Pretty much. Someone told me here yesterday that I’d be “voting against democracy” if I didn’t vote for Biden. That doesn’t sound like a statement from someone who supports democracy.
That’s a very silly thing for you to say when the other guy attempted to overthrow the US government in an insurrection. Yeah, fuck Biden and all, but at least he ain’t a self proclaimed dictator who actually wants to be rid of democracy you silly lil billy.
Trump is a blustering idiot so I don’t know why people believe his word on this statement over any other. He can call himself whatever he wants but that doesn’t give him full control over the federal government.
You might want to ask yourself why the Democratic presidential candidates are continually neck and neck with facist dictators every election and also question why they haven’t done anything during that time to improve their chances of winning.
It’s not democracy if you’re continually being forced to vote for someone who doesn’t represent the people over and over again with no end in sight.
Trump is a blustering idiot, but he’s also a criminal facing bankruptcy and prison time. Even if we were to disregard every terrible thing he did in office, (and we’d be incredibly stupid to do so) we’d surely be fools to ignore his repeatedly stated intentions to wield dictatorial power and imprison his political enemies.
Extrapolating a bit from your comment: I, too, would like to have a national left-wing party to support in this country. It ain’t the Democrats, and likely never will be. We’ll need to reform the electoral system to make room for such a party. In this year’s presidential election, that’s not on the ballot, and no amount of self-righteous rhetoric will alter that.
Edit: sorry, sorry. I should clarify, he only visited Jeffrey Epsteins island and openly admitted that he would absolutely have sex with his own daughter.
Even as a bumbling idiot, he came dangerously close to creating a constitution crisis that he could have used to retain political power. Just a few key people had been swapped out with some loyalists and it could have easily become the case. A congress recognized this, which is why they acted so quickly in a bipartisan way after the election to put into law that the VP can’t just pick whatever electors they want. Now he knows more and can demand more loyalty, so it is very brave of you to assume that this is some non-real risk. The system held, but it did show that it’s not invincible.
It’s not democracy if you’re continually being forced to vote for someone who doesn’t represent the people over and over again with no end in sight.
The problem is, as I said in another post, that the solution to this problem is a ground up approach. Voting for a third party, even if that third party wins, solves nothing as it would just tend right back to a two party system again. It’s the nature of the FPTP voting system. This needs to start at the bottom where you get people who will change local elections first, and then work up.
Voting for a third party, even if that third party wins, solves nothing as it would just tend right back to a two party system again.
This is absolutely right. We had third parties in our country’s short history, and some were successful. You know what happened to the old party? It’s gone now, so electing a “new” third party creates a “new” two-party system…that’s it…not some wild explosion of choice. At the end the result is the same and there are still two parties.
Yup. People using their vote strategically in the system available to them, when they want a different system, is not evidence of them being dumb or acting irrationally. Getting a third party elected is such a long shot in this system, and ultimately pointless in the long run, is far more irrational than that.
And don’t get me wrong, I think our system is messed up. But I’m working locally to solve that issue. As should everyone else upset about this. But they would rather sit online and whine then go out and actually enact change where they have the most influence.
The two party system is not solved by having a third party run. It’s the nature of the fptp voting system that it will tend towards two parties. All having a third party run will do is reinforce the idea that you have to pick the lesser of two evils.
The solution to the two party system is to work from the ground up to get the voting system changed. So despite your attempt to shit on Americans, you’re the one wrong here.
I love how democrats scream about a few thousand votes every election. Why is it that democrats cut it so close with a fascist, racist, sexist, dogshit party every election? The democrats should consider that they’re doing a shit job and should work to improve themselves instead of shrieking “but other guy!!!” every single election and claiming that everything cost them the election except for themselves. If they lose the election they smugly say “look how right we are with how bad things are!” and if they win the election they smugly say “we won so we must be doing something right, let’s keep the shitty status quo going!”
Uhh huh. You seriously think any of the voters that we lose to RFK Jr or West care at all about things like policy or actions of democrats in office? Reality has no place in that discussion. Unless democrats start going for the fringe conspiracy nutter vote, those votes are a lost cause
Anything to place the blame on a small outside group and away from the main inside group who holds power and responsibility over their current predicament.
If they are big enough to ruin re-election chances then they are by definition big enough to make pursuing their votes worthwhile (because without them you will loose)
If you want a system where you can disregard that reality then you need a different electoral process. An easy way to mitigate that risk is to eliminate 3rd party candidates and make voting mandatory (or pressure 3rd parties to drop out and guilt non-voters into voting, as it were), but an astute observer might notice that looks an awful lot like something called a ‘sham democracy’.
Lol no, but as long as you’re asking what I want: I want a system that can provide actual choices, rather than force a choice nobody wants.
But as long as that’s not realistic, I want the choice that’s blaming me for the destruction of my country to address my concerns in exchange for me choosing them.
What is definitely NOT what I want is to be blamed for my country’s destruction AND have my concerns be ignored. That doesn’t seem like a good system to me.
Lol no, but as long as you’re asking what I want: I want a system that can provide actual choices, rather than force a choice nobody wants.
Well voting third party, even if that party managed to succeed, will not accomplish what you claim to want.
We’ve had third parties that were successful in the past, guess what happened to the old party? It was displaced and became electorally irrelevant and then we were back to two parties again.
So how does voting for third party do anything to further any change to the current system toward one you’re talking about?
This really isn’t that complicated. The country doesn’t run a two-party system because of arbitrary or conspiratorial reasons, it runs one because the system’s structure produces two parties.
Are we having two different conversations? Did you read what I wrote?
I’m not advocating voting third party, nor am I rationalizing a two party system as some type of conspiracy.
I was simply stating a desire for a system that actually produces real choices instead of the one we currently have that forces a choice nobody wants. How we get to that is another discussion, but frankly, we can’t have that discussion when one party is panicking about loosing voters who are dissatisfied with the choices on offer because (i’m looking at you here) every statement of dissatisfaction is interpreted as subterfuge.
Last I checked, I’m not Biden and so I’m not panicking about “loosing” voters.
I learned for the final time in 2016 that the voters in this country are determined to take it to the brink of disaster every 4-8 years no matter what absurdity is carried into the office by the R behind his name.
I just genuinely don’t understand the positions of third party voters nor their apologists (I’m looking at you here).
Last I checked, I’m not Biden and so I’m not panicking about “loosing” voters.
So you’re not critiquing 3rd party voters for spoiling their vote and letting Trump take the white house? What other reason would you disagree with voting 3rd party?
I just genuinely don’t understand the positions of third party voters nor their apologists (I’m looking at you here).
I actually think you’re selling yourself short here - I think you do understand, you just disagree with the risk they’re willing to take in their pursuit.
What other reason would you disagree with voting 3rd party?
Because it will in no way help achieve any of the things they claim to want.
Which is why I don’t understand their position nor those who apologize for them.
Third parties and their voters are just another sideshow in the American three-ring electoral circus, and I genuinely don’t understand how people view them as anything other than that.
Because it will in no way help achieve any of the things they claim to want.
this isn’t true, it shows there is a real caucus of active votes who are disenfranchised by the two parties. Whenever there is a breakout 3rd party, there is usually a period of policy realignment in the larger caucuses to pull them back in.
What I think you mean is that it doesn’t achieve any electoral outcome, especially one that denies office to a fascist asshole we all oppose. And while that’s not an outcome anybody really wants, it does provide an opportunity to bring the democrats to the table when they wouldn’t ordinarily be willing, which makes threatening to do so particularly effective this cycle.
What I think you mean is that it doesn’t achieve any electoral outcome, especially one that denies office to a fascist asshole we all oppose.
Nope, that does not cover everything. A lot of people will say “we need more parties, and we should encourage more parties” just like you were saying two posts up and they’ll use that as their reason for voting third party as if that in any way helps improve the short-term or the long-term viability for a national third party that does not just wind up becoming a half-plank (if that) in one of the existing two party’s platform.
People voted for Jill Stein and Gary Johnson in 2016 and it did nothing to advance the national viability of the Green or Libertarian parties.
In addition (as you acknowledge), they also did nothing to advance the cause of either the Green or Libertarian party in terms of actual policy. Republicans became less Libertarian as a result of their 2016 win (adding record amounts to the deficit and debt, cracking down on weed users, becoming notably more authoritarian, and even gasp enacting new gun regulations), and the Republican-led government (of course) worked explicitly against Green party principles.
Three-party system advocates that try to take a “vote-only” or even “make my own party” (with blackjack and hookers) approach to achieving a viable, national 3rd party are misguided clowns.
You’re leaving out what happened after Jill Stein lost her bid in 2016: many (not most, not even a lot, but a few) of their positions were adopted by the DNC the following cycle (aspects of the green new deal, weed legalization, even Biden’s student debt relief could partially be attributed to their free tuition position). Third parties (and third party candidates caucusing with the establishment parties) help move the overton window by forcing debate and consideration, even if it doesn’t end up moving the window much.
I’ll even go out on a limb and say that you’re mostly right: electoral politics generally does fuck-all to move the needle for more progressive governance, and even in the few instances where progressives eek out a few concessions they’re usually compromised to all hell and are no longer effective by the time they’re implemented. But saying that voting third party ‘does nothing’ is like denying the existence of gravity. Organized resistance to establishment politics -no matter what form that takes- is possibly the only way to move the needle when it comes to the two party system aside from holding primaries, but you might have noticed that didn’t really happen this year for the democrats. Third parties represent a threat to establishment parties, and because of that threat they have some amount of leverage and bargaining power.
I’ll be charitable again and float the possibility that you do actually see these benefits (small they may be) to third party activities, but you may just think that those small benefits aren’t worth the cost or risk. I’ll even concede that those concerns are fair and justified (for those who still see value in the democratic party), but denying the political reality of those organizations is more than a little defeatist (or wishful thinking, depending on your leaning).
*Edit: and if you’ve still decided you don’t understand those dynamics, then I’ll float the question: what do you think is an effective way to push the needle left?
You’re leaving out what happened after Jill Stein lost her bid in 2016: many (not most, not even a lot, but a few) of their positions were adopted by the DNC the following cycle (aspects of the green new deal, weed legalization, even Biden’s student debt relief could partially be attributed to their free tuition position).
You’re pretending that Jill Stein votes caused any of this when they obviously didn’t. Bernie (working from within the party) made these leftward changes in the Democratic party, and he started doing it during the 2016 primary.
Third parties represent a threat to establishment parties, and because of that threat they have some amount of leverage and bargaining power.
The only time in my lifetime I have ever seen a third party candidate have any leverage or bargaining power at all nationally was Ross Perot in 1992 and the only thing he maybe achieved is that he pushed Clinton slightly rightward (EDIT: even that’s debatable, as the Dems had lost the white house for over a decade and had to get Reagan voters somehow to get into office). The only reason he was relevant at all too was because he spent a crazy amount of money buying airtime, which is exactly the opposite of what you’re saying here with grass roots voters having more influence.
Same goes for RFK, Jr. btw, the guy is only talked about at all because Republicans want him to be a spoiler candidate for Biden, he had a famous dad, and because he bought a super bowl spot. It’s a joke. He might as well be one of those English candidates for office that show up to debates dressed up in costumes.
denying the political reality of those organizations is more than a little defeatist (or wishful thinking, depending on your leaning)
I’m not denying that they exist nor their “political reality”. If anyone is denying political reality here it’s you by pretending that third parties do all kinds of impactful work that they clearly don’t. Even Teddy fucking Roosevelt couldn’t get into office without the two party system and in the end made himself a spoiler that got Woodrow Wilson into office.
It’s pretty clear what I think, they’re ineffective. They’re far from the best way (and I’d argue aren’t even a way) to achieve any actual change or desired outcome nationally, and they produce nonviable, loser candidates that just add another turd to the shit show that is American politics.
If you’re looking to actually change national policy in America, you have to start by living in reality and working inside of the two-party system instead of denying it and having the “brilliant idea nobody ever thought of before” and launching yet another third-party.
If you want to actually have more choice in elections, you have to start by organizing movements to change the way votes are tallied and people are elected. It probably makes more sense to start those kinds of movements at the lowest possible level (i.e. local, then state, then national). The American system of (largely) “first past the post” practically guarantees that you’ll have two national parties, and our national history provides evidentiary support for exactly that.
Look at Andrew Yang, the only reason he and UBI were briefly in the national conversation is that he ran as a Democrat. He has since formed his “forward party” and was never heard from again.
If you want to actually have more choice in elections, you have to start by organizing movements to change[…]
Ah, ok, here’s something we can agree on. All political power originates in organized resistance, full-stop. The relative effectiveness of third party candidates is really just an indirect measure of what is otherwise just a group of voters exercising collective power over the electoral system.
You can hand-wave away the green party’s roll in the DNC taking on more progressive policies if you choose to (lol to it being ‘obvious’ that they didn’t, Bernie himself was a third-party candidate that caucused with the democrats in 2016), but saying change only happens ‘within the two-party system’ is ridiculous. Civil rights leaders famously organized outside of that system in order to pressure it to act on civil rights; the same could be said for organized protestors now placing pressure on the DNC from the outside to push for an end to the Palestinian genocide.
3rd party candidates are just another form of collective organization, and that organization has power the same as any other collective movement. The trouble you’re running into trying to measure their effectiveness is in looking at electoral outcomes as an end-goal.
But you are right, though; you can place more leverage over local and state government elections than you can in national elections, but some issues simply cannot be addressed at the local level. To have any hope at pressuring change on the national DNC platform, organized resistance has to happen outside of that system, especially when that structure has closed itself off from internal debate.
Measuring the success of those structures outside the 2-party system simply isn’t as easy as looking at electoral outcomes, and that’s the weakness of liberalism generally (it ignores power structures that exist outside the primary structure). The electoral system is not neutral and requires great pressure to move it.
You can hand-wave away the green party’s roll in the DNC taking on more progressive policies if you choose to (lol to it being ‘obvious’ that they didn’t, Bernie himself was a third-party candidate that caucused with the democrats in 2016), but saying change only happens ‘within the two-party system’ is ridiculous.
Bernie was a candidate for the democratic nomination for president and worked through the DNC. His protege AOC wrote the Green New Deal that you’re referencing above, and he was instrumental in a lot of leftward movements in the positions of both Clinton as a candidate and Biden as president. But sure, it was the green party the whole time. 🙄
3rd party candidates are just another form of collective organization, and that organization has power the same as any other collective movement.
In some cases, 3rd party candidates are a form of collective organization. In others, they are one guy trying to buy the airwaves or pretend there is a movement that does not actually exist.
Look at your notable national 3rd party candidates in recent years…Kanye West, RFK, Jr…Cornel West, even John Mcafee in 2016. These are jokes. They are not real candidates and they have a zero percent chance of winning nationally and most do not even have a real movement backing them. They’re essentially cults of personality without a home, because the Republicans already have their cult leader assigned, and the current Democratic candidate is an incumbent.
The trouble you’re running into trying to measure their effectiveness is in looking at electoral outcomes as an end-goal.
I am not exclusively talking about at electoral outcomes, though it makes little sense to talk about viable, national 3rd parties without talking about them. The US is not running a parliamentary system. Minority parties do not form an alliance in order to govern. People who do not win at least a significantly large percentage of seats do not have a say in the affairs of the legislature, and, in the executive branch, the President can make a large amount of decisions disregarding the losing party entirely if he so chooses.
In some cases, 3rd party candidates are a form of collective organization. In others, they are one guy trying to buy the airwaves or pretend there is a movement that does not actually exist.
Fair enough. There are a lot of reasons why a 3rd party candidate might gain traction, and discrete policy differences is really only one. I would say of those you mentioned, only Cornell West has a coherent policy strategy worth speaking of. But they do still represent collective power, especially when they receive some marginally significant portion of a vote; they just don’t necessarily represent a group that could be appealed to via policy. There’s real effort that needs to be spent identifying why any candidate might be receiving attention, and they don’t always represent a policy failure so much as general frustration (e.g. anti-establishment candidates and voters). But just because those candidates/parties/voters don’t represent a clear objective doesn’t mean there isn’t power in their existence, nor does it mean their existence is random. It’s for this reason single-issue challengers are more effective, because there’s a policy disagreement that is clearly legible that can be responded to (Yang with UBI, Bernie with income inequality, Greens with democratic reform, ect). When there’s a clear objective being communicated, a collective block of voters can move the needle.
This also isn’t limited to 3rd party candidates; the current republican national committee and nominee is made primarily of aesthetic fascist components and no real policy direction, and they represent close to 50% of the national voting base. It’s extremely important to understand why that movement attracts so many voters, and I think there’s a real lessen for Democrats to take from the growth of anti-establishment voting blocks since 2016.
Minority parties do not form an alliance in order to govern.
No argument there. The point of voting 3rd party (or from abstaining, or ticket splitting, ect) isn’t to play electoral politics, it’s to communicate some dissatisfaction with the primary choices on offer. The US faces a very serious crisis of democracy, but it’s not for the reason most liberals think. The US presidential system is failing, in large part because it’s electoral system has consistently failed to produce effective nominees and its congress has settled into an unproductive pattern of aesthetic opposition. If democrats were honestly concerned for the health of the democracy, they’d be paying more attention and addressing the concerns of those people threatening to vote 3rd party, abstain, or vote for a fascist. Instead they’re hand-wringing about ‘the other guy’ and refusing to put forward clear policies to address the crisis. Even if they pull out a win in November, a fascist takeover will only become even more likely next cycle unless they enact bold policy.
If democrats were honestly concerned for the health of the democracy, they’d be paying more attention and addressing the concerns of those people threatening to vote 3rd party, abstain, or vote for a fascist.
I think they honestly are concerned for the health of the democracy, but I think they’re limited in what they can do to address root causes because of their funding apparatus. Biden specifically strikes me as a person that cares deeply about the well-being of the citizens of this country and if he were able to wave a magic wand and reverse Citizen’s United I think he likely would do so, but it unfortunately is not that simple.
Some Democrats are fighting in an asymmetric war as well (e.g. AOC and other “justice dems”) which makes them less effective than they could be and in a constant electoral squabble, but keeps them from completely compromising their principles.
Ultimately, there is no issue as continually relevant in modern US politics as the power of money in politics (a.k.a. regulatory capture) and I do not share Biden’s optimistic outlook for the future of this country given its current political state.
Biden specifically strikes me as a person that cares deeply about the well-being of the citizens of this country and if he were able to wave a magic wand and reverse Citizen’s United I think he likely would do so, but it unfortunately is not that simple.
The primary complaint from leftists about Biden and most of the Democratic establishment is that they tend to prioritize the systems that yield electoral influence over solutions that would address any particular issue but might damage some arm of the system that is relied upon elsewhere in the party. This is why Biden is really good at putting forward policy solutions that sound good on paper but fall well short of their stated goal. He’s great at harm reduction, but when you’re someone like me who believes the problem is with the system itself, harm reduction isn’t sufficient. They could ‘wave a magic wand’ and address campaign finance regulation, but the democrats need that structure to run their campaigns. Democrats can’t consider solutions that might hurt their long-term electoral odds, and that’s a huge-fucking problem.
As you zoom out further, that problem starts to loom larger and larger, until it encompasses the entirety of the US Liberal Democratic system. Leftists end up resenting democrats because the systems we are fundamentally oriented against are exactly the ones democrats wont/can’t touch, either because there are rules in place to protect them or they depend on them themselves. The only way forward for leftists is to bring that tension to the foreground, and part of that strategy is to undermine the typical structures democrats use to reinforce their electoral advantage so that they’re forced to reconcile those contradictions.
That’s why vocal abstention and vote-spoiling/splitting are things I advocate for, because democrats can’t address those issues until they personally risk loosing power if they don’t, and i firmly believe that the risk of a fascist takeover in the US will continue growing until those things (wealth consolidation, voter disenfranchisement via campaign finance dis-regulation, privatization of essential resources, ect) are addressed. Fascist voters are responding to extremely real material conditions; they aren’t going away until those material conditions are addressed.
They could ‘wave a magic wand’ and address campaign finance regulation, but the democrats need that structure to run their campaigns.
It’s not just (or even mostly) the democrats that need that structure. It’s largely republicans who are (ironically) a minority party that need outsized money from a smaller pool of donors. Republicans do not have majoritarian, grass roots support for just about anything they do and rely to an even larger extent upon big money donors. But there also is no magical wand Biden could wave. You need legislation to pass which requires the legislature to act. Democrats have a non-filibuster proof majority in the Senate and a minority in the House…you ain’t passing jack shit with those numbers besides perhaps more billions for bombs. I’m surprised they even have a speaker and have funded the government with the state of politics in this country. I almost would’ve bet money on a default a while back.
Fascist voters are responding to extremely real material conditions; they aren’t going away until those material conditions are addressed.
I don’t know if either part of this statement is true. Historically, fascist movements have been defeated in different ways but at least one of them is just killing them in war.
I also don’t understand advocating against democrats in the short term even if it means they eventually lose out to fascism because every moment that you aren’t under fascism is better than living under it. Delay the inevitable long enough and it is no longer inevitable (see: Trump and the justice system).
Frankly, I find it surprising that there is not a group or person who haven’t tried primarying against Republicans from left of the Democratic party position.
The GOP seems like a cult-of-personality shell that is completely moveable on policy (because it doesn’t have any except perhaps hating “those people”).
That’s perhaps because it’s all about the $$$ and the leftist groups have found themselves wanting in that area, but ultimately I find it a lot less miserable to live under Republican presidents than Democratic ones, even if it isn’t utopia.
And to kind of conclude the earlier discussion, I think we’re closer to either a civil war or a blind black jewish lesbian woman amputee winning the presidency than we are to a viable 3rd national party in this country.
I don’t know if either part of this statement is true. Historically, fascist movements have been defeated in different ways but at least one of them is just killing them in war.
I would really recommend reading “The Fascist Revolution: Toward a General Theory of Fascism”, which is AFIK the most comprehensive exploration on the topic. He theorizes fascism evolves out of a decline of an existing cultural/economic disenfranchisement and dissatisfaction with the existing order. As per putting fascist movements down: it has rarely (if ever) been put down by voting it away.
Delay the inevitable long enough and it is no longer inevitable (see: Trump and the justice system)
I don’t know if this has ever been the case with fascism, but i’d be happy to be proven wrong. Especially if fascism arises out of systemic dissatisfaction, I don’t know how fascism could possibly just ‘go away’ on its own.
I also don’t understand advocating against democrats in the short term even if it means they eventually lose out to fascism because every moment that you aren’t under fascism is better than living under it.
I would like nothing more than for democrats to address the problem, they just haven’t shown the interest in it. This is also a particularly privileged view that ignores the conditions that lay the groundwork for fascism. Many of us currently live under economic and cultural oppression and violence right now, there just happens to be a number of those who don’t share that experience and would very much like things to stay the course.
And to kind of conclude the earlier discussion, I think we’re closer to either a civil war or a blind black jewish lesbian woman amputee winning the presidency than we are to a viable 3rd national party in this country.
I don’t disagree, but that’s not really the point of voting 3rd party.
I don’t know how fascism could possibly just ‘go away’ on its own.
Fascism kinda requires a single, “strong man” leader. The Achilles heal of all “dear leader” movements (autocracies, monarchies, etc.) is that the succession plan is garbage. People in these movements really get invested in “the guy” at the center of them, and it’s difficult for anyone else to scratch that same itch for them (e.g. Desantis).
If you run the clock out on Trump (i.e. he fucking dies of a filet of fish overdose), I suspect his supporters will go in the can right along with him.
The demographics are also changing and not to get all “demographics are destiny” on it, but if we somehow miraculously manage to stave off Republicans at the ballot box for a few more election cycles they may be forced to reform themselves in order to be relevant again…if it doesn’t spiral into out-and-out violence at which point politics are kind of irrelevant.
If you run the clock out on Trump (i.e. he fucking dies of a filet of fish overdose), I suspect his supporters will go in the can right along with him.
I don’t mean to sound rude, but that is incredibly naive
Some probably start following his charisma-less kids while others turn into huge desantis fans or something, but the party’s largely over once dear leader is in the ground.
If democracy is still in place at the time, that’ll mean that those factions will have to choose another guy.
A cult leader dying is the beginning of the end of the cult. Their power typically doesn’t transfer well to others.
I would love it if that were the view that most Democrats had - then I could vote for the people I like in peace. Unfortunately, every day we get a new “vote blue no matter the genocide” post trying to shame people into voting for Biden. I pray to one day be a lost cause who isn’t worth being yelled at (the earlier the better).
I’m pretty sure everyone cares about their own well-being. I haven’t been paying much attention to RFK Jr since he’s a non-factor, but at a glance I can see why some would like his policies: www.usatoday.com/elections/…/robert-f-kennedy
Yes, there is the whole conspiracy theory thing, but I don’t think entire groups of people should be completely written off as crazy since people’s justifications and motivations aren’t so straightforward. I often see democrats claiming that we shouldn’t let perfect be the enemy of good when it comes to faults with their favored candidate, but this luxury isn’t afforded to other candidates. If support for genocide can be overlooked, I’m sure far lesser things can be as well (though RFK Jr is the same on support for Israel/genocide as Biden).
If Biden loses it will be because of Biden and his 4 years of doing absolutely nothing and not getting anything he promised In to law. Also the genocide. As shitty as it sounds people can overlook the genocide if Biden was actually improving people’s lives but they are only getting worse under his presidency.
It's mostly republican lawmakers passing shitty laws in republican states that makes live for many American worse. DeSantis is the one fucking up Florida. Gregg Abott and Ted Cruz are fucking up Texas. Biden has very little influence on that.
And Biden is fighting the terrible decisions from the previous Trump administration. Were many shitty things are only now starting to show their full efect. Like the increase in higher income tax for lower brackets. Or deregulating coal mining operations that were in place to protect rivers, or defunding the women's health budget. Most of these things take time for the average person to feel the impact. And Biden is actively trying to reverse some of them. He recently signed a new bill that gurantees funding for women's health research. Biden rejoined the Paris agreement (which Trump left), with the goal of reducing emissions and combating climate change. And a lot more. But just as with the negative efects taking time to be felt, so does reversing them.
Biden for some reason just isn't liked by many Americans. It has little to do with his policies or (in)actions as a president. People like to bring up the geonicde for why they don't like him. But many of the same people have been critizing him before the situation in Israel even started.
You know this straw-man you’ve committed to is losing us the election, don’t you?
Look at the polling, look at the primaries. Biden has to do better on his own merit. Trump being bad is Trumps issue, not something that will get Biden elected.
This insistence from the neo-liberal wing of the Democratic party that this is how to run a campaign has basically handed the election to Trump. Stop it. Stop giving the election away. Do better.
Same song and dance from the 2 party machine. The way the political system is. This isnt democracy and I’d rather see trump elected purely so he can implode the system. And it’d be entirely the democrats own fault for falling into complete corruption and ineffectuality. Biden is bank rolling and arming a genocide, hes been nothing but a puppet president his entire term and the democratic party has become a corrupt oligarchy just the same as the republicans. This 2 party system is given power only by the willing consent and active participation of the american people. And I think its time that the american people said enough is enough and abolished the two existing political parties completely so that we can form a functional democracy instead of this corporate klepto clown show.
RFK isnt a perfect candidate but hes the best political candidate iv seen run for officeoin my lifetime.
Trump might implode the current system, but a functional democracy won’t replace it. It would become a one party system in the style of Russia, trump has been clear enough about that.
Look up Stein’s views of Russia. She blames NATO for Russia’s Invasion. Virtually never criticizes Putin. She says "why bother? " Stating that Ukraine used to belong to Russia. So she has no real issue with Russia erasing the Ukrainian identity and culture(genocide). She is a monster.
she did say “why bother” but it wasn’t in a statement about ukraine formerly belonging to russia. it was in the context of showing that everyone knows putin is a bad guy. she has never said she has no issue with russia erasing ukrainian identity, but she has called the invasion illegal. and she did say that nato’s saber rattling provoked it, but she still condemns the invasion.
Who cares what she says if what she would DO is not support Ukraine. Biden criticizes Israel but who cares if weapons are still supplied. Words are cheap.
He almost never criticizes Putin’s genocidal acts in Ukraine… just NATO… and repeats Putins talking points about giving up and giving Putin larger parts is their sovereign country( a “peacec treaty”). It’s as though he has no clue that Putin would just attack again exactly like after Crimea.
he never said give up or rgive putin any part of ukraine. he called the invasion illegal. and the united states is IN nato, so the president (which he is running to be) would actually have influence over nato policy.
Biden has criticized Israel and called for a cease fire. Yet he is supporting genocide? while West would refuse to help Ukraine shoot back giving Putin free reign to take a much as they want and steal s many children as they can and this isn’t supporting genocide? Why not criticize both Biden and West? They both deserve it.
Not if it’s a “compromise”… of course not. How could it end with a treaty without giving part of Ukraine(which Russia has legally annexed according to them) to Russia? They are no longer getting support to shoot back or even defend themselves so Russia has free reign to keep moving the line further and further… stealing and killing more and more children. Their goal is to erase the Ukrainian culture and to Russify the whole area.
Sure. West hasn’t said he wants that. But he has said he doesn’t want to help Ukraine defend itself by supporting it which empowers Putin to get what he wants. What incentive does Putin have to give anything back if he didn’t have to?
They run this same story about third party candidates every election year. The problem is they never show that the people who voted for the third party candidate would’ve definitely gone to one party or the other. People know what’s at stake, why do you assume people voting for RFK Jr would’ve voted for Biden? There’s nothing about his platform that is very left leaning. The most left leaning thing about him is his last name.
Edit: Just as an example, I voted for Nader in 2000. I’m someone who would’ve voted for Gore otherwise. But guess what? I was voting in a state that wasn’t in close contention at all, so I could vote for a third party without really changing the calculus of who would get elected. The idea that votes for third parties are fungible with votes for major party candidates is just not accurate.
Pollsters do ask “if the election was held today, between X and Y, who would you vote for”, for multiple combinations of candidates, so you can infer some of those opinions. I don’t think they explicitly ask people to rank their choices, or at least I haven’t seen those polls.
Because it’s true every time, and it works a lot. Gore would have won if Nader wasn’t on the ticket, and guess what? The Republicans have been propping up third-party candidates for years.
Hell, in Florida they got some random dude on the ticket just because he had the same name as the Democrat – and it worked.
Intuitively it doesn’t even make sense in this case though. Biden is running as the safe ordinary establishment candidate. Trump and RFK Jr are going for the right wing wacko conspiracy theory crowd.
Unless I see data to the contrary, I’m going to assume that RFK Jr siphons more votes from Trump.
That’s kind of the problem we have now. Why would someone that was a Biden supporter flip to RFK, when RFK is very clearly significantly to the right, and way off in crazy-land compared to Biden? I don’t know. But given how likely Trump supporters are to show up, Biden really can’t afford to lose too many to RFK. Or West, for that matter, who is closer to what I’d prefer politically.
Except they’re talking about Vermont, where there are open primaries, meaning they could have been Republicans trying to spoil the democratic nomination. I find that far more believable than a Bernie bro voting for Trump.
I find that far more believable than a Bernie bro voting for Trump.
I don’t. I was–am–a Sanders supporter, and I’m still pissed that twice the Democratic party has done everything it could to sink Sanders. I voted for Stein in 2016–in a state that easily went blue–because I honestly didn’t think Trump could be as awful as he was. I figured he’d be run-of-the-mill Republican, rather than trying to go straight fascist. I figured, correctly that my vote would make very little difference in a state that is as reliably blue, albeit NIMBY, as it is.
I was, of course, entirely wrong about how awful Trump could be, and was.
In 2020 I voted for Biden, although I’m still pissed that yet again the DNC threw all their weight behind him, instead of the more principled candidate.
And I’ll vote for him again, because any other vote is going to be hurting people that I care about. Even though Cornell West has, IMO, better principles than Biden, voting for West in a state that only went blue because the ‘vote was rigged’ last time would not be a good idea if I don’t want to support a decent into fascism.
Why don’t you believe it that it’s more about the open primary in this one state than Bernie voters voting for Trump?
You voted for Bernie and still voted for Clinton after all the bullshit that happened within the party and so did I. I would need to see equivalent data from a closed primary state to even begin to believe in this possibility. From their side, it’d be the equivalent of one of us voting for Trump in an open primary back in 2016 when nobody thought he’d win the general in order to spoil the Republican race for the general election.
Okay well I added that as an edit and wasn’t able to reread your comment while writing it. Either way the point still stands that you didn’t jump to Trump after Bernie lost the primary and I don’t believe this analysis as it was done in a single state with an open primary. Occam’s Razor states that the simplest solution is the most likely and Republicans trying to spoil the Democratic ticket makes a lot more sense than Bernie bros voting for Trump.
If RFK is the third party that does it, that REALLY highlights how broken the 2 party system is, and all the "we don't have a choice, vote for the lesser evil of the 2" morons are to blame.
RFK Jr. is a piece of dog shit drying in the hot summer sun. I can't imagine in any universe this guy (who makes me wish there was a Sirhan Sirhan Jr.) draining votes from Joe Biden when their views are diametrically opposed.
I believe the latest polls show Bobby Kennedy Jr. taking slightly more support from Trump. It makes sense. In order to support Kennedy, you have to listen to him first.
The conspiracy theorist label stops the left from even considering him. The voters who are more likely to give him a chance are on the right. They don’t care if he’s called a conspiracy theorist.
I don’t know this author, but when I see articles like this I always think it’s a reverse Hanlon’s razor. I refuse to believe the people reporting on it are stupid and assume they’re fucking evil.
I said this in another post, but i believe older democrats who dont keep up with the nonsense of politics could very well just see the name Kennedy and vote for him. If we werent in a very red state i would be worried about my grandfather in his 80s doing exactly that.
He seems to specifically be gunning for the demographic of both right and left wing people that support pseudoscience nonsense. All the anti-vaxxers, for example. It's certainly entirely possible he'd steal more voters from Trump than from Biden.
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