There are two things that will lose the election for Democrats if they don’t get them under control.
- Infighting and arguing over who the candidate should be.
- The “All is lost” attitude.
If people don’t stop fighting and trying to convince themselves that it’s not worth it to go to the polls then this is game over.
I feel as if not enough people are saying this.
Infighting is a bane. Back when I was on Reddit I got fucking downvoted into oblivion multiple times for pointing out that the Left’s biggest problem, both now and historically, is how we can never agree on anything. That whatever faults the Right has, they will come together just to shit on someone else. If us on the Left stood up in unity we would be a literal human tsunami flooding the bullshit that is the Republican habitual diatribe. Second, and louder, is apathy, as you said.
Starting to wonder if throwing League of Legends level of insults at people might get them angry enough to vote just to show me what’s what.
It’s because the Democratic party is a coalition. The Democratic party ISN’T LEFT. It’s a party made up of moderates (right wingers) and liberals.
It’s essentially two different political philosophies trying to operate within one party.
Which is why ranked choice voting allows people to better represent their candidate preferences. All the variety of political opinion can’t be represented in two parties.
First past the post got us in this mess and it sure as shit ain’t gonna get us out of it. I’ll take a straw poll over what our current system is.
Ranked Choice voting allows for the kind of direct democratic action as we just saw in France and what they finally got around to doing in the UK with the most recent elections.
However, it’s against the best interest of the current politicians in power.
How do we get Ranked Choice on ballot when the DNC won’t even use it in their primaries?
The French are also FPTP, they just convinced most of the potential spoiler candidates to fall on their swords for the good of the nation.
The politics here in the EU are just as messy, there’s simply a thin veneer of …something, class, perhaps, that trump managed to completely remove from American politics.
What happened in the UK is a genuine bright spot, though. I couldn’t stand Sunak, but at least he behaved like a fucking adult when the time came.
It very much does feel like Trump gave the right permission to be their worst selves in public. The Republicans of the 90s and 00s were perfectly happy to use racism and jingoism and white grievance to win votes, but they either used dog whistles or pretended they were speaking an “uncomfortable truth”. Now that it’s been accepted that being horrible in public can make you president, they don’t need to play that game anymore and they love it.
And all it took was that one little break. The European right is probably one successful brash racist away from being just as bad. There have been some close calls already.
The other problem with Democrats is they have terrible fucking strategy. Then they get this bright fucking idea to take a page out of Biden’s handbook. In what conceivable world was it a good idea to run an 81-year-old who all but promised to be a bridge candidate to a younger generation?
Yeah, guys, let’s “rally” blindly around the guy for whom 75% of the fucking electorate find is not cognitively fit to run for a 2nd term. Real genius strategy. It’s like they completely forget about low-info undecided swing voters.
It’s like they ALWAYS employ the wrong strategy 2 cycles too fucking late.
Isn’t it kind of the nature of the left to bicker with itself though? At some level, conservatism seeks to preserve an existing system, or at the extreme end, bring back a system recently removed. There’s some room for infighting between the most and least extreme there, but for the most part, it’s a goal that is easy to unite for. But the left, at it’s most basic level, seeks to change things. And changing things is not a goal that inspires unity quite so well, because to change things, one needs an idea of what things should be changed to, and what you think things should be may not be what someone else thinks things should be, even if you both want change. If it so happens that what someone else wants to achieve is in your view even worse than the status quo, then you can’t afford to unite with that person, because there is the risk that your efforts will further a goal you find even less tolerable than what you get by doing nothing, even though what you both want is change.
This isn’t aimed specifically at you. I’m very likely guilty of this myself.
What you’ve said here highlights what I feel is the fundamental issue of unity for those on the left: We are all so damned certain we’re the smartest in the room, to some extent anyway. We can box up and ship our opinions largely through the use of actual vocabulary. We can do real research. Many more of us have degrees, or are otherwise interested in some more academic form of hobbies, careers, and lend our strengths towards artistic approaches. Now this isn’t universal and there are gigantic nodes of people who stand outside this generalization and yet still consider themselves not Republican, if not clearly left-leaning. There is at least a grain of truth for the majority.
It isn’t that we bicker. We are so divided that each of the groups we belong to must, in their own way, be correct, or be offended. Just look at Biden: The majority on the Left call for equality and justice for individuals with barriers/disabilities. We yap on and on about their strengths and capacity to be incredible in so many ways. Then the instant Biden verbally fucks up we wholly ignore all the immense good he has done in favor of “Old man can’t word properly!” and immediately draw lines.
What the fuck.
Yeah, that’s a radical example and somewhat incorrectly used in the context of this discussion, and yet it does highlight why we get so fucked over so often. I’ve backed up and seen the whole forest for what it is and would really appreciate it if everyone else stopped attempting to cram their oversized heads into the nearest tree, all the while yelling about how their tree is somehow both wholly different and also the best tree. We’re all in a fucking forest and Hexxus is torching the place. The problem is even those of us choosing the forest FOR the trees are at risk of being burned. All because the intelligent fools can’t hear us yelling while their heads are shoved up an Ent’s ass, blind in their false wisdom.
Gah, so angry.
The thing I’d like to see more of is people (outside of here) admitting they’re voting for Biden even tho he’s not ideal. We all know who trump is, and Biden gets a lot of flack, and I think it’s going to persuade a lot of people from going out and voting.
People need to know that it’s acceptable, encouraged even, to vote for the guy who isn’t as bad, even if you don’t like him. Just because you don’t agree with everything he says or does, you agree with him more than the other guy.
Im in some groups with some trumpers, and I’ll throw out memes making fun of trump, then they just say stupid incomprehensible things about Biden and I say “lol good one” and they don’t know what the fuck to do
Infighting should definitely be avoided. So they should agree on a different candidate as a unified party
The two things are the same thing. If you hadn’t worked it out it’s a general lack of faith in the democrats ability to accomplish anything.
They’ve had a whole term to do anything and what they did was a load of nothing except political grandstanding.
Whole they did that the supreme court wiped out decades of precedent and women’s rights.
Their response was “go vote”. But we already did that and the Dems did nothing. Their whole plan so far has been “well shit, vote harder I guess”.
But there’s worse.
He’s ideologically toxic.
Biden is backing a genocide. Trump would too, we know that, but I don’t want to vote for abyone backing a genocide.
There is no anti-genocide option, and moral grandstanding will just mean ANOTHER one at home. Surely, if youre so passionate about genocide being a bad thing, youd want to mitigate if you can when thats the only option available
If the only options are large genocide and larger genocide. I’m sorry, they don’t have my vote.
Ill remember that when im sitting in conversion camp
Then remember as well that the Dems had ample opportunity to ban conversion camps and they didn’t do it either.
Fam. Im not gonna blame the KPD for the holocaust, or the Tsarists for the holodomor
Infighting and arguing over who the candidate should be.
Agreed.
I don’t care if its Biden, Harris, or anyone else you put up. But yall need to pick fucking somebody and stick with the pick.
I’m sticking with Biden and Harris in that order until someone gives me a better option. And after weeks following the last debate, no one has given me a seriously better option.
This choice is a problem. You have become a single issue voter. For, or against Trump. That’s it. The whole system is awful but the fact they won’t put anyone up who’s better than Biden is disgusting
And no blame to Republicans who elected Trump?
Its fine. I’m Republican and am pissed at my own party (voted for Nikki). Its a two party system. If you don’t like Trump the one to blame is the party who is putting Trump in power, sorry to say. Self flagellating over Biden is counter-productive.
If you don’t demonstrate loyalty to your party, then you can’t obtain political power. Its just a basic rule of politics.
Oh no, there’s blame there. But you can’t punish them for it. We can and should make it known to democratic leadership how impotent they’ve been and how badly they’ve been doing their jobs.
That’s part of the democratic process. An important one too.
In any other situation, Id understand. Maybe not agree, but understand. But right now, and so long as Project 2025 remains a threat, the stakes are simply too high. Some of us have our lives riding on this. Im trans, Ill be dead or a homeless illegal in the event we lose.
The political system right now is simply good cop and bad cop.
Bad cop(republicans): i’ll shoot you.
Good cop(Democrats): vote for me, I’m your only choice to stop him from shooting you (but it’s in my best interests to let him threaten you forever, so you’ll vote for me)
Both will forever suck. Both are fascists. We need better options
Unless they can arrange a new primary to replace Biden as the candidate before the convention, then the course of future history has already been set.
They could easily find a winning candidate, but will not because the party leadership would rather see Biden lose than to lose the campaign funding provided by capitalist PACs. Therefore “all is lost” is a realistic attitude.
The time to start thinking about what you’ll do in a post-Democracy USA was almost 10 years ago when we were put on this path by a DNC who needed to ensure Hillary could have “Her Turn” at the presidency and sponsored Trump as they imagined him to be an easy opponent.
Those who are still in Denial, please proceed to Anger.
You’re missing option: 3. Completely ignore reality and pretend Biden has a snowballs chance in hell of wining.
I’ll say it to I’m blue in the face:
Either party can guarantee victory by running literally anyone except Biden or trump.
*Obviously not Hillary tho
If Biden steps down, trump is toast if he stays.
If trump steps down, there goes Biden’s entire campaign.
The crazies want Trump.
The pro-trump crazies aren’t the majority of the Republican party anymore.
One of them literally just shot him a couple days ago in case you haven’t heard…
Who are they going to vote for? If Trump isn’t the Republican candidate, you think they would vote for a Democrat?
They’d vote for Trump. We both know he wouldn’t stop running. Vote splits, dems win.
I know Michelle Obama doesn’t want to run, but like, please Michelle? Would you think about it? Things are getting pretty desperate here. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2024/07/03/michelle-obama-would-beat-trump/74289680007/
If you really don’t want to do it, you could just win handily and then resign the first day and hand it off to someone else.
I’m also surprised at how much worse some Biden alternates do in the polling given people’s reported desire for a switch, but maybe in time they’d have a higher support ceiling than Biden as people get more familiar with them.
Then name a name.
Who has that kind of charisma and name recognition, with no baggage, that they can storm in like the Koolaid man and take this election?
No? Yeah, I didn’t think so. You have been shitting on Biden every thread, even non-Biden related posts, for this entire election year and have never offered an alternative.
You’d have to be blind not to see the news articles dropping names for the past few weeks.
Whitmer
Newsom
Shapiro
Walz
Buttigieg
Generic Democrat
Even Harris polls better than Biden
Cory Doctorow.
Lmfao
I’m entirely serious. The Republicans can rally around a criminal billionaire and still expect to take the white house, so why can’t the Democrats run an intellectual Canadian? I trust the guy that coined the term “enshittification” a whole lot more than the politicians who have been enabling it, anyhow.
If you’re “entirely serious” in the literal sense, just to be super clear the answer to “why can’t the Democrats run an intellectual Canadian?” is that a Canadian is disqualified from the office of the President in the Constitution. Unfortunately, they didn’t think to prohibit megalomaniac felons. That’s apparently on us. :(
The writers of the 14th Amendment did, but for some reason they figured the president didnt need to be called out specifically in the final draft; probably figured it was obvious the president is an officer of the state. But well, we know how scotus took that
Why are you so certain that people would instantly vote for a new candidate more than the incumbent president? I have only seen polls saying the exact opposite.
Regardless, time is ticking out. If a new candidate is gonna have time to build any sort of support or momentum, they need to get started yesterday and hit the ground running, the election is just getting closer.
I’ve seen polling that says that Michelle Obama wins by like 20 points, but I’m not stupid enough to believe that polling.
There’s so much “not Trump” feeling in this country, but running a doddering octogenarian against him decreases those people willing to vote for “not Trump”. I’m absolutely voting for the Dem candidate, but I have some very real concerns about it.
It should not be this hard to beat Trump. I’m so tired of sub-standard candidates.
The minority party being allowed so much influence is the problem. We need more voting laws to stop this ASAP.
Ranked choice works well in my city (San Francisco). Just wish it could realistically — given the political uphill battle — be applied to federal elections.
It should not be this hard to beat Trump. I’m so tired of sub-standard candidates.
I’m pretty sure reasonable people everywhere have said that about populist candidates in general. And yet you have to ask, if they are so easy to beat why would any reasonable person either vote for them or not vote at all, even if the alternative sucks. Knowing the stakes, WHY?
Voter apathy in the Democratic Party is what will kill it. There are far more liberals than there are conservatives, but about half of liberals just don’t vote. It’s ridiculous and incomprehensible.
It’s completely comprehensible. Since 2000, the impression has been that if you’re not in a swing state, your vote doesn’t matter. This impression, whether factual or not, has been helped along by candidates and the media. Factor in that we have two conservative parties, one that is dashing towards fascism, and the other sometimes wears a rainbow sticker while casually strolling towards fascism, and it’s completely understandable why many on the left don’t vote. It’s not a helpful mentality, but depression rarely is helpful.
Is it apathy or acquiescence?
It’s apathy. They don’t care about politics because they imagine it doesn’t affect them.
I don’t think that’s all of it. They don’t care about politics for a lot of different reasons, part of it being how angry it makes people, how frustrating it is, and how powerless they feel when they think about it. At least those are the things that make me wish I could be free and happy like them.
I 100% voting for Biden now. I hate this voting system.
Look at the disapproval ratings. That will tell you who will win or lose.
The case may be that no news development can dramatically change the race’s trajectory because the partisan bases for the two candidates are broad and firm, and the “double haters” in the middle will continue to double their hate.
If the contours of the race remained fixed, its outcome may hinge upon the quality of their two parties’ get-out-the-vote operations
I feel like both parties are trying as hard as they can to lose this election.
The worst part is cognitive decline is real. We’re seeing it.
.
Trump and Biden are only 3 years apart.
.
3 years.
.
The difference is, Joe surrounds himself with competence. He picked a VP who wouldn’t make a terrible President. He also doesn’t have shitty impulses to play with big government military toys at baseline that he’s falling back on right now.
.
Can we say the same for Trump? What does his less competent more impulsive at baseline ass do in full cognitive decline?
.
And yet we’re sitting in this geriatric hole. With a China-Russia-Korea alliance looming, plus whatever the fuck is happening on the daily in the Middle East. Our neighbors are cool, thankfully, but conflict doesn’t need to be neighbor based or on the same continent these days. Yea, we have shit in our own house and it stinks, but the rest of the globe isn’t going to stop existing while we fight it out.
.
Complacency and inertia are scary. And that’s what’s been running the DNC for years.
Biden is being selfish period. If it is about the team, then why Biden. Biden gets on television saying only he can do it. That he is the only one that can beat Trump. If he is the CEO of the Democrats, then they can change the CEO and keep the same employees.
You’re not wrong.
.
This is what complacency and inertia gets us, this horror show where we all need a good scream and cry. RBG was a Queen right up until she banked on waiting for Hillary before retirement. I get it, wanting the first female President to a point her replacement, but she fucked up, miscalculated. Even the best of us fucks up, and Joe isn’t firing on all cylinders any more. Expecting him to think as well as either of us, going forward, would be a mistake.
.
Jon Stewart podcast it was brought up that white male establishment guys like Joe probably arent capable of just handing power to a black woman. I mean, historically in America, how often have we seen that, if ever? Again, inertia rules the day.
.
A lot of things should happen, but inertia rules people. Some people go their entire lives and then die without ever really moving outside of the inertial force of their own little existence. DNC has exponential momentum gathered on its inertia, its like, oh shit, I just had an image of The Boys pop into my head, the scene where Hughie’s GF is killed by A-Train. Can the DNC stop? They’ve been running on this lazy momentum for a while now.
Jon Stewart podcast it was brought up that white male establishment guys like Joe probably arent capable of just handing power to a black woman.
He was vp to a Black President, what kind of idiocy is this?
Biden can’t be racist, he has a black friend!
Biden said that 50 other democrats could beat trump. I believe him and i don’t even know who he is talking about.
He already did it once. And he’s done a pretty good job as president, though the media doesn’t really cover this fact. I think he can do it again.
He’s done okay for someone who has compromised with Republicans to give them concessions in order to get legislation passed. His stance on Israel has been detrimental to his campaign. He’s taken on some easy wins like marijuana reclassification. There is a lot of issues with current legislation that hurts middle-class workers still that he hasn’t done anything about. People face these issues regularly in the workforce, which doesn’t build trust. He hasn’t done enough to ensure a win against Trump, and the polls show that.
I blame the media. Obviously they are not on Biden’s side, obviously they are not going to publicize his victories. He’s made more progress on issues I care about than any president in my lifetime. I think Bernie would have been way, way better.
I’m curious, what issues do you care about that you believe he’s made more progress on than any candidate in your lifetime?
- Infrastructure
- Going after monopolies
- Student loan forgiveness
- Marijuana decriminalization
- General economic direction
So Infrastructure Bill gives $65 billion to companies monopolies… yet, they’ve ran out of money for ACP:
Does these companies actually use the money to expand broadband?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/10/25/broadband-subsidies-coronavirus-aid/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2024/02/isps-keep-giving-false-broadband-coverage-data-to-the-fcc-groups-say/
It gives $110 billion for roads, bridges and other major projects… and a bridge that spans just 0.67 miles costing 10 billion dollars and construction expecting to take 10 years. So, we’re talking maybe 10 small bridges, as the costs keep increasing.
The antitrust thing is a good start, but Biden has gave too much leniency to the courts which the higher courts were stacked by Trump. Unless Biden were to do something about the Supreme Court, like most cases… Big business and corporate donors will prevail.
Same with student loan forgiveness. It is a good start, but it has been overturned time and time again in the courts. Furthermore, it doesn’t deal with how majority of companies who are now “paying” for school for employees and then owning them for a long duration despite poor and unsafe working conditions. Biden has largely failed on improving employment & benefit legislation which has been broken.
Marijuana decriminalization: Marijuna is still illegal under federal law and has not yet been decriminalized. His change in classification would not actually decriminalize it under federal law.
General economic direction: Have you looked at housing prices recently? Biden’s economy benefits the wealthy and hurts the middle and lower class workers. Inflation has increased significantly above wages.
I mean I’m not going to not vote. Maybe I’m unusual, but I learned how to juggle being a nihilist without any hope with still doing the right thing a long time ago.
That’s incredibly selfish… but it’s your right
How is voting selfish? Its the only decent thing to do. Vote Biden to prevent fascism.
Yes. Biden can still win.
The Easter Bunny and Santa are real too and know you’ve been good so you’ll get lots of presents.
