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Biden closes gap on Trump but third-party candidates pose danger, polls show
(www.theguardian.com)
this post was submitted on 14 Apr 2024
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politics
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The first Trump criminal trial starts tomorrow. Trump's fundraising is being crushed by Biden. RNC is hurting for cash and what is there is being gobbled up by Trump's lawyers. Down ballot candidates will have zero assistance.
Republicans are facing the most devastating defeat in their history. Polling has been garbage for two election cycles. Just look at the writing on the wall. Trump is running on fumes and it's only going to get worse.
Vote anyway.
Absolutely. Not voting is a vote for the candidate you don't like.
The neat part is that, for me, voting is also a vote for the candidate I don't like.
So I guess it comes down to which one will do the least harm to what you feel is the right thing. Both have had a term as president so we have a pretty good idea on how exactly they'll act in their second one.
If the Republic plunges into a dark age, for example because democracy ended, and you stayed home when your contribution could have prevented it, you're still sharing in the blame. No amount of smug self-righteousness will wind back the clock. You already have one previous devastating administration and an insurrection worth of warning.
Do you want to keep the Republic, or not?
I don't want the republic but I don't want fascism either
The genocide argument is a really bad one. Yes the Biden administration is culpable. The Trump administration would pump more money into it and start parading around the genocide like it's a good thing.
There's voting for the side who might get tired of the public opposition and stop funding that shit, or letting the genocidal wannabe dictator win.
Okay, so we punish the Democrats and the Republicans necessarily win as a result. Hopefully that's not a controversial assumption.
How many such intentional losses should be planned on so that we can get the Democrats try to move left to recapture support? How are we going to ensure they try to better court the left instead of moving to the right?
I'm always so confused by this argument because "punishing the Democrats by letting Republicans win"...wouldn't the assumption just be that the people WANT a more right wing government?
Wouldn't that simply encourage politicians to be like "Oh, the crazies won last time. Maybe that's who our voting block is now. Maybe it's time to also be crazy."
I'm not asking you to read minds. Just to explain how this works in your mind. I understand the frustration, and desire to express it, and the expression I'm, possibly incorrectly, assuming you have is to not vote for them. What is the process by which this accomplishes more than making Republicans win elections, and pushing the Democrats to the right?
Okay, fair. I asked that in that way because I believe that politicians listen primarily to corporations, sure, and secondarily to reliable voting blocs. My thought was that by proving to be an unreliable voting bloc, there's a reasonable risk that instead of trying to court that bloc to make it turn out more, they would just go after other blocs that already are reliable.
But! You don't think the democrats would try to court the right instead of the left if the left proves to be an unreliable voter bloc. Fair! What about the rest? We punish them via withholding of votes, they lose, and then... by what mechanism are they pushed to the left? By the loss, or is there more to the idea? What if they don't, or don't do it good enough? Withhold votes and make them lose again? Is there ever an adjustment to the plan, or is it just an unfortunate helping of our ideological opponents for however long it takes for the Democrats to get it right?
I see. I appreciate your taking the time to explain your point of view. Still not my preferred method of engagement, but I understand better where you were coming from, and that's what I was trying to accomplish!
Okay, so when the election happens, vote to keep the fascists out of power, and every other day the 4 years in between do something to push politics in the direction you want it to go.
No I'm thinking in terms of we cannot revive the dead so let's not put the genocidal wannabe dictator in power for 4 years. I clearly can't stop what's currently happening but I'm sure as hell not going to vote in a way that results in more people dying more quickly.
You mistake accepting genocide with trying to prevent a worse genocide.
Enjoy having your bodily autonomy stripped away and turned into a baby making factory because you don't understand the concept of harm reduction.
The fact that this is even on the table is why I'm upset. A sane government would not let that sort of thing happen. But we have a majority of the Supreme Court nominated by two presidents who lost the popular vote because a bunch of slave owners over 200 years ago were butthurt at the idea that the popular vote for president wouldn't go their way.
The Electoral College was also established to aid in guiding uninformed voters. It was logical to implement it for presidential elections, since most people wouldn’t have heard about the policy or platform of either candidate.
We have the Internet now, so that point is moot.
Exactly. Our government is like we took an 18th century sailing ship, bolted on a steam engine, piled it full of people, and then strapped on some wings so it could fly to the moon.
The structure of our government is so anachronistic I don't know why people are upset it's working so horribly.
The most important thing left out of the Constitution were the instructions on how often to update it.
There are instructions, but those instructions were also modified at the behest of slave owners who wanted an outsized influence. So we can't update it without risking something even worse.
What should have been added was the requirement that it be updated every 20 years.
Corrected. Do you have a source? You’ve piqued my interest.
Article V has the procedure for amending the Constitution
All of the above appears to be true. Trump is being slammed both in court and out, and Trump's fundraising is going to his legal bills while Biden's getting more money and needing to spend it on fewer things. The early polls were scary, for sure, but Bidens numbers are improving, possibly because we're getting more real pollsters in the polling, possibly because less invested people are tuning into the election and realising that as much as the past 4 years sucked, Trump's handling of COVID and his approach to governing are much worse.
Still. We need to be careful with 'we've got this in the bag' thinking. We don't call TFG 'Teflon Don' for nothing. That guy's got more lives than a cat, and is wileyer than a fox. And you know what he's going to do based on what he's accusing other people of doing. We have got to turn out in exceptional numbers and UTTERLY CRUSH TRUMP at the poll box. Even then, we may need to brush up on our self-defence skills because I wouldn't put it past Trump and his backers to actually start an honest-to-goodness coup complete with guns and armies if he loses it. I'm not going to rest until Biden is reinaugurated in 2025...
I agree 100%. But also I think that a politics board on Lemmy is mostly going to be populated with folks who don't need to be told to vote no matter what. Local races are still important. And as you point out, winning by the biggest margin possible is important so even if polling has Biden with a 20 point margin, we've got to turn out and push it even higher. Plus local races are honestly more important to folks' day to day than who is President.
So absolutely everyone vote, but that message will be more important as the election gets closer and mostly in places that aren't full of politics nerds.