this post was submitted on 11 Feb 2024
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What I mean and I think @go_go_gadget@lemmy.world means is your reaction. Now buts or ifs. We've been played into a corner.
The fascists don't even have to win the election to change the political landscape. Look at how immigration or abortion isn't argued about by the democrats for decades. They cede more and more ground.
What we need is an anti-trump on the left. But that is just not were the economic power is.
2016: "I can't vote for Hilary Clinton. You must be joking."
2024: "Look at how must worse the democrats have gotten on immigration and abortion. What significant thing could have happened in the last few years that might have changed the landscape so significantly?"
2028: "Look at how Kamela Harris runs for her second remaining term on the idea of mining the southern border (much better than walls) and a path to citizenship for refugees in return for a stint of indentured servitude!" /s
You're like the partner who, when their partner is in a fight, keeps grabbing their arm and saying STOP STOP STOP FIGHTING IS WRONG and ensuring that they'll get the shit kicked out of them.
Biden's fighting against the Republicans in Texas to improve our immigration policy, and it's not to your liking how he's doing it or how effective he's being, so you're going to give things over to the Republicans instead. Even if that means, yes, literal land mines and concentrations camps, or no election at all in 2028.
If it was just you being victimized by your dogshit logic, I wouldn't care, but I have to live in this country too.
No that's how moderates treat leftists. Leftists actually have ideas that would take the wind out of the sails of the Republican party. Moderates say "No! Stop it! That's too radical!" and elect a pro-corporate trash candidate in the primaries.
I feel like I just asked you this: Are you under the impression that I somehow have the ability to choose who wins the primaries?
I have one vote and you have one vote. My ability to affect the primaries is equal to yours. There are systems of media that conspire to make it tough for a person other than pro-corporate trash to win the primaries, but why are you talking to me like that's my fault? And why are you saying that if the wrong person wins, then staying home to put in office an even worse person is going to help solve the problem?
Sorry, I guess at this point I'm trolling a bit lol. You're too easy to wind up! Yes of course you have to vote for Biden, BUT... it has to be under protest. I think the best way to mobilize democratic voters (and it's not so much people against Biden as people just too fed up to show up) is to tell them they can influence by protesting democrats into more popular opinions.
Because the democrats COULD totally push out more popular (left leaning) policies but they don't wanna. For them it's just a balance sheet of how much shit the people are willing to eat under threat of loosing democracy. There is a fight to be had about better and more popular policies. Like what is the plan for abortion, a federal law? It's just crazy they are not campaigning on that.
I agree with a lot of this, yes. DC is a very weird place and most of our politicians are old as hell. I think a lot of them remember the lessons of George McGovern and Jimmy Carter a lot more clearly than they remember the lessons of Bernie Sanders. Plus, a lot of them are corrupted by the lure of corporate cash, and they turned their backs on the American people. It's a hell of a shame. I agree.
Letting Trump get elected and pour gasoline all over the whole edifice and throw anyone who's left of Ronald Reagan in a detention center won't help any of that. That example of how much damage Trump was able to do to abortion rights and immigration because people couldn't stand to vote for Hilary Clinton, just because she was objectively awful, is pretty illustrative of the calculus that should go into this election.
This logic of "the building we all live in needs major repairs and has for years, so there's no need to put out the fire in the attic until we can address that" winds me up, yes. That's absolutely true.
It's not just about Trump, it's about the one that comes after. Trump is a buffoon that is smart in some ways but overall too stupid to govern effectively. But I'm sure there are elements who are now casting someone who can activate people like Trump can, but is more self controlled or controllable.
Ironically I find myself in a similar, but much much worse discussion today (yes of course it's hexbear).
Fun stuff.
Yes, Trump will absolutely threaten trans people's safety in addition to being far more encouraging than Biden is with massacring Arabs. That's not "using as a shield," that's just what's up. Of course you already know this.
Let me get this straight, when people refuse to vote for a candidate for not leaning far enough to the left you are defending the party moving to the right in response?
I mean if that's what you actually believe cool but it would mean that democracy can't work. Because refusing to vote for someone who doesn't support issues you care about results in them abandoning you even further.
I am saying that there's very serious material harm done to the country because of Donald Trump's first term, which for as horrible as she was, wouldn't have happened or anywhere close to, if it had been Hilary Clinton. Abortion and immigration are two very clear demonstrations, yes.
You're blaming the harm that he did on the Democrats somehow, and then threatening to do the exact same thing to Biden that, when it happened to Clinton, opened the door for him to do it in the first place. And this time, the harm he does will be infinitely worse.
If we're going that far back let's go back further to when the Democrats had a super majority under Obama. They could have codified Roe v. Wade then, but they didn't. Instead they passed a Republican healthcare plan from the 90's (requiring citizens to buy insurance while leaving it up to states on how to actually do that) and completely turned away from demands for a single-payer system.
We don't blame Democrats for the harm Republicans do. We blame them for caving to them at every turn and doing nothing to fix the damage when they have the opportunity. Not to mention the harm they themselves do (supporting/funding genocide, Biden's crime bill from the early 90's that helped create the modern culture of policing, Kamala campaigning to keep nonviolent weed offenders in prison after legalization, etc.)
"But ______ is so much worse" is a worse and worse argument the more the political ratchet moves to the right. Reps drag us right Dems keep us from moving left.
Yes. After 2016 did you think we were bluffing twice?
Stop electing pro-corporate trash in the primaries. Start screaming at people who vote for pro-corporate trash in the primaries. Start screaming at the DNC for having primaries be decided in states that go to Republicans in the general. Start screaming at Biden to promise not to block the rail unions in 2025. Start screaming at Biden to stop supplying weapons to Israel.
One of those things might make a difference. Screaming at us will not. I promise you.
Are you under the impression that somehow I have the ability to elect different people in the primaries, and I'm just choosing not to?
I have no idea who you voted for. If you didn't vote for Biden then great. You're not a selfish piece of shit. Congratulations. Now take a look at the rest of my recommendations for things that would be a better use of your time:
What if Bernie Sanders might get elected in the primary, but I decide there's an element of his platform that I don't like, and I stay home in protest instead of voting, and Biden wins the primary instead? Am I, then, a selfish piece of shit?
No.
Anyone who didn't vote, or voted for Warren, Bernie, Pete, Kamala or even a couple others is fine by me. But if they voted for Biden they're a selfish piece of shit. If they voted for Bloomberg they're a selfish piece of shit and a moron.