• RaincoatsGeorge
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    1 year ago

    No I don’t think that’s accurate. If McCain or Romney had won I never had a fear that our democracy would have eroded. I certainly wouldn’t have agreed with all of their policy choices but both men I think are old guard politicians and would have largely done the job with an undercurrent of honor that just doesn’t exist with trump. I never would have had any fear that if they lost the next election they wouldn’t peacefully turn over power.

    With trump all of that has changed. The only reason his coup didn’t work is because most everyone involved was dense as fuck and couldn’t come up with a cohesive strategy to get it done. Give him another chance and 4 years to prepare and he will find success.

    Biden is not the candidate I wanted, but he’s the candidate we’ve got, and in our broken political system that’s as good as it’s going to get. We can talk about 3rd parties and changing the system but none of that is happening before 24.

    The polls are right about one thing. Trump definitely could win again. That should be very alarming to any rational American.

    • Ensign_Crab@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Biden is not the candidate I wanted, but he’s the candidate we’ve got, and in our broken political system that’s as good as it’s going to get.

      Ever.

      • MagicShel@programming.dev
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        1 year ago

        Biden has been the most progressive President in probably 40 years and the most effective since probably Clinton. He wouldn’t be my first choice, but even if your silly little one-word retort is true that’s a big improvement on the past.

        • Ensign_Crab@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Biden has been the most progressive President in probably 40 years

          Oh yeah. Building Trump’s wall for him and funding genocide are super progressive.

          Obama passed the ACA. That’s more progressive than everything Biden has passed put together. And no, that’s nothing to crow about either.

          • MagicShel@programming.dev
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            1 year ago

            Obama also murdered people with drones and caved to Republicans when he had the power to pursue a more progressive agenda. He bailed out businesses instead of people. He did nothing about torturing prisoners of war. Don’t give me this Obama progressive bullshit. ACA was a republican plan. Obama was not by any stretch of the imagination a progressive. He was an okay President and a great orator, but his policies were conservative democrat.

            • Ensign_Crab@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              Don’t give me this Obama progressive bullshit. ACA was a republican plan.

              And yet it was more progressive than anything Biden has passed. Don’t give me this Biden progressive bullshit.

              • MagicShel@programming.dev
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                1 year ago

                Well you’re just wrong. Obama was not as progressive as Biden and believe me I was shocked by both. The proof is in the policies.

                Oh and being an ally of Israel is universal for both parties. Whoever was in office would’ve supported them. Obama certainly had some extremely disappointing foreign policy as well.

                • Ensign_Crab@lemmy.world
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                  1 year ago

                  Obama was not as progressive as Biden and believe me I was shocked by both.

                  The ACA remains more progressive than anything Biden has done. If I was wrong, you would have offered counterexamples by now.

                  • MagicShel@programming.dev
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                    1 year ago

                    ACA wasn’t progressive though! I’m working so I’m short on time to pull receipts and probably quick-tempered as well so sorry for being a bit of an asshole. But ACA wasn’t a progressive policy. We are still paying insurers instead of providers and ACA isn’t particularly affordable but I’ll grant it is there for folks who have no other option.

    • PugJesus@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      No, no, you don’t get it, if you let the fascists win this time, we’ll TOTALLY win next time. It’ll be Our Turn, or something.

      Accelerationists aren’t arguing in good faith. They’re useful idiots for fascists who’ll say anything to discourage voting for viable candidates out of the delusion that making things worse will magically make things better.

      • Ensign_Crab@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        “Everyone to my left is all the way to my right.”

        I’m voting for Biden. He’s unpopular and the party’s messaging is dogshit, but I’m voting for him. You’re fooling yourself if you think our current messaging is going to bring in all the votes we need.

        If the party expects us to believe that there will totally be discussion about what the party’s left wants this time, maybe there should have been some discussion the last three times they said that.

        • RaincoatsGeorge
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          1 year ago

          Basically my take. My view is that we need the old guard centrists to die off and we need to see more millenials and Gen z step into political positions.

          It is of course a double edged sword. If you reformed the democratic party to actually adhere to current popular liberal progressive policies you would see a lot more shit getting done. But the millenials and Gen z Republicans are all cartoonishly evil and we are eventually going to have only maga qanon uneducated conspiratards making up the other political party.

          The left has to win every election from here to the end of time. The loonies only need to win one more.

          • Ensign_Crab@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            The left has to win every election from here to the end of time. The loonies only need to win one more.

            Party leadershit makes sure the left never gets past the primaries. The loonies will win before that changes.

        • MagicShel@programming.dev
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          1 year ago

          There is also a total failure to understand that as much as the online community is solidly to the left of democrats, the policies don’t play as well to middle America. I believe in gun regulation, but if a candidate’s platform goes too hard on that they will lose MI and PA for sure. UBI? You better believe that’s a loser. Doesn’t matter how good the policy is, the messaging terrifies people.

          I fucking love Bernie. That is a dude with integrity and heart. I wish he’d been elected. But he would’ve lost the general election (except maybe 2016 - I suspect only Hillary could’ve lost to Trump, but in hindsight it’s easy to say maybe we shouldn’t have taken the losing path). Candidates you love but can’t win aren’t going to help anyone. Biden has proven himself against Trump and no one else has. I’m damn sure happy he’s running.

          • Ensign_Crab@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            There is also a total failure to understand that as much as the online community is solidly to the left of democrats, the policies don’t play as well to middle America.

            Four decades of moving to the right to (ostensibly) please centrists’ notion of middle America, and your poll numbers are dropping against a literal fascist. You need the votes of the left that party leadership hates. We’re already funding genocide. How much farther do the right do you suppose we can move?

              • Ensign_Crab@lemmy.world
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                1 year ago

                I’m not a Democrat if that’s what you think.

                Fine. Four decades of moving to the right to (ostensibly) please centrists’ notion of middle America, and Democrats’ poll numbers are dropping against a literal fascist. Democrats need the votes of the left that party leadership hates. We’re already funding genocide. How much farther do the right do you suppose we can move?

                Now can you try addressing this instead of trying to divert?

                • MagicShel@programming.dev
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                  1 year ago

                  You run too far left and you lost the rust belt. Who are you picking up to replace their votes? Traditionally the play had been to whine about the electoral college and wish we had a different system, but we don’t so the question remains.

                  But as an aside I don’t owe you any fucking explanations and in any event I certainly don’t speak for the people you’re pissed at. I have one agenda here and that’s to keep a fascist from taking over. Democrats and Biden are the means to that end. But I don’t actually give two shits about party. I enjoy conversations about this stuff. Gives me interesting things to think about and often new perspectives to consider. But the way you are treating me here is not cool and not fun.

                  • Ensign_Crab@lemmy.world
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                    1 year ago

                    You run too far left and you lost the rust belt.

                    Yeah, unions are super unpopular in the rust belt. It’s great how we abandoned them for so long. Moving to the right and away from unions sure helped us there.