 primary).
I don't see it as a vote for Biden, rather a vote against Trump
My question is who are they asking for these poles?
People who are willing to answer a call from an unknown number then answer questions for 15 minutes.
So, basically nobody under the age of about 40.
48 and don't even answer known numbers.
😂
Similar age and service business owner and I don't take calls from unknown numbers either. If it's important they can leave a message.
Worse: people who answer the call on their land line.
But those are the people who vote as long as they have a pulse. Don't get complacent. That's one of the reasons we had a Trump administration in the first place.
Damn, dude. Why you gotta do my like that? I grew up on (dial up) internet, dammit.
methodology shall be listed with the polls themselves.
Democrat leadership has a severe communications problem. I'm not sure why they refuse to fix the disconnect.
Donor$
Maybe their strategy for getting votes could be something better than "the other guy is worse".
That's pretty much all they have.
Nobody has ever really been excited about Biden, and there isn't a clear heir for the Dems either. Bernie is ancient, and while there's a lot of love for AOC from the base, she's perceived as too far to the left for the swing voters.
The Republicans are REALLY good at identifying potential threats early and attacking them. They did it with Hilary for decades, and they've already started with AOC's generation. The only one they really missed since the 90s was Obama, but he pretty much came out of nowhere.
That's absolutely not true. Dems and Biden administration have a lot of good ideas, and they do a lot of good shit, genuinely good, important shit. The thing is, they are terrible at advertising it, and their good shit is not enough because the country deep in trouble, so probably they could do more, and they definitely need to do more. But to say that they don't have anything is not only untrue, but also very dangerous
The Democrats need a guy in a baseball cap who just, totally gets you bro.
Except for all the good things biden has done. https://www.reddit.com/r/WhatBidenHasDone/comments/11lohnc/what_biden_has_done_year_three_year_one_two_are/
But the sad reality is that doesn't generate excitement.
And Trump was so bad that "He's not Trump" legitimately is the best reason to vote for Biden no matter what his record is, so it's hard to focus on the rest.
Sadly I think this country is so right wing, that they will literally vote for Adolf Hitler before letting a woman be in charge.
Ok so it starts with you. Volunteer with your local voting rights groups and get people registered to vote. Work their social media teams. Go to high schools and go register those turning 18. Voting rights groups are well known for this useful work.
I really appreciate your call to do something. I personally don't think we can vote our way out of this, but we all need to do something. Anything. Whatever we can and feel called to do. This isn't the dress rehearsal.
Well, maybe. If everyone hadn't voted though in the last midterms etc. or even the most recent races, we'd be doing a lot worse now.
i wonder sometimes what it would be like to cut my intestines with a pair of scissors
That would be less painful than another trump presidency
I'm just imagining domestic terrorists getting pardons and emboldening more and more. Go to conservative forums, people are out for blood. desperate for a scape-goat like the people of Germany in the 30s
I just read "emboldening" as embroidering 😂
Sorry, I'll quilt bugging you now.
The government would work a lot better if all the old fucks stopped trying to make everything a petty competition with winners and losers.
As opposed to all the Republicans trying to make it a competition with only losers.
So, what are they doing to energize the base?
Democrat Base: "Hey, can we... uh... fix... you know..." gestures broadly at fucking everything
Biden: "You got it, champ, unlimited funding for Israel's war effort."
Man, they intentionally picked the most frail looking photo of Biden they could find, didn't they?
Wait... Are you talking about the image at the top where he's got his fingers on his chin?
How does that look frail? Lol. The dude looks healthy, he's not pallor, his eyes aren't glazed over, he's just old lmfao.
His skin and hair make him look like a rest home resident, not the White House resident.
That's what 80 looks like. Throw in a spray tan and toupee and you get Trump.
MF looks like they shaved one of the old Muppets.
To who? The convicted felon? Or maybe it's that Florida governor who is pissed off the largest Media company in the world?
There is nothing in the rules that says a Felon can't play basketball! I mean be president.
A question to American Lemmy users: from what I can tell you are Democrats for the vast majority : would you consider voting for a Republican president if you aligned with his ideas, or if the Democrat candidate was an unredeemable piece of shit? The two party system makes zero sense to me because it doesn't seem, at first glance, that they're a huge overlap, people are not willing to go to the other side often, it seems. .. what's the point of having debates and stuff then?
Before the Tea Party movement in the Republican party, yes I definitely could have been convinced to vote for a Republican candidate. I was actually intending to vote for John McCain for president because at that time in history, both parties really did still have their crazy branches, but the relatively rational adults who knew how to compromise for the good of the country still ran the show, and I was genuinely concerned that Obama didn't have enough political experience to be president.
Then McCain nominated Sarah Palin for his Vice President. That was such a pandering, cowardly, caving to the will of the utterly ignorant, insane extremists in the Republican party move that I voted for Obama. And then the entire Republican party got so mad that a black guy was president that they collectively lost their whole fucking minds.
Republicans no longer want to govern. They want to break things and stay in power and that's it. That's their entire platform. There's nothing to debate because they literally aren't even trying to DO anything useful. Their entire political position right now is "do the opposite of what Democrats want." They have nothing to vote FOR. People who vote Republican right now are doing so only because they're voting against the bogeymen in their own heads.
That was John McCain's single greatest mistake. Actually I'd bet it was the national GOP party that forced it. In any case, I really thought that they believed they found the magic sauce and could get both the Tea Party yahoos and the establishment as well.
Before 2016 I was definitely in the camp of looking at both major parties as well as any third parties. I was voting for who I thought was the best despite whatever party they were in.
However, 2016 really opened my eyes to what the Republican party is. They are a party that isn't allowed to have different ideas. You follow the party line and do what you are told or you will be kicked out. Even republicans I thought might have cared for this country would have taken a stance but they didn't. They tucked their tails and bent the knee.
I will never ever vote for a Republican. I can see clear as day what they are now and it isn't good. They aren't able to hide who they are anymore.
You can have debates in the Republican party. You can in the democratic party. Which unfortunately makes the Dems a weaker party because it isn't a cult you are allowed to have a different opinion. The democratic party is basically all the sane adults that are left. It's not just the "left" anymore it's those in the center or those who didn't go far right with the Republicans. The Dems will spend the next year attacking each other and fighting within the party because they aren't unified and told what to think by one leader. So not all Dems will turn out.
It seems voter like to dismiss everything the democratic party does if they don't line up with them completely on every issue. The voters find one reason to vote for Republicans and ignore the rest of party line.
It used to be all back room whispers and dog whistles from the top brass running the party until one guy shows up and says all the quiet parts out loud, and now the mask has fallen completely off
Yeah 2016 changed me from Green Party to Democrat, and literally the Green Party turned out to be taking bribes from oligarchs to cut votes. But that just makes me bitter. I dont have someone i want to vote for i just have a party i have to try and vote against.
It's a miserable existence trying to compromise on everything you care about and let parties of rich assholes do whatever they want because you have no other choices other than stagnation or damnation.
The governing systems are so broken I almost just wish them to break entirely to get people who so comfortably ignore it to care but instead it will just hurt lots of people who apparently half of them desire it anyways as long as it hurts someone they think deserves it. Yay, we live in the middle ground of new mafias and shit conditions and crumbling society in a boiling planet. What a fucking joke.
American politics didn't used to be the polarized team sport it is now.
We're seeing the ultimate culmination of the Southern Strategy: Get with the preachers who run those "god says hate the blacks" churches that the South is full of, pay them to say "God says vote the Republicans in so we can use the government to take it out on the blacks." Fast forward 60 years, and take a look around.
It was certainly that, but people kept the nasty stuff quiet and pretended to be dignified. Now nobody hides that nonsense.
Within the Democratic party, there's debate about how to handle climate change. There are people who advocate for slow, cautious changes and still see fossil fuels having a small role to play in the future. There are others within the Democratic party that want more drastic action, and make a huge government spending program to try to rapidly move the US energy to renewables (even naming it after one of the biggest US government programs made during the depression). That's normal politics. And it's all within the Democratic party.
The GOP mostly deny climate change exists. A few GOP members suggest that climate change is happening, but is a natural event not caused by man.
The recent house drama from the speakership battle was caused because 10 nutjobs didn't want to fund any social programs and wouldn't approve the budget. Most GOP compromised and made a TEMPORARY budget proposal that the Democratic reps would vote for. This caused the hardliners to remove the speaker. Because he had the audacity to compromise on a TEMPORARY budget.
Removing policy aside and just looking at behavior, many GOP members do not believe in compromising to get things done. There's attempts to not hold elected officials accountable (unless they are from the other party). It's very little cooperation and more retaliation.
A single GOP senator didn't like that the US military would reimburse a servicemember's travel for medical care if they lived in a state where some reproductive treatments weren't available. This one senator has single-handedly denied 360 military promotions and nominations to military positions. The Senate has historically tried to make it where being the minority party still had some power, so the rules let this happen (the other GOP senators on this committee weren't blocking, just the one guy).
The Democratic senators became so fed up they decided to change the rules to prevent a single committee member from blocking promotions. While most GOP senators publicly condemn this guy, many said this rule change was too much. So it looks like the rule change vote will be along party lines, although the #1 GOP senator has said it might be necessary to vote through to get the military back on track.
The last GOP senator really known for being reasonable and wanting to work collaboratively (McCain) died. He was respected by both parties until Trump came along, and now the GOP don't really hold his legacy in high regard.
Sorry, a lot longer than I intended, but it's a pattern showing no desire to try to govern effectively. Putting all issues of policy aside, I think it's a bad idea to vote for the GOP.
Let me put it this way, anyone who still identifies as a Republican is not worth voting for. If you can look past the fascists, racists, nazis, misogynists, fanatical religious nut jobs and still go "yeah, I'll associate with these people", then there is something irredeemably fucked up about you, and I'm not going to vote for you. Sure, democrats aren't perfect, but they tend to throw out their trash, instead of giving it a megaphone and a fancy committee seat.
There IS some degree of factionalism within the two party system. It is much more pronounced in the Democratic Party. Ever since Reagan in 1980, the Republican Party's factionalism became severely diminished. The Libertarians are kind of their most loosely held affiliation.
The primary system is largely designed help direct and influence the political platforms of the two parties. The two parties have made some significant pivots and switches over its history.
But far more importantly however: What has really happened is the Citizens United and lesser known Speechnow decisions by the US Supreme Court effectively legalized corporate buyout of the American electoral system.
And now we got fascists.
As a gay person, let me rephrase your question:
Would you consider voting for the party of people who have always dedicated themselves to hating you and making you suffer as much as they can get away with legally?
I'm registered NPA. I think, generally, everyone should be represented. I have voted Democrat, Republican and independent. Although the past couple elections I have voted straight Democrat because the Republican party has seriously taken a fascist turn.
So, the issue we see is that the republican party has often run democrats, and then had them flip to republican after election.
I don't trust most democrats either at this point.
Oof, could you give an example? Not calling you a liar; I'm just a young person trying to catch up lol
Synema and Manchin are the two biggest recent examples. They ran as dems but side with the GOP when convenient.
If you're looking at the Senate it's actually the other way around in the last decade. With the house and other offices it's much harder to say who does it more. I don't think it's any sort of conspiracy or playbook, just something that makes the news and sticks in people's memory when it happens... It's a betrayal after all.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_party_switchers_in_the_United_States.
Thanks! I didn't think to search Wikipedia; that was really helpful :)
Christ. In 2023 there was 1 Republican who swapped to Democrat.
In the same year there was 12 Democrats who swapped to Republican.
Nope. No issue with the parties at all. Only one is clearly the problem for sure.
The answer, unequivocally, is "Abso-fucking-lutely." But, you phrased the question wrong because you assume that people that vote Democratic are Democrats. They are not. Something like 20-30% of people who vote exclusively or near exclusively Democratic consider themselves Democrats, whereas Republican voters are around 50-60% for their respective categorization.
This isn't particularly strange if you think about the authoritarian vs anarchical political dichotomy these two voter bases lean to for more than a second. The real problem with that is that Republicans, as a general rule, would never align with socialist values. So, while technically they could, anyone that claims to be a Republican with my values is almost entirely likely to be lying.
But, you missed a big thing in American politics: The moderate voter. We have a large group of people who consider themselves moderate, for reasons that all range within the realms of apathetic ignorance to willful ignorance. These people have either no moral quandaries with either particular side, are general unaffected by politics in a way perceivable to them, or are people who lean one way but do have moral quandaries with that side. Debates between parties are for them, which is why it's about presentation, media sound bites, and moderate views.
Anyway, hopefully that answers your question!
People who go online on sites like Lemmy to discuss politics are usually strongly in favor of one party over the other. However, not everyone who votes in elections is like that. There are many moderate or swing voters. Presidential elections in particular are decided by a few key swing states. There is also an expectation that the Congress and the Courts could be a check on each other and on the President, so sometimes people vote for a candidate that they don't fully agree with. Debates aren't always about which candidate or party has a more agreeable stance on the issues, but rather which issues are the most important.
Right now? Absolutely fucking not. In the past? No, probably not.
One thing to note is for all our partisan noise, the USA is a nation of centrists. If either party would put up a candidate that didn't pander to the extremes of their party they'd win in a landslide, but that doesn't make for very good down ticket fundraising and that's what it's all about.
No Democrat or Republican gives any shit about the actual country. All they're interested in doing is making themselves rich.
My problem is that since the first time I've been able to vote, the Democratic party has shown they don't care about who the people may want. They will actively suppress whoever isn't their chosen one. And there are cases where they fund ads for their crazy opposition instead of building a meaningful case for their candidate. I voted for Biden originally, and I will not vote for Trump now, but I need more than "vote for me because I'm not the other guy", especially the second time around. If Trump wins, it's because the Democratic party shot themselves in the foot. Party cohesion is made by leaders who listen to their constituents.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
And while he's downplayed the role his advanced age could have on his ability to lead, polling's revealed that more than three-fourths of US adults think he's simply too old for another four years in the White House.
The publication said that some of those around the president have advocated for him to walk shorter distances and ditch his dress shoes for more comfortable ones, sometimes sneakers, to lower the risk of him falling.
A poll released in early November by the New York Times and Siena College also showed Trump leading the Democratic president in five of six battleground states.
If he can regain the trust and support of his 2020 electorate, especially the young voters who voted for him in droves but hate how he's handled the conflict in the Middle East, he's got more than a fair shot at winning reelection.
Additionally, Trump, the party's leading candidate by a wide margin, is currently fighting a mountain of legal battles after getting charged with 91 felonies by grand juries across the country throughout 2023.
The Supreme Court's decision in 2022 to overturn decades of precedent for abortion access has also led to Democratic voters turning out in record numbers, especially when abortion-related referendums are on the ballot like in Ohio and Kansas.
The original article contains 718 words, the summary contains 214 words. Saved 70%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
Well, senate. We've know we were loosing the senate for 6 years, since these are the people elected in 2018 right when people started to come to terms that Trump wasn't competent.
The white house will be decided by three groups of 12 people and the delegates at the RNC when Trump can't accept the nomination in person due to being in jail. "What if all three find him innocent?" Then like the petulant man-child he is, he will do something right after the 3rd acquittal to celebrate being un-jail-able that will cause his immediate arrest.
*losing
Of course they could lose them. They are senile and old. They probably lose all sorts of shit
Well past time for one of those historical shifts to a third party.