Remember to
if you don’t want
inhumane racist border controlsupporting genocidal middle eastern dictatorshipsblatant nepotism that goes unpunishedabortion rights to be erasedstudent debt crisisCOVID to be treated like a jokejingoistic militarismunnecessary trade warscost of living crisisinsane neocons running the pentagongeriatric with clearly deteriorating cognitive abilities- sex scandals with porn stars
Tbf its arguable that ww3 has already started.
I refuse to say the USSR lost a world war. They lost the Cold War, but won the World War.
they survived in the face of fascism for another 44 years, at best it's a loss deferred
That's true, it just hasn't entered direct confrontation phase yet.
Yeah it seems very possible that the debate in 30 years will be whether WW3 started with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine or October 7th
whether WW3 started with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine
Or maybe our coup? Or the 8 years of shelling the donbas?
Eh that stretches it past world war territory imo
Trump really did have the most consensual sex scandal of any president.
Its too early in my workday for you to have broken my brain with this observation.
Also really highlights how little people care about certain things considering all the terrible shit he's done to all his wives
Those Biden signs in DNC offices actually have the gall to claim he ended the standard of having kids in cages.
Did you hear? He also pinky swore he would never pardon his son (likely because he knows he'll never need to)! Don't you just love him for this empty promise of moral superiority?
am i a lib because i do believe in voting just not for shitty corporate parties? i was all in for cornel west when he announced but the bernie movement didn't show up to get hin the ballot access needed so i'm going stein. She'll be on the ballot in at least 48 states.
If you believe in voting in the US, pretty much yeah.
Also West has some really dogshit takes
I feel like you are making a point here but I am not sure what it is?
why do you think voting is futile in the U.S. when it has been successfully used by "populist" aka "democratic" movements in other countries? Specifically, I'm thinking Brazil or Mexico most recently. Not being combative but really just trying to learn more about why you think that's true. Definitely open to the possibility that I'm wrong about this and just want to hear more.
I hadn't heard the bad takes myself from West, but happy to be enlightened on it. He has seemed pretty morally consistent as far as I've seen, but like I said just because of ballot access I'm thinking Stein could be the strategic move to try to effect change on the electoral front.
- Show
For example
On voting, it would be an error to look non-western states. In the core and peripheral imperial states you can see how populist voting is defeated by changes to the electoral system and radical parties being co-opted.
It she's on the ballot in your state you should vote for de la Cruz
Yes love PSL, voted PSL in 2020 but if they're not even on the ballot in 270 EC worth of states then I'm not sure I see the value in it. Open to hear the case for though.
Our goal is 270 worth of ballot access and by my understanding we are on track. But it's really not about the vote - the purpose of our presidential campaign is to bring a Marxist Leninist party with anti-imperialist politics to an audience of people who think of politics in an electoral frame. We then use that platform to grow the vanguard party and build working class militancy and radicalization. The vote is to show the capitalist class that their position is not secure and the communist politics they thought had been crushed and co-opted are returning.
I don't know what the point of voting for Jill Stein is - the Green Party is a party in the same sense as the Democrats and Republicans: just a box that shows up on your ballot every few years and otherwise doesn't exist. They are a known quantity politically who are neither insufficiently organized not radical to scare anyone but hapless MSNBC libs. There is nowhere for the Green Party to go.
is a political party in the classic sense: a membership organization, following democratic centralism, responsive to its members and acting as the dynamic instrument of their collective will on all political and economic fronts. Growth of the PSL is growth of an organization that is unabashedly communist, with excellent on the ground organization, unapologetic support for the Palestinian resistance, and a firm declaration that the number one role of America's working class is to bring down the empire from within the belly of the beast. It's the only politics that have ever really threatened capital: Marxism-Leninism.
Ill probably tic her box too but she's allowed on the ballot (and i know you know this) cuz the green party poses no threat to the caps. No positive sustained MSM coverage on a candidate erases that candidate from the public consciousness. It's quite amazing how well it works, the 2 party mindset. Theres no harm in voting for her, increased 3rd party turnout might pave the way for even stronger future showings, yeah. To say you believe in voting when it is so thoroughly corrupted in the us, and when there's no chance she'll win raises the question: what is it that you believe still works?
Tonal check, i am honestly curious not fighting with you.
Yes, I appreciate the good faith discussion about this. I really just want to figure out strategically the best way forward, because I have to admit after Bernie's run in 16, I thought we'd be further along by now building up something new. As far as the Green Party goes, Stein's positions on Palestine and Ukraine alone, not to mention the rest of her platform in general, I can't help but seriously consider if this is the best strategic move for the next 5 months. The platform certainly doesn't seem any worse than Bernie's. They've been chugging along, putting in the hard yards to maintain ballot access. It seems now is as good a time as any to try to use that.
When I say I believe in voting I guess I mean in the abstract, that it can be used by democractic movements to achieve tangible things, like in Mexico and Brazil. So then I'm wondering if it is possible there then why not here? If there is something unique about the US system that makes it "impossible", I just want to learn more about that and why people feel that way. I guess at the minute I am not convinced it's completely hopeless outside the existing dominant corporate parties. But if people are convinced then I am open to hear why. Really trying to come at this with an open mind.
I know there are anti-democratic structural obstacles to winning here. The Electoral College is certainly less democratic than a popular vote. As far as I understand you need just a plurality, not majority, of votes in a state to win all of that state's electoral votes in the EC. And then it's 270 to win I guess which is the majority of total available. I could be wrong especially about the first part. Still, it doesn't seem insurmountable?
The MSM problem is real, even if it continues to undermine itself in the eyes of more and more people as the contraditions become too obvious. Still, I feel like those other countries also have shameless corporate media, so I'm wondering how AMLO and Lula overcame them. I don't know how they did it I wish I did. But again, if they did it, maybe we can?
I think there's also value in forcing them to steal it from you, like Bernie did in 16 and 20. Having the undemocratic, top-down nature of the regime forced to reveal itself is useful, at least for the future. But really I'm thinking we should just try to spend the next 5 months and try to win. I know it seems impossible but Mandela said "it always seems impossible until it's done" and that's something I really believe. But if you're not going to win, I guess making them steal it from you is the next best thing.
So basically let's say a conservative estimate is that in a three way race we'd need 70 mil votes to actually win it. Bernie had 1 million volunteers, so that'd be like 70 votes turned per volunteer on average. Obviously we don't have 1 million volunteers at the minute, but I don't know it still seems possible and more importantly worth trying. Again, this is just how I see it. If I'm wrong about something, I'm open to hear people's thoughts. I feel like this is as good a place as any that I know about to be having these discussions.
Damn that ended up being a lot my bad and thanks to anyone who read it all lol.
Organized labour. Organize unionize and strike. That is literally the only tool the proletariat has to effect change. (Well that and violence but you can't have a revolution unless you have an organized working class)
Perhaps it's the legacy of my lib-dem upbringing but I can't help but think electoralism could be another effective front in the greater struggle. But like I've been saying I'm open to the idea that I'm wrong about that so happy to learn more if you think voting truly can't be used to take power. I guess I'm just looking at the successes in Mexico and Brazil recently and thinking: why not here?
Cornel West is a grifting joke. Pathetic and hypocritical loser. Does a lot of both sides crap about Israel-Hamas, lots of empty rhetoric that obviously will go nowhere or misses the point
Oh is that true? From what I had seen I thought he had been pretty clear in his solidarity with Palestinians, and that the root cause of the conflict is the occupation. Disagreed with Bernie and called him out for opposing BDS, even when he was stumping for him. I hadn't seen him do both sidesism myself, but if you had examples of that I'd def check it out.
Turns out doing literal genocide and paying for it with record high prices on food and housing is a losing strategy. Who could have guessed
ok but have you considered that trump would call the genocide he's unconditionally arming extremely very good instead of calling the genocide he's unconditionally arming very very good?? checkmate tankkkies
I still can't believe political discourse in this shithole country got to the point where "Ok yes, our candidate is committing genocide, but have you considered the OTHER GUY would also do genocide (and like it more)?" is a literal line of thought but here we are
I'm digging and I can't find a perfect analogue yet but I bet there was something similar happening in 1828 between Jackson and J.Q. Adams
While initially ambivalent, Adams took great interest in the Creek Indians of Georgia who were being pressured by the state’s governor, George Troup, to give up their lands.
After receiving a delegation of Creeks in the capital, Adams intervened and demanded that Troup give the Indians a fairer deal for their lands, leading to the 1826 Treaty of Washington. This treaty was agreed upon between Adams and Creek leaders in Washington DC, a stark departure from previous Native American treaties which were often one-sided.
Unfortunately, this was to be but a temporary victory for the Creeks. Troup quickly organised another treaty to take the rest of the Creek lands and, while Adams threatened federal intervention against Georgia, he backed down due to fears of this incident sparking a civil war.
While Adams was ineffective in halting the march towards the calamitous Indian Removal of the 1830s, he became a strong and active critic of US Indian affairs for the rest of his life.
With Trump food prices wouldn't even exist because we wouldn't have food. Trump will literally delete the existence of food from America if he is president that's just the fact
Trump will literally delete
the existence of food fromAmerica
And telling his own voters that it's not a genocide and then gaslighting them with the classic "Trump would do an even worse genocide" like what the fuck
Trump winning 2024 isn't anyone's fault but the Democratic Party's.
Not only does our votes not really matter, but it's hard to even pretend voting can even change anything at this point. The DNC had one job, and that was to win against Trump. And for some God damn reason, they thought Biden was their guy. Our system is a fucking joke.
He won in 2020 because it was a clown show to begin with. If they actually want to do anything worth while, they need to push actual likeable candidates that millennials, zoomers, and marginalized people don't feel disgusted in voting for.
I know the "just like me frfr" meme exists but like it's literally a blueprint for a win for them. But instead they wanna try and attract people so old they are gonna die halfway through this next term so it doesn't even matter. Dems just need to run a young socdem and it's an easy victory. I don't know why this is so hard for them.
E: dumb typos because Android's keyboard is garbo
E2: I didn't realize this comment got this much traction. Jerboa and crappy mountain Internet isn't giving me notifications. I tried to read through and do follow up comments but y'all have spot on analyses as usual.
He won in 2020 because it was a clown show to begin with
And to be clear he barely scraped across the finish line in 2020 in what should’ve been a landslide election against one of the least popular presidents in history.
He was also toast before he got the shot in the arm that was all of the other Reagan Democrats dropping out simultaneously except
and we were ordered to treat the Jim Clyburn endorsement and SC primary win as if it decided the whole election. Right before all this the man was talking about leaving record players on for kids at night to help them learn, saying he didn't care about young people's issues, saying he'd veto M4A, and getting chewed out by his eventual VP pick for being a segregationist.
I'm still convinced that if Trump started selling cloth "Keep America Great" masks on his campaign website or worn one around for a few days he would've won.
I'm still convinced that if Trump started selling cloth "Keep America Great" masks on his campaign website or worn one around for a few days he would've won
It genuinely annoys me that he didn't do something like that. It could have been an easy fucking layup to both get a bunch of cash and also not get his hogs killed but he couldn't even do that. The reactionary nature of the hogs was such that as soon as "the libs" started masking it was all but guaranteed that they were going to cough into each others open mouths
Like I really don't want to hand it to the guy, especially in a hypothetical, especially because he is an incompetent fascist, and especially because I'm sure we'd have invariably wound up in the same place as we did under Brandon before long because the orphan crushing machine would have eventually been given more orphans to crush regardless of who was president. But there is no doubt in my mind that plenty of hogs would've cast their "closely held" beliefs about the nanny state aside in 2020 if the Trump White House even feigned some kind of support for taking better precautions (or just appealing to the racist heart of Amerikkka by framing it as a "protect American patriotism from the elusive China flu!!!") instead of coming around to side with the plague rats. That's countless lives that could've been saved in the process.
If the Dems still won control of Congress in 2020 I imagine they'd have become the ones reflexively acting to curtail second-term Trump's attempts to end pandemic aid or the moratoriums, and might've even cared about pushing for upgraded ventilation, better testing and tracking infrastructure, remote work policies, and additional stimulus checks. It'd be funny if something good happened in this country as a result, simply because the Dems were actually engaged in harm reduction over the cheeto winning re-election. Instead they just became a new wave of plague rats under their own incompetent fascist.
all Trump had to do was send out that second check in September, but McConnell played him and talked him out of it. convinced him to dangle it like a reward instead
meaning Biden, right? (I don't think Biden would have managed a win without COVID)
He won in 2020 because it was a clown show to begin with.
Let's be really clear - 2020 was the start of a literally biblical level world plague. It goes beyond a clown show. The dems just had to show up.
Dems just need to run a young socdem and it's an easy victory. I don't know why this is so hard for them.
it is against the material interest of the democratic party to hold and wield power
They really are just the GOP's victory catalyst at this point in our history.
That's why it's going to be a self-funded billionaire Democrat with a savior complex who will win cosplaying as a social democrat in 2028. We'll all get some nice treats and then they'll die and the Dems will spend the rest of our lives clawing it all back
Bread and circuses with a strong imperial presidency bordering on Cesar is not an impossible outcome for the American empire
I remember early in the 2020 primaries thinking well as long as Biden isn't the nominee...he was the worst of all of them.
Honestly though my disillusionment with 2020 primaries turned me into the commie you see shit posting before you.
My least wanted were Bloomberg, Biden, and Harris, in that order. So Bloomberg helped orchestrate the election of the other 2. Fuck the dems so hard
It can't be overstated how impactful Bloomberg was in that race. He dumped like half a billion dollars in advertising well before super tuesday on ads that weren't overtly for him, but with the message that the dems needed a moderate to beat trump. Maybe more important than the Obama phone calls.
Lol I just mentioned Bloomberg in another comment. It's crazy how obvious his role in 2020 was.
You could tell leading up to 2020 that Biden was their guy. I had zero hope of any other outcome after watching the 2016 shitshow. The only reason Bloomburg even showed up was to disrupt potential Bernie talking time. That guy dumped a bunch of money into his "campaign" and when it was a sure shot for Biden, he said "lol cya".
2016 was probably my commie conversion officially but for some reason I still had hopes for Bernie in 2020.
It seems like there's a bunch of establishment critters who have been wringing him for Obama-era nostalgia 'till antimatter starts coming out.
I feel like his whole campaign was hinging on Obama nostalgia and his sunglasses "buddy Biden ice cream" memes for sure.
I miss notifications a good third(?) of the time and I don't have either of those causes, I think it's just a lemmy issue
You lose notifications when somebody else replies to the reply, so if your post blows up you might be the last to know.
Didn't you hear OP? Drumpf was convicted and is a felon, and Biden 'took action' on 'alarmingly high' numbers of migrants crossing into the US, which will also make Republicans look like hypocrites when they oppose it
Biden will win by 400 electoral votes
It would be so funny if the core dem base will get complacent because they've convinced themselves that Trump can't possibly win now.
they're in a state of permanent panic about Trump winning so I don't think that's gonna happen
I agree, the fear of the orange man will likely get the rad libs to show up in droves
Biden better start cancelling student debt and arming Palestinians fast if he doesn't want to lose then
Real talk, libs would flip their shit if he actually armed Palestine. A ceasefire to stop torturing babies on camera is something even many cynical libs can support. Arming a group that CNN calls terrorists would quickly remind us why libs are fucking tools
stop torturing babies on camera is something even many cynical libs can support.
Their politics are really just "I don't like what I'm seeing on TV and I would like to speak to the writers please." Talking to my boomer relatives, the thing that bothers them the most about Trump 2: Electric Boogaloo is that they will have to see him on the news again
This is every lib. Trump is a swaggering asshole who embarasses them on a world stage. It's entirely optics for them.
As if he hasn’t been on the news constantly since he became president.
Talking to my boomer relatives, the thing that bothers them the most about Trump 2: Electric Boogaloo is that they will have to see him on the news again
I bet this is quite common among Normal Whites. I think triumphalist rhetoric about Biden losing to trump in 2024 is premature
I'm not trying to assume your family is white, comrade, just that this kind of normalcy fetishist lib is a important voting demographic
Genuinely at this point if he wants me to vote for him it’s more than a ceasefire I need, I want air strikes against Tel Aviv and military aid going directly to Hamas
And while I certainly don’t think that’s like, the majority opinion, I do think it would give him a much higher chance of winning than what he’s doing right now
Hamas' rockets are bad and given their unguided nature there is a good chance they hit civilians. That is why Hamas and all resistance factions should be given guided missiles instead
I want air strikes against Tel Aviv and military aid going directly to Hamas
I do think it would give him a much higher chance of winning than what he’s doing right now
No no no. Biden's numbers cratered when he left Afghanistan; anything but vocal support for Israel would get him completely castigated by every US institution and throw off the ballot.
If the democrats were really worried about it, they would start bombing republicans
Best he can do is continue extremely cruel immigration policy and ignore an active genocide
Come on, the Hill, writing for a liberal audience, is just doing the usual scaremongering tactic to push for a Democratic fundraising. Libs get panicked and donate huge sums of money to the party. Rinse and repeat. This is the secret to running a successful political party in the US.
I just can't get hard for this one. Last one was fun cause of Trump derangement syndrome. I feel like everyone will just be phoning it in this time.
I just can't get hard for this one.
Lmao I'm going to start using this for completely nonsexual things too
Well if that happens I will personally blame libs for vote shaming people and empowering fascists.
No you're right. The bullshittery of libs is how we got here in the first place.
I still think that Trump fatigue and the repeal of Roe give him enough of a floor that there's no chance of a complete electoral teeth kicking, but if I still gave a shit about the Democrats I'd be worried.
"You think there will be elections? Well think again Jack!" - Generalissimo Biden
All those times hes (unintelligible) hes actually just speaking spanish thats coming back into his brain from highschool in the 50s
I don’t really know if it would be a blowout but a close win is likely for either.
It's going to depend on how much open support for genocide, crashing economy, and failed proxy war in Ukraine will alienate people.
I was reading this thread and like “damn, lemmy really turning a corner, proud of y’all mfs” then I realized its a hexbear thread lol
idk about blowout (who knows with electoral college) but vote share will be really close at least.
I can't see how myself. The blue no matter who base isn't sufficient to get him across the line, and he's basically alienated everyone else at this point. Meanwhile, Trump's base is only becoming more galvanized by the day.
Dems have been outperforming expectations in every election since the Dobbs decision.
Trump's base is only becoming more galvanized by the day
Yeah but he's not adding to the base. It's just the same knuckle draggers who believe every L they take makes them stronger
Dems aren't adding to their base either, especially with the economy in the gutter, open support for genocide, and the failed proxy war in Ukraine. All the polling shows that dems are losing support across the board.
As I mentioned, the Dobbs decision has in fact galvanized and added to the Dem base. Yes, this is tempered by the dozens of reasons they're horrible but it remains a factor.
Good news is that we don't have to wait too long to find out what actually happens.
Trump isn't adding to his base either. a lot of independent voters think Trump is corrupt. he is not very popular outside of his base. Biden's strategy is run on anger at the abortion decision and "saving democracy" which might be enough to put him across the finish line but it should be a blow out for democrats if someone who wasn't Biden was running against him.
Trump's base is also not enough to get him over the finish line.
I wouldn't bet on that. Ultimately, it just needs to be bigger than the lib base in the swing states. And thanks to gerrymandering, they don't even need to have an actual majority.
Doesn't need to be big if the sixty voters in each of the bumfuck counties in the flyovers vote for him. Hilldawg won the popular vote after all