And yet people keep telling me that Biden needs to lose so that Democrats can be “taught a lesson.”
deleted by creator
Yea this is probably correct. The braindead MAGATS think they’re smart. But they’re just incels who know nothing about economics.
Remember when they tried to be sneaky with the “walkaway” shit before the 2018 midterms? 😂
Or they’re accelerationists who think a dictatorship will wind up in a civil war, and the “true” society, whatever their concept is, will be able to rise from the ashes.
“First Hitler, then our turn”
Actual slogan of the German Communists under Thalman
I mean the social democrats had a similar slogan:
“Governments come and go. […] After Hitler, we come to power! It will once again be the German republicans who will have to clean up the mess. We are preparing for that day!”
- Karl Hölterman, the leader of the democratic militia „Reichsbanner Schwarz-Rot-Gold“, 1933
Fuck Trump, but tbf people shouldn’t be allowed to be in office if they could die tomorrow from old age.
It’s hard to understand for a non American, how it can be a Race between these two and only these two. This two party system seems so absurdly stubid. Not that we have it figured out anywhere else much better, but still.
If we had Ranked Choice voting, we’d likely have a much more diverse candidate pool. It’s not a perfect solution, but it is better than what we have now
Remind me again, which party is making RCV illegal in the states they control?
Florida, Texas, Montana, Tennessee, South Dakota , Idaho all banned it. Sounds like republicans
Winner winner, chicken dinner.
deleted by creator
I think they were obliquely trying to support your position, not challenge it.
JFC.
And trying to convince people to vote for someone else just increases the chance of the worst of the two winning.
It’s technically NOT a two party system. However the two major parties so dominate, that it’s rare for a third party candidate to get elected to any major office.
I think the biggest difference is we’re not a parliamentary system that encourages coalitions. Whoever wins, wins.
The bigger issue with third parties is that none of them actually bother to run anyone at a local or state level. If they started to grow their power and voting base normally, bottom-up, they’d have a lot more success than just sticking up a Presidential also-ran every 4 years and maybe a congressperson here or there.
a left party should 100% be running aginst democrats in any race where they can get more votes than the republican cannidate. think big city local elections and safe blue state rep/federal house seats
I mean, any president can die in office to be fair, regardless of age, hence we have a vice president to take over in such a case
Last American president to die in Office was actually youngest American president ever.
Isn’t Trump only like 3 years younger? By yhe end of his term he’d be older than Biden would be at the start of his.
Biden also eats healthy & exercises every day. Trump hasn’t exercised since he was in his 30’s & has never seen a Big Mac he didn’t eat.
That’s not true. I’m pretty sure one of his former staffers said he threw one at a wall once.
I’m sure he took a bite out of it first.
Ah yes! Enlightened Centrist and Libertarians. They will always vote GOP no matter how horrible the candidate is with some shit reason to not vote Democrat. OR they will vote for some numbnuts third party candidate with an equally shitty reason.
The common talking points these days are either, “DeMoCrAtS aRe FaScIsTs, ToO!” or, “DeMoCrAtS nEeD tO eArN mY vOtE!”
And I’m sure the next generation will thank them for taking an ideological stand right as Fascism is trying to take over. /s
problem is your thinking lead to us getting to this point in the first place. y’all should have learned candidate quality matters in 2016 and it’s your fault if biden loses because he was your idea in the first place
Too many Democrats are to be sure. But not all democrats. Sanders and others have shown the way to fix this. The biggest issue is that we need younger people involved and running. In my state many Republicans run unopposed for several offices. As bad as it sounds. I would reflexively vote for any Democrat over a republican knowing nothing about either of the two.
We’re already seeing the beginnings of that with various candidates, but I agree that we need it to happen more rapidly.
The issue, in a twist of capitalist fuckery, is that running a campaign is massively expensive, and the barrier to entry is often too high for the people who should be running for office. Thankfully, there’s orgs helping with that, but it’s still an uphill battle.
They can be. At the state and national level to be sure. But even with zero budget, running someone against a Republican vs letting a Republican run unopposed. We’ll win infinitely more times just by trying. It should start with smaller offices. And work up from there.
Also, outside of presidential election years. We should donate to a group or groups that back and fund Democrat opposition to Republicans locally. Even if we have to make those groups ourselves. At the national level they’ve largely given up on many states. So donating to them often does little at home.
Democrats need a new younger bench. And this is a way to fix both the age and fash friendly issues at the same time. Perhaps then we can start to address things like getting money out of politics etc.
Forget running, they need to be voting.
Sanders lost both primaries due to Millenials and Zoomers being so allergic to turnout that they even turn their noses up at their own guy in the primary.
This is easy win territory for young voters, the gap between current performance and just matching their share of the general population alone would push the DNC significantly to the left, let alone if they started showing up with the easy dominating share they could take if they spent half the effort turning out for the cause that they do painting signs and tweeting about it.
primaries aren’t free and fail elections, we saw fuckery in 2016 and 2020. why vote when the party leaders can legally rig it?
Rigging it by actually turning out for those instead of throwing a tantrum that the other voting blocks who don’t agree with them didn’t do the revolution for them?
The left’s perennial problem, “well why didn’t you fucking vote in (X previous election or primary) then?”, every time they try to blame it on something else, it flows back to some other primary or general they also vote striked or protest voted in.
The narcissist’s prayer is a fucking Mayan calendar style political prophecy to the white left and doing even the barest minimum in the way of political participation
Bernie had the primary win stolen from him alright, by on paper allies who have to be dragged kicking and screaming to do literally the first thing you should have to prove you did to be allowed to talk shit.
Every single one of you fuckers I see ranting about rigged primaries is just some flavor of Jean Paul Marat wannabe who fantasizes about being able to literally sit but naked in a bath tub all day and pass judgement upon the enemies of the revolution for everyone else to carry out for you.
We act like Democrats actually doing something to earn votes is impossible.
Not at all. But it sounds like you think they haven’t done anything.
I think that Democrats appear very weak right now because they’re not taking the drastic steps that are needed in order to fix a lot of the existential threats that America faces.
I truly believe that we cannot engage in capitalism as we are currently and still hold on to the planet in the face of global warming. And I don’t see anyone in US politics or even global politics willing to make the drastic changes needed to literally save for the planet.
So no, I don’t really think they’re doing what they need to be doing right now, and it’s disheartening.
indeed. weak “left” candidates leave the door open for fascism the world over. how the fuck do you tell people to “hold their noses” and expect that to work? like really, think about it for a minute. I’m mad because these idiots are ruining our country. a progressive candidate would both be a safer bet to win vs. trump and some reforms would sap fascism of it’s power, yet we’re stuck with candidates like clinton and biden for no good reason. disappointing if they win, and less likely to actually win
Centrist Democrats take the very idea as a greivously offensive blasphemy against all they hold dear.
Don’t vote Democrat, vote third party I hear! Me, I’m like well with first past the post voting this is impractical and could help empower fascists to take over, but let’s see what options we got.
/opens box of third party candidates, before gently closing it and walking away
Yeah no, Biden still best option, these guys are nutters. It makes sense though, a sensible candidate would run in the democratic primaries, rather than hurting their own purported causes by running in the general in a first past the post election. It’s why you saw Bernie Sanders, an independent, running in the democratic primary, and not out there helping to siphon votes to fascists by running as a third party in the general against Biden.
Anyways, let’s focus on continuing to empower politicians that want to improve our voting system (usually has been democrats, though with an exception in Alaska). This starts at the local level, but we’re getting more and more federal offices now with ranked choice voting. Once you have that, then better quality third party candidates will follow, knowing they can fairly safely run without harming their own causes.
Biden can be the best option for you, and it can still be imperative that we vote third party. If you think the dems and repubs are ever going to give up FPTP, you’re insane.
State ballot access is a big deal that can impact local elections as well.
I show up to vote against Brownback and in support of abortion. Then I vote against every incumbent and to fire all the judges.
Unfortunately, there are few leftists that push the same narrative, too. And all because Biden (or Obama, or Hillary) are not the pretty pony they think they were promised or something.
Point of fact: Clinton’s centrists were so upset that they didn’t get their very first choice in 2008 that they formed a PAC to try to get McCain/Palin elected. And they’ve been screaming “no matter who” ever since.
I have no special affinity for either of the Clintons. However, it cannot be denied that there is a certain type of leftist (often very loud, and probably the minority, thankfully) that behave like petulant children when they don’t get their pretty pony, whoever that is.
Don’t get me wrong - I’d like that pretty pony, too. I just realize that even if people don’t love Hillary, she’d still be better than OJ (Orange Jesus) and so once the primaries are over, voting for donnie to really stick it to the man, or sit out, or vote for some completely unserious party like the Green Party is not really teaching anyone the lesson(s) that the people stamping their feet think they are.
OJ represents a very existential threat. Just because he flubbed the RW agenda the first time around doesn’t mean he won’t succeed in destroying America if given another chance.
Don’t get me wrong - I’d like that pretty pony, too.
The only thing you want is unquestioning worship of the party from everyone to your left.
LOL, I only vote for them because I have to. What is the realistic alternative? Unless we have something like ranked choice, voting for Green or staying home or writing something in is just a vote for Republicans.
And you only choose to constantly belittle anyone who isn’t 100 percent ecstatic with everything the party does because you want to.
I do worry that Biden will lose though. He was far from a popular candidate to begin with and his support of Israel’s genocide of Palestinians has made him even less so. In many ways the best outcome might be for him to die in office prior to the election or for him to lose the primary. It would hurt the Democrats to have a non-incumbent running, but possibly less than running Biden. The real wildcard though is if Trump will even end up on the ballot considering his legal issues.
I do worry that Biden will lose though.
Good. Everybody should think this. Thinking Trump can’t possibly win is how he won in 2016.
We need to behave as if it’s a real possibility, even if you feel optimistic about next year.
100% this.
We need to behave as if it’s a real possibility, even if you feel optimistic about next year.
Party leadership should also be doing this and doing what they can to win voters. Instead, the only message I’m hearing is “if you breathe so much as a word of discontent, it’s because you’re a Russian troll who wants Trump to be dictator for life.”
It would hurt the Democrats to have a non-incumbent
If Biden were not on the ballot next year, the Democratic candidate would be Kamala Harris. No mainstream Democrat would challenge her in 2024, the optics would be horrible.
Mmm, I doubt it, even other dems don’t like her very much right now
I’d want Gretchen Whitmer to go for it,
Doesn’t really matter if she is well liked, no other Democrat will challenge her in 2024. For starters, it is too late to get on the primary ballot.
I feel like in most cases “the incumbent croaked” would suffice as an excuse to get some names on the board, also, maybe Kamala turns out to be the second coming of LBJ, so we’ll get some pretty good social programs everyone’s gonna forget about eventually, some significant expansions in civil rights, but also entanglement in an unpopular conflict, venturing a guess I’ll say defending Somalia Eritrea and Djibouti from invasion by Ethiopia.
Israel is unpopular enough, but being on the side of a dictatorship and a failed state that tries to force its control onto a breakaway that self governs at least better than its former fellow countrymen, all in the name of international law and order, feels like the kind of conflict Kamala would be involved in, and that folks would have misgivings over, most because “why are we sending our troops to defend a dictator?” and that select group everyone loves spouting off how you should withold from voting over it because something something respecting national sovereignty as well as the clear results in favor of independence in a fair referendum run by Ethiopia is colonialism just like how not letting Russia eat neighbors because something something little russians is colonialism.
I feel like in most cases “the incumbent croaked” would suffice as an excuse
Primaries aren’t run by excuses, they are run by rules. There are state laws regarding who can get on a ballot, Biden/Harris qualified, and Whitmer did not. Which means that when the primaries roll around, Biden/Harris will be on the state ballots, and Whitmer won’t. Which means that throughout the primary season, Biden/Harris will be racking up delegates who are loyal to Biden/Harris.
If anything happens to Biden at this point, his delegates will vote for Harris at the nominating convention. Why? Because they were chosen specifically for that purpose. You only get to be a primary delegate for Biden/Harris 2024 if you are a strong supporter of both Biden and Harris. Specifically if you support them a lot more than Whitmer, Newsom, etc. If you have doubts about either Biden or Harris, then the Biden/Harris campaign will find someone else to be a delegate. All this means Whitmer has no chance at becoming the nominee as long as Harris is still around.
As for the rest: yes, Harris might be a great president. But most people who want a different Democratic candidate do not realize that she is the only alternative for 2024.
The way that talking point gets pushed unusually hard by an unusually dedicated few using the same stupid arguments looks an awful lot like the kind of psyops campaigns I’d see when I was on Reddit during the Trump presidency.
The real long term solution is changing how we vote. Star Voting or some form of Ranked Choice. That’s how I respond along with https://fairvote.org so, in case some impressionable soul happens along, they aren’t taken in by such silliness. I encourage others to consider doing something similar.
We already learned that lesson - in 2016.
People have no idea how to move the overton window.
My Roman Empire is remembering how the shitheads screamed and yelled denying responsibility on the day Dobbs came down.
Was grocery shopping with my grammy and had to pull the most hemmeroid passingly determined poker face in history to not break out into cursing them and their obvious waste of what privileges they live with to be in the position of treating this like it’s teaching the DNC a lesson.
Fucking Priv Shit Vote Karens, every last one of them, “Take me to the party’s manager right now or I’ll let the fascists take away even more of your rights!”
it’s because of people defending biden’s atrocities. like, there’s more than one person you can run, and most of the options could poll better vs. trump.
Such as?
Why can’t democrats run a better candidate?
Voting is a chess move, not a love letter.
Absconding with that quote.
Ok you’re being out played when your best move is vote Biden
Tell me you don’t understand how party politics & voting work without telling me you don’t understand how party politics & voting work.
“I’m not owned that’s just how the game is played”
-person who’s totally getting owned
Depends how cynical you feel today.
IMO it’s either:
-
The DNC believes anyone too progressive will get stomped in the general election
-
Don’t forget, Dems would be conservatives in most other countries. As much as I hate to say it, I’m not convinced most of them aren’t just as beholden to corporate interests as R is.
OR
Probably a little of both of those actually. Also, maybe a dash of - boomers are going to control our politics until a bunch more boomer voters and boomer politicians die of old age.
-
They all ran before the 2020 election, people mainly liked Biden. (I voted Bernie). The time to get a better candidate than Biden was then, changing things up would be a huge risk for Democrats and would help Trump (R’s can’t easily say Biden is insane and take their away their rights, unlike a new candidate which they can say is the bogeyman). This is the exact same reason Trump ran basically unopposed for his 2nd term, its generally the best idea in the US’s system vs picking another candidate. If you care about how “bad” Biden is, then vote in the next general and help out the best candidate.
Polls a year out are meaningless. Obama was also “losing” at this point before his re-election.
Nationally, Democrats have been beating polls by 9+ points at the ballot box since Roe v. Wade was overturned.
Reminder of what an absolute shit-bird Robert Kagan is.
‘No rational person would believe a word Robert Kagan says about anything. He has been spewing out one falsehood after the next for the last four years in order to blind Americans about the real state of affairs concerning the invasion which he and his comrade and writing partner Bill Kristol did as much as anyone else to sell to the American public.’ - Glenn Greenwald, Salon.
Kagan is one of the shitheads that got us to this point. He’s now concern-trolling us about how we shouldn’t bother opposing Trump.
I completely agree but I would just like to point out that Glenn Greenwald is also a massive shithead.
Yes, he absolutely is, but he was also correct in that particular assessment.
EXACTLY. I’m getting tired of these doom and gloom articles from journalists who know better.
Either the media wants a horse race or they absolutely don’t know how to poll post Roe v. Wade.
Probably both.
Or they’re consistently polling only LAN lines.
Nationally, Democrats have been beating polls by 9+ points at the ballot box since Roe v. Wade was overturned.
It’s really surprised to me how quickly this dropped from political discourse and analysis. We’ve had several off year elections and the midterms now where Republicans have underperformed. Polls have largely seemed to miss this trend.
There’s a lot of reasons to be hopeful right now. Republicans can’t control their messaging on abortion, and it’s very clear voters are unhappy about bans. Yet, Republicans in the House are only barely aware of it, and in the Senate you’d think they hadn’t seen any results at all. Tuberville’s continued hold for abortion reasons, while voters have made it clear anti abortion advocates can go fuck themselves, is remarkably visible. I don’t think it’s a mistake that Republicans are signaling they’ll bypass him if he doesn’t budge. Elections a month ago make it clear it’s a millstone around their necks.
We have an advantage to capitalize on, but it only matters if we press the advantage. We have to show up en masse to the election.
Moreover, the Democrats need to get their messaging together. Hammer in that THESE ARE THE PEOPLE who overturned Roe, who are currently cratering Florida and Texas, who allowed COVID to run rampant. Hammer in Tuberville blocking military promotions, hammer in Johnson and McConnell both effectively refusing to do any of their jobs, hammer in Trump nearly getting us into a shooting war with Iran (remember that assassination we carried out during a peace conference?) Remind the voters who exactly Trump is, what exactly he’s done, and what exactly he’s stated he’s going to do.
At this point, I think it’s advantageous for anyone who is set in their decision to lie on polls and say you’d vote for the opposite candidate in the hopes of making that side complacent and light a fire under your side.
Just because he’s a neocon piece of shit doesn’t mean he can’t be right. Also, dude, Glen Greenwald is no fucking saint either. That guy is a certified scumbag. At least with Kagan there’s a chance that he actually believes his bullshit, whereas with Greenwald, we know he’s an intellectually dishonest grifter.
Obama was also “losing” at this point before his re-election
Obama was about 46% and trending upwards at this point, Biden is 37% and trending downward. This is a pretty nice visualization of historical presidential approval ratings plotted with Biden’s. Takeway is while other presidents have tanked way harder (Nixon, Dubya, HW), Trump and Biden are basically tied for historical unpopularity on a consistent basis. Biden did hit mid 50s as he came in to office where most presidents get a bump, Trump didn’t even reach 50.
Same paper that just ran the “Women should stop shunning Trump supporters in their dating pool” article. I guess that’s so they’ll be less likely to abused under the pending dictatorship?
Same author?
Because papers often run a variety of opinion pieces…
Really wish people would stop posting / up voting garbage opinion pieces here. I want facts, not hot takes.
Big, solid, nuanced take against the 11 page opinion piece.
Maybe tell the other folks reading the same online conversation platform as you are what you thought made this specific link you decided to comment on “garbage”.
I am someone who is against opinion pieces in general, regardless of the content. Nate Silver also has an argument against them: the main difference with an opinion piece and normal journalism is that opinions don’t need to be fact checked. In which case there’s no reason for them to exist. If the argument cannot survive fact checking, it shouldn’t be published.
Opinions, columns, and editorials are all traditional news formats where a known personality gives their take on current events. Basically you can’t “fact check” someone’s commentary because they’re not reporting factual takes on current events, and you can’t really objectively say “your analogy to this historical event is not analogous enough” for instance because there isn’t really measures for these things. Nate Silver’s argument against them is itself an opinion that can’t be fact checked. “Fact checking” itself is also determined by the ideology you’re choosing to determine facts by or even which specific facts are chosen to be highlighted in an article. What is and what ought isn’t something that you can simply fact check.
The fact that it’s “traditional” is not a good reason to keep something around despite the negative consequences. The fact is, most news consumers do not know about the lower editorial standards of opinion articles, so opinion pieces have been a significant source of misinformation. This is how we get Jim Carey writing about climate skepticism in a major newspaper.
What’s so impossible about a fact-checked journalistic article entitled: “Should opinion pieces be eliminated?” Seems possible to me!
I think it’s just a silly proposal that’s hardly worth debating so I can see why it appeals to someone like Nate Silver. The notion that you could control misinformation by removing certain writing styles from circulation is incredibly stupid. Plus on social media everyone is an opinion writer now.
Moral ought from an is. Just because news sources have decided to put opinion pieces in doesn’t mean that it is right that they did.
That’s just intellectually lazy. We should be able to process analysis that isn’t our own.
Then you are also intellectually lazy, because there is no way you are verifying the truth of every claim made in the articles you read. The role of newspapers is to inform people, not make random claims of dubious truth and have readers “do their own work”. It’s astounding that people are actually against basic fact checking.
Did you notice how this opinion piece is littered with links sourcing what Kagan is talking about? This article is easily fact-checked. It’s not the author’s fault if you’re not willing to do your due diligence.
This piece is CLEARLY labeled as opinion in the original and in the archive version linked above.
Additionally, the opinion label is even in the original URL:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/11/30/trump-dictator-2024-election-robert-kagan/
I am aware you probably only had one of those three, but you knew it was opinion before you even came down to comment.
And even if you didn’t look at ANY of those, the headline itself indicates it is opinion:
“We should stop pretending”
Obviously this article was not going to be a fact-filled news piece that meets journalistic standards for news reporting: headlines for factual news do not contain imperative statements.
It seems to me that for someone as deeply and repeatedly offended by opinion as you claim to be, you are singularly ill-prepared to meet it, or even to spot it in the wild.
Just think. You could have seen the headline, recognized it was opinion, remembered you don’t like opinion, and been on your way. Instead you came down to comments to argue about it.
Funny, but that’s starting to look like that was your goal all along.
You seem to think my objection has something to do with whether it’s obvious that this particular piece is an opinion piece? I have no idea why you think this. Completely bizarre, and what an unnecessarily aggressive tone.
I am against opinion pieces because most consumers do not know that they have lower editorial standards, making them a big source of misinformation. If opinion pieces had the same journalistic standards, I would not be opposed to them.
That sounds like a media literacy problem, not a problem with opinion pieces themselves. I have a degree in journalism and the idea that anyone could somehow not know the difference between a straight news story and an opinion piece is baffling. Do we not have basic critical thinking skills anymore?
I am someone who is against opinion pieces in general, regardless of the content.
Your words, not mine.
I am against opinion pieces because most consumers do not know that they have lower editorial standards
Kinda arrogant, IMO.
No thanks. I do not want to talk about or critique an opinion piece. I want objective political news from this channel. Leave opinion for the comments.
Who knew only anons had the dibs on writing or speaking their opinions!
24 hour news networks need to fill their time with opinion pieces. We have plenty of other content in other communities to fall back on. We don’t need filler content promoted here.
Hot take: rap rock is inferior to both styles it derives from and the rap in the middle is not as good as the traditional chorus.
Good point and probably not, but I’m too lazy to look right now.
Edited to add: Presumably same editorial team, so the seeming dissonance between the two articles isn’t lessened much by having different authors.
It really depends a lot. If it’s something by the editorial board itself, then it’s a very jarring difference. But you can have writers with polar opposite viewpoints in editorials. It used to be nice from a reader perspective to get that variety, but then the right went wacko.
That said, I do think it’s weird the section editor would approve something like “women need to date more conservatives”. Maybe they take the approach of not being responsible for what their authors say, but that crosses enough lines that it’s odd they didn’t step in.
No, these are op-eds, which are written by contributors and are different from editorials which, as the name suggests, are written by the editorial board. Op-eds traditionally were printed opposite of the editorial page --hence the name-- and were meant to be a space for subject matter experts or other thought leaders to publish opinion pieces that may or may not reflect the views of the editorial board.
I know these things because even though I’ve never worked for a newspaper, I am old enough to have gotten an undergrad degree in journalism back in the 90s before the newspaper industry died.
Oh interesting! I thought it was called op-ed for opinions & editorials
Good points, thanks for the peek into the industry. Without the usual sarcasm I will say you sound like you know what you are talking about. 🙂
Heh, I should clarify, I’m talking from my experience on my high school paper – which was a damn good paper that we worked our asses off on! But it’s a worthwhile stipulation to make. I’m pretty sure our processes were the same as industry for a lot of things, but I could always be wrong.
Consider it a peek into what’s probably maybe what it’s like. I think it probably does work the way I’ve described, fwiw
As a long time subscriber, I can tell you anecdotally that WaPo is leaning a little bit further right with every passing month.
And just in case that wasn’t clear to subscribers already, WaPo recently announced that William Smith, part of the Rebekah Brooks/Rupert Murdoch News of the World phone hacking scandal that set in motion the entire Leveson inquiry, the same William Smith accused of providing journalists’ record to police, the same William Smith who then steered the now hard-right Wall Street Journal, will be taking over as CEO and publisher of The Washington Post on January 2, 2024.
This is a gift link to a puff piece WaPo did about him in the Style section after the first announcement was met with massive scorn from readers. I included the link so you can see reader responses for yourself: it didn’t get any better. It’s been getting strange over there for months, and choosing this guy to lead indicates Bezos wants to take WaPo in the same direction as WSJ. Yeah, no.
After December I won’t be renewing my subscription. Might toss some cash to The Graun instead; I haven’t made up my mind yet. But given your comment I thought you might find this new direction interesting.
That’s good to know, thanks. I’ll have to keep a close eye on it. I subscribe to the NYT as well but I’ve been souring on them lately too.
Same author?
Nah this is Robert Kagan, a Brookings Institute neocon, Republican who left in 2016, advisor to McCain for his presidential run in 2008.
Neither of these were written by the WaPo’s editorial board. They are both op-eds meaning they’re written by contributors and in the old print format would be placed opposite from the editorial page, hence the name “op-ed.”
Your comment shows a deep misunderstanding of how these things work and what function newspapers are trying to fulfill with them, but it’s probably not your fault since media literacy tends to be pretty abysmal in the US.
So the editorial staff has no say in what is published in their newspaper? That’s definitely a different view of what the word “editor” means than I’ve had in the past, you’ve got a point there.
Having said that, I got a much less snarky answer explaining some things already, so your sideswipe wasn’t necessary. Thank you sir and I hope the rest of your day is as lovely as you are.
I know these things because even though I’ve never worked for a newspaper, I am old enough to have gotten an undergrad degree in journalism back in the 90s before the newspaper industry died.
Maybe it’s not my abysmal media literacy but the fact that you know these things because you have a degree in journalism. Huh. Guess I’ll find something where you have a less than perfect understanding of my area of expertise or where I’ve had some secondary education, and be sure to point out how abysmal your literacy in that area is.
Non English speaker: inevitable means it will happen no matter what. They way i see it, its used wrong here correct? It should maybe have been ‘increasingly realistic’ or maybe ‘increasingly plausible’ but inevitable assumes that voting for someone else won’t stop it from happening
The title is a bit clickbaity, but the subtext is that if he is elected, dictatorship is increasingly inevitable.
And the ‘increasingly’ modifier further shows it’s only a potential outcome.
The author isn’t the most self-aware… Robert Kagan was a Republican strategist until 2016, he’s an interventionalist neocon, thinks the GOP “lost it’s way” rather than contributed to this by design.
I agree. I think that if Trump is elected and puts an end to democracy as we know it, but it won’t be a dictatorship of Trump, alone. Trump is but a mortal man. And whoever replaces him will be worse.
One of the many examples of how English is manipulated and massaged to mean whatever you want it to mean. A more accurate phrase they should have chosen is “increasingly likely”.
Technically, I’d say “increasingly inevitable” is a meaningless phrase. “Inevitable” is an absolute - an outcome either is, or is not, inevitable. Like they say, “you can’t be a little bit pregnant”, outcomes cannot be a little bit inevitable, or somewhat inevitable, or mostly inevitable, so the degree of inevitability cannot be increasing.
However, I think most native English speakers would not think twice about it, and would read it as something like: “a Trump dictatorship is approaching inevitability.” That’s how I read it, at least.
This is just the usual polarising fear mongering bullshit. Even “increasingly plausible” is a stretch.
Maybe the democratic party should focus more energy trying to understand what is that that makes so many people even considering trump.
When people turn the other side into a one dimensional caricature they just ignore the real world problems that make them lose elections.
It’s only inevitable if we do nothing
So pretty much inevitable then. :(
Kind of like Sandy Hook and Uvalde. Welcome to America.
Perhaps we should have a way to flag opinion pieces.
Is anyone honestly confused as to whether or not it’s an opinion piece? I find that very hard to believe, but I guess you never know…
Yeah LOL. It’s just sooo over the top. Garbage like this I expect on Twitter. Gotta filter the noise on lemmy too I guess.
There are graduating seniors in high-school this year. That group of unregistered voters needs to be coaxed to register, and vote. They need easy, step by step directions. They need to understand their new power of citizenship. They can be tried as adults. They should know who the sheriff is. They should know its an elected position. They need to learn this shit, and most likely it’s not gonna happen in school. Please ticktock or whatever. Make it viral.
I still don’t understand why people have to register to vote. Everyone should automatically be registered to vote.
I think you know the answer.
Honestly I don’t
I live in a country where everybody who is entitled to vote, gets a vote in their mail box and a dedicated place where they can go and vote. They can even send in their votes before hand or vote in the local library.
I don’t see how one side or the other or any can benefit by low voting percentages
Republicans do better in elections with low voter turnout because old white people vote at disproportionately high rates.
But it has always been like this no? Have Americans ever not had to register to vote? Why cant all just be automatically registered to vote?
Republicans are currently making it harder for left-leaning populations to vote, by closing polling stations in urban areas or opposing vote-by-mail. Automatic voter registration is being actively resisted. That is “why”.
Voter registration became a thing in the 1800s to limit the voice of immigrants, adopted state by state.
Oregon first, and about a dozen other states since, have made registration automatic when you get a driver’s license or state ID.
So yeah it’s pretty much always been like this.
Central registered of all citizens with ID-number. I’m pretty sure your nation has it, as does mine. So the government knows where you live, and where you can vote. If you move these things are automatically updated. So it’s easy to make sure everyone can vote in the “correct” ballots ect.
None of this is true with the US
it’s because of racism.
But they better vote the way we want them to vote. /sarcasm
If you’ve ever wondered why no one killed Hitler on his rise to power, now you know.
The main difference is, in 2023, we know how Hitler rose to power. In 1933, Germans didnt.
Yeah, but that’s like… almost a 100 years ago. Completely different. SlashEs
I think that is a bridge too far for many reasons. First off I hate the Cheeto. He is a mudstain on used panties from a crackhead pornstar.
However, we have Hitler in recent history. We have many forms of media that they did not have to see how it’s going with everyone else. And let’s not forget that Hitler was smarter than Trump ever will be.
I don’t glorify Hitler lightly. He was a force that needed to be stopped and so does Trump. But that is were the comparison ends. Nazis became so huge because people were afraid of what would happen to their family if they didn’t. Here we will fight the morons back. Stop giving this man so much power and admiration. He’s a conman. A shitty leader. And a dumbass.
And let’s not forget that Hitler was smarter than Trump ever will be.
Not really. Hitler’s (supposed) “genius” exists in the same way Trump’s does - as propaganda and nothing else.
I didn’t call Hitler a genius. I called him smarter than Trump. Trump copies him. He at least (for the most part) came up with the strategies to inspire the changes in Germany. Even though they were shitty as fuck.
I didn’t call Hitler a genius.
Fair enough - you didn’t. But calling him smarter than Trump is still a stretch. Hitler wasn’t very smart at all. You don’t have to be smart to serve the interests that puts you in power… which is the only real function politicians serve at the end of the day.
Fortunately for the US, it’s actually very difficult to be a dictator in the White House - the US president is a cog for those “interests.” He takes his orders from them and not the other way around. That’s why Trump became so ineffective once he stepped into the White House and became isolated from his adoring MAGA crowd.
What should we do about it? Other than vote and try to talk people out of voting for Trump.
Basically, this coming election will be decided by the margins because almost everyone who follows politics–at all–knows who they’re voting for already.
Think about the number of people who follow politics and then understand that those people are already not the demographic that will likely decide the outcome. It’s the people who are surprised they Joe Biden and Donald Trump are on the ballot that matter.
It isn’t worth trying to pressured persuade either the right or the left. What we need is to activate and engage the non-participating section of the electorate. This is hard, but achievable. It’s people who work multiple jobs and don’t have time for politics that need to know it matters if they vote. Civil rights are not a given and 2024 will be hugely consequential.
Take your friends with you on election day! Register for vote by mail and bug your friends too! Take about it and don’t leave easy points on the table. Yes the options are terrible. Yes one of them will make the possibility of improving it ever infinitely more difficult.
The people saying it doesn’t matter do not understand what they stand to lose. It is so so much harder to build something than tear it down and our imperfect institutions will not save us. Politics matters and the luxury of not caring, will lead to co-optation and the loss of rights that are easy to take for granted now.
Target reluctant republicans that don’t like Trump but so far are only willing to abstain. I’m pushing hard for them to send the strongest message they can by voting for Biden. I think if we plant enough seeds they may go for it in the privacy of the voting booth, even if they won’t admit it.
It is possible, my kermudgen grandfather began voting blue in 2016 because of Trump
Technically it’s spelled curmudgeon, but your spelling makes me think of Kermit as a grumpy old frog-man so I think I prefer it 😆
T’is not an inaccurate description of ma gramps
That’s it. That’s the best we have short of organizing mass mass protests and raids. Which definitely isn’t going to happen.
Maybe Trump will have a heart attack before the election…
Removed by mod
What’s interesting is that if there really was a “deep state” that works like the radicalized right wing imagines, it begs the question - why didn’t this so-called “deep state” find a lone wolf/patsy like Oswald for OJ (Orange Jesus)?
Removed by mod
I’m stealing that
I’d rather he lives the rest of his life in prison, personally, and completely cut off from any kind of mass media platform.
Young people need to register. Help them!
Fight disenfranchisement and jerrymandering. Fight voter suppression. Be loud and get in the way of people doing bad things.
yup, vote, and call out any of the children larping revolutionaries who refuse to vote
Fuckin’ privs drive me up the damn wall. They act like they’re taking some noble stand for the palestinian people, meanwhile me the actual fucking palestinian am staring down the barrel of having to go without my Keffiyeh in public lest I get beaten, called a Sand N****r, and told to be grateful the bastards who did it to me didn’t bring a rope, all on the back of their militant refusal to lift a finger in solidarity and vote against Trump.
These so called allies of my people seem to like me much more as a potential martyr for their cause than as an agent for my own.
Don’t you guys have book depositories any more?
As long as there’s a royal family and house of lords…
deleted by creator
This is stupid fear-mongering horse s*** that ignores all the steps Americans are taking to fight against Trump being elected, and ignoring that they voted him out 3 years ago.
Stupid b*******.
People took steps against him in 2016 as well. And voting him out previously gives no guarantee of anything.
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/president-general/
Polling is bullshit, but to the degree that it isn’t, it isn’t looking great. This isn’t some guarantee that Trump will lose. The boomers that vote republican do so EVERY election. The people who vote against them aren’t so reliable in comparison.
You’re on the internet. Censoring yourself makes you look childish. Just cuss. Also, it’s not fear mongering. The GOP has announced their intentions if they win.
Removed by mod
So go fill your gaping ignorant armchair with another short floppy bamboo pole
That’s just uncalled for
It just looks ridiculous, doesn’t it? Who would take them seriously?
If you read the article, the author is not saying Trump winning the general election is an inevitability, but that him winning the nomination is inevitable and so is his rise to dictatorship if he wins the general. He never says Trump winning the general is guaranteed, and allows phrases that part as, “he could win the general”. All of those things are true baring unforseen circumstances.
Also, honestly that sentence would have been a lot funnier not censored.
Right, and instead of presenting the facts in an entertaining and sincere way, he writes a deliberately false and misleading title and article that bolsters conservatives and is intended to scare liberals.
Unproductive, fear-mongering b*******.
Which bastards are you talking about?
Please point to where the GOP has said they intend on installing a literal dictatorship. Please remember how many executive orders President Biden signed in his first 90 days in office as well.
I remember January 6th insurrection when Trump was in office
if you think that was an insurrection… you know what never mind.
Do you just forget that Trump almost succeeded in an insurrection and is now allowed to run as president again? How are you able to do that?
TDS is real.
It indeed is. Everybody who forgot what Trump did are truly deranged.
what did trump “DO” exactly. line it out for me. you seem to know. give specifics.
He instigated an insurrection and tried to overturn legal election results. How specific do you need to go?
Notice no one has actually answered the question, nor have they addressed the EO’s. How do you rule like a dictator in a representative republic? Sign more EO’s than any other pres had prior, totally wiping out everything your predecessor did. Last I checked nothing’s been proven that “TRUMP” caused, ordered, or even suggested your little so called “insurrection”. Saying something doesn’t make it true. But keep trying.
Again? Jesus.
you know you can swear on the internet right?
Some instances run profanity filters.
It’s a good piece and I think the analysis is largely accurate. But there’s one thing I think Kagan missed: Trump isn’t the only would-be dictator who could take power. He lists DeSantis and Haley as the closest competitors to Trump within the Republican Party, but he doesn’t point out that even if, by some miracle, one of them becomes the party nominee, they would assume the very same dictatorial powers Trump is threatening to wield. Neither of them is going to defend democracy when offered the reins of tyranny, and both could easily hold power for decades. Trump maybe has a single decade at most.
The problem isn’t simply Trump wanting to be President for Life. The problem is that the path has been cleared for any Republican to assume that role the next time one is elected. Project 2025 won’t work for Trump only. The next time we have a Republican President, expect it to be the last time we have a fair election.
Not to run interference for those shitbags cause most of them are just as evil but I wouldn’t say they all equally threaten democracy. For one I’m not sure their base would allow a woman to be dictator lol even if she won due to institutional fuckery
Anyone who thinks she wouldn’t try is deluding themselves. They’re both cut from the same cloth, but they’re not afflicted with dementia yet.
Trump isn’t the only would-be dictator who could take power.
honestly I think only trump has what it takes to form the cult of personality necessary to take over. he’s got the charisma to entrance 35% the country. DeSantis is more temperamentally fit to be the lieutenant you send in to do massacres than a figurehead leader
No, none of the other GOP candidates have anything even remotely like Trump’s grip on the base. Without that none of the above can happen. Trump got where he is through a long series of steps that Kagan details in the piece. There is no world in which some other candidate steps in and immediately plugs into the same kind of power that Trump has amassed as a result of Republican cowardice. Every one of them would have to start over with consolidating power in a party that’s swarming with amoral power-hungry grifters.
Well, bezos, it’s because you don’t actually care about a dictatorship as much as you care that your money pile gets bigger! What are you yelling at me for shitbird? You guys have the money n power! If you’re counting on my broken ass to fix the world you’re in deep shit
Bezos’ pile of money is so big if he got out today his great-grandchildren will have no fucking idea how to spend all their money. He has no reason to care what anyone fucking thinks until they start breaking out the forks and knives.
I mean other than the fact that money will not save them in a destroyed society or world. Why do you think they argue over the best way to control their security teams, shock collars or limited food? Because they only have as much power as they have control and it will slip from their grasp if they do fuck all with it and let it burn around them.
It’s fun that you think Bezos takes any interest or part in the day to day workings of the WaPo.
Stop sucking Trump’s cock, www.washingtonpost.com. There’s nothing inevitable about Trump but lies, treason, and bullshit.
As with Napoleon, who spoke of the glory of France but whose narrow ambitions for himself and his family brought France to ruin, Trump’s ambitions, though he speaks of making America great again, clearly begin and end with himself.
As the author keeps comparing Trump to Napoleon and Hitler, I can’t help but wonder if maybe the US is due a conflagration. At what point do we admit that the American experiment returned a null result?
I think it’s more that human societies are very rarely stable across 3 or more generations. The US has had a number of major crises through its history, it’s definitely due for another. Repeating the dead line about a failed experiment is kind of needlessly deaf to that history.
All you can do for now is stand up and fight it.
In the cases of France and Germany, the answer was violence. Oppression has never been defeated with pacifism. If history is our guide and conservatives are our oppressors, soon we may have to make some very difficult life and death decisions.
Conservatives have already embraced violence as part of their ideology, which I think makes the path out of their oppression more clear.
the choice of weather there will be violence isn’t ours to make, the conservatives have made it for us, and they chose violence. our choice is to resist or concede to fascism. conceding won’t make the violence stop, it will only make it worse and don’t let anyone convince you otherwise
Oppression has never been defeated with pacifism.
I was taught that Gandhi helped India defeat the oppression of the British Raj with pacifism.
Is that not the case? I mean I wouldn’t be surprised if Power taught me peaceful protest works every time.
as Orwell stated:
“As an ex-Indian civil servant, it always makes me shout with laughter to hear, for instance, Gandhi named as an example of the success of non-violence. As long as twenty years ago it was cynically admitted in Anglo-Indian circles that Gandhi was very useful to the British government. So he will be to the Japanese if they get there. Despotic governments can stand ‘moral force’ till the cows come home; what they fear is physical force.”
Pretty sure two devastating world wars were a major factor.
I was taught that Gandhi helped India defeat the oppression of the British Raj with pacifism. Is that not the case?
You couldn’t have Martin without Malcom and you couldn’t have Ghandi without Ghadar.
it was a lie, of course.
At what point do we admit that the American experiment returned a null result?
Probably when the commerce clause meant the fed can regulate shit you do in your home with your own body.
But even failed experiments give data. I’m a fan of the bill of rights, save for a few niggling details.
Polls are meaningless when nobody answers the phone and/or they call people who don’t actually vote. Kids today know to shut up and beat the shitbags at the polls. We are collectively punishing the Republicans for 40 years of attacks against our society.
There is a reason that no poll I’ve ever responded to has ever straight up asked me who I plan on voting for in the next election.
They can spin your feelings, They can’t spin a simple yes/no question.
Push polls are the only ones I’ve ever gotten, and those seldom and not for a long time.
Dang I didn’t notice that before. I was polled once and they only asked me what I thought of my current elected officials not who I planned to vote for.
Guess it wouldn’t get clicks if they were honest
