“I just wanna debate this guy, but you know– and I’m gonna demand a drug test too, by the way,” Trump said as the audience cheered. “I am. No, I really am. I don’t want him coming in like the State of the Union. He was high as a kite.”
Oh, don't worry, I'm with you. I'm from Oregon, and I can tell you that the people who represent my interests in the House and Senate are specifically not the problem here. (We do have some bad ones in the east, but not in my district.)
Ok, so... What big, sweeping things are YOU doing to make society better? Where's your list of accomplishments?
The Democrats don't have a perfect track record, not even close. But being part of the online peanut gallery of whiners doesn't get us anywhere. I'm so tired of people who are all commentary and no action, people who aren't going to be part of progress (big or small) are part of the problem no matter how smug you act about it.
Here's a little middle school social studies lesson for you: there is a lot more to the government than the President.
Bernie Sanders could be sitting in the Oval Office right now and he'd still be struggling with the political realities that Biden is dealing with today. There would still be multiple wars raging, there would still be Republican obstructionism, there would still be a Republican controlled House and a tied Senate, etc. And I'm willing to bet you would be sitting here commenting on how "disappointing" he ended up being as a progressive....
If you want big, sweeping FDR-style changes, then elect a big sweeping congressional supermajority like FDR had. It's not rocket science, people like you would rather just shy away from the political reality of getting bills passed in favor of complaining online, and it's getting boring.
Stopping gun violence is what the Gaza protestor is trying to to do.
Because Palestinians don't fucking shoot and kill people...? Way to jump the shark.
Hamas murdered more people in 1 day than every American school shooting combined.
Do you listen to yourself? What the fuck are you even talking about?
Banning bigotry? Yep, same
Hamas is an Islamic terrorist group founded on an explicit call for genocide against Israeli Jews.
They aren't flying rainbow flags or celebrating pride month this year, either.
Save democracy? How?
By voting against a self-described "dictator" who happens to also be an authoritarian kleptocrat who calls every election he's ever been in "rigged", pressured Secretaries of States to just make up votes, coordinated false electors to overthrow the election, pressured his VP to call the certification process into question and who generally doesn't believe in the peaceful transition of power.
I'm not gonna ask you to suck Biden's cock or anything, feel free to dislike his handling of the Israeli-Palestinian war (a war he neither started nor wanted to happen in the first place) if you want. It's my view that America's actions so far have actually saved thousands of lives in the region, and it's an objective fact that Biden has delivered more aide to Gazan civilians than anyone else. (Don't let that stop you from being pissed off at the wrong guy.)
But, seeing everything we've seen over the last 10 years, are you seriously going to deny that Trump and the Republicans are an existential threat to American democracy?
Supporting genocide is wrong, period
The Palestinians aren't innocent in this either--they (and the Arab League) threw the first punch back in 1948, and they (Hamas) threw the first punch on October 7th of last year. It takes 2 to tango. Both sides of this fight have been complicit in doing evil shit building up to the conflict we have today. When people say things like "Palestine should be free from the river to the sea", how can you read that as anything other than a call for genocide against Israeli jews? Hamas surrendered any facade of legitimacy when they conducted a terrorist attack on Israel last year (intentionally killing more people in a single day than Israel has been killing in Gaza on average). Hamas has fired something like 10,000 rockets at Israel (and that's not counting the attacks from Iran, Hezbollah, etc.), so how many thousands more people do you think would be dead today if Israel didn't have the capability to defend against those kinds of attacks?
The only peaceful, non-genocidal solution to this ~80 year war is a two-state solution in which Israelis and Palestinians learn to put aside their mutual hatred, dis-empower the extremists who run their societies, and coexist. Neither Hamas nor Netenyahu are capable of delivering this. Hamas will soon pay the ultimate price for their cowardice and terrorism (as they should), and hopefully the Israeli people will see that Netenyahu has failed to protect them and democratically remove him from power.
You engaged with a grand total of 0 of the points that I made. So A+ dodging I guess. Congratulations on being a classic bad faith actor.
Hamas are a terrorist organization that openly advocates for genocide and commits war crimes, murdering civilians in cold blood, taking hostages, operating out of hospitals and aide organizations, and using innocent people as human shields. They have a PR department, and they don't need any new hires right now, sorry.
The only peaceful, non-genocidal solution to the Israeli-Palestinian war is a two-state solution. Fuck Hamas, fuck Netenyahu, and also to a much lesser extent, fuck you. I didn't "make a case for genocide", you did. If you think Hamas are going to go down in history as heroes or freedom fighters, you're as dumb as you are ignorant of history.
Let's be real though, the nonpartisan committee has been doing a real shitty job running the debates in recent years. No order, bad questions, shitty crowds full of wooping plants, allowing candidates to shout over eachother and make faces or side comments, etc.
America doesn't need a repeat of the last 2 election cycles.
Counterpoint: If Biden can pass the biggest infrastructure bill since the New Deal, the biggest climate bill ever, erase tens of billions of dollars of student debt, pull us out of the pandemic economy without a major crash, put together a global coalition to help Ukraine fight against Russian imperialism, reschedule cannabis, etc., then I'm going to blame the stupid voters for not (a) recognizing his achievements and (b) not recognizing the threat that Trump and the Republicans pose to our democracy and the global climate.
Biden has a razor-thin majority in the Senate and has no control of the House. Trump has already personally appointed 33% of the SCOTUS, and has another 66% eating out of the palm of his hand. And people are going to hand our country to the Republicans again (even though they are openly speaking out against democracy every fucking day) because... why...? Because there isn't peace in the middle east and somehow that's Biden's fault?
Thomas won't even have to die. If Trump wins you can be sure we'll see at least 1 resignation and replacement. They aren't going to make the same mistake that RBG made, especially since they've had their eye on the ball when it comes to packing the courts with conservative judges at every level for decades.
Everything is in place for Trump to perform an autocratic authoritarian takeover of America. People need to be mentally prepared to fight or flight.
If Trump wins I'm going to be too preoccupied with the climate disaster and end of American democracy (in that order) to give a single fuck about what happens in Gaza, Ukraine, or anywhere else.
Nobody is starting a global thermonuclear war over Gaza. Iran doesn't have a capability, NK doesn't give a fuck, and if Russia was going to elevate the world into a nuclear war they would have already done so over Ukraine.
Meanwhile climate change is here and American democracy is in peril, and these are things that actually affect people in this country and the entire world.
If Trump wins, Gaza is his to do as he pleases. If we didn't hold him accountable for his crimes against the United States, I have serious doubts that we're going to hold him accountable for crimes in the middle east.
I mean, am I wrong? Should I care more about what happens to Gazans or Ukrainians than the fact that we're living in a kleptocracy of science-deniers who are openly taking $1 billion bribes from the oil industry? I don't think so...
If you're just abstractly posting about shit on the internet, sure. But if a wildfire burns my neighborhood down (a real possibility where I live, even now, and increasingly likely as the climate slips into the irredeemable zone over the next decade or so) I'm not going to be thinking about global politics and wars happening in countries that I will never step foot in. That would be borderline pathological.
I'm just being honest. You need to live a life of privilege to have the time, freedom, and emotional capacity to worry about what is happening in Gaza. And, should Donald Trump become president again, he will do whatever he feels like doing in Gaza, nobody will hold him accountable (as nobody seems willing to do right now for the things he's done in the past), and I'm not going to have the willpower to care because, mark my words, WE will have real problems of our own.
If you want to see what unchecked genocide, mass civil unrest, climate disaster, and American autocracy looks like, by all means, allow Donald Trump to take over our country. 2024 is our last stand, and what happens next is a matter of individual survival.
Let's imagine Trump wins in 2024. He's leading in a number of polls and Biden's popularity is down, so there's a REAL chance...
Who exactly do you think is going to hold him accountable for anything he does at home or abroad?
Congress? (Maybe in some kind of weird scenario where Trump wins the presidency but loses the House and Senate. Not very likely...)
The courts? (Trump has personally appointed 33% of the current SCOTUS, and we have seen that they will tie themselves into knots to do his bidding. Another 33% of SCOTUS are other highly political conservative judges who have proven to be on Trump's side. And then we have to consider that Trump has also appointed a huge number of judges at every different level of our legal system. They aren't going to do anything to him, ever.)
And if Netenyahu was to kill every last man, woman, and child in Gaza, do you think a Trump administration would push back even in the slightest? This is a guy who sides with Putin and Kim Jung Un. He does not give a fuck about humanity or anybody's life other than his own.
I once had hope that someone, somewhere would hold Trump accountable for things like January 6th, but I guess hope doesn't spring eternal after all because I'm just not seeing it. Trump's right about one thing: he could shoot a guy on 5th avenue in broad daylight and nothing would happen to him. One third of this country would be evil enough to still vote for him, and another third of the country would be to stupid to hold him accountable.
What do you mean? I don't follow, so can you elaborate?
Are you really saying that you care more about what happens to people in countries half way across the world in regions that you'll probably never step foot in than yourself, your country, or the world at large?
So we hand America over to a criminal autocrat because Biden hasn't managed to solve world peace adequately enough for your liking. Doesn't make a ton of sense to me. Maybe I'm not understanding something here.
You didn't elaborate on what you meant when you said "saying the quiet part out loud". Can you tell me what you mean by that? I don't follow.
“Hasn’t managed to solve world peace adequately” is quite the euphemism for “is supporting an ongoing genocide with billions of dollars of weapons.”
Biden is "supporting an ongoing genocide". He's doing what every President in modern US history has done by arming Israel because they are (a) our ally and have been since Israel and Palestine were both created, and (b) under attack from multiple groups including Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran.
Since October 7th 2023, Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran have launched well over 11,000 missiles and drones at Iran, the vast majority of which were intercepted and nullified by Israeli defense systems. On top of the 1,500 people that Hamas killed and kidnapped on October 7th, had those missile and drone attacks not been defended against, how many more innocent people do you think could have been killed in this war? Would you have been happy to see thousands of missiles hit Israel as well as what's going on in Gaza?
I personally feel that we need to put stronger restrictions and conditions on the weapons we send to Israel in light of the war, and they have started doing that, which is good. But let's not pretend that American defense spending in Israel hasn't saved thousands of lives and prevented further escalation. Hamas are a terrorist organization founded on an explicit call for genocide against Israeli Jews, and they killed more people on October 7th than Israel is killing per day on average over the last 8 months.
On top of that Biden has spent more money and sent more aide into Gaza than the UN or anyone else... You think Biden is happy about this war? You think he wanted any of this shit to happen, during an election year of all times? C'mon...
Listen, I don't care what you do, but go ahead and help elect Trump if you want to see what actual, unmitigated genocide in Gaza looks like, because unlike Biden he will not give a single fuck what Netenyahu does to the Palestinians. In fact, just like Trump will do what the oil lobby wants if they give him $1 billion, Trump will be more than happy to help Netenyahu flatten every inch of Gaza if he can get some kind of "deal" (read: bribe) in return.
I don't blame him. Low quality, poor safety standards, made in sweatshops by who-the-fuck-knows, not good for American jobs. China can keep their junky clunkers.
Trump Demands Biden Take a Drug Test Before Debating and Claims the President Was ‘High as a Kite’ During the State of the Union (www.mediaite.com)
“I just wanna debate this guy, but you know– and I’m gonna demand a drug test too, by the way,” Trump said as the audience cheered. “I am. No, I really am. I don’t want him coming in like the State of the Union. He was high as a kite.”
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. sues Meta, citing chatbot’s reply as evidence of shadowban (arstechnica.com)
ABC News: DOJ releases proposed rule to reclassify marijuana (abcnews.go.com)
President Joe Biden, in a video posted Thursday on X, touted the proposal as “an important move toward reversing longstanding inequities.”...
US Justice Department formally moves to reclassify marijuana as a less dangerous drug in historic shift (apnews.com)
Justice Department formally moves to reclassify marijuana as a less dangerous drug in historic shift (www.pbs.org)
Single Issue Voters will save the world! (lemmy.world)
Biden and Trump to face off in first presidential debate on June 27 in Georgia (www.cbsnews.com)
Trump Leads in 5 Key States, as Young and Nonwhite Voters Express Discontent With Biden (www.nytimes.com)
Sen. Lindsey Graham Suggests Nuking Gaza, Calls Hiroshima ‘the Right Decision’ (www.thedailybeast.com)
Biden really, really doesn’t want China to flood the US with cheap EVs (www.theverge.com)