Democrats have all the spontaneity of the House of Windsor. Or, closer to home, they’re closer to what Republicans once were, a party that falls in line not in love.
I would totally be open to someone other than Biden running… If the DNC (or any party) had actually started promoting and positioning anyone good 2-3 years ago.
It’s too late now. Biden is the guy.
And all the people on the Internet I see whining about how they don’t like the choices available: if you actually want to do anything productive instead of just bitching you need to do the work in advance. Get involved with political organizations, campaigns, etc.
Even looking further ahead to he 2028 elections (assuming the US is still having elections)… Who is the DNC planning on running? Harris is cop who doesn’t excite anyone. AOC is probably too polarizing to get moderate support, and is probably move valuable in Congress right now. Newsome maybe? I hate to throw out celebrities, but it’s happened enough that it’s possible and John Stewart seems like he might just go for it. Heck, even he is 62 right now, so he’d be 66 if he ran in 2028, and 67 by inauguration day.
The superdelegates have informed us of how they intend to vote [before the actual election] and we can conclusively call this election for you being wrong about that.
So? It’s still the DNC keeping a thumb on the scales. It’s a little like saying that because the king was benevolent and listened to the people that one time, the monarchy isn’t flawed and ought to be preserved. If the superdelegates didn’t like Obama, there was never any obligation to switch their votes to align with the will of the voters. And let’s not overlook how massively shitty it is that the DNC is literally trying to pick winners by announcing who they plan to vote for before actual voters cast votes.
Everything about the administration makes it seem like they’re trying to promote and position Harris. Just trying and just being someone younger than Biden isn’t enough, it has to be someone who can hold together his coalition and there just isn’t anyone who totally fits, that’s why we are where we are.
2028 will be Harris, Newsome, Buttigieg probably, maybe Fetterman depending on recovery. Gretchen Whitmer and Andy Beshear are Democratic governors with a decent story to tell. AOC will take the Bernie campaign to the next generation no doubt. I don’t think the bench is that barren, but none of these people have a particularly compelling reason to declare in 2024 because they’re all just decent candidates, not overwhelming favorites.
The closest thing to an overwhelming candidate taking on a 1 term president was DeSantis, and he crumbled eventually.
Everything about the administration makes it seem like they’re trying to promote and position Harris
Why do you think this? I think I've seen a handful of articles about Harris the whole term and people on the Internet who don't like her claim that she will be pushed. Id say Newsome is def being positioned to run tho
There’s not one big “they” out there pulling all the strings. Newsom is positioning himself to run in 2028. The Administration is positioning Harris as heir apparent. I don’t think there is any conspiracy to put Harris at the top of the ticket, but her entire job is being there if Biden dies, and I think it’s pretty reasonable to think Biden wants her to run after his 2 terms are up, they agree enough on politics and he picked her to be VP.
I say they’re positioning her because for the above reasons it would be extremely useful to have a popular young VP waiting on deck, and they might as well try. But I see it in every press release and announcement from the “Biden-Harris Administration” and they made her border czar and they’re sending her everywhere to talk about abortion, they’re putting her around important political issues so she can run on experience in the future.
“a AAA single-player shooter in today’s market was a truly awful idea” -See it’s the single-player bit that’s the issue back to live services! An EA exec
Citizens United and SpeechNow packaged and sold the entire electoral process to corporate donors. We are 14 years into this.
It will not improve until those rulings are overturned, which will not happen until lifetime appointees in their 50s die or resign.
And having congress pass a law won’t work because we are 14 years into it. The only feasible measure remaining is through strong executive action, which is also unlikely because of the same mechanisms at work.
Biden isn’t about to do an FDR and marshall his party, and I don’t think he ever was or will. He is well aware of where the loyalties of Congress lie.
The time for a challenger to have stepped up to Biden was before the primaries. The only ones who did lost abysmally. You and many like you could have spent your time and effort recruiting and canvassing for someone else. But you didn’t. Instead, you just complain about Biden and have the temerity to say “any faults of Biden will be because of Trump” when you didn’t do a thing to try to get anyone to primary him.
I read this as saying if you can't build an electoral apparatus within the Democrat party capable of challenging the party leaders, your opinion doesn't matter to the democrats
I love this “it’s not worth trying” attitude as an excuse to complain.
Weirdly, I haven’t heard anyone who was pushing for Dean Phillips or Marianne Williamson make that claim or that complaint. Maybe because they actually did the work.
I see. The idea that you can interpret my comment any way you like but I are not allowed to interpret any of your comments except 100% literally is intellectual honesty to you.
Yes. You already said that how you feel about what I said is more important than what I actually meant. Which, apparently, is an intellectually honest position.
it doesn't matter if i believe you. i'm not going to argue with you about what you meant. there is no evidence i could concieve of that would be able to contradict your self-report of your intentions. so what i believe doesn't matter.
Yes. It is clearer. It is clearer that you are just a troll and I will be flagging you as such from now on. I do not advise you to continue trolling me.
Given that the system is heavily skewed toward incumbency, your comment is a bit disingenuous. We both know that the DNC intended Biden to run. He had the advantage of thier coffers, thier PR machine, and the support of their leadership. Implying that the playing field was at all fair ignores reality.
I do agree, though, that Biden's many faults are his own. His most recent failure, support for ethnic cleansing and denial of aid to refugees, should have made him unelectable by the party that claims to be pro-human rights... but here we are, with him as the best of two terrible candidates.
Also, any possible challengers to Biden had to know that anybody they pissed off by doing that would remember in 2026, 2028, etc., and that they should just “wait their turn” instead
It’s not disingenuous at all. If you don’t want Biden to run, work to primary him. That’s how it works. The fact that almost no candidates even tried to primary him shows that people like the person I responded to didn’t want to actually do the hard work it takes. They just waited until the inevitable and then complained. So I am going to point that out when they bitch about Biden like this. If they had at least tried, there was at least a chance Biden wouldn’t be the nominee. They didn’t try.
There was approximately a zero percent chance, statistically, that the superdelegates would vote for anyone beyond Biden. There was nearly no chance that a challenger would have been received with anything but contempt. This "logic" is the same logic both Reps and Dems use to gaslight third party challengers, too. "If you try real hard you can overcome our utter control of the debates and privileged position to win! We promise!"
Alternately, there WAS a choice and the vast majority of Democrats are okay with a candidate who is 100% okay cutting off aid to the victims of ethnic cleansing. I prefer to hope that that isn't the case.
I still say that if you don’t work for change and just complain after the possibility of change has passed, you’re being ridiculous.
Bernie was willing to run despite the DNC establishment. He knew what he was going up against. He did it more than once even. Maybe he thinks that if you don’t at least make an effort to change things and just complain about them afterward, you’re being ridiculous too?
And he was vilified and his supporters were blamed for Clinton's loss, as I recall. The party elite are on record noting that they would be comfortable bypassing the party's choice. There was no real chance that Sanders would get the nomination. Regardless, your assumption that anyone displeased with Biden just sat on their hands is... somewhat ridicluous. Given that they were going up against one of the most powerful political machines in the world, the chance of them making a dent in the establishment, even if they were activists full-time, would be low.
And if you think running within the party is difficult, hoo boy. You don't even want to talk about the anti-democratic fuckery that the GOP and DNC collude to impose on third part hopefuls.
This smells an awful lot like the "poor people just need to try harder" nonsense conservatives hit people with when low income people complain about being low income.
I have campaigned for alternate candidates for many years. Unfortunately, it's a battle that I'm meant to lose, every time. Contrast with the average party line voter, whose effort is often showing up for an hour to vote as they're told.
The primary system is an incredibly undimocratic process. I live in West Virginia. The primary is almost always decided by the time it gets to my state. Everyone else has simply dropped out. Does my vote not matter?
A one day primary in which all candidates go against each other and everyone votes on a national voting day. We also completely get rid of the super delegate system and make it raw popular vote.
To be fair, anyone that wants to run in a primary against the incumbent is already going to receive less due to the “never run against them” unwritten rule. We’ve been primed to see it as a failing strategy, and anyone that tries gets shouted down because “now is not the time.”
I’ll readily admit that some great things have been done this presidency, and Biden needs to be more vocal about that. However, his age being part of the conversation means that they’re too afraid to actually have him talk about it (it seems like).
I dunno. I haven’t felt less excited to vote in my life, and that’s due to the pressure all around.
“Vote or it’s fascism” is a great motivator to get out, but when it turns into a yearly thing it no longer it no longer feels like duty.
And yes, voting to stop fascism is a good thing. What I’m getting at is that apathy is going to win until we get someone that we can actually be excited for. Another Neo-liberal win isn’t the victory that gives me high hopes for the future.
I…are you being intentionally obtuse here? My point is that “putting in the work” quickly is overshadowed by the DNC having the largest megaphone available.
And a lot of us are working to just live. “Putting in the work” means either taking away what little time you have to decompress, or not working and instead stomping for that ideal candidate, by taking leave from work.
And aside from that, I was pointing out the “why” of it. Stop being abrasive and actually come into a topic willing to listen and talk.
It’s not about convincing someone else to run, someone needed to convince Biden NOT to run.
It’s super simple… A sitting President is the de facto leader of their party. The only person who can make the decision if they should be the candidate or not is that very person themselves.
See Johnson in 1968. He could have been the first 2+ term President since Roosevelt having served the rest of Kennedy’s term + his own term, but chose to bow out instead. In the end that was his call to make and nobody elses.
Hence the past tense. :) But technically, nothing is final until the conventions in July and August, and nobody OFFICIALLY has enough delegates to be the candidate yet.
Fair. Most people here don’t seem to understand that the time for him to step down has most likely already passed and are still talking about how someone else could run against him (without usually naming who) and complaining that no one has when, as I said earlier, they did not do the work to even try to get someone else in there.
And people really didn’t like it when I suggested that maybe Bernie doing it twice despite the DNC being against him and knowing he didn’t have much of a chance was because he thought that trying before complaining that no one tried was the thing to do.
I love Bernie, but even if the DNC decided to not fuck with him, his time ended when he had the heart attack and the stent, and I say that as someone who literally just had a heart attack and a stent a month ago. Survival is debilitating. :( OTOH, it IS surviving…
Biden is going to be the nominee. That’s how the cookie crumbles.
Biden is currently 81. I googled and there's something like a 10% chance he dies within the year. Similar number for Trump obviously, given he's fat, angry and doesn't exercise. Unfortunately God is dead, or I'd be able to factor in thoughts and prayers too.
It’s ridiculous that the DNC doesn’t understand this shit depresses turnout.
People want to choose who to vote for, voting for someone you dislike because the other candidate is worse doesn’t get enough voters to comfortably win
Biden is going to fuck around and lose, and the “moderates” are going to blame it on progressives (even tho they always show up) and say the 2028 candidate has to be even more rightwing
Or, Biden squeaks out a victory, and the party says that also proves the party needs to go more rightwing
No matter what happens, both parties keep drifting right.
And that reality is why we spend 100s of millions every election, and still barely crack 2/3s turnout.
Progressives do not show up to vote. What state are you looking at? Biden is a clear representation of his electorate. If young people actually bothered to vote the landscape would be so much different. The good news is young people are actually starting to be more politically active now.
Edit: you can downvote, but we can also look at the stats. I don’t get this anti-reality sentiment on Lemmy.
2nd edit. Just in case it’s not clear for those needing sources (even though this is extremely researched):
In 2022, younger voters made up a smaller share of the electorate than they did in 2018. In 2022, 36% of voters were under 50, compared with 40% of voters in 2018. Decreased turnout among these more reliably Democratic voters contributed to the GOP’s better performance in November.
Older voters turned out more reliably in both elections – and continued to be largely loyal to Republican candidates. For example, among adults ages 69 and older in 2022
What are you talking about? Progressives are the least reliable voting block in the US. This isn’t some speculation, it is a known, well-studied fact. It is the very same fact that leads to the Dems becoming more conservative.
It’s always the most uninformed that speak with the most confidence.
In 2022, younger voters made up a smaller share of the electorate than they did in 2018. In 2022, 36% of voters were under 50, compared with 40% of voters in 2018. Decreased turnout among these more reliably Democratic voters contributed to the GOP’s better performance in November.
Older voters turned out more reliably in both elections – and continued to be largely loyal to Republican candidates. For example, among adults ages 69 and older in 2022
Pew research on 2022 turnout. No need for condescending tone brother. We are all in the same fight but we need facts on our side.
In your lifetime, sure. Id argue Nixon.was far more progressive, and he was a Republican. Go look up the tax rates back then. Now look go who started the EPA.
Oh my god. Anyone still refusing what this administration has achieved despite having a republican supermajority in the house is living under a rock or has an alternate agenda.
I’ve tried to bock you I don’t know how many times, but I still see your comments, and your post history is blank whether I have you as blocked or not
It’s incredibly annoying because obviously nothing productive is going to come from us talking. Since I apparently can’t block you, can you just block me at least?
I never want to have to talk to you again, and it feels mutual.
But you also keep replying to my comments in different threads, so I’ll probably just have to remember exchanging you with is a giant waste of time. I’d rather just forget you exist
I’m a lot older than you and have better news sources than the average MSM consuming crowd. From my gleanings Biden is a lot more progressive than I expected him to be but one wouldn’t even suspect it from the corporate news. He has managed to get student loan forgiveness, champion support of unions and pass infrastructure reform - hardly right wing agendas. It just that Biden’s successes do not get a lot of press.
When I hear complaints about Biden I recall this quote: “I look with commiseration over the great body of my fellow citizens who, reading newspapers, live and die in the belief they have known something of what has been passing in the world around them” - Harry Truman
Any democracy based on FPTP voting will trend rightward. It’s a fundamental flaw in the voting system from a game theory perspective. The dynamics of a two party system will always support a good cop/bad cop dominant strategy (think of spoiler candidates, and how we always are faced with the prospect of voting against a bad candidate rather than for a preferable one). Good candidates exist, but our preferences are not a priority inherent to the design of the system.
We would do better with approval voting or Concorcet, but the only way to change the voting system is to get buy-in from the parties to whom it would be certainly fatal.
Why don’t the Republicans try to move left? Who are the right wingers going to vote for if they do and try and take some of the moderates from the Democrats?
Dark money out of politics would alleviate a lot of the issues we’ve been seeing. The voting system is still the game we have to play if we want democracy, and badly designed games are only fun for the winners. An approval vote would get us more broad consensus in leadership, and a return to government based on a shared vision of society, rather than a Congress perpetually locked in a darkly comedic reimagining of the French National Assembly.
But republicans will always be against that, and so will neoliberals.
Doesn’t mean we can’t do it, but we need to wrest control of the Dem party from neoliberals, and primary a bunch of incumbent Dems first.
It’s like climate change, it’s not a quick fix, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be trying immediately, just that we’re not going to see noticeable results for a long time.
Which is why I feel like I’m insane no one else is losing their shit that NH got their primary taken away for a law only state republicans could have changed. The DNC told NH Dems if they didn’t violate state law, they didn’t get primary delegates. And then followed thru.
It’s not a coincidence NH has been voting progressive in primaries over the party pick.
If they did it this year, what’s stopping them from doing it in 2028?
Without a primary, voters have zero say. And legally the DNC can do whatever they want in a primary, even outright ignoring the result.
It’s not a coincidence NH has been voting progressive in primaries over the party pick.
The party wanted to punish New Hampshire and reward South Carolina because the former went for Sanders and the latter proved pivotal for Biden in 2020.
You don’t sound crazy to me at all. The only part where I differ is that I lost hope a few years ago and emigrated. My family was only there for a generation and it hasn’t worked out. I still follow US politics because it’s all I know. Every time I try to learn UK politics I get uncanny valley vibes.
I left to Germany and uncanny valley is a perfect way to describe it. 98% of the politics are so much easier to handle than American politics, because people are working off of a much higher floor. 2% of politics are fucking terrifying in a very different way. Plus, nuclear and homeopathy are Germany’s southern baptists: it’s hard to understand if you’re not from here and leads to mostly super backward laws, but it’s a weirdly deeply rooted part of the culture.
But the longer I’m here, the less I can understand American politics. Like, how can ~15 states decide to take money for food out of their children’s mouths? What is the actual point of a nation, if not mutual support, especially for children? I used to think that there was a lot of brainwashing and misinformation, but I’m starting to think nobody needs to be tricked into supporting awful causes anymore.
No matter what happens, both parties keep drifting right.
Go back 20 years and the Democrats had a significant anti-abortion faction, formally opposed gay marriage, even acknowledging trans people was taboo, the core of John Kerry's health care plan was some minor government subsidies for employer-based plans, any acknowledgment of police racism was absolutely not done, Kerry voted for the Iraq war with no regrets, and I could go on.
To say that the Democratic party is more right-wing today doesn't hold up to a second of actual scrutiny.
The populace has gotten more progressive on a few individual issues and forced Democratic lawmakers to update their talking points a bit, but actual policy on things like the roll of the federal government in regulating and subsidizing businesses, campaign finance regulations, civil liberties and surveillance, and granting asylum to migrants has all gotten markedly more regressive
Part of me just wants trump to win just so the groups looking to ‘punish’ Biden for not doing their will will have a blast under another 4 years of trump. You vote with your head for the good of the country as a whole, not with your emotions for the whims of your clan.
If Democrats care about your daughter, they would have run a better candidate.
As you acknowledge, the stakes are incredibly high, so why would we run the only person polling poorly against Donald Trump? I hate to tell you, but they don’t give a damn about your daughter.
I’m going to vote for him and throw up in my mouth when it happens. What happens if enough people don’t ? Because I suspect that’s what’s gonna happen.
This isn’t a hypothetical. What are you going to do when the death squads come for your daughter? I’m personally scared pissless. It doesn’t seem like democratic leadership is.
The election was supposed to be the last line of defense. Not the first.
The way I see it, because we drug our feet, we have one shot at this, and we better pray Joe Biden’s enough.
All we can do is flee and hope we can flee to somewhere safe. There’s really no other thing that can be done. I’m not going to have both of us go out in a firefight.
Considering we might literally lose our country to fascism, no it wasn’t good enough.
The stakes are simply too high for failure, any amount, period.
It feels like nobody is taking this seriously. You have the last poster and the very same breath talking about the death camps coming for their daughter, and even they don’t seem to be taking it seriously.
It’s all about to crumble down and we’re not asking for what needs to be done to fix it.
For God’s sake, I remember progressives accurately complaining about merrick garland when he was appointed telling Biden it was a very bad appointment.
But Biden didn't personally swoop down from the heavens and fix my personal issues, and he didn't unilaterally end another country's war! He didn't pass laws (which he can't do) or give me money (which he also can't do).
Surely things will be better under Trump! I'll take my ball and go home. Who cares about all of the people who will suffer under Trump? I DEMAND perfection and am willing to make the situation worse out of a misguided desire for it!
In the face of climate change, the half measures we’re seeing are not an option. That seems to be true for a lot of political issues of our time. Whether that be the increasing rise of fascism or climate change. Biden likely would have been fine in any other era, but we need strong changes in a strong leader right now, or we will not survive.
I imagine the people who don’t like Biden because he’s not progressive enough could feel the same except in reverse, saying that you deserve to live in a Trump dictatorship for forcing a milquetoast candidate.
In your mind, the people screaming their voices raw that Biden is an unpopular candidate, and could lose like Hillary did in 2016…
If they’re right, and Biden does lose, you’re going to blame them for trying to warn everyone before it was too late to change candidates?
That’s the same logic that got medicine women burned as witches when they said somone won’t survive an illness.
Like, I see that shit all the time here, it never makes any sense, and when I try to get someone to explain why they think that, I usually just get some weird insult or no reply at all.
When covid broke out, were you also yelling at scientists to shut up because as long as you weren’t aware of the danger you thought it couldn’t hurt you?
We “punished” them in 2016 for blackballing Bernie and forcing Hillary down our throats. But all we did was punch ourselves in the nuts because Trump moved this country so far right that a fascist overthrow of democracy is now an established and serious risk, and the election reforms youll be getting are most assuredly not the ones you’re hoping for.
So, no, I’m not gonna ignore very recent history and punch myself in the nuts again. I look forward to supporting more progressive policy reforms in the future but the threat to our election system is much more immediate and our votes are the only thing that can protect it against an insurrectionist ex-President coming to finish the job.
If this is the case, then Democrat learned no lesson from that. If what you are saying is true, and I don’t think it is, then they fucked around and found out, and now they’re doing it again.
So, which is it? Is it the progressive block an incredibly important piece of winning the electorate? Or is it a worthless group you don’t have to make concessions towards?
Seems like they deserve the contempt to me. They don’t get out they don’t organize they don’t find and promote candidates and when push comes to shove they say oh well fascism will be okay for a few years. They’d rather sit back and watch people’s lives be destroyed because they’re selfish pricks. Any idiot who thinks destruction of democracy is going to work out for the long term deserves contempt.
The progressive block is one small piece out of many, many other groups that make up the American “left”. The democrats are in the undesirable position of having to juggle the sometimes competing interests of all these little blocks, which ultimately means that nobody is ever truly happy with the direction of the party except for those in the largest blocks (i.e. liberal moderates).
Notice, though, that the moderate is never required to compromise, but it’s always the progressive who is. Either they are a large enough faction to matter and have their demands met, or they aren’t. It’s that simple.
Yes, because they have to please the moderates or else they won’t win. Progressives are just big enough to tip the scales in a major election against an opponent with a sufficiently energized base, hence the occasional bone throwing. Progressives need to grow their base and mainstream their ideas if they want to have serious sway (see the religious right 1980s -> now). Unfortunately, this process usually happens on a generational timescale, and without the level of conviction that comes from absolutely balls-crazy religious brainwashing, people tend to get discouraged and give up after a few election cycles.
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