this post was submitted on 16 Jul 2024
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It's not about that. It's about sleep walking into fascism. Before the debate it was metaphorical. If you keep voting for the lesser evil you still get evil. It just takes longer.
Now we're being asked to vote for someone who clearly cannot handle the duties of the office and is nothing more than a figurehead. Rubber stamping this does not protect democracy. It proves they can manufacture consent to put whoever they want in that office and you guys will keep pulling that lever thinking, "it could be worse".
Ok so let's have Trump instead?
No, thanks. Vote for Biden so that we don't have to repeat the fallout of 2016.
Vote for anyone but Biden, Trump, and RFK.
We aren't too close to November to replace him.
Would you vote for Harris? Newsom?
Yeah. Probably.
If that's true, what are the policy differences that qualifies them in you mind, vs Biden?
Well Harris has been critical of Israel, and that may have just been part of a communications strategy but it's all we have to go for now. Other than that she's far less likely to drop dead in the next 4 years and doesn't have bouts of senility that can occur at the worst times. (Let's be real, that debate hasn't been properly explained, the white house is holding on to jet lag from a trip two weeks before the debate.) The pro corporate shit isn't likely to change. And that's something we'll have to keep working on.
Newsom is the same. He hasn't been directly critical of Israel but he has reached out to support the Palestinian community in California. Which is probably more important and real to his position as governor. But he's a center dem just like Harris. And he's also not likely to drop dead.
Both candidates will inherit many of Biden's cabinet and staff and continue his policies. Newsom might take a lighter touch with immigration, (he'd have to frame it as trimming Biden's EO to protect it from the courts), but other than that I don't expect huge differences. Even differences I'd like to see.
Very reasonable expectations.
Maybe I'm not understanding your Biden position, then. It sounded like you refused to vote for Biden if he's the nominee.
But you seem to be OK with his policies, minus his handling of Isreal. But you also acknowledge that little is likely to change under the other frontrunners, besides maybe being a little more sympathetic towards Gazians.
And given that you also expect him to drop dead or become mentally incapacitated in the next 4 years, it seems like Harris taking the baton is exactly what you want.
So why is a Biden vote completely unreasonable to you? Or is that not your position?
His age, health, and Israel position. He hasn't just supported Israel, he's completely blocked any attempts to apply US laws about human rights and directly parrots IDF propaganda our own intelligence community debunks. His new immigration policy came after that started but is just as disqualifying. He is trying to deny asylum in direct contravention of our laws. It was one thing when everyone thought he was screwing with the Republicans, but then he just ordered it to happen. Which is something we criticized about Trump too.
I'm not as close to the immigration issue, but my understanding that his first choice, expanding funding to handle the massive backlog of asylum apps, was dead on arrival because the Republican controlled congress refused to play ball. So he executive ordered a shitty bandaid to reduce the number of asylum applications in an overwhelmed system.
I.E., no good solution was available to him because of Republican regressives blocking him, so he just did the best he could with an executive order.
Seems odd to blame him for that instead of the GOP.
You comments on Isreal are on point, and I don't think many here disagree. But at the same time, Trump has explicitly said he will do much worse. So I don't understand the refusal to vote for Biden if he's the nominee come election time. Because if you're a single issue voter, the other candidate is much worse.
Biden could have just not. He didn't have to write that EO. That status quo wasn't great but it was better than fast deporting asylees.
As far as Israel, it's all connected. If he's winning to participate in those human rights abuses then he's willing to do so here too. And the immigration EO is proof of that. Not voting for war criminals is an act of self defense.