Ohhhhh so ONLY Joe can beat Trump! That’s why he’s doing it everyone, no one else has any chance!
This makes zero fucking sense outside of the incumbents advantage. The biggest talking points around the country to get ’moderates’ and ‘undecideds’ to vote for Trump, vote third party, or abstain from voting are almost completely centered on him personally and to a lesser extent the DNC. It also ignores the many 2020 voters who were “I can’t believe they’re going to make me vote for Joe Biden”, people which anecdotally is everyone I know irl that voted for him.
If he had stepped aside and let another primary happen not only do we lose all that baggage(a good portion of which I will freely admit is horsehit and the remainder mostly also apply to Trump) and the candidates could use the primary to get the electorate excited about something new and different, which would be a big gain in the fight to stop fascism. I’m gonna vote for you again Joe, but this is a foolish take imo
And in the 2020 primaries Biden won the candidacy against Bernie Sanders with 2,720 delegates to 1,114. They also had 51% of the popular vote compared to Bernie’s 26% in the primaries.
Biden is the most popular DNC candidate, sadly he best represents the feelings of the most Americans total. Even if we had a further left and more overall popular candidate, we wouldn’t have nearly as many people cross the aisle from conservatives who are currently split down the middle between Trump loyalism and Rule of Law conservatives.
Yes, the democrat establishment favorite did win the democrat establishment race. No, the democrat establishment do not represent the feelings of most Americans.
Right by the time my state had its primary the DNC had declared Biden the presumptive nominee. My voice didn’t matter because the way primaries are done
Yes, the popular vote in the establishment democrat dominated primaries. Voter participation rate is terrible in the general election and even worse in party primaries.
I don’t understand your point. Of course the candidate with more votes wins. If more of the voters pick establishment Democrats, then that’s who wins.
If moderates need to earn the votes of progressives, then progressives also need to earn the votes of moderates. If more voters are going with moderates, then the progressive candidate needs to do more to earn their vote.
For as much as this is harped about with Biden and establishment Democrats, I’m surprised the corollary isn’t obvious to people. The progressive candidate does not automatically deserve votes by the virtue of being progressive.
You’re confusing the primaries with the general election. If democrats want to win the general election consistently, they need to pick better candidates, not just ones that the party favors. If a progressive won the primary, do you think democrats would not vote for them? Democrats learned the wrong lessons from 2008, 2016, and even 2020.
No my point is that the better candidates are those that win the primaries. They need to win votes for that to happen. The DNC could throw their weight behind them to help, but they still need to win the majority in the primary. And requires a broad appeal.
Again, party primaries, which have way too much influence from the party, do not test for better candidates. You talk about broad appeal, but both trump and clinton had less than 50% approval during the election of 2016.
I agree with all of this, which is why I've lost all hope we can turn the ship of state around before we hit the iceberg of climate change. Oh well...
But I'm encouraged because the last time the climate changed this abruptly it brought down hereditary monarchies so maybe this change will get rid of nation states entirely.
We don’t know it’s certain he can do it again either
Biden didn’t have a four year presidency filled with deep economic issues for the average person last time, we were also in a plague, and had seen insane political activism all year. Inflation wasn’t on everyone’s mind and there weren’t two serious wars going on that we are funding with him as the CMC. He’s not popular or well liked even by his voters
Additionally Trump was and had been obviously more looming and visible to the average voter who really doesn’t pay much attention to politics or even the news for that matter. People were animated to get him out. I don’t think it will happen that way this time. Most folks have short memories and vote with their pocket book.
Again I’ll crawl over glass to for him because there’s only two possibilities and I hope I’m wrong, but it seems like they are playing prevent defense, and prevent defense prevents you from winning. I don’t feel confident in the slightest
Let’s all be completely honest, here. Far Left and Right folks are loud af, but the American Population is so Centrist that they made Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden the DNC Presidential candidates to begin with. A whitebread US Moderate old fucker like Joe probably has the highest chances, period.
Centrists are his biggest risk in this election. I run in mostly far left/anarchist circles socially, everyone is begrudgingly voting for Biden again, because fascism. Meanwhile the self professed centrists/moderates in my family, at work, and even online I’ve spoken to or over heard are the ones on the fence about Biden and either want to not vote at all or for a third party. Anecdotal as hell, but i think the centrists are gonna fall for the old “republicans are better for the economy” bullshit
Exactly. Leftist voters will be biting their tongue voting for Biden, but they’ll be voting for him. Centrists will stay home bitching about gas prices being Bidens fault.
I’m not so sure about this. The number one issue in the midterms for voters was the economy, but that didn’t translate into a Republican victory. Democrats actually gained ground in the Senate, and Republicans only took the House by single digits.
The only conclusion I can draw from this is that voters no longer believe Republicans are better for the economy. If it leads to effectively a tie result, it would seem the myth has been finally dispelled.
All Biden has to do is remind those suburban centrists that the Republicans want to force their daughter/granddaughter to carry their rapist's baby to term.
Yeah, one of them had a hostage crisis plague his presidency, the next got spoiled into total oblivion by a billionaire with some charts, and the last killed over a million Americans by sowing plague misinformation because it made him look bad.
A preponderance of extraordinary circumstances does not establish a trend worth placing bets on.
It’s a good thing Biden hasn’t had any major crises during his presidency or spoiler campaigns launched, so we can just pretend he’s not like the others.
Biden’s been resolving crises handed to him by the last guy
Cornell West and RFK ain’t Ross Perot
it’s a good thing you’re smart enough to vote for Biden anyways instead of being a pissant who lets fascism win because he doesn’t like one old guy with an ice cream tooth right?
Keep telling yourself everything’s going great man. Biden’s term has not been a time of slow and steady improvement for many people and not a lot of people are going to think it’s all just Trump’s fault.
Like I said that’s the only part I can understand, but just because something has been a trend doesn’t mean it will stay one or even that there won’t be exceptions. I see that side of it, but I’m still suspicious he can do it again
It’s been more than 100 years since an incumbent didn’t run for a second term and their party maintained the presidency (excluding Calvin Coolidge who technically didn’t run two terms, but basically did). No one knows what would happen if he were not to run, but history has shown that it’ll probably lead to a Republican win. It’s easier to predict the outcome having the incumbent run, and probably against the same person last time. Not saying it’s the best decision, but it is the most logical one.
That’s pretty much what I’m getting at, I get all the logical reasons but like you said the logical call ain’t always the right one. It’s too late now to second guess but him saying this is a bad idea, it makes it seem like there was a different outcome but it was decided without the will of the people being considered. If he was super popular it would be a different story, but he ain’t
What? No ones waiting for a super popular one, I’m saying if he were in some hypothetical world actually super popular just blindly deciding to run him again would be unquestionable. That there haven’t been any popular presidents recently doesn’t take away from the concept of a president being popular. If anything that means that incumbents should start being reevaluated more
Except it is. They said it’s not always the best, which is true, but you can’t know in advance what the best choice is. Making illogical choices leads to worse outcomes on average. I really shouldn’t have to explain this.
Biden thought that Trump would be politically finished if he lost the 2020 election --and in a rational world he would’ve been-- but he underestimated both the cowardice of Republican leaders and the slavish devotion of Trump’s followers, as did many of us, myself included. That’s why he feels obligated to take the safe route instead of stepping down. If Trump was gone or otherwise not the existential threat that I and many others believe he is, I doubt very much that Biden would be running again.
Honestly, this reminds me of 1968. Old president supports war unpopular with youth, people protest, the GOP choose a failed candidate from the previous election, y'know?
The 1968 United States presidential election was the 46th quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 5, 1968. The Republican nominee, former vice president Richard Nixon, defeated both the Democratic nominee, incumbent vice president Hubert Humphrey, and the American Independent Party nominee, former Alabama governor George Wallace. This was the last election until 1988 in which the incumbent president was not on the ballot. Incumbent president Lyndon B. Johnson had been the early front-runner for the Democratic Party’s nomination, but he withdrew from the race after only narrowly winning the New Hampshire primary. Eugene McCarthy, Robert F. Kennedy and Humphrey emerged as the three major candidates in the Democratic primaries until Kennedy was assassinated. His death after midnight on June 6, 1968, continued a streak of high-profile assassinations in the 1960s.
Overall in total, I probably agree, but the raw quote of saying that he’d probably not be running if Trump wasn’t running is giving certain groups too much ammo. They won’t present or repeat everything said, just that tiny quote or versions of it.
OTOH if the GOP wants Biden to drop out all they have to do is get Trump to do the same. So it’s on them. They want Biden out all Trump has to do is continue to shit his pants in FL and never run again.
They don’t care about truth and reality either. If you play the game of addressing every GOP slander and lie you’ll lose every time. They just keep flinging crap at the wall in the hopes something sticks. They don’t care how many buckets it takes.
I’m not doing that, I’m just saying it’s unhelpful to give them ammunition that is or could be specifically age-oriented or imply retirement, etc, when that’s the absolute number one attack point by the opposition, Dem or GOP. This isn’t hard to understand.
And I’m saying it’s pointless to worry about ammunition when they just make everything up anyway. Playing defense doesn’t work. You’re looking at this statement purely defensively. You need to look at it and spin it offensively. “I care so much about this country and protecting it from blatant fascism that I’m going into the breach once more.” That’s the sentiment.
For fucks sake. He’s trying to do everything he can to alert the country their democracy is in grave danger to the point of admitting he wouldn’t still be there if he didn’t think he had the best chance of stopping Trump.
And at the sidelines we have endless hand-wringing about his age and calls for a better candidate.
THEY ARENT STEPPING UP BECAUSE THEY AGREE BIDEN HAS THE BEST CHANCE.
Everyone complains the Democrats suck at messaging and then bitch about everything they say and do, even when it’s honest, straightforward, and easy to understand.
To be clear, I’m fine with him and his age, I just think the minimal quote that will inevitably be amplified may be too useful for the hand-wringers and GOP.
People balk that they aren’t doing anything and need to be taught a lesson to go further left
Republicans win the subsequent midterm because of poor turnout
The country gets dragged to the right, and people balk that Democrats aren’t making things better or stopping them
Republicans win the presidency and Congress
People complain that it’s Democrats faults because they didn’t do anything to inspire them to vote
Withholding a vote to push Dems left would work if Republicans actually were basically the same. But because they’re right wing extremists, all it accomplished is the opposite. The country moves right, not left.
I like how in your example the Republicans get to push the country right but the Dems cant push it left. Republicans are not winning super majorities every time they do things, and yet they get it done. There’s a large monied wing of the Democrats that works as hard as the Republicans to block a lot of progress, and time and time again magic spoiler democrats come out of nowhere and theres always just enough of them, really curious how there’s always just enough of those types to keep the rich donors safe.
Democrats do not want to do what they say they want to do as much as Republicans want to do what they say they want do.
“Our democracy” has been dead for a century. You guys are like rats running around a maze with your moronic “lesser of two evils” between two parties all controlled by the same interests.
THEY ARENT STEPPING UP BECAUSE THEY AGREE BIDEN HAS THE BEST CHANCE.
This is not at all the only conclusion one would draw from an incumbent president not drawing challengers. Incumbent challenges usually cause division and a divided party may be in a worse place than a party unifying around a bad candidate. If Biden decides to run, we’re pretty much stuck with him.
I am totally dismissing both Cornell West* (thanks for the correction) and Robert Kennedy Jr because of their third party runs in this environment, and anyone else wanting to challenge Biden would need to make a very solid case that they are a better pick.
It’s worth saying I wanted Bernie. I don’t think even trying to pivot to him would be a good idea.
I don’t think this is who you meant. Cornell West maybe?
I think we’re stuck with Biden. We’d be in a better place if he’d had some humility and announced he wasn’t going to run again so we could have a primary with worthy candidates in it, but he didn’t, so here we are.
Yeah, him, and thanks for the correction. It’s late, I’m tired and obviously cranky.
Also agreed, but he would have needed to say that four years ago and honestly, that move to have everyone else step aside back then so Biden could get the nomination destroyed the credibility of every one of those younger candidates.
Better question, do you want to be elected by embracing the bombing of children and families by our ally Israel? Because that is what is going to happen. It doesn’t matter we know Trump would be no different…but our tax dollars going to kids being killed makes people pissed the fuck off. Stand up to Israel, Regan did it when he was a Senator, he can too!
Well, I voted against Trump last time, and this time I’m split. Yes, I’m voting for Biden, but that doesn’t mean I’m not voting really really hard against Trump.
I do. I’m an old progressive and he’s been the most progressive president in my lifetime outside of Carter, and honestly he’s probably been more progressive than Carter.
I don’t get the ambivalence about Biden at all from anyone who’s not a hard core Republican.
I just believe there are better options out there that have been repeatedly snubbed by the players in power, media, and an overall systemic problem with the political system that Biden, and others like him, will never attempt to address, let alone acknowledge.
I don’t disagree with what you said, but I do believe that “the most progressive” so far is simply not good enough.
Though my problems are less about Biden directly, and more about the fact that last election and most likely the next election it is a complete illusion of choice. Do we want someone who has effectively promised to make everything worse for the 99%, or the only other name on the list?
Aside from anecdotal evidence, according to cnbc surveys 70% of people surveyed said Biden shouldn’t run again and of that 70%, 57% identified as democrats. cnbc.com/…/majority-of-americans-dont-want-biden-…
I’m not saying people won’t/shouldn’t vote for Biden, but I am saying that more people will vote against Trump, not for Biden.
I don’t think any reasonable, rational person would vote for Donald Trump. The unfortunate truth is there are a lot of unreasonable, irrational people who are allowed to vote.
Not surprising, this is pretty much why he ran 4 years ago. He never wanted to be president, but his party had literally nobody (whom they would allow) that could step up and be a real contender.
Yeah I’m kind of confused at that part. Do they mean allow as in someone who’ll toe the party line or as someone who is middling enough to gather votes from both sides? I thought we had some good options, Bernie Sanders being one of them.
I’m not sure you can say he never wanted to be president. He ran in 1988 and 2008 before running in 2020. It sounds more like he always wanted to be president, but I could believe he’d prefer to not feel like he has to run for another term.
That’s because it’s bullshit. The lemmy consensus on this kind of thing is badly skewed to the left and is basically pure amateur hour. Without doubt there are many intelligent and well-informed users who have a better grasp of the realities of US electoral politics, they just aren’t the majority, and so we find objectively ridiculous comments receiving tons of up votes while anyone who dares to mention an unpopular truth is downvoted to Hades
Well yes, you are correct in that at points in the past he wanted to. But I honestly felt that in 2020, he either thought his time for it had passed, or he wasn’t confident he was the best candidate to win. He mulled running for quite a while, and only really entered definitely when it was obvious there was really no other choice left for the DNC. But for a long time (too long really) nobody was even sure that he would run.
he was also all geared up to run in 2016, but then his son died. If I recall, Hilary Clinton actually waited for Biden to decide he couldn’t run before she entered the race.
Doesn’t fucking matter, I’m voting D because it’s a fucking binary system and the other choice is a dystopian totalitarian shithole and abstaining from voting is voting for said shithole.
That can change but it requires people to get involved at ground level politics like school boards, city councils, county supervisors and township offices. It takes about ten years for these officials to reach congressional levels. The teabaggers did this successfully but they had a lot of financial support from wealthy conservatives.
This is something that people constantly miss. It’s why you can write off third parties. Plenty of people want to see change, but they think just winning the presidency is enough. It isn’t. You need Congress too. And getting Congress means winning individual races on the state level. And winning those often means you need to win elections for state and local positions. You can sometimes skip local and go straight to state, but very rarely can you skip state and go federal.
If we want a better system, it needs to start local with a well organized ground game across every state. You need to build up a reputation and strongholds. Greens and libertarians aren’t interested in doing this, which is I write them off as opportunistic grifters.
The Greens are absurdly good at the grift. You had Jill Stein wine and dine with Russian oligarchs and have a few pseudoscience beliefs, including vaccine hesitancy, and people still thought she’d be better for the working class and handling COVID.
Yep. Also, they don’t do anything serious at the grassroots level. Vote for them at the national level, but no candidates making their way up through the ranks by serving locally first? Get serious - that’s supposed to be my viable option as a progressive? A compromised cutout kook like Stein hanging with the likes of Putin and pushing complete nonsense as a supposed option to vote for at the national level and…nothing at the local.
Who do they think they are kidding? It might be a great way to siphon off votes to help the fascist party get into office - like 2016 - but other than making a handful of useful idiots feel that they really Showed The Man ™ by not backing Democrats, what have they done?
The Tea Party, at least in this one regard, has been inspirational. Imagine if a hard left wing group managed to get support and glomp onto the Democrats and force their will on the larger party like the Tea Party turned MAGA Party has. We could see some serious progress instead of having token voices to ignore come voting time, because they have no choice but to stick with the main Party line.
“We won’t vote for a budget that doesn’t include Universal Healthcare. Good luck getting support from the Republicans, they hate you.”
I agree, it would be great to see. But the success of the Tea Party was predicated on the support of conservative billionaires. The left doesn’t have any of those. Moreover, there’s no room for it in the current political situation.
In the absolute best-case Scooby-Doo ending for 2024, Trump is defeated and convicted. I think there’s at least a slim chance that this could break the GOP enough that it splinters into the Double-Down Crazy Party and the Let’s Get Back to Fleecing the Poors in a More Socially Acceptable Way Party. In this scenario, a real left-wing party could gain some traction.
So I don’t think the Republican Party can splinter and survive. The only reason they’re still holding power is because they use the power they already have to perpetuate more (e.g. voting restrictions, gerrymandering, reducing powers of parts of government that do get voted Dem). I don’t think they can lose a lot of those areas for even one election cycle without potentially losing them forever. The Dems would have to just… stop those things (apply reasonable distracting, remove excessive voter restrictions, etc) and they’ll have the controls in perpetuity (especially with the more liberal younger generations growing older).
I think the Republicans will accept any level of crazy to keep in the race.
Both parties openly backing and arming the genocide in Palestine, the most well-documented genocide in world history, despite overwhelming public opposition, is not a binary system, it’s a one-party system. We are living in dystopia already, the Democrats shave 3% off of whatever the fascist Republican platform is and say “we’re the best option.” Stop being a fool and see the system for what it is.
We see the system for what it is, so I’ll vote for the slightly less terrible party in the short term and also do the things necessary to change it in the long term.
Good luck with your attempts at incremental change, that’ve been going on for a century while our society has completely devolved into fascism, a bipartisan police state and a genocidal global empire. You are clearly the brilliant visionary we need to guide us into the uncharted future.
Prohibition? We still have drug prohibition. Woman’s suffrage? It’s something, but women’s votes still are as useless as everyone else’s, especially if you refuse to vote for anything to actually change (and they still have a wage gap). 75-day school year - what? Jim Crow? Improvements but black communities institutionalized, ghettoized, gunned down by cops, and still a wage gap. See prohibition.
Plus, now our government is totalitarian, eating a third of GDP, massive surveillance state, largest military on earth, quarter of the prisoner’s on Earth, constantly trying to censor the internet, economy is insanely unequal and getting worse, inflation over the long term getting worse and wages not keeping up with them, housing prices skyrocketing, and currently openly engaged in a genocide despite nation-wide protests. Need me to keep going?
You are so insightful, offering how what little incremental changes we’re doing aren’t enough. Your powers of observation are impressive and really contributing every time you bring it up.
So tell me, what is your feasible solution that will help in the short and/or long term? Or are you taking the position that the ship is unsalvageable, and we just have to go down with it? Because your vocal contributions aren’t helping with those making an effort to bale water out.
What is my feasible solution? General strike and/or total shift to third party to implement direct democracy. 100 million people can go out and waste their vote on a petty tyrant like Biden or Trump, or 100 million people can actually start making real changes. You’re all in a prison of your own making.
That’s not feasible. You start that up, the Republicans win and you lose anything you’ve gained plus more. You keep going and the Republicans keep winning, and the more they’re able to solidify their power until we’re living in a literal Christo-fascist nation.
That’s a great plan if, and only if, that is your ultimate goal.
Thanks for your best wishes! I’m lucky enough that the hour it takes a year to vote doesn’t get in the way of the direct action I participate in the rest of the year.
Riight, riiight… it’s only those pesky beat cops that does all the fascist white supremacism while their poor superiors watches on in helpless disbelief.
How exactly do you intend for things to get better if you automatically demonize anyone who takes prosecution or law enforcement positions?
She championed racial bias training for police as a prosecutor. That isn’t going to come from Republican prosecutors, and it’s a necessary part of reforming our justice system.
We aren’t going to fix everything with a snap of our fingers. There will need to be prosecutors and police officers who serve in that transition period while we fix things, and they’ll be asked to arrest drug users and prosecute them. We aren’t going to be able to change that overnight.
It’s much more helpful to look at people in these positions and judge them on how they’ve moved us toward that ideal.
Riiight… that’ll show those fascists! I can just hear the US (somehow magically) becoming less fundamentally white supremacist from all the way over here!
judge them on how they’ve moved us toward that ideal.
And how has the fascist’s little liberal enablers helped us move closer to police abolition?
I think you’ll find that most people believe we need a restructuring and overhaul of the system versus outright abolishment. You’re still going to have murderers and rapists.
And how else do you think the US is going to become less fundamentally white supremacist? Thoughts and prayers? Teaching people to not be shit holes is going to require trainings like that.
You’re totally content to merely observe reality and (accurately) label fascism and white supremacy. But observation isn’t going to make things better. You’re just pointing out known problems without offering any solutions, and criticizing people for trying imperfect solutions.
At the end of the day, Harris has done more for ending racism in US law enforcement than you or I have.
I think you will find that none of the right-wing holy cows are looking all that holy these days - they can’t even stop people learning the truth about capitalism these days, never mind white supremacism and it’s most cherished institution, the police.
And how else do you think the US is going to become less fundamentally white supremacist?
You don’t really have a clue what white supremacism even is, do you?
Teaching people to not be shit holes
How do you propose to dismantle white supremacism without dismantling the institutions that uphold it, Clyde? Your feel-good “non-racialism” has failed so badly it’s laughable - and it may have something to do with the fact that you are incapable - or unwilling - to comprehend just how fundamental white supremacism is to the US and the rest of the Global North. In fact, you seem more willing to justify the institutions that uphold white supremacism than actually dealing with said white supremacism - what does that make you?
You can’t “reform” something that is working as intended.
Harris has done more for ending racism in US law enforcement
She has done nothing of the sort. She has sought to protect and enable the very institutions that uphold white supremacism - this is what (so-called) “reform” is truly all about.
I want to take a step back here and address a glaring contradiction in your beliefs. You make it very clear here that you find the white supremacist problem in the US to be endemic and impossible to curb without tearing it out. The institution must be wholly dismantled to end it, and fluff like anti bias training won’t do anything. Correct?
But, you also say complete police abolition is a goal. As I understand it, you’re referring to the whole idea of law enforcement.
Feel free to correct me if I’m wrong on either of those. Because if there is no one to enforce the government on a civil level, how exactly are you going to white supremacist crimes?
We both know they’re violent and dangerous individuals. When one of them tries to gun down an entire place of worship then, who are we sending to intercept and stop them? Where are we putting them if there’s no criminal justice system? How exactly do you intend to do root out the white supremacists and protect minorities from their crimes without some form of civilian law enforcement?
Maybe your solution is to still have law enforcement but remake it in a way that it’s completely unlike our current system. And that would be totally fine. I just want to understand if there is a contradiction here, and if there isn’t, how you’re addressing it.
I want to take a step back here and address a glaring contradiction in your beliefs.
I’m afraid there is no contradiction here. There is only a contradiction if you believe that the US isn’t fundamentally white supremacist… and if you believe that, it will only take a cursory overview of the history of policing in the US to dispel that belief because, surprise, surprise, police in the US has always been the main enforcer of white supremacism - there is a direct, unbroken line of evolution between the slave patrols and the strikebreakers and the police protecting nazis and klansmen from antifa in the last few years.
We both know they’re violent and dangerous individuals.
Oh yes… they are. And the ones without badges and complete immunity from the law are the lesser problem.
When one of them tries to gun down an entire place of worship then, who are we sending to intercept and stop them?
There is no such thing as “grass-roots” right-wing movements - white supremacism is enforced from above. The police is merely the most visibly violent aspect of this enforcement at the ground level. That is why the alt-right reacts so violently and hysterically at the thought of people analysing where the white supremacism that drives police comes from through subjects like critical race theory.
If you want to stop the white supremacist from gunning down an entire mosque full of people, you first have to stop the institutionalized white supremacism that created and enabled him.
If you want to start dismantling white supremacism in the US, you have to start with the police, and no… “fluff like anti bias training” achieves nothing except the pretense of dismantling white supremacism and nothing else - the only thing people like Harris will ever do.
So you think if we abolish the police, the white supremacists will suddenly stop being racist? What do we do if they violently protest, and there’s no one to arrest them and no system to process them?
Like I get what you’re trying to say, but at some point you’re going to end up with no police and persisting white supremacists. What’s the plan for that? White supremacy doesn’t need police stations to survive.
the white supremacists will suddenly stop being racist?
No, if we abolish the police we remove white supremacism’s most important institution. You don’t understand why they invented police in the first place, do you? “Serve and protect” is a very misleading slogan - who it actually is that they “serve and protect” is not something they will be showing you on CSI any time soon and with damn good reason because it’s not you.
and there’s no one to arrest them
There’s no one to arrest them now. Right now, it’s only extreme public pressure and the prospect of revolt that can force them to throw one of their own under the bus to protect the rest - if you have any hope that an inherently white supremacist institution will be doing anything to curb white supremacism you are indulging in liberal fantasy.
White supremacy doesn’t need police stations to survive.
Yes. It does. It needs enforcement from above. It needs funding from above. It needs next-to complete immunity from the society it represses from above.
We’ll have to agree to disagree I suppose. I don’t have any love for the police but there’s still a role for civil law enforcement and protection. Police aren’t great at that, but we still have a need for it in some shape or fashion.
I also don’t believe removing establishments will solve institutional racism and white supremacy. The South is a great example of how it survives even if it is violently brought to heel.
I’m loathe to argue further because I do agree with a lot of what you say, and you’re very clearly fighting for the same goals that I am. Where we disagree is the nature of racism and what is necessary to eliminate it. At the end of the day though, I’d much rather work with you than with the opposition.
I’d say so. I’d say you are unwilling to see just how fundamental white supremacism is to the society you exist within. You are unwilling to admit that it’s a feature of said society and not a flaw. And that colors your perception of the institutions that protect and enable white supremacism - which completely includes (but aren’t limited to) not just police but the very concept of policing.
Term limits in Congress mean we lose experience. So we’re forced, right away, to rely on outside experts for everything from technical knowledge on fracking to getting a bill passed correctly. This is the first axis on which lobbyists and parties gain more control over representatives.
The second axis is campaigns themselves. A lot of time in office is actually spent campaigning and fundraising. Especially in the house where you’re up every two years. This means your name and reputation is your brand. However, with term limits people will not have time to build those brands. So anyone looking to move up to the Senate, Governorship, Presidency, or wherever else will likely have to depend on “outside” money far more. They simply will not have had time to build up their own funds. This money, of course, comes with strings.
Even staying in place would require abiding by those strings in the long run. Once fundraising is no longer expected of the representatives they become vulnerable to a primary by their party. The party simply shifts funds to another candidate and that’s the end of a problem for them.
The third axis is the predetermined length of a politician’s public political career. Only senators and representatives that toed the line get cushy jobs provided by the party or lobbyists. While that’s already true to some extent, many politicians end their career when they don’t have the popularity to get elected anymore. This also means they don’t have much political capital to spend getting cushy jobs unless a personal connection grabs them. With politicians being forced into retirement at young ages, with plenty of popularity and capital, they’re going to get offers they can’t refuse. As long as they’re a “team player.”
Another way to think about term limits is making the politicians employees of their party. And while that’s not a bad thing in systems with a lot of parties (like ranked choice voting and proportional representation); it’s catastrophic in a two party system. Because the oligarchs will waste no time literally buying the legislature.
Age Caps are great. Age Caps simply require you to retire at retirement age. And for that side step much of the tomfoolery I’ve described above. Long serving politicians are more accountable to their constituents and it’s harder for lobbyists and party die hards to influence Congress.
This is an unpopular opinion that I share. Everyone loves to talk about term limits as a solution.
Term limits will just make the revolving door to cushy corporate jobs spin faster, it doesn’t solve the roots of the problem.
We need to do something about citizens united and lobbying.
The reason that congresspeoe get paid well is that we do NOT want a system where you have to be rich to be in Congress. You SHOULD be able to have a career as a politician, otherwise who would do it? That’s right, only the rich.
If we wanted regular people to be able to serve in Congress with low term limits, we’d have to make sure they can go back to their career and not have to sell out to corporate interests and set up a job on K Street. Maybe if we treated public service like military service, where your job is protected by law while you serve?
But if you’re the kind of person who argues against term limits by asking the person you’re talking to to visualize lobbyists’ influence as a three dimensional metric space, you’re also the kind of person who knows that age based term limits are absolutely a violation of human rights and an example of ageism.
So even if we set aside the fact that it would take a constitutional amendment to do just because the constitution is what legally defines the roles and requirements of federal office, it’d have to be a constitutional amendment because agism violates the 14th.
I’m not against the idea in principle, of course. Democracy itself often feels like one of those late night “There’s gotta be a better way“ commercials. The problem is that their central assumption derived from the enlightenment that man was a rational actor who could both be trusted to work in his own interest and (at least amongst the noble and wealthy) self-sacrifice for the good of all.
Because young people are dumb as fuck too. It’s the same reason racism is bad - the distinction between the two groups is meaningless.
For instance, you’re incredibly naive if you think congresspeople believe all the shit they say. They’re elected representatives saying things their constituents want said even if they disagree with them.
I work with a climate lobby and one of the Republicans I was talking to drives an electric car and powers his house with solar. His official position is “climate change might be caused by people, but the jury is out.” He fuckin knows, he just can’t say it.
Well, minimum age requirements are constitutional because they’re literally in the constitution. I’m about as far from a constitutional literalist as you can possibly get (I think it’s a deeply flawed and outdated document), but at least as of right now it’s literally the foundation of the US legal system.
There are a number of reasons to be concerned about adding additional requirements on top of the current set of requirements. The whole Trump thing highlighted the degree to which the entire system is built around an assumption of good faith, and I’m more concerned about that than the fact that DiFi has no business being in the senate at her age. The problem, as I see it, isn’t all of the old people. It’s systemic issues that go to the heart of this particular form of government. I mean, Reagan didn’t know where he was for most of his second term, but the real damage he did to the country has nothing to do with his cognitive decline.
Of course it’s ageism. But there are certain jobs that require retirement because of age related problems creating critical issues. I don’t think we should be politely standing by as someone with Alzheimer’s is in a position to affect leadership of the country. They should have an age limit, just like the military. (which is 62)
As to whether it would require a constitutional amendment, I’m not sure. I’m not a constitutional scholar. But term limits would likely require it if age does. We’re not getting one easier than the other. If we do put in the effort let’s make sure we’re doing the right thing, not some corporate lobby astroturf thing.
And yes the extent to which our government is a gentleman’s agreement has become glaringly obvious in my lifetime.
What will that do? We have term limits already for POTUS. Also, what happens if life extension starts becoming a thing? We’ve seen how hard it is to rid ourselves of the ridiculous outmoded EC; imagine if there were a rule about an arbitrary age being deemed “too old”?
What exactly would term limits accomplish? Bernie Sanders would be prevented from running, but people like Kyrsten Sinema would be fine.
The solution to bad candidates is to vote them out in the primary or work towards ranked choice voting so that people have a legitimate 3rd option in the general.
If you want to know what term limits actually do check out Missouri. Basically by eliminating “blood sucking bureaucrats” you eliminate anyone who can actually write effective legislation.
So… Most legislation ends up being insane and unenforceable or written by special interest groups and handed to dummies who don’t seem to be able to even read it.
I used to be a big term limits fan, now that I’ve seen what actually happens… It’s a fucking mess, we need professional legislators.
The reason the democratic party won’t call a 14a3 vote to ban Trump from office even though the vote to ban is designed to fail is because the axis of DMFI and AIPAC is invested in exactly two partisan candidates for POTUS. Otherwise, we would not be in this pickle.
Yeah can we not blame Israel lobbyists for this? It feels a bit uncomfortably antisemitic to say it’s all because of Israeli money and they control our politics.
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