The entire premise is BS because Biden has a list of accomplishments from infrastructure to debt forgiveness, progressive drug guidance, progress in gender/race equality, departments like the ftc and irs being competently run again with actual resources, to judge appointments. Hmm I wonder to who’s benefit it is to ignore all that and label him “not Trump”?
Care to offer an actual list? Every time someone tries to offer an actual list it turns out to be meaningless victory laps. With the possible exception of the NLRB Cemex decision. But that’s getting it’s stress test right now so it’s a bit early to celebrate.
I mean usually people try to curate it to stuff with physical outcomes. Otherwise 90% of that list is performative crap like this one. And if you don’t think that was performative have a look at what red states are doing in schools.
You do understand he can only do so much, right? You’re calling it performative, but he can’t do most of the major things without Congress.
If you’re only complaint is “it’s not enough he should do more” then how about you tell me what your definition of “more” is, and then we can take a look at the actual laws and see if it’s something he can do without Congress.
On that action he could withhold funding. Any police officers enforcing bathroom laws can be arrested and charged. He can federalize the Texas National Guard so Abbott can’t use them on the border. He could direct Darpa to research battery technology and make any resulting patents free and open for anyone to produce.
That’s 3 ideas in his power in less than 5 minutes. The laws are already on the books. He refuses to use them and keeps running this “woe is me, congress is out of control” narrative and I’m tired of nobody calling him on it.
If you check my post history you’ll see I do go through the entire list when it’s reasonable. I’m not trawling through a thousand EOs and NSMs for an internet stranger though. That’s dangerously close to trying to prove a negative and will take multiple months. If they want to prove a point they need to support that point. Not do the source version of waving vaguely in the direction of the White House.
1 he always supported it, so if you say “until” you just didn’t care until it went hot, 2 I don’t think it changes it that his opponent supports it harder, but it does speak to your options.
He always supported Israel… I think the ‘until’ is in reference to Israel’s more recent and more blatant attack on Gaza - prior to that, Biden’s support for Israel wasn’t nearly as flagrant as it is now.
Like, no one would bat an eye if I told them I support my wife’s decisions, but if she started breaking into the local NICUs and stomping on people’s babies, my continued support for her decisions would be a tad sus. …especially if I regularly said “honey could you tone the baby-stomping down a bit?” as I handed her a new pair of baby-stomping boots.
I’m not a both-sides’er (unless I’m talking to a trumpanzee in an attempt to steer votes away from Agent Orange). My vote is going to Biden and I encourage anyone reading this to do the same, but our complicity in the genocide on Gaza is genuinely upsetting, partly because it’s complicity in a fucking genocide, and partly because this WILL cause voter disengagement and could hand that other dipshit the presidency on a silver platter.
The genocide started way, way before October 6th. October 6th was a reaction to increased aggression from Israeli settlers who had massively increased the amount of land they were stealing. The difference is that it was more subtle, so nobody cared, but if you forcibly remove everyone from their homeland it’s still genocide.
Obviously I’m glad Americans are waking up to the realization that Israel is an apartheid state, but it’s been true for decades. The fact that Biden has always been a Zionist was a huge red flag, but he was “the only person who could beat Trump” and now we’re stuck here.
Biden’s support for Israel wasn’t nearly as flagrant as it is now
You’re saying that about a guy who has been saying shit like “I am a zionist” every year while sucking Israel’s dick. LOL.
You’re just showing that you have 0 idea what you’re talking about and that your opinion is only based on your fantasies, reality does not seem to be of interest to you.
Exactly this. It’s astonishing how many people would destroy everything based on an extremely old holy war because the US didn’t suddenly reverse their long established policy when the conflict heats up again.
The Trumpists are ecstatic how easy it was to flip these morons.
The Trumpists are ecstatic how easy it was to flip these morons.
I would never vote Trump. “Morons” for having criticism of a president supplying weapons that have killed over 10k children?
These centrist democrats are ecstatic how a substantial number of their voters have no standards whatsoever and will defend anything as long as it keeps Trump out.
Downvote all you want. If you can’t criticise Biden for this you’re a piece of shit
I don’t need to “criticize Biden”. That isn’t what’s happening anyhow. What’s happening is that people are pretending Biden is the one doing this and threatening to destroy the United States if he doesn’t stop the thing which he is not doing. Sending Israel money is a fuck of a lot older than his presidency.
Just because it’s been happening for a while doesn’t make it right.
Why was Rafah a red line until all of a sudden it wasn’t? Because he knows it’s morally wrong and will lead to a lot of death but is too much of a coward to stand up for what he believes.
Honestly as someone who isn’t American, this is more important to me than economic policy or whatever. I want Biden to win, Trump winning would be awful for everyone, basically worldwide. But most of all I want the kids to stop dying. I really don’t think this is so unreasonable.
Trump won’t be convinced. Biden might be. And this “less important” issue could still cost him swing states. I think maybe not supporting a genocide could be a vote winner.
It’s almost as if many of these people are just virtue signaling or falling for the propoganda. I don’t see any of these same commenters so vocally opposed to any of the other handful atrocities happening around the world, and yet they fail to think the next thought of what will the situation be like if Trump wins?
Yeah, I think a lot of them are just bad actors, faking left leanings. Paid or otherwise. This one guy posts several times every single day about the war and often lays it all at Biden’s feet. If he’s paid, Putin or whoever it is truly does get their money’s worth with so many posts and comments essentially indirectly supporting trump.
And if you dare to disagree with their bullshit of course the means you love genocide. Literally have had several commenters use those exact words.
This one guy posts several times every single day about the war and often lays it all at Biden’s feet. If he’s paid, Putin or whoever it is truly does get their money’s worth with so many posts and comments essentially indirectly supporting trump.
Are you talking about me? Do you seriously think someone pays me to post rather than me just being a person who is horrified about what’s happening?
Given that your last post was about Bob Dylan and it was 3 weeks ago, I’m kind of struggling to see where you got the idea I was referring to you. Makes me wonder why you thought that…
So if you are against genocide, you don’t get a candidate that can represent you. And americans would rather drag their dick through miles of broken glass than to vote 3rd party.
Voting 3rd party in a primary is throwing your vote away, plain and simple. If we want better candidates, handily defeat the GOP so that it has no choice other than to ditch the completely fascist support, or collapse. That’s the only chance we have of getting more progressive candidates to vote for. Start in local elections, move to state, then get some of these people into higher office.
Hoping that suddenly the incumbent Democrat candidate will become a super progressive person at the 11th hour is just a fantasy.
Stop the disinformation. Voting 3rd party in this general election is just going to help Trump and the fascists. You’re either a naive fool, or a disinformation agent.
I don’t need to torture my penis to know it would have a bad outcome to do so, kind of like giving my vote to trump with an extra step while pretending to be a martyr
Obviously if you refuse to support the non-fascist then you’re failing to prevent fascism and it’s functionally the same as supporting it. You people love to pretend to not understand this but that doesn’t erase it
Until then he was doing meh. After that he was also doing meh, because that has been the official policy of the US for at least the last 50 years.
So you have either “meh” or “let’s do turbo genocide and have oil companies write environmental policy” (not even going into all the criminality). I find “meh” to be the clearly superior option, even if it doesn’t align with my politics.
I mean idk if it’s that funny of a time. Even if they were criticizing 5-6 months ago, and who’s to say they weren’t, it’s a much more engaged in conversation right now, so it’s not a fuckin shocker that people are gonna start talking about it.
He was doing pretty bad up to that point, thus why his approval rating was dogshit. Gaza simply made him unelectable by those who might’ve been able to hold their nose to avoid Trump.
He certainly did give a ton of handouts to corporations with nice sounding names, yeah.
And he offered the GOP every fascist policy they want on border with literally no strings attached. Twice. What a great totally-different-from-republicans guy.
Really knows how to reach across the aisle and be bi-partisan by…-checks notes-…giving the GOP everything they want with no conditions.
Biden bragged about cutting social security, has no desire to reform healthcare, and doesn’t care about income inequality or labour rights. He looks at America’s race-to-the-bottom economy and he’s like “yeah. Everything is working just fine here”
Also, many of the things you listed here are basically just “not Trump/not Republicans” in their own way. You really think “appointed competent people to run government departments” is a positive and not just a non-negative point (as compared to what his opponents would do)?
Also, Biden is obviously fucking senile and I’m tired of people pretending he’s not just because they’re afraid it will give Trump power. It’s totally fine to vote for Biden because he was the lesser evil, but let’s not pretend he was ever a good option. When you ignore reality because it makes it harder to like your preferred candidate, you are doing the exact same thing the MAGA idiots do.
Before you accuse me of anything, you should know I’m Canadian and have absolutely no dog in this fight. This is my unbiased outsider perspective. I could give a shit who wins the next election in the US, but I’m tired of people lying to themselves about either of the candidates not being a steaming pile of shit.
My point was “he appointed competent people to run some departments and gives them enough resources to do their jobs” isn’t a point in his favour. It’s only a neutral point. It’s the baseline that should be expected from someone in his office. You’re saying “Biden doesn’t actively strip the government for parts”. It only makes sense as a point in his favour if you assume that the alternative is “starve the beast” tactics (which TBF it definitely is). It can only be considered a positive as compared to his opponent.
I disagree with you first statement. It is definitely a point in his favor because the election doesn’t happen in a vacuum, you must take into account who the alternatives are.
Seriously. An election is a single event where people decide between some options they are presented with. It is not some kind of wide-reaching manifesto or affirmation of faith/loyalty.
The point is that you should hold the Democrats and Biden accountable for being evil and not doing good things that make people’s lives better (which they absolutely have the power to do). They sit back and watch the world burn, then when election time comes they say “at least we didn’t start any of these fires” (they just don’t bother extinguishing them)
Again I disagree. They are not doing enough maybe, but they are doing something. Rescheduling pot, insulin prices, student debt cancelation… (I’m over in Europe so I only know about some things, I’m sure there’s more that I don’t know).
not doing good things that make people’s lives better
They sit back and watch the world burn
They spent billions to upgrade drinking water infrastructure across the country, as well as roads and bridges. They protected and strengthened the Affordable Care Act by allowing states to extend postpartum coverage up to 12 months, by disallowing several state-level work requirements for Medicaid, by fixing the “family glitch”, by dropping the number of uninsured by 3.5%, by allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices, by capping the price of insulin, and by banning surprise billing for out-of-network care. They raised the minimum wage for federal workers. They forgave billions in student loans. They expanded VA health care and benefits for veterans exposed to burn pits, Agent Orange, and other toxic substances. They rescheduled marijuana. They established decade-long tax credits for everything from electric vehicles to direct air capture and sequestration of carbon dioxide. They ratified the international Kigali Amendment on reducing HFCs. They implemented drinking water standards for PFAS. I could go on, but I’m bored.
Get your fingers out of your fucking ears, open your eyes, and stop repeating baseless propaganda. I’ll also echo what the commenter above suggested:
kindly shut the fuck up. I’m an American, I’ve ACTUALLY had to live in this country with Trump and Biden as president, and it’s no contest for me.
edit: Downvoting incontrovertible facts. Again. This community never ceases to amaze me.
I’m Canadian and have absolutely no dog in this fight.
Then kindly shut the fuck up. I’m an American, I’ve ACTUALLY had to live in this country with Trump and Biden as president, and it’s no contest for me. I’d take Biden at his worst over Trump any day. That doesn’t mean Biden is good, it means Trump is just that fucking bad.
I’d take Biden at his worst over Trump any day. That doesn’t mean Biden is good, it means Trump is just that fucking bad.
Yeah I 100% agree. That’s exactly my point. The conversation here is whether Biden can stand on his own merits or whether the only thing he has going for him is that he’s not Trump.
There are no good options. Right now it seems they either support Israel or don’t support Ukraine. No one is on the right side(imo) on both options. Sanders is the closest but even he wants strings attached to Ukraine aid.
IMO there should always be strings attached to military aid, lest the military industrial complex have too much of an incentive to pull strings and keep conflicts going longer than necessary.
It’s pretty rare for anyone to praise Biden on his own merits, especially on Lemmy. So maybe don’t get so irate because in comparison to trump, people praise him
And yes you have every dog in this fight, the US is kinda fuckin important for global stability
The US is currently the world’s dominant Imperialist power, if “global stability” means extracting vast amounts of wealth from the global south then perhaps your idea of “global stability” needs to be reevaluated.
I didn’t say things were simple. I said the US is the largest Imperialist power in the world, which is true, and suggested reevaluating your world view.
The US is not holding onto hegemonic power for “stability,” nations can govern themselves just fine. The US is holding onto hegemonic power for profit.
No, it’s absolutely not simple, but it is glaringly obvious that pretending the US is important on the global stage for “stability” is purely a western viewpoint that ignores the US’ contributions as a supporter of terrorism around the world whenever its profits are threatened.
What have I said makes me a tankie? Saying that the US is bad for the world, actually? That’s all forms of Leftism, whether they be Anarchist, Marxist, or so forth.
If you’re just going to resort to Ad Hominem instead of defending your claims or addressing my counters to them, why even reply?
Pointing out the facts about Biden is not “simping” for that pile of shit Trump. It’s like when someone criticizes Biden, we’re required to also provide a list of why Trump is bad.
Have you seen the guy? He’s completely open about his quid pro quo corruption. He hired his entire family to positions of power because why not. He shared top secret documents like it was nothing, while hiding them at his shitty golf resort. He’s painfully fucking blatant and obvious about how shitty he is. We don’t need to supply a list of why he sucks because the dude is a cartoon supervillain. Trust me, when I talk about how shitty Genocide Joe is, I’m definitely not pushing for another 4 years of that asshole Trump.
The reason we have to point things out about Biden is because a ton of otherwise smart people have fallen for this nonsense that he’s somehow good, when he’s nothing but a covert shill for corporations and war, just like every candidate has to be when they become the president of the United States. People like me are tired of the kindergarten-level “if you’re not voting for Biden, you’re voting for Trump” logic that we have to hear on repeat on a daily basis. Why can’t they both be shit? Why can’t it simply be a conversation of why democracy in the US is dead and the fact that we need some sort of political revolution or a goddamn miracle at this point?
Making the assumption that we like A because we criticized B and vice versa is just stupid and dismissive. The world is not that black and white and everyone knows that. This kind of attitude is absolutely counterproductive to unhooking ourselves from these Groundhog Day elections every 4 years where we’re forced to pick from a right-winger or a right-winger.
Wtf? The guy who blew up the general who beat ISIS while he was on a peace mission in a third country? The guy who escalated the drone warfare across Iraq and Syria? Who escalated the trade war with China?
No, America did not stop being an evil empire or start being good for global stability under Trump.
You’re never going to get these people to acknowledge any of this stuff.
They’ll still be defending whatever Biden 2.0 clone is in office a few cycles from now because “He only sent half the number of people to the gas chamber compared to [Identical GOP Incumbent]!”
The technical distinction are becoming less and less compelling. The whole “Things will get better if you just vote for our chosen establishment democrat one more time.” starts to wear thin after decades of 0 substantial results and, more often than not, straight up complicity in the worst crimes of the far-right.
Establishment democrats support the corporate aristocracy and banks just the same, they barely fight for really basic stuff like civil rights and only enough so they have something to point to, not to actually fundamentally change anything in a way that the right can’t just reverse. That’s why we are where we are right now, the Conservative Democrats’ greed and lack of spine has allowed the far-right to capture the courts and undermine our institutions, unopposed over the course of 40-ish years.
The Democratic party is the only one with potential to change, but that’s never going to happen if they can just keep doing the pied piper shit and getting re-elected. For all intents and purposes they are identical.
Here’s the problem, people don’t vote down ticket, and they only vote every 4 years instead of every 2 years.
The president is more of a cheerleader than a person of substantial power. That’s not to say the office of the president isn’t individually powerful, but you need strong margins in the house and the senate to actually get stuff done.
We kind of had that for 2 years when Obama and we got the affordable care act… Even then the margins weren’t that great; I don’t think Obama was the problem so much as they couldn’t find the support to do something bigger in Congress.
Even with those thin margins Democrats come across the aisle regularly to actually get governance done (e.g. fund fixing infrastructure). They’re not even close, we’ve got one party that actually governs, and another that prints money for the rich, attacks people based on their bedroom preferences, and doesn’t give a shit about the environment.
The president is more of a cheerleader than a person of substantial power.
You’re literally using tactics developed by fascists in your argument here. Somehow, the president is little more than a “powerless cheerleader” if we’re talking about Dems but “the end of democracy” if talking about Trump/Republicans. Both can’t be true.
We kind of had that for 2 years when Obama and we got the affordable care act… Even then, the margins weren’t that great; I don’t think Obama was the problem so much as they couldn’t find the support to do something bigger in Congress.
Even with those thin margins Democrats come across the aisle regularly to actually get governance done
The ACA was a plan written by Republicans. Obama and the Dems chose this over any sane single-payer option to allegedly “appease Republicans” and yet none of them voted for it (and then spent years trying to repeal it). This means we could have had single-payer all along instead of further cementing the private healthcare market that continues to bankrupt Americans to this day.
In another attempt to appease Republicans, they allowed them to steal Obamas SCOTUS appointment while also allowing Trump to steal what should have been Biden’s SCOTUS appointment, stacking the Supreme Court with a 6-3 conservative majority which lead to the end of abortion rights in the country and who knows what else in the coming decades.
Neither party is interested in fixing the absolute train wreck that this country has become. Both serve the rich. One party is just better about messaging and branding. There are many good Dem politicians but the party leadership and party as a whole is just as rotten as the other. That’s why we’re here with Trump having a 50% chance of being president for the third time in a row and why we’ll continue to have candidates like him in the future.
You’re literally using tactics developed by fascists in your argument here.
[citation needed]
Somehow, the president is little more than a “powerless cheerleader” if we’re talking about Dems but “the end of democracy” if talking about Trump/Republicans. Both can’t be true.
They’re over simplifying the problem. Trump is a cheerleader for fascism inside of the United States, a vote for Trump is a vote for every Republican in congress to be emboldened to do Trump like things (and even if they don’t agree with them, fear their own removal).
There’s certainly a different aspect for international issues and relations as well. However, ultimately, congress has all the power in this country. If Democrats had solid super majorities in the house and senate, or there was a super majority that was willing to side with Democrats to protect from Trump, there would be very little reason to worry.
In fact, we wouldn’t even be having this discussion because congress would have held Trump accountable and convicted him during the impeachment hearings preventing him from holding office.
Obama and the Dems chose this over any sane single-payer option to allegedly “appease Republicans”
[Citation needed] see the majorities at the time, they could not get single payer past the majority of the Democrats in congress let alone Republicans. There was not a sufficiently progressive majority.
In another attempt to appease Republicans, they allowed them to steal Obamas SCOTUS appointment while also allowing Trump to steal what should have been Biden’s SCOTUS appointment
They “allowed” that to happen? What could they have done?
They didn’t have control of congress.
I’d go on but I don’t have time to say “they didn’t have control of congress” all day. If you want something done in this country, you need congress (either via super majority) or via a slim majority and an aligned president (and even then in the latter case, results may very due to personal votes/perspectives of representatives).
Here’s the problem, people don’t vote down ticket, and they only vote every 4 years instead of every 2 years.
In no small part due to DNC suppression and interference. This is why people say the neoliberals need to be allowed to fail until they have no option but to tlstop suppression tactics (or leave and go to the GOP where they belong)
The base cannot reform the DNC they can only starve the power structure until it’s desperate enough to stop sniping progressives. It worked after Clinton’s failure, we got a ton of progressives in office after that.
You speak as if the democrats cooperating with republicans is a flaw on their part. They don’t exist in a vacuum — they have to deal with the American public. And when half this fucking country is voting for the disgusting shit the republicans are all about, the democrats aren’t going to stay in office if they always do the right thing. Politics sucks.
And just to clarify: I’m not saying they’re innocent. They do protect a lot of the same institutions that drive inequality, etc.
Also I don’t really hear "Things will get better if you just vote for our chosen establishment democrat one more time” much lately. It’s more like stopping the bleeding or putting down the gun against your head before you can start making improvements. Trumpism is just that bad.
You speak as if the democrats cooperating with republicans is a flaw on their part. They don’t exist in a vacuum — they have to deal with the American public.
The majority of Americans are for basically all progressive policies, particularly when asked directly about a policy rather than a party or politician.
The issue is not the American people (of who MAGA chuds are 30% at best) the issue is that Democrats and Republicans work in concert to rig the system and deny the people access to politicians who are actually willing to implement popular policy.
This corporate circle jerk game (fueled not inconsiderably by Citizens United) is why the fascist roght is able to keep pushing our institutions further t9 the right. Establushment Democrats and Republicans are so busy gorging on lobby payouts and shoving AIPAC money ip their asses that they literally put up no resustance except when it comes to changing the status quo. Which is when they turn and will snarl and bite at anyone who tries to interrupt them.
So no, it is not “dealing with the American people” it’s deliberately side stepping and suppressing them to loot our nation’s legacy.
But I still feel comfortable putting a chunk of the blame on the voters. You’re absolutely right about progressive policies being popular on their own, but the fact that people don’t vote accordingly is the fault of both the communicators and the public. The public who just rolls with the team sport of politics and don’t care to look into actual policies and their effects on people.
I don’t think the public carries most of the blame though, because being ignorant is not nearly as bad as all the intentional bad faith bullshit done by those more involved in the system.
I wouldn’t dream of suggesting otherwise. My point above is simply that voting for the lesser of two evils doesn’t mean you shouldn’t hold your candidate accountable for being… evil.
My initial comment in this thread was responding to someone claiming Biden is great and can stand on his own merits.
Also, you can see from that comment getting downvoted to oblivion within microseconds of it being posted that lots of people think any kind of criticism of Biden is bad.
It’s not that people think ANY kind of criticism of Biden is bad, no. Most of us are probably on the same page.
Where we start rolling our eyes and downvoting, is when it basically sums up to “Genocide bad = Biden bad = Both sides are bad = Vote for third party = Trump gets into office”
Let me tell you something, friend. When Trump was in office, it was some of the most miserable times of my fucking life. I truly did not see any hope if he got elected for another four god damn years. I’d rather kill myself than allow some little whiny ass, dictator wannabe bitch get back in office.
“Genocide bad = Biden bad = Both sides are bad = Vote for third party = Trump gets into office”
Woah calm down there with that slippery slope argument. I literally never said any of that. I said I have no horse in this race. I don’t care who people vote for. If Biden gets in, that’s bad. If Trump gets in, that’s worse. If I was in the US, I’d probably vote for Biden. But then I’d be out in the streets protesting him for being an evil, senile, scumbag.
In terms of establishment conservative Democrats and Republicans? Yes, they represent the same path to fascism. So it’s not both sides, more like same side.
The entire premise is BS because Biden has a list of accomplishments from infrastructure to debt forgiveness, progressive drug guidance, progress in gender/race equality, departments like the ftc and irs being competently run again with actual resources, to judge appointments. Hmm I wonder to who’s benefit it is to ignore all that and label him “not Trump”?
Care to offer an actual list? Every time someone tries to offer an actual list it turns out to be meaningless victory laps. With the possible exception of the NLRB Cemex decision. But that’s getting it’s stress test right now so it’s a bit early to celebrate.
Here you go:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_executive_actions_by_Joe_Biden
All of it is pretty decently documented.
I mean usually people try to curate it to stuff with physical outcomes. Otherwise 90% of that list is performative crap like this one. And if you don’t think that was performative have a look at what red states are doing in schools.
You do understand he can only do so much, right? You’re calling it performative, but he can’t do most of the major things without Congress.
If you’re only complaint is “it’s not enough he should do more” then how about you tell me what your definition of “more” is, and then we can take a look at the actual laws and see if it’s something he can do without Congress.
On that action he could withhold funding. Any police officers enforcing bathroom laws can be arrested and charged. He can federalize the Texas National Guard so Abbott can’t use them on the border. He could direct Darpa to research battery technology and make any resulting patents free and open for anyone to produce.
That’s 3 ideas in his power in less than 5 minutes. The laws are already on the books. He refuses to use them and keeps running this “woe is me, congress is out of control” narrative and I’m tired of nobody calling him on it.
They gave you a list. You go find the links if you’re so hell bent on handwaving them away.
If you check my post history you’ll see I do go through the entire list when it’s reasonable. I’m not trawling through a thousand EOs and NSMs for an internet stranger though. That’s dangerously close to trying to prove a negative and will take multiple months. If they want to prove a point they need to support that point. Not do the source version of waving vaguely in the direction of the White House.
cough supporting a genocide cough
Until then he was doing great yeah. Bit of a big one though.
And before you hit me with the usual I know Trump would be worse for Gaza but it doesn’t change what Biden has done
1 he always supported it, so if you say “until” you just didn’t care until it went hot, 2 I don’t think it changes it that his opponent supports it harder, but it does speak to your options.
He always supported Israel… I think the ‘until’ is in reference to Israel’s more recent and more blatant attack on Gaza - prior to that, Biden’s support for Israel wasn’t nearly as flagrant as it is now.
Like, no one would bat an eye if I told them I support my wife’s decisions, but if she started breaking into the local NICUs and stomping on people’s babies, my continued support for her decisions would be a tad sus. …especially if I regularly said “honey could you tone the baby-stomping down a bit?” as I handed her a new pair of baby-stomping boots.
I’m not a both-sides’er (unless I’m talking to a trumpanzee in an attempt to steer votes away from Agent Orange). My vote is going to Biden and I encourage anyone reading this to do the same, but our complicity in the genocide on Gaza is genuinely upsetting, partly because it’s complicity in a fucking genocide, and partly because this WILL cause voter disengagement and could hand that other dipshit the presidency on a silver platter.
Thank you for putting this so well.
The genocide started way, way before October 6th. October 6th was a reaction to increased aggression from Israeli settlers who had massively increased the amount of land they were stealing. The difference is that it was more subtle, so nobody cared, but if you forcibly remove everyone from their homeland it’s still genocide.
Obviously I’m glad Americans are waking up to the realization that Israel is an apartheid state, but it’s been true for decades. The fact that Biden has always been a Zionist was a huge red flag, but he was “the only person who could beat Trump” and now we’re stuck here.
You’re saying that about a guy who has been saying shit like “I am a zionist” every year while sucking Israel’s dick. LOL.
You’re just showing that you have 0 idea what you’re talking about and that your opinion is only based on your fantasies, reality does not seem to be of interest to you.
Obviously it wasn’t as big an issue until October 7th. I did care, just not as much was happening
Exactly this. It’s astonishing how many people would destroy everything based on an extremely old holy war because the US didn’t suddenly reverse their long established policy when the conflict heats up again.
The Trumpists are ecstatic how easy it was to flip these morons.
I would never vote Trump. “Morons” for having criticism of a president supplying weapons that have killed over 10k children?
These centrist democrats are ecstatic how a substantial number of their voters have no standards whatsoever and will defend anything as long as it keeps Trump out.
Downvote all you want. If you can’t criticise Biden for this you’re a piece of shit
I don’t need to “criticize Biden”. That isn’t what’s happening anyhow. What’s happening is that people are pretending Biden is the one doing this and threatening to destroy the United States if he doesn’t stop the thing which he is not doing. Sending Israel money is a fuck of a lot older than his presidency.
Just because it’s been happening for a while doesn’t make it right.
Why was Rafah a red line until all of a sudden it wasn’t? Because he knows it’s morally wrong and will lead to a lot of death but is too much of a coward to stand up for what he believes.
Just because you care about it now doesn’t suddenly make it more important than every concern, including preventing it from getting far worse.
I cared the whole time.
Honestly as someone who isn’t American, this is more important to me than economic policy or whatever. I want Biden to win, Trump winning would be awful for everyone, basically worldwide. But most of all I want the kids to stop dying. I really don’t think this is so unreasonable.
Trump won’t be convinced. Biden might be. And this “less important” issue could still cost him swing states. I think maybe not supporting a genocide could be a vote winner.
It’s almost as if many of these people are just virtue signaling or falling for the propoganda. I don’t see any of these same commenters so vocally opposed to any of the other handful atrocities happening around the world, and yet they fail to think the next thought of what will the situation be like if Trump wins?
Yeah, I think a lot of them are just bad actors, faking left leanings. Paid or otherwise. This one guy posts several times every single day about the war and often lays it all at Biden’s feet. If he’s paid, Putin or whoever it is truly does get their money’s worth with so many posts and comments essentially indirectly supporting trump.
And if you dare to disagree with their bullshit of course the means you love genocide. Literally have had several commenters use those exact words.
Are you talking about me? Do you seriously think someone pays me to post rather than me just being a person who is horrified about what’s happening?
Given that your last post was about Bob Dylan and it was 3 weeks ago, I’m kind of struggling to see where you got the idea I was referring to you. Makes me wonder why you thought that…
Because this comment chain stems from my reply? Not complicated. But yes my apologies for getting the wrong idea.
So if you are against genocide, you don’t get a candidate that can represent you. And americans would rather drag their dick through miles of broken glass than to vote 3rd party.
Voting 3rd party in a primary is throwing your vote away, plain and simple. If we want better candidates, handily defeat the GOP so that it has no choice other than to ditch the completely fascist support, or collapse. That’s the only chance we have of getting more progressive candidates to vote for. Start in local elections, move to state, then get some of these people into higher office.
Hoping that suddenly the incumbent Democrat candidate will become a super progressive person at the 11th hour is just a fantasy.
My point exactly with “crawling through miles of glass before voting third party”. A nation of defeatists.
Stop the disinformation. Voting 3rd party in this general election is just going to help Trump and the fascists. You’re either a naive fool, or a disinformation agent.
Again, my point exactly. You are almost combative about voting for anyone who doesn’t support the genocide. Good job.
I don’t need to torture my penis to know it would have a bad outcome to do so, kind of like giving my vote to trump with an extra step while pretending to be a martyr
Only voting for Trump is giving him your vote.
Russian troll either being intentionally obtuse or a fool.
Except for the fact that we know how the system works and third party candidates have no chance
So should people who are not going to vote for a Trump or Biden actively cast their vote for Trump then? It’s the same thing, after all, right?
Is not casting a vote for Trump actually a vote for Biden?
You are deranged
Did you fail math?
Obviously if you refuse to support the non-fascist then you’re failing to prevent fascism and it’s functionally the same as supporting it. You people love to pretend to not understand this but that doesn’t erase it
Until then he was doing meh. After that he was also doing meh, because that has been the official policy of the US for at least the last 50 years.
So you have either “meh” or “let’s do turbo genocide and have oil companies write environmental policy” (not even going into all the criminality). I find “meh” to be the clearly superior option, even if it doesn’t align with my politics.
But if someone criticises the “meh,” this is somehow an issue with the person and not the “meh”?
You picked a funny time to start criticizing.
I mean idk if it’s that funny of a time. Even if they were criticizing 5-6 months ago, and who’s to say they weren’t, it’s a much more engaged in conversation right now, so it’s not a fuckin shocker that people are gonna start talking about it.
When the genocide started? Gosh yeah you’re right what a mystery
He was doing pretty bad up to that point, thus why his approval rating was dogshit. Gaza simply made him unelectable by those who might’ve been able to hold their nose to avoid Trump.
He certainly did give a ton of handouts to corporations with nice sounding names, yeah.
And he offered the GOP every fascist policy they want on border with literally no strings attached. Twice. What a great totally-different-from-republicans guy.
Really knows how to reach across the aisle and be bi-partisan by…-checks notes-…giving the GOP everything they want with no conditions.
If less people like you voted for trump, he wouldn’t have to negotiate with those assholes
I really despise that liars like this exist
Well, horses and dogs both have four legs, so clearly they’re identical
So he makes no concessions, nothing gets done, and then we’d be sitting here saying he’s not doing enough.
I’d rather he do nothing than do actively bad things.
Biden bragged about cutting social security, has no desire to reform healthcare, and doesn’t care about income inequality or labour rights. He looks at America’s race-to-the-bottom economy and he’s like “yeah. Everything is working just fine here”
Also, many of the things you listed here are basically just “not Trump/not Republicans” in their own way. You really think “appointed competent people to run government departments” is a positive and not just a non-negative point (as compared to what his opponents would do)?
Also, Biden is obviously fucking senile and I’m tired of people pretending he’s not just because they’re afraid it will give Trump power. It’s totally fine to vote for Biden because he was the lesser evil, but let’s not pretend he was ever a good option. When you ignore reality because it makes it harder to like your preferred candidate, you are doing the exact same thing the MAGA idiots do.
Before you accuse me of anything, you should know I’m Canadian and have absolutely no dog in this fight. This is my unbiased outsider perspective. I could give a shit who wins the next election in the US, but I’m tired of people lying to themselves about either of the candidates not being a steaming pile of shit.
substitutes everything the candidate runs on to “I’m not the other guy”, because the other guy doesn’t run on those things
accuses candidate of running on “I’m not the other guy”
LMAO yup
My point was “he appointed competent people to run some departments and gives them enough resources to do their jobs” isn’t a point in his favour. It’s only a neutral point. It’s the baseline that should be expected from someone in his office. You’re saying “Biden doesn’t actively strip the government for parts”. It only makes sense as a point in his favour if you assume that the alternative is “starve the beast” tactics (which TBF it definitely is). It can only be considered a positive as compared to his opponent.
I disagree with you first statement. It is definitely a point in his favor because the election doesn’t happen in a vacuum, you must take into account who the alternatives are.
Seriously. An election is a single event where people decide between some options they are presented with. It is not some kind of wide-reaching manifesto or affirmation of faith/loyalty.
The point is that you should hold the Democrats and Biden accountable for being evil and not doing good things that make people’s lives better (which they absolutely have the power to do). They sit back and watch the world burn, then when election time comes they say “at least we didn’t start any of these fires” (they just don’t bother extinguishing them)
Again I disagree. They are not doing enough maybe, but they are doing something. Rescheduling pot, insulin prices, student debt cancelation… (I’m over in Europe so I only know about some things, I’m sure there’s more that I don’t know).
They spent billions to upgrade drinking water infrastructure across the country, as well as roads and bridges. They protected and strengthened the Affordable Care Act by allowing states to extend postpartum coverage up to 12 months, by disallowing several state-level work requirements for Medicaid, by fixing the “family glitch”, by dropping the number of uninsured by 3.5%, by allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices, by capping the price of insulin, and by banning surprise billing for out-of-network care. They raised the minimum wage for federal workers. They forgave billions in student loans. They expanded VA health care and benefits for veterans exposed to burn pits, Agent Orange, and other toxic substances. They rescheduled marijuana. They established decade-long tax credits for everything from electric vehicles to direct air capture and sequestration of carbon dioxide. They ratified the international Kigali Amendment on reducing HFCs. They implemented drinking water standards for PFAS. I could go on, but I’m bored.
Get your fingers out of your fucking ears, open your eyes, and stop repeating baseless propaganda. I’ll also echo what the commenter above suggested:
edit: Downvoting incontrovertible facts. Again. This community never ceases to amaze me.
Then kindly shut the fuck up. I’m an American, I’ve ACTUALLY had to live in this country with Trump and Biden as president, and it’s no contest for me. I’d take Biden at his worst over Trump any day. That doesn’t mean Biden is good, it means Trump is just that fucking bad.
Yeah I 100% agree. That’s exactly my point. The conversation here is whether Biden can stand on his own merits or whether the only thing he has going for him is that he’s not Trump.
Are you stupid or do you just watch Fox
There are no good options. Right now it seems they either support Israel or don’t support Ukraine. No one is on the right side(imo) on both options. Sanders is the closest but even he wants strings attached to Ukraine aid.
IMO there should always be strings attached to military aid, lest the military industrial complex have too much of an incentive to pull strings and keep conflicts going longer than necessary.
Ok…too many strings then.
It’s pretty rare for anyone to praise Biden on his own merits, especially on Lemmy. So maybe don’t get so irate because in comparison to trump, people praise him
And yes you have every dog in this fight, the US is kinda fuckin important for global stability
The US is currently the world’s dominant Imperialist power, if “global stability” means extracting vast amounts of wealth from the global south then perhaps your idea of “global stability” needs to be reevaluated.
This is the laziest shit ever. It’s very convenient to say that things are as simple as that but they obviously aren’t.
I didn’t say things were simple. I said the US is the largest Imperialist power in the world, which is true, and suggested reevaluating your world view.
The US is not holding onto hegemonic power for “stability,” nations can govern themselves just fine. The US is holding onto hegemonic power for profit.
No, it’s absolutely not simple, but it is glaringly obvious that pretending the US is important on the global stage for “stability” is purely a western viewpoint that ignores the US’ contributions as a supporter of terrorism around the world whenever its profits are threatened.
Tankie gon’ tank
What have I said makes me a tankie? Saying that the US is bad for the world, actually? That’s all forms of Leftism, whether they be Anarchist, Marxist, or so forth.
If you’re just going to resort to Ad Hominem instead of defending your claims or addressing my counters to them, why even reply?
Any time someone wants to immediately move the conversation toward “us interests are evil” it’s pretty obvious there’s an agenda.
The guys who fund terrorists and dictatorships all over the world are important to global stability, but not in the way you think.
You can try to pretend trump was good for the world because US bAd but he wasn’t.
Who said Trump was good? Nobody in this thread, that’s for damn sure
They’re simping for him. They don’t need to state the obvious directly for me to notice it
Pointing out the facts about Biden is not “simping” for that pile of shit Trump. It’s like when someone criticizes Biden, we’re required to also provide a list of why Trump is bad.
Have you seen the guy? He’s completely open about his quid pro quo corruption. He hired his entire family to positions of power because why not. He shared top secret documents like it was nothing, while hiding them at his shitty golf resort. He’s painfully fucking blatant and obvious about how shitty he is. We don’t need to supply a list of why he sucks because the dude is a cartoon supervillain. Trust me, when I talk about how shitty Genocide Joe is, I’m definitely not pushing for another 4 years of that asshole Trump.
The reason we have to point things out about Biden is because a ton of otherwise smart people have fallen for this nonsense that he’s somehow good, when he’s nothing but a covert shill for corporations and war, just like every candidate has to be when they become the president of the United States. People like me are tired of the kindergarten-level “if you’re not voting for Biden, you’re voting for Trump” logic that we have to hear on repeat on a daily basis. Why can’t they both be shit? Why can’t it simply be a conversation of why democracy in the US is dead and the fact that we need some sort of political revolution or a goddamn miracle at this point?
Making the assumption that we like A because we criticized B and vice versa is just stupid and dismissive. The world is not that black and white and everyone knows that. This kind of attitude is absolutely counterproductive to unhooking ourselves from these Groundhog Day elections every 4 years where we’re forced to pick from a right-winger or a right-winger.
It’s a two party system and an election year. Not complicated
Wtf? The guy who blew up the general who beat ISIS while he was on a peace mission in a third country? The guy who escalated the drone warfare across Iraq and Syria? Who escalated the trade war with China?
No, America did not stop being an evil empire or start being good for global stability under Trump.
What the hell are you talking about? Nothing I said resembled trump support
You were implying Trump was good because the US is bad, but Trump’s foreign policy was as destructive as every other presidents.
That’s… literally the exact opposite of what they said.
What the fuck are you smoking? Read better
You’re never going to get these people to acknowledge any of this stuff.
They’ll still be defending whatever Biden 2.0 clone is in office a few cycles from now because “He only sent half the number of people to the gas chamber compared to [Identical GOP Incumbent]!”
That is the thing, the GOP isn’t identical. It is pretty much worse every single time.
The technical distinction are becoming less and less compelling. The whole “Things will get better if you just vote for our chosen establishment democrat one more time.” starts to wear thin after decades of 0 substantial results and, more often than not, straight up complicity in the worst crimes of the far-right.
Establishment democrats support the corporate aristocracy and banks just the same, they barely fight for really basic stuff like civil rights and only enough so they have something to point to, not to actually fundamentally change anything in a way that the right can’t just reverse. That’s why we are where we are right now, the Conservative Democrats’ greed and lack of spine has allowed the far-right to capture the courts and undermine our institutions, unopposed over the course of 40-ish years.
The Democratic party is the only one with potential to change, but that’s never going to happen if they can just keep doing the pied piper shit and getting re-elected. For all intents and purposes they are identical.
Here’s the problem, people don’t vote down ticket, and they only vote every 4 years instead of every 2 years.
The president is more of a cheerleader than a person of substantial power. That’s not to say the office of the president isn’t individually powerful, but you need strong margins in the house and the senate to actually get stuff done.
We kind of had that for 2 years when Obama and we got the affordable care act… Even then the margins weren’t that great; I don’t think Obama was the problem so much as they couldn’t find the support to do something bigger in Congress.
Even with those thin margins Democrats come across the aisle regularly to actually get governance done (e.g. fund fixing infrastructure). They’re not even close, we’ve got one party that actually governs, and another that prints money for the rich, attacks people based on their bedroom preferences, and doesn’t give a shit about the environment.
You’re literally using tactics developed by fascists in your argument here. Somehow, the president is little more than a “powerless cheerleader” if we’re talking about Dems but “the end of democracy” if talking about Trump/Republicans. Both can’t be true.
The ACA was a plan written by Republicans. Obama and the Dems chose this over any sane single-payer option to allegedly “appease Republicans” and yet none of them voted for it (and then spent years trying to repeal it). This means we could have had single-payer all along instead of further cementing the private healthcare market that continues to bankrupt Americans to this day.
In another attempt to appease Republicans, they allowed them to steal Obamas SCOTUS appointment while also allowing Trump to steal what should have been Biden’s SCOTUS appointment, stacking the Supreme Court with a 6-3 conservative majority which lead to the end of abortion rights in the country and who knows what else in the coming decades.
Neither party is interested in fixing the absolute train wreck that this country has become. Both serve the rich. One party is just better about messaging and branding. There are many good Dem politicians but the party leadership and party as a whole is just as rotten as the other. That’s why we’re here with Trump having a 50% chance of being president for the third time in a row and why we’ll continue to have candidates like him in the future.
[citation needed]
They’re over simplifying the problem. Trump is a cheerleader for fascism inside of the United States, a vote for Trump is a vote for every Republican in congress to be emboldened to do Trump like things (and even if they don’t agree with them, fear their own removal).
There’s certainly a different aspect for international issues and relations as well. However, ultimately, congress has all the power in this country. If Democrats had solid super majorities in the house and senate, or there was a super majority that was willing to side with Democrats to protect from Trump, there would be very little reason to worry.
In fact, we wouldn’t even be having this discussion because congress would have held Trump accountable and convicted him during the impeachment hearings preventing him from holding office.
[Citation needed] see the majorities at the time, they could not get single payer past the majority of the Democrats in congress let alone Republicans. There was not a sufficiently progressive majority.
They “allowed” that to happen? What could they have done?
They didn’t have control of congress.
I’d go on but I don’t have time to say “they didn’t have control of congress” all day. If you want something done in this country, you need congress (either via super majority) or via a slim majority and an aligned president (and even then in the latter case, results may very due to personal votes/perspectives of representatives).
In no small part due to DNC suppression and interference. This is why people say the neoliberals need to be allowed to fail until they have no option but to tlstop suppression tactics (or leave and go to the GOP where they belong)
The base cannot reform the DNC they can only starve the power structure until it’s desperate enough to stop sniping progressives. It worked after Clinton’s failure, we got a ton of progressives in office after that.
You speak as if the democrats cooperating with republicans is a flaw on their part. They don’t exist in a vacuum — they have to deal with the American public. And when half this fucking country is voting for the disgusting shit the republicans are all about, the democrats aren’t going to stay in office if they always do the right thing. Politics sucks.
And just to clarify: I’m not saying they’re innocent. They do protect a lot of the same institutions that drive inequality, etc.
Also I don’t really hear "Things will get better if you just vote for our chosen establishment democrat one more time” much lately. It’s more like stopping the bleeding or putting down the gun against your head before you can start making improvements. Trumpism is just that bad.
The majority of Americans are for basically all progressive policies, particularly when asked directly about a policy rather than a party or politician.
The issue is not the American people (of who MAGA chuds are 30% at best) the issue is that Democrats and Republicans work in concert to rig the system and deny the people access to politicians who are actually willing to implement popular policy.
This corporate circle jerk game (fueled not inconsiderably by Citizens United) is why the fascist roght is able to keep pushing our institutions further t9 the right. Establushment Democrats and Republicans are so busy gorging on lobby payouts and shoving AIPAC money ip their asses that they literally put up no resustance except when it comes to changing the status quo. Which is when they turn and will snarl and bite at anyone who tries to interrupt them.
So no, it is not “dealing with the American people” it’s deliberately side stepping and suppressing them to loot our nation’s legacy.
Yeah, and the media is complicit in all of it.
But I still feel comfortable putting a chunk of the blame on the voters. You’re absolutely right about progressive policies being popular on their own, but the fact that people don’t vote accordingly is the fault of both the communicators and the public. The public who just rolls with the team sport of politics and don’t care to look into actual policies and their effects on people.
I don’t think the public carries most of the blame though, because being ignorant is not nearly as bad as all the intentional bad faith bullshit done by those more involved in the system.
I wouldn’t dream of suggesting otherwise. My point above is simply that voting for the lesser of two evils doesn’t mean you shouldn’t hold your candidate accountable for being… evil.
No one is pretending that Biden is any good. Lots of people are pretending that he’s no better than Trump.
My initial comment in this thread was responding to someone claiming Biden is great and can stand on his own merits.
Also, you can see from that comment getting downvoted to oblivion within microseconds of it being posted that lots of people think any kind of criticism of Biden is bad.
Yeah, no.
It’s not that people think ANY kind of criticism of Biden is bad, no. Most of us are probably on the same page.
Where we start rolling our eyes and downvoting, is when it basically sums up to “Genocide bad = Biden bad = Both sides are bad = Vote for third party = Trump gets into office”
Let me tell you something, friend. When Trump was in office, it was some of the most miserable times of my fucking life. I truly did not see any hope if he got elected for another four god damn years. I’d rather kill myself than allow some little whiny ass, dictator wannabe bitch get back in office.
Woah calm down there with that slippery slope argument. I literally never said any of that. I said I have no horse in this race. I don’t care who people vote for. If Biden gets in, that’s bad. If Trump gets in, that’s worse. If I was in the US, I’d probably vote for Biden. But then I’d be out in the streets protesting him for being an evil, senile, scumbag.
BoTh SiDeS
In terms of establishment conservative Democrats and Republicans? Yes, they represent the same path to fascism. So it’s not both sides, more like same side.
Progressives would be the only non-fascist side.
Hereby invalidating all your future comments