The Pennsylvania Democrat recalled his time serving as a Hillary Clinton surrogate in 2016, even after he supported Bernie Sanders in the primary.
I don’t like Joe Biden, but this isn’t a presidential approval poll, it’s an election, and he’s clearly better than any of the alternatives. And when it comes down to it, he’s been better than I expected. We could have just had an exclusively centrist presidency, and while there’s been plenty of centrism, he has been persuadable to progressive action.
And frankly even if you can’t bring yourself to express support Biden for some reason, it should be pretty easy to want anyone who willingly associates with Republicans to lose and lose badly, because they’re way beyond stealth-mode fascism now. Even the most jaded “they’re all neolibs” voter from earlier elections can’t possibly ignore that the Republicans are just fash now. There’s a real danger if they win that cities end up with federally tasked jackboots kidnapping protesters like Portland.
When the vote is between someone (and a party) who says “climate change is more worrying than nuclear war” and “climate change is a hoax” the choice should be clear for any reasonable person. All the treason stuff aside (though very important, everyone should already be decided on that), climate change is the biggest issue for everyone I know. Probably for any average person under 50 if I had to guess.
I don’t get it, either. Unless and until we have something like ranked choice voting, purity ponies that lodge “protest votes” only help the fascists. And these purity ponies seem to revel in creating more division within the left (and create more Republicans in the process), wanting to excommunicate each other over ivory tower orthodoxy, with the Oppression Olympics being one of the more egregious versions of that…
The conditions that allow someone like Trump to come to power are manifested by the neoliberal policies extolled by the Democrat and Republican establishment, alike. Your party leaders are Reaganites/Thatcherites. The biggest policy win for Democrats in recent history was a Heritage Foundation plan that acts as a de facto subsidy to private health insurance.
And most people do not live in swing states so most “protest votes” do nothing to tip the scales.
creating more division within the left
Liberalism isn’t the left.
create more Republicans in the process
Create more leftists, actually.
ivory tower orthodoxy
It’s the Democratic establishment that abhors populism and typically walks in ivory tower circles. Liberalism and neoliberalism are the dominant ideologies in the Ivy League schools, not socialism.
“Support Joe Biden” - Yes.
“Support particular policies of Joe Biden” - No.
Democrats are not a cult of personality. We can disagree with particular things the president does without wanting to see him defeated.
I think he’s talking about the people who would rather let Trump win than support anyone right of Bernie.
We need ranked choice voting.
We need a voting system that eliminates the spoiler effect and allows for showing intensity of preference.
RCV does neither but STAR voting does both
I’m still soured by how the primary shook out in 2020. Before any votes were cast, all everyone said about all the candidates were that anyone could beat Trump. Bernie won the first 3 races, and the Democratic establishment fought anyway they could to kill the movement, including pressuring flailing campaigns to back out. Biden finally won and the only message is for the left wing of the party to get in line. Kind of a hard pill to swallow when the Democrats claimed to be the party of the youth, but the youth voted 80%+ for Bernie in the primary. Ended up voting Green in 2020. Will I do so again in '24? Who knows, but at this point it isn’t looking good. I don’t like that the right wing of the Democrats (center-right overall) expects the left to follow along no matter what they do.
I’m not sure I buy this whole “third party votes are wasted votes” or “third party votes are a vote for the opposition”. The US system heavily heavily biases towards having a two party system, but third parties exist, and just because Democrats and Republicans are the two major parties right now, doesn’t mean they will be in the future. The Whigs were one of the two major parties for 25 years of US history, even winning the Presidency a few times, but now they’re not. It took people not willing to accept the party line and jumping ship to change that, which again the system biases against, but it still happened. Democrats aren’t the end-all-be-all of lefty politics. The next left wing party won’t be the end-all-be-all either. Democrats have no incentive to change the current system. By continuing to vote for them, whether you believe it or not, you’re approving and perpetuating the behavior. It isn’t a useful method of change to say “I don’t agree with anything the Democrats say, but that’s the world we’re in”. That’s how you end up in a situation where 70% of the country supports universal healthcare, but only 5-6 members of Congress do. Voting for a further left party than the Democrats will cause the Democrats to wise up to what their traditional base wants.
Politics in Democracy is not a passive system. Passivity leads to what we have now, two parties that write the rules for the states and the governments that represent the interests of almost no one, but have convinced us that they’re the only and best options. There are agents of the Democrats currently in jail for breaking election law in their efforts to keep the Greens off the ballot. I’m sure the same is true for Republicans. Don’t tell them its okay by giving them your vote. Don’t give in to the political version of the Paradox of Thrift.
Bernie won the first 3 races,
Oh no, don’t you remember? They fucked the Iowa caucus to make sure he didn’t win, handing a victory to the nobody Buttigieg instead.
Ah yes everything is progressives fault and not establishment dinosaurs pandering to their corporate donors .
Y’all are so focused on who sticks their what where that is going to cost you an election… again.
The progressive ideology is dangerous left unchecked.
Oh yeah, those darn progressives are always telling people what is OK to stick where and into whom, and freaking out about bathrooms and sports teams. I find their desire for genital checks especially gross.
It’s the conservatives who value individual freedom, privacy, and give each person the liberty to live how they want to, with whoever they want to. Just accepting people as they are without prejudice.
Or maybe I’m completely fucking backwards on that…
someone needs to lay off the coolaid. OH NO public healthcare, education, and worker rights are DANGEROUS!
They’re easy to understand: they are privileged and insulated enough from potential Republican fuckery that if Democrats lose elections, they are mostly going to be ok. They’re mostly middle class or higher with secure employment or other economic support (parents, spouse), straight (or closeted), their religious status isn’t contentious, mostly they’re male.
The other group I’d expect would be extremely low information voters who believe all politicians are the same and it’s a Coke or Pepsi kind of thing. That’s not going to be super common with anyone identifying as “progressive” due to the very politicized nature of that term, though.
I’m a trans woman in Iowa.
I’m voting for Cornel West.
😘
Then you’re either an idiot or extremely shortsighted.
I just have a perspective beyond myself, rather than your liberal myopia.
Socialism or barbarism. Either the American empire is stopped or civilization will come to an end, either by climate change or world war. The point of Cornell West’s campaign isn’t to take the presidency, Sanders already proved that is impossible (never forget what they did to the Iowa caucus). It would be amazing if he won, but the real goal of my support is to build support for socialism more broadly within America so we can stop this empire from killing everyone everywhere forever.
It’s not that I don’t support him, it’s that I do not support anyone over the age of 65 being in any position of any power anywhere.
Yes, we all want someone with little experience work the most important job in the world.
Brother, that’s what the 35 cutoff is for… A lot of people start losing facultiee 65+, so it is you who ends up supporting rule by toddlers in reality.
Not to say Joe Biden would be worse than Trump by any means. Pointing out one flaw in a candidate is in no way an endorsement of their opponent.
Why do you support someone that is corrupted, a liar and has his hands drenched in blood?
Because it’s multiple choice, and he’s less corrupt, more honest, and less blood-drenched than the alternative.
So if Hitler and Osama bin laden gets resurrected and run for elections you would vote for one of the two according to who killed less people?
His only redeeming quality is not being Donald Trump. He’s otherwise too fucking old and out of touch with the vast majority of the country like most of our government is.
It’s almost midnight. You just got out of your job, a restaurant in a somewhat seedy location in old downtown. You leave through the backdoor into an alley and suddenly notice you’re not alone. The metal door just closed shut behind you.
You look to your right. There’s a guy with a knife. He’s looking at you and smiling in a weird manner. He starts walking towards you menacingly.
You look to your left. There’s a well known old drunk there. He smells bad and likes to hug people who are passing by. If you go that way, you will be hugged by him.
What do you do?
If you go right, you’ll get stabbed and killed. If you do nothing and stay put, you’ll get stabbed and killed. If you go left, you will be hugged by the stinky guy. It’s disgusting and not ideal, but you’ll not be stabbed and survive.
What do you choose?
I see people all the time with the dumbest arguments to not vote. “He’s not progressive enough”, or “he’s part of the system”, or even “he didn’t do enough for X” (insert your favorite minority here).
It’s all true. But the universe is not a perfect or ideal place. Not voting for the imperfect guy gets us a true horrible alternative. It’s a choice between bad and awful.
Please vote bad and keep the awful away.
Ah, the false dichotomy, neat.
Abstaining is always an option. You can always just ignore either shady individual - you aren’t required to pick one.
Libs could learn a thing or two about abstinence.
Your analogy does not work, as the situation presented requires you to either go to the left or to the right.
In real life, there are many options and gray areas. One of those options is to refuse support to anyone who works against the populace, regardless of their political affiliation.
The world would be much better off watching the US turn far-right and implode than it would be maintaining the status quo.
I would rather watch the US die as a Nazi state than support the lesser of two evils. Remove them as a global superpower. Move out of the way and allow other states to bring better systems of government forward. Maybe something salvageable can be found in the wreckage.
That’s the part Fetterman fails to realize as well: Right now is not okay. Continuing the status quo is not okay.
Your analogy also equates the death of the nation with the death of the self, which is not even remotely true either.
Everyone knows not to negotiate with terrorists, until election season.
Simple. They are still liberal. They never drank the progressive kool aid that lead to Trump.
