(Shitting on leftists probably helps Democrats if it entices Centrists to vote for Democrats. Worst thing Leftists do to the cause is not vote, worst thing Centrists do is actively vote for Republicans)
What “centrists”? Is your head in some portal to another dimension?
If someone actually entertains casting a vote for the GOP they’re not a centrist, they’re a card carrying fascist.
(Comments like this are why shitting on you helps Democrats win over Centrists)
Yeah, definitely worked for Clinton.
But don’t forget, if Biden loses it will somehow be the fault of “leftists”, not the “centrists” who failed to show up for Biden.
It did work for (Bill) Clinton, twice. And Hillary got more votes than her opponent it’s not like she got trounced.
Sounds like diminishing returns. Congrats to Hillary Clinton though! Hopefully they gave her a trophy or something.
Feels like the CCP presence on instances other than ml and hexbear has been climbing a lot, lately.
Our Hexbear/.ml leftfashs have proven that the best friend of the authoritarian left is the authoritarian right, which makes their arguments invalid.
For them there is no space between far left and far right. Just like everything to the left of the nazis is “woke”, “communism” and “antifa”, everything to the right of them is “liberal”, “genocidal” and “fascist”.
And of course there’s nothing but tankies to the left of the Democratic party.
/s
Given that “tankie” just means “anyone to the left of the Democratic Party”, yes.
Where’d you get that Idea? Tankie(s) specifically means supporting authoritarian leftist ideals. Sending in the tanks, etc.
Anarchists are further left than Democrats and are definitely not tankies.
Tankie is a pejorative term for someone who would support an authoritarian to bring socialism/communism. Literally to cheer the tanks that suppressed popular protests in the cold war.
No, there’s nothing but tankies to the left of the democratic party, just like there’s nothing but Nazis right of the democratic party. /s
(Ok, the last part has a kernel of truth in it)
For real though, there’s enough place left of the democratic party, but those will just not be on the ballot. And if Trump wins, there will be no more ballots (or trump will just get 131% of the vote, just like in Russia). But like I said leftauth, rightauth, they are the same picture, aren’t they?
If the democrats put as much work into getting people to vote for them as they do threatening the left, they’d get votes. Humans don’t actually respond very well to threats.
Oh, the threat of creating the worlds largest and most powerful dictatorship is something that should concern you. But it doesn’t. Like I said, Left authoritarians, right authoritarians, same same.
Oh yes all the people who don’t want to be coerced into voting by threats are authoritarians. That’s as logical as putting lipstick on your hogs when you send them to the slaughter house.
Stop funding a fucking famine and we’ll talk.
Lol, the projection goes hard in your answer. the only one in the US getting sent to the slaughterhouse are LGBT+, the homeless, political enemies of the right-wing and anyone who stands up against the forming dictatorship when Trump wins. i don’t want mass graves in gaza, but bringing them to the US instead can not be the answer.
Just that you know, i don’t think that such a regime will thank you for your service; i’m inclined to believe that your political goals will put you in the crosshairs too.
Project 2025 has a lot of shit in it but nowhere did I see anything about committing genocide. Making up shit like this when there’s one actually going on that we’re supporting is ridiculous. Especially your accusation of projection. Because there is literally a genocide occurring right now. People are dying because of our support for Israel right now. And you want to make one up.
But I’m the one projecting? Holy shit dude. All Biden has to do is cut Israel loose. Do the right thing. Earn the votes. Blaming the people who will not be bullied is not going to work. It didn’t work in 2016 and it won’t work now.
This is the peak of vibes-based analysis.
I am a leftist. I think constantly shitting on Socialists, Anarchists, and Communists who believe Biden is a bad President with or without genocide is a terrible way to grow a coalition, and actively hurts Biden’s chances for reelection.
The left does not like the right, the problem is that a lot of liberals believe themselves to be left just because they are not far-right, and wonder why Leftists are still upset.
“Reeeeeeee people don’t like my lame anti-Biden posting reeeeeeeeeeeeee”
It wouldn’t be so bad if it wasn’t always such lame criticism or some nobody’s opinion like we should give a fuck what Ja says.
I will never vote for Biden again and if you’re reading this, you don’t have to either.
I’m planning on voting psl this year. If you don’t want to vote for Biden but still want to vote, consider the party for socialism and liberation.
Yes. Let’s allow the authoritarians win. Dumbasses.
They already did, dipshit.
The authoritarians are already in power. Student antiwar demonstrations are being crushed by the police, border detentions are up, labor demonstrations have been crushed just a few short years ago and there is an active campaign to control media sources.
The opposing party has signaled that harassing and detaining protesters isn’t enough, they want them KILLED.
Is that just absent in your mind?
wow it sucks that we live in a fascist state. lets organize to oppose it instead of vote for the lesser of the two fascist ruling class parties.
A fascist state that allows dissent?!
Encouraging people not to vote for Biden is the most effective way to help Trump win. No amount of mental gymnastics changes this fact.
running any other candidate is the most effective way to prevent a trump win. there are no mental gymnastics here.
instead of exchanging pithy remarks, why not talk about what youre worried about? do you think trump will accept being declared the loser?
Do you really think you’re going to get a third of America to not only rally behind a candidate that isn’t the two-party front runners, but also rally behind the same candidate?
I’m worried about people refusing to vote Biden because he sucks and then the outspoken, proud fascist winning and stripping rights from myself and my friends, giving Israel even more support, halting support to Ukraine, and attempting to dismantle the little democratic power we have.
not according to people who are much smarter and better informed than you.
WHY INSTEAD OF??
You can do two things, and one of the things you suggest is EXACTLY what the fascists want. This is not an either/or. You can do both.
because your vote has meaning and value as more than either a winner and loser of political races. vote tallies determine funding, media and event access and even if that was it (it’s not!) there’s some level of dual party fascism where it would be better to spend your meaningful vote helping some third party you really believe in get an edge next time (or this time) rather than just picking which version of evil you’d rather have.
get an edge next time (or this time)
You still seem to be under the impression that if Trump wins, there will BE a ‘next time’.
It feels easier to organize opposition if the people in the White House are just saying stupid shit about protesters instead of urging for sending in the National Guard so they can nuke Gaza without listening to the complaints.
So your response is to roll over and give them ULTIMATE power?
These are reasons to protest, fight, and get engaged in local politics, not to fucking give in to the fascists.
I didn’t say roll over and give power to the fascist state. I said that we already have authoritarians in power. we do.
I agree especially with that last part. that’s why i never, not even once suggested giving in to fascists.
That’s where I disagree- Voting third party or not voting at all enables fascists. Period. There is no ethical option in a single-vote system. There is only harm reduction.
Is that an extreme view? Yes. Is it wrong? Not when the Republican leader says he’ll be a dictator on day one. Our only option is to first make sure we don’t fall under a fascist dictator and THEN continue to fight. It’s not a problem that will be solved by voting, but voting HAS to be the first step.
Is that an extreme view? Yes. Is it wrong?
Also yes.
I swear to god, it’s like strategic voting doesn’t exist at all.
If you live in a deep blue or red state who’s basically guaranteed not to flip, with maybe extra considerations to which states tally their votes along which lines, because, as we know, states that tally their votes earlier in the process have a much higher sway, so, the DNC winning more overwhelmingly in those states, and especially if those states are swing states, has much more of an effect overall, then a protest vote to a candidate you agree with, in those circumstances, is pretty good.
It potentially shows the democratic party what you actually want, contests their claim of a mainstream, deep blue state, potentially in mass, and can give more legitimacy to those parties or those positions. Even better would probably be voting for a candidate like bernie, or someone internal to the DNC, in that scenario, since that’s more likely to give them a lot more media attention in the future and realistically someone like that has the best chance of winning.
The same principles as all this apply to local elections, just at a much smaller scale, with less media attention, and potentially less information on both sides, since people generally don’t give a fuck about understanding local elections even if they’re the ones being fucking elected. Just send out money and a bunch of lawn ornament signs explaining nothing, and then expect, probably not wrongly, that everyone will just vote for whatever candidate is a part of the party that they generally agree with, even if nobody has any fucking idea what anyone really stands for. Better off even if there’s no hint of an alternative being campaigned or even on the ballot despite everyone just telling people to run for local spots as though that’s really a possibility for most.
Instead, instead of paying attention to why votes are shifting, and how they might appeal to that voter block, the mainstream DNC strategy seems to be to just like demand that leftists have to come over to the democratic party’s side and then just accept all of their orders basically unquestioningly. To just pester them to vote more, and to vote harder, and to vote for the mainline DNC candidate, without any real conversations about how they might actually use their vote or why they might actually want to vote for their desired candidate. And of course that’s the fucking messaging, because that’s the messaging that allows them to get away with as little concessions to the left and the general population’s popular sentiments as possible. Bonus points if you’re always voting for damage prevention, too, because the urgency gives people a morally justifiable reason to just engage in relentless bullying tactics, rather than actually have a nuanced conversation about the ups and downs of a candidate and how they should use their vote, under what circumstances.
You can’t blame people for smelling something fishy in all that, being unable to articulate why or think through for what circumstances they might want to vote in, and then just kind of feel burnt out and cynical about the whole prospect and not really want to vote. It’s not exactly a hard strategy to see through when we’ve been seeing it for the last… 25, 30, 40 years maybe? I dunno, don’t remember those elections before I was born, but they’ve been pulling this shit since bush got into office.
How does voting third party (the only thing I’ve advocated with regard to voting)enable fascists?
I mean, we have the fascist sending 2000lb gbu jdams to aid a genocide and advocating crushing anti war opposition domestically or the fascist who everybody says will be worse. How does not picking a fascist aid the fascists? Should we strategically harm reduce by choosing regular Hitler over hypothetical 1000% ssj3 Hitler?
At what point does even our electoral action aim for what we want as opposed to what they want? Is there such a point?
step 1: vote dems
step 2: in any and every opportunity, vote for and promote preferential / ranked voting until it becomes enacted.
once step 2 is complete, and not before:
step 3: vote for greens as #1, and dems as #2.
step 4: is still profit, after all: murica.
Here is a good video that explains how mathematically, over time, if you give people only one vote, their options will become whittled down to two major parties who don’t represent anyone. It’s just what happens if you only have one vote per person. In these scenarios, third parties are destined to fail. That’s not hyperbole or exaggeration, it’s literally just how the math works. Ranked choice, or allowing multiple votes per person is one of the only ways to actually have representative representatives.
Should we strategically harm reduce by choosing regular Hitler over hypothetical 1000% ssj3 Hitler?
ABSO-FUCKING-LUTELY.
With ‘regular Hitler’, you still have a vote, and you still have a CHANCE to change to government. If you vote for ‘1000$ ssj3 Hitler’, you’re not only guaranteeing that you won’t have another vote, no say in changing the government, but you’re ALSO signing the death warrants for queer people, immigrants, and people of other religions. Trump wants to KILL POLITICAL RIVALS. He’s trying to ban objective reporting. He’s praising Hannibal Lecter! Yes, it’s a fucking awful situation to be in, but we also don’t have an alternative.
At what point does even our electoral action aim for what we want as opposed to what they want?
Like I said before, voting is the FIRST STEP. We do need a major overhaul of the election process, but that starts with states like Maine going for Ranked Choice voting. You have to start local and build your way up, this isn’t a problem that will be solved overnight with a single vote. It will START with a single vote, and once we actually get people who represent us in government, we’ll see actual progress.
hypothetical 1000% ssj3 Hitler?
I mean let’s not be so hyperbolic here, he obviously doesn’t have the hair for that
labor demonstrations have been crushed just a few short years ago
Biden fired the guy who used to run the NLRB, and put in a bunch of actually pro-labor people, who gave lots of material support to all this union activity that coincidentally has been meeting with all sorts of success over the last couple of years.
He did also break the rail strike, and then his NLRB kept working the issue after people weren’t paying attention, and got the rail workers the sick days they were asking for in the first place.
To me, it sounds like he wanted to avoid the disruption to the economy that the rail strike would have caused (which would have caused inflation which actually was sort of his fault, in contrast to the Covid and price-gouging inflation which is currently happening which people are blaming him for even though it isn’t his fault).
You can say, I guess, that he broke the rail strike because he hates workers, and then wasn’t paying attention when his NLRB got them the sick days after, and that he just didn’t bother to break all of the other strikes that were happening coincidentally before during and after that, including historic ones like UAW and the writer’s guild strike. Or maybe that he hates rail workers specifically but not the other kind. Or something. I don’t know.
Or were there labor demonstrations other than the rail strike that were crushed that I missed?
there is an active campaign to control media sources
Can you tell me more about this?
lets just confine it to the rail strike: biden broke the rail strike. then he gave a small subset of the strikers demands to them through executive action. the result is reduced labor power and benefits that can be taken away again anytime the executive decides it’s in its interest.
the active campaign to control media sources includes the tiktok ban. no matter your opinion on the application itself, you can’t deny that the point of the ban is to remove it from the american media landscape.
lets just confine it to the rail strike
Let’s not. I’m pretty sure that my argument was that if you don’t confine it to the rail strike, Biden’s overall record on labor is excellent, when you include the rail strike and then all the other union things he did.
Can I do this too? Let’s just confine it to the day he forgave six billion dollars of student loan debt. On that one day, his record was excellent. Therefore he’s great. See? Logic doesn’t work that way.
the active campaign to control media sources includes the tiktok ban. no matter your opinion on the application itself, you can’t deny that the point of the ban is to remove it from the american media landscape.
“Includes” the TikTok ban.
What else does it include? Any other media sources he’s actively campaigned to control? Or does removing the one that’s overt Chinese spyware mean that he hates independent “media” in the US, and just forgot about Mastodon, Twitter, Lemmy, and all the other sources where people can get anti-US news freely? In the same way he forgot to crush all those other unions when he was being super anti-union in that one very specific way that one time?
i think the administrations response to a labor action that threatens the infrastructure of the entire nation is the best thing to examine because it shows how the administration responds to labor power that opposes its aims and threatens it.
we could examine a bunch of other stuff, but that would largely only show how the administration behaves on its own terms. while there’s an ocean of ink that could be spilled on that topic, i didn’t bring it up because it doesn’t matter for the purposes of answering the question of weather the administration is authoritarian.
if you wanna talk about that, youre welcome to, but i’m not gonna get embroiled in it. the administration was threatened by labor power and chose to suppress the strike then deliver a modicum of the demands through action it could control. the end result of that response is that the power of labor is reduced and labor and its supporters are compelled to align with the administration.
it’s a response that seems like a perfect solution politically if your alignment is already democrat, but if you would rather labor have real power to exercise on its own terms then it’s pretty clearly anti-worker.
the tiktok ban is the best example of media policy against that which is actively controlled by the united states government and power elite. For more on this topic the 1988 book Manufacturing Consent is a great start and not too out there to scare off liberals. if you want something a little bit more recent, look up stovepipeing, the intelligence apparatus’ method for creating media buy in for the iraq war.
i think the administrations response to a labor action that threatens the infrastructure of the entire nation is the best thing to examine because it shows how the administration responds to labor power that opposes its aims and threatens it.
I disagree. I think the administration’s response to a union action that threatens the infrastructure of the entire nation is probably going to be colored somewhat by their reaction to the infrastructure of the entire nation being threatened. It’s probably the least reasonable situation to take, and then extrapolate out to form the conclusion “and that’s why he just hates unions.”
Especially since, and I don’t know why this keeps being not notable to you, his administration kept working with the railroads after, until the workers got the sick days that were the whole thing they had decided to have the strike over.
the tiktok ban is the best example of media policy against that which is actively controlled by the united states government and power elite. For more on this topic the 1988 book Manufacturing Consent is a great start and not too out there to scare off liberals. if you want something a little bit more recent, look up stovepipeing, the intelligence apparatus’ method for creating media buy in for the iraq war.
Yes, I have read Manufacturing Consent, and I was around for the Iraq War and the general media enthusiasm for it; I had arguments with family members about it because they were believing what they read in the papers. Not that it’s relevant, but as far as I can tell stovepiping was something totally different related to that war.
And, none of that is recent or in any way related to what Biden’s doing about US media right now.
I’m gonna take this as an indication that you have no other examples of media Biden wants to ban, even ones that are a lot more explicitly hostile to him than TikTok is, and just want to get condescending to maintain a posture of being the one who’s explaining to the one who doesn’t understand what’s really going on. Good luck with that! I don’t think it’s going well, but you can keep trying.
The authoritarians are in power in Russia and China.
Good work lmao
Russian citizens can’t vote for Biden, but they also can’t vote for anyone else fyi
But what about Tucker and Trump? aren’t they Russian citizens?
Cool! Thanks for sharing your unique, special opinion/plan. We hadn’t heard this 10000x yet.
When they can’t find anything good to say about their own party, attacking the opposition is the entirety of their argument.
If you need any more convincing than “stop the fascists”, you’re a collaborator.
I must be a collaborator. Democrats campaigned in 2020 to shut down camps at the border, reasonably support the conclusion of the pandemic, fund infrastructure and restore state/union support. When did “stop the fascist” become a political platform? Why are Democrats not complicit in mass murder?
Well, they did a lot of that.
Biden got the railworkers the things they wanted in the strike without a strike.
Biden has cleared billions of dollars for rail support.
He was also the first president in the history of the United States to walk a picket line.
As far as the camps are concerned, it would require congress to end them as the camps are powered by a law that was passed underneath GWB.
Its not bidens fault some of you are unable to read.
He also funded infrastructure just a little bit - there was some sort of bill concerned with it that happened
I swear, the “progressives” on lemmy are basically brain dead.
Granted, they aren’t actually progressive, but thats beside the point.
biden stopped the railworkers strikes forcibly and gave them bare minimum, still bad protections.
that strike had the potential to kick off the next workers rights movement and actually making you on par with the rest of the developed world.
he would have done better being quiet, he is a right wing status quo machine when the status quo is really really fucked up.
Biden fired the guy who used to run the NLRB, and put in a bunch of actually pro-labor people, who gave lots of material support to all this union activity that coincidentally has been meeting with all sorts of success over the last couple of years.
I’m not trying to downplay the hard work that unions have been putting in that have been getting them significant gains in the last few years. But Biden’s NLRB has been right there with them negotiating with the companies and giving them legal support which is absolutely crucial.
my third world country can still do better so far.
Wait – you’re not from the US, and deeply concerned with the US election and wanting to weigh in on who needs to win it?
I know when I have some spare time, I like to go involve myself in British elections, or Japanese; I talk on message boards to people from those countries and have all sorts of things to tell them about how they should vote. It’s just something I like to do.
so he basically coopted the movement with his own appointed people, with bipartisan support. the actual result of it is zero paid time off for sick workers, one of their main concern when striking. they are still working grueling hours, and have to be on call for even more grueling hours. IIRC biden even outlawed further strikes under threat of violence (!!!). the one good thing he did was increase their bad salaries for… slightly less bad salaries, no free time and no further right to demand anything else?
thats a lot of shifting money and people around so they can pretty much end the strike without caving to most of the worker’s demands, and keep the status quo. that is the main thing when leftists complain about elected “left” wing representatives being all talk while still keeping workers in a bad situation.
the threat to the shareholders’ pockets alone was enough to get them on their feet and respond immediatly, this could have been the birth of another worker’s rights movement, but it was a big nothingburger instead.
about the ad hominem, let me give you the tip of the iceberg: our conservative politicians literally went to the us recently, to basically ask your politicians for brutal sanctions on our country, the same people who tried to copycat trump’s jan 6 so yeah, i have all the reason to be concerned given your long history messing with our democracies in the region. thanks for the condescention though, but i bet a lot of you have many concerns about ukranian and russian politics now.
so he basically coopted the movement
Absolutely false.
Unions in the US have the same leaders they always did. Now, though, they have an NLRB who will fight legal battles on their behalf. Here’s a general overview.
How on earth is that a bad thing? You’re saying the NLRB was “coopted” by the federal government? I’m having trouble even understanding what you’re saying happened, here.
i have all the reason to be concerned given your long history messing with our democracies in the region
Yeah, this part makes sense to me (and in particular as a reason to be suspicious of any US politician, Biden included). That said, given Trump’s unusual-even-compared-with-the-American-standard support for overt dictators the world over, including Bolsonaro, you should definitely want Trump not to win power again, right?
https://www.ibew.org/media-center/Articles/23Daily/2306/230620_IBEWandPaid
Doesnt look like zero days to me.
You should read more.
Also, sounds like youre mad at our conservatives and piling that hate onto biden for some reason.
Its not bidens fault some of you are unable to read.
Biden has become the Obama of the terminally online. Anything bad happens? THANKS BIDEN
Is anything i said wrong?
No, I’m in agreement with you.
Relevant that they consider the left to be their opposition and not the right.
Hi!
Biden tried to forgive half a trillion dollars in student debt, took the biggest action on climate change in history which is estimated to reduce emissions by 40% by 2030 if Trump doesn’t undo it, strengthened the NLRB which has been giving legal backing to a lot of these union wins, grew wages at the bottom end of the pay scale even in the face of historic inflation, and a few other things.
It is also relevant that he doesn’t want to end democracy in the Unites States, “finish the job” in Gaza, or fire on protestors with live ammunition, like Trump does. But if for some reason you’ve decided it’s not allowed to make the decision on those bases (and I don’t know why it wouldn’t), there are also good things to say about Biden.
Oh, I mean, my bad. Rail strike worst president ever both sides amirite
Thank you so much for proving my point. Everyone, give mozz a big round of applause!
Rather than attacking Biden, try advocating for Trump. He was in office just as long. Here. I’ll show you what that looks like:
Biden rejoined the Paris Climate Agreement, revoked the Keystone Pipeline permit, created a 13 million acre federal petroleum reserve for Alaskan wildlife, greatly increased oil site lease cost, signed $7B in solar subsidies, enacted the Inflation Reduction act to support clean energy, created the CHIPS Act to improve reliance on domestic technology, reenacted Net Neutrality, repealed Title 42, ended the Muslim Ban, signed the Equality Act for LGBTQ+ rights, restored gay rights to beneficiaries, reenacted trans care anti-discrimination law, signed the Respect for Marriage Act, enabled unspecified gender on US Passports, rejoined WHO, rescheduled marijuana, reducing drug costs with the American Rescue Plan Act…
I’d keep going, but it’s getting late, and that took some time to verify and type. If you’d like, we can pick this up tomorrow. I’m very much looking forward to seeing your list of Trump’s accomplishments.
Wait, I am confused. Are we arguing? I thought Biden was doing great up until Netanyahu started killing Gazans by the thousands. He’s been doing weird little half-hearted things like holding up the weapons shipments, but hauling Netanyahu to the ICC would have been a better idea.
But yes, in general, Biden’s a huge improvement over the norm in a bunch of ways that for some reason aren’t talked about real often, and Trump is the end of the world (for the Palestinians and other Arabs and Hispanics and a whole bunch of other minorities foreign and domestic, in addition to everyone else). I feel like we’re on the same page on that, and I didn’t realize when I read your first message.
My initial comment was stating that there’s no “pro-Trump” argument, only “anti-Biden” arguments. So, yeah, it kinda read that way to me. I’m sorry if I misunderstood your intention through context. I’m pretty tired. I’ll edit for clarity.
Ha, all good. I got it backwards; I thought you were saying the opposite. But yeah, makes sense.
Maybe I am just excited to argue with some internet “leftists” who for some reason have their leftism mostly restricted to activism about not voting for Biden, and nothing else. There are a lot of them here in general, but maybe they are absent currently in this thread, because they’re afraid we will gang up on them
Agreed. It’s selfish and arrogant to know Trump will facilitate the killing of more innocent civilians and still abstain from voting on principle. Biden is literally the lesser of two evils in regards to Israel. Hopefully the UN and State Department find enough proof to give Biden a firm platform for withdrawal of support soon. It’ll save lives, and we won’t have to think about the despicable trolley car from now until November.
I was the one who had it backwards. Thanks for being understanding of my confusion.
It is also relevant that he doesn’t want to end democracy in the Unites States, “finish the job” in Gaza, or fire on protestors with live ammunition.
yet, he does. i judge politicians by actions, not words.
Rail strike worst president ever both sides amirite
unironically this. he used police force to coopt what could have been the first worker win in decades for less than bare minimum rights. he did stop rich people from losing money from it.
I didn’t realize that the police departments reported directly to the President. Do you have a source on that?
how will trump shoot the protesters like op is saying he will then?
I’m not OP, but Trump attempted more than once to have the National Guard shoot protesters with live ammunition.
There are enough guardrails in place that it didn’t work, but part of what I expect this time around would be the Florida State Guard and similar Neo-brownshirts coming into their own so that he would literally be able to do it.
Also, he had CBP showing up to protests and snatching people without identifying themselves or utilizing the existing jail / police / court infrastructure. It actually took a little time for people to even figure out who were these unidentified big quasi-police grabbing protestors and driving away with them, or where they had taken them.
Biden is, as far as I know, not personally involved in violence against protesters today. Trump was personally involved in violence against BLM protesters, and wanted to increase its severity to lethal force levels.
Yes. The President can direct the National Guard, not the state or local police that have been shutting down protests. Their oversight begins with the Mayor, and stops at the Governor. The President must formally declare a National Emergency to have police oversight. If you want to complain about the police, blame the Mayor. If the National Guard shuts down a protest, blame Biden.
so he won’t?
He can’t. They were simply referring to Trump’s response to the peaceful protest of the killing of George Floyd. “Can’t you just shoot them, just shoot them in the legs or something?” It’s not within his power, although it does clearly illuminate his opinion of protesters.
If the President takes direct oversight of local law enforcement, we have much larger problems on our hands. That’s exactly how Benito Mussolini took fascist control of his nation.
If the President takes direct oversight of local law enforcement, we have much larger problems on our hands.
why cant biden do this then?
For the same reason Trump can’t. I wrote “the President,” not Trump, for a reason. There’s a hierarchy in local and state law enforcement unlike the direct command of military or the National Guard. They are state-regulated bodies, not overseen nationally. The Director-General of Police reports to the Mayor, who in turn reports to the Governor.
If the National Guard shows up to regulate a protest, you can blame the President. Y’know, like Trump did to the protesters in DC and Portland.
Oh, I mean, my bad. Rail strike worst president ever both sides amirite
Yeah, what’s a little mass genocide between friends.
Hah! Sorry @mozz@mbin.grits.dev got you putting in OT in these comments.
Nah my main shift was this morning learning all about the details of how they come up with the numbers they report in all those polls. This is just entertainment on my own time.
Case in point: this whole damn thread lmao
💯
This is the biggest thing IMO, liberals would rather attack leftists than try to work with them. All this does, however, is convince leftists that they have nothing to gain from siding with liberals and instead trying to build outside pressure.
Liberals would rather defend genocide than join leftists in trying to force Biden’s hand and gain back leftist voters.
I say this as a Leftist likely voting for Biden: Leftists are going third party because Liberals have been blocking all leftward movement, thus alienating leftists from the electoral process. If you want leftist votes, work with leftists, instead of constantly punching left.
speaking a liberal, i find it’s the leftists who refuse to work with me. and would rather tell me off that i’m anti-trans over not asking them their pronoun rather than find common ground.
also their delusion that minorities are leftist by default. blacks and latinos are moving towards conservatives, because they tend to be more socially conservative than whites.
I think that’s a bit of a strawman, no? I haven’t seen leftists call people transphobic for not asking for pronouns. Misgendering, certainly, but not asking? Haven’t seen that.
i dunno i’m sure those annoying types exist but they are not nearly as common as our fascist uncles insist they are. im around many leftists and havent met one who was as outwardly annoying as some people suggest most leftists are.
well if i’ve experienced that IRL, is it a strawman still? if i call someoen ‘they’ and them blow up at me, because they are a he or a she, am i an asshole?
because apparently leftists think i am. at least the people who did that to me very much self processed themselves as leftists and love to loudly brag about how cool and anarchist they are. as if their political beliefs are nothing more than an aesthetic choice…t
That sounds frankly absurd. It wouldn’t be a strawman, but an unfair assumption that a one-off anecdote is the norm for leftists. Then again, you very well could be transphobic and are leaving out details, who knows.
Someone having firm beliefs they are proud of does not make it an “aesthetic choice.”
Sounds like you need to do some self-reflection and introspection.
American power only rewards those that don’t threaten it and punishes those that do.
The left is the last hope America has to reform anything in a positive direction, but sadly liberals would rather abide power than join the left and transform our collapsing system into a force of good.
Liberals would rather attack leftists than attack fascists even. History has shown that liberals will side with the right against the left every time, and it’s happening once again.
Biden fired the guy who used to run the NLRB, and put in a bunch of actually pro-labor people, who gave lots of material support to all this union activity that coincidentally has been meeting with all sorts of success over the last couple of years.
Biden’s corporate tax reforms swung Amazon’s taxes from negative $1.2 billion per quarter to positive $1 billion when they took effect at the start of 2023, and they’re currently paying $3 billion per quarter, a comfortable amount more than they’ve ever paid before. Here’s this year’s proposal of what he plans to do to build on top of that. Raising corporate taxes was most of how he funded stuff like the infrastructure bill.
I literally do not see anyone “punching left” outside of the mainstream media. No one on Lemmy is out here saying “these damn protestors if only they would shut up” or anything like that. I see a bunch of people punching Biden, and then other people saying hey, what you said is actually not accurate; for as criminal as his support for Israel is, he’s actually the first pro-working-people president the US has had in many many years.
That’s not “punching left,” that’s refuting the punching that is coming inwards towards the person who is right now the only available alternative to full throated, military-seize-the-voting-machines, shoot-the-protestors, fascism.
You just punched left, lol. Telling leftists that extremely minor shifts within the context of a far-right system are good enough actually, minimizes the voice of leftists. You aren’t going to convince a leftist that Biden is good, for leftists, continuing Capitalism and making no efforts to end it is already enough to not consider a candidate to be good.
If you want to move leftists to your side, it’s far more effective to agree with them that Biden has been continuing liberalism and making no tangible leftist movements. Telling leftists that they should actually be celebrating less than the bare minimum further alienates leftists.
good enough actually
Never said that; in fact you’ll find me several places saying that moving further than Biden would be a great idea, and pointing out that one of the big problems with Trump is that he will very effectively end some of the methods that currently exist whereby real leftwards progress can be made in this country.
You aren’t going to convince a leftist that Biden is good, for leftists, continuing Capitalism and making no efforts to end it is already enough to not consider a candidate to be good.
So we’re moving the goal posts so that Biden has to want to end capitalism before you’ll support him, even against literal Hitler.
Sure, sounds perfectly sane and productive. Sorry for ever punching left by having a different opinion than that.
If you want to move leftists to your side, it’s far more effective to agree with them that Biden has been continuing liberalism and making no tangible leftist movements.
That’s a funny way of spelling “I have no way to disagree with your factual rundown of good things Biden has done, so I’m going to demand that you agree with me, and in particular cease citing any objective facts for why you think what you think, as a precondition of ‘moving to your side’, because facts are punching left.”
I mean I could be right or wrong on this or anything else. But I’m not planning on just agreeing with you on everything and ceasing hurting your feelings by arguing otherwise, so that you’ll become open to “moving to my side.”
You opened up with some unnecessary pro-Biden stances to attempt to make him seem better, no? As for leftward movement, it’s already impossible electorally, which is why I am voting for Biden. That’s my point, really, you would rather gas up a genocide supporter and enabler of fascism than simply take the correct approach and state that leftward change is impossible electorally.
If leftist change was possible electorally, you would be suggesting people vote for a leftist party, like PSL, but because PSL can’t win we must agree that leftist change is impossible.
Yes, Biden indeed needs to be a leftist of some sort before I give any approval to him. I already said I am voting for him, are you telling me I need to also enjoy voting for a genocidal enabler of fascism?
Listing extremely minor concessions within the context of a country absolutely tumbling into fascism to make it seem like things are improving under Biden and not continuing to get worse is a form of punching left, because the purpose is to silence dissent.
You opened up with some unnecessary pro-Biden stances to attempt to make him seem better, no?
So, I went back and re read your initial message carefully. I actually pretty much agree with it – the Hillary Clintons and Nancy Pelosis of the world have been attacking leftists, blocking forward progress, and then blaming the voters when they lose elections because they are more or less even with Reagan politically. There’s nothing really to vote for there, and not voting for open fascism when the alternative is screwing you left and right isn’t really all that appealing.
The reason I responded the way I did is that Biden actually isn’t at all the same as them. If you look factually at what he’s done, he’s a huge departure from the norm for corporate Democrats. You can believe that or not (or, you can say that abetting a genocide in Gaza makes it hard to like anything he might have done domestically – and pretty understandable, I think, if you say that.)
But I don’t get how citing facts of what’s he done is “unnecessary” or “attempting” to make him seem better. I didn’t like Biden initially, just because he’s a rich white guy who’s worked in Washington all his life. I didn’t expect real good things out of him. Then he started doing all this good stuff, and I started liking him. Surely that’s an allowed way to go about things? Responding to the reality of what someone’s doing as a reason to like or dislike them?
the purpose is to silence dissent
This is a framing that usually comes out of conservatives. I am not silencing your dissent. I am disagreeing with you.
I won’t tell you what to do, but I would politely ask that if you want me to take you seriously, stop saying that I am “silencing dissent” or “punching left” or whatever, just because I am holding a different opinion than you, and explaining why I hold it. Those are very different things. I’m allowed to hold a different viewpoint, and it’s weird to me that you are so vigorous about the idea that it’s violent or inappropriate for me to do so.
But I don’t get how citing facts of what’s he done is “unnecessary” or “attempting” to make him seem better.
My take on that would be that it brings nuance and humanity to those that some auth-leftists want to hate and dehumanize. Pointing out that Biden is not a cardboard cutout of [insert chosen evil diety here] and that he has done good things makes it harder to rationalize digging in. To justify vilifying, “dunking on”, and generally bullying those who would support him (even unhappily) rather than embrace accelerationiam that would load to extraordinary harm of LGBTQ+ people with no concrete data to suggest that it would cause net benefit or leftward motion, while claiming dialectics and opposition to silencing dissent, takes a good deal of cognitive dissonance as is. Being forced to acknowledge that ramps that dissonance up higher.
(Holy long sentence Batman! Sorry about that.)
Just to be clear to auth-left folks (though any state or corpo actors can get fucked), I’m not trying to be sectarian or talk shit. This is honestly how I perceive this. Dehumanizing other leftists (or people for that matter, or hell, even bourgeois dickheads) is not something that has led to positive societal changes in history. Generally, it’s just used to justify unnecessary death and suffering. Suppressing or ignoring data (or lack thereof) is not conducive to making data-backed theses.
Yeah. There are people who are just straight-up evil and trying to hurt people on purpose (Trump is one), but it’s actually very rare, I think, even in political leaders. Mostly I think the destructive stuff in the world comes from people who have a weird reality built up in their head where what they’re doing makes sense.
I see this even in internet arguments. It’s very common that two people will both be saying things that makes sense, but because they both have this caricature built up of the other person and the other viewpoint in their head, they can’t even understand each other and keep talking at cross purposes.
Person A says “How DARE you say that genocide is okay, genocide is NEVER okay”
Then person B says “How DARE you say Biden and Trump are the same, Trump is obviously way worse and we need to vote for Biden”
“How DARE you vote for genocide”
“How DARE you refuse to vote against Trump’s genocide”
And so on. I mean, neither one is really wrong, and yet they’re all angry at each other and each seem genuinely convinced that the person they’re talking to carries cartoonishly wrong views like “genocide is okay as long as it comes from my political allies,” and then they get all bent out of shape arguing against those imaginary views that almost no one really actually holds. And they can’t even listen to the other person for long enough to understand what they’re saying, because I can’t possibly sit here and listen to a pro-genocide person, when I am ANTI genocide, and I just need to fight against this pro genocide person right now.
I’m not saying that you personally cannot like him. For you, those changes are substantial and good, to the point of justifying support. For leftists alienated by the DNC, this is obviously not enough, which is why I consider it unnecessary.
For leftists, generally, continuing down this descent into fascism that is happening slowly under Biden and rapidly under Trump is unnacceptable.
My broader point here is that if your goal is to get leftists to vote for Biden, trying to explain why you think Biden is good is counterproductive. Instead, explain how leftist change is impossible via electoralism, and that voting for a leftist party like PSL will never materially bring America to the left.
My broader point here is that if your goal is to get leftists to vote for Biden, trying to explain why you think Biden is good is counterproductive. Instead, explain how leftist change is impossible via electoralism
If someone’s mindset is such that it’s unnecessary to talk about what actions a politician has taken when deciding whether to vote for them, I’m comfortable with not being able to appeal to that person.
Honestly my goal isn’t to “get” anyone to do anything. I am trying to communicate the reality I see in front of me. Obviously I hope that that will produce a result and a better outcome in the real world, if the reality I see seems compelling to someone else as a useful model, but I’m not into the idea of trying to move away from “this is how I see it and why” and into something else, to try to engineer a stated result in some other person. They can make their own decisions, as can you.
For leftists, generally, continuing down this descent into fascism that is happening slowly under Biden and rapidly under Trump is unnacceptable.
What are fascist things that Biden has done? How has he moved the needle towards fascism? Maybe this is where some of the disconnect between our views on him comes from.
I’m not saying that you personally cannot like him.
I’m saying that. Biden is literally genocidal, supporting him is beyond the pale.
How much progress do they think was possible in 4 years with an obstruction focused right?
- saving the economy,
- ukraine,
- forgiving school loans,
- rescheduling mj,
- pardoned MJ incarcerated,
- expanding healthcare,
- cutting insulin costs (THIS SAVED SO MANY LIVES IT’S BONKERS),
- stood up for unions & labor (FIRST PRESIDENT TO EVER WALK A PICKET LINE),
- increased overtime for millions,
- ended federally subsidized discriminatory mortgage lending,
- went after airlines, cable companies, phone companies, concert ticket sales and hotels for their fucking ridiculous hidden fees!,
- started a drone industry right here in the US so we won’t be caught like Russia is, developing new weapons while getting blown up;
- restarted microchip and solar production IN THE US,
- brought back net neutrality
it’s the start, not the end - and saying these accomplishments are just silencing those to my left would be asinine; it’s not perfection, but it is progress and we can continue to build things further with the house, senate and executive - or we can throw it all away, burn the fucking 220+ year experiment down because ‘biden genocide’ - which was bibi genocide all along.
I despise the clinton wing of the party and would prefer Bernie 8 days a week. Bernie said vote Biden, that should be good enough for anyone.
Don’t forget, took climate change seriously for the first time a US politician has ever done that, and made a huge priority to pass a massive climate bill that is predicted to reduce emissions by 40% by 2030. It’s too late, but that’s not Biden’s fault, and he started working on it practically the instant he got in office.
leftists don’t care about facts anymore than trump supporters do.
all they care about is pushing their boogeyman ideological agenda and shouting down anyone who talks facts or reality as ‘fake news’ or ‘capitalist agenda’ or whatever nonsense phrase they feel makes them morally superior.
Care to share any examples? What facts do leftists not care about?
It’s hard to say who is a genuine leftist and who is a please-don’t-vote-for-Biden-so-Trump-can-win shill, but if we take e.g. @brain_in_a_box@lemmy.ml at face value, I think it’s safe to say that they don’t care:
- About any given good thing Biden might have done domestically (forget about that, how dare you run around supporting this genocide man)
- If Biden personally isn’t doing the genocide (forget about that, how dare you run around supporting this genocide man)
- If Trump will probably do much worse genocides both in the middle east and in the United States (forget about that etc you get the idea)
It’s like the Republican-type thing, where only one answer is allowed. If Biden did a good thing, then no he didn’t, because Netanyahu is killing Gazans and anything Biden is doing to try to prevent that didn’t happen and it’s all Biden’s fault and he’s a bad man and I’m going to start to shout if you try to tell me anything about how even if that’s all true then Trump is ten times worse and those are the only two options in this election.
I mean, I kind of get it. Biden is materially aiding in a genocide and it’s easy at that point in the conversation to shut down anything further and say, okay I’ve heard enough. I think the right answer though is to figure out how to put pressure on Biden from the left to at least undo some of the harm he’s been abetting up to this point, figure out how to install better candidates in the future who will undo American’s war-crime-adjacent foreign policy in the future, while also voting for Biden in the election because he doesn’t want 10 genocides like Trump does. However much bullshit is the resistance Biden has been giving Netanyahu up until this point, it’s definitely better than the full-throated support and assistance Trump would give him.
(Edit: Fixed @ link)
Well, it’s important to consider trajectory. Biden doing small positive changes in a rapidly crumbling Capitalist empire is still negative overall. For many leftists, this minor amount of positive concessions in an ongoing train wreck isn’t enough and can’t be enough.
It’s impossible to look at individual policies in a vacuum, everything is related. We can accept minor concessions as fact while still believing them to be woefully insufficient.
Oh, no doubt. Biden’s not nearly enough.
Example: Biden made a massive improvement to the US’s greenhouse gas emissions, the impact of which is predicted to be a 40% reduction in emissions by 2030. Is that enough? Uh… if it had been by the year 2000, maybe. We’re still facing a guaranteed global catastrophe. We need to keep pushing for more change, right now, and anyone who’s satisfied with what Biden did so far is living in a dream world.
Where I have a problem with it is when someone extrapolates that out to “and that’s why there’s no reason to support Biden in his contest vs Trump, when Trump wants to undo even that much, and when Biden’s climate action was the first big-scale thing any US politician has ever done to make the problem into an actual priority.”
If anything I’m saying sounds like “and so Biden is good enough,” it is not. What I am saying is that affirmatively choosing the Biden solution in this election while also pushing for big improvements in any one of 10-20 additional ways to achieve actual progress sounds like the way to go.
I don’t disagree with your conclusion that Biden is not as bad as Trumo, I just disagree with your framing and methods for reaching out to disaffected Leftists.
The crux of my argument is that opening with minor, insufficient positive changes that come nowhere close to enough just turns these disaffected leftists away.
Liberals can’t help but project their own behavior onto leftists.
Leftist can’t help uselessly shouting nonsense into the void every election year and then disappearing for another four years only to pop back into existence shout more nonsense once candidates have been chosen.
They’re like obnoxious little cicadas that show up every four years to yell at others because they lack the ability to understand nuance.
You offer no realistic constructive ideas to fix anything and just shit all over any topic that you disagree with. There’s a saying that I’ll simplify for you-
Part of the solution, or part of the problem.
You don’t get to not be one or the other. And there has never been a time in history where not voting EVER solved a problem.
So…. know your role.
I probably should speak for myself here when I say that I’m looking forward to your silence come November. Because like in 2020, and 2016, the SJWs and their propaganda disappeared after the election-
which truly shows your intent. It’s not lost on anyone.
See, you’d rather defend a genocidal fascist like Biden, rather than not punch left.
I’m punching left. The left has been infected with tankies and agitators. We need their votes but those votes won’t happen until we exorcise the Russians and useful idiots. Compromise doesn’t work, they hate compromise. Complete and total capitulation doesn’t work either because they’re fundamentally being run by people who are interested only in harming America. We need to call out and shame this insanity so we can make the reasonable ones wake up and smell the propaganda.
It’s working, but we might have been too late.
And posts like this is why I say that Biden liberals are no different than MAGA fascists, fundamentally.
The fascists want to literally kill you (and me). I just want to shame you into doing the right thing and kicking out the Russians in your midst. If you think that’s equal, boy have I got a work camp for you.
I literally do not see anyone “punching left” outside of the mainstream media. No one on Lemmy is out here saying “these damn protestors if only they would shut up” or anything like that.
Front page of this very community:
I’ll say it again:
- Someone ostensibly on the left criticizes Biden
- Someone then argues that that criticism is unfair or disagrees with it
… is not punching left.
Someone from the pro-Biden camp directing some kind of “punching” at someone who hadn’t already brought Biden into the argument themselves, from an anti perspective, would be punching left. Someone “punching” at Biden (which terminology I don’t even really agree with), and then there’s a response “actually here’s why I don’t think that’s true,” is not punching.
Surely that makes sense?
Or, like I said, someone from the establishment-Democrat camp who directs condemnation at someone who’s literally just trying to stick up for the Palestinians, because it makes Biden look bad. That would be punching left, and that definitely happens from Democratic politicians and in the MSM. I’m saying I haven’t seen any of that on Lemmy.
Surely that makes sense? IDK, maybe not. But that what I said up there is my viewpoint on it. Hope it’s helpful.
Your argument boils down to “they started it” and doesnt matter. All of those posts are criticizing leftists who won’t vote for Biden because he’s supporting genocide by reducing the left’s position to bothsidesism.
establishment-Democrat camp who directs condemnation at someone who’s literally just trying to stick up for the Palestinians, because it makes Biden look bad. That would be punching left, and that definitely happens from Democratic politicians and in the MSM.
What is your point here? That democratic party reps dont post on lemmy? Because this:
directs condemnation at someone who’s literally just trying to stick up for the Palestinians
Is exactly what those posts are doing.
Yeah? Well, you know, that’s just like, uh, your opinion, man.
Liberals would rather defend genocide than join leftists in trying to force Biden’s hand and gain back leftist voters.
What an asinine statement. There are those of us who understand that Israel is a sovereign fucking Democracy and it’s not our job to police them and literarily throw out everything any and everything else in this insane fight to stop Israel.
I want the war to stop. But I also live in the real world where conflicts exist and it’s not our job to fix everything and everyone. We’ve got plenty of shit to deal with here, and if you want to put any pressure on anything, put pressure on Israelis to handle their own government and foreign policy.
Equating people not thinking that the Israel conflict is our #1 concern that needs to trump absolutely everything else with supporting genocide is beyond idiotic and unkind.
There are those of us who understand that Israel is a sovereign fucking Democracy and it’s not our job to police them and literarily throw out everything any and everything else in this insane fight to stop Israel.
“They’re a sovereign nation! Poor helpless America can’t intervene in a sovereign nation! We have no choice but to keep sending them $10000000000s in weapons!”
liberals would rather attack leftists than try to work with them.
That’s because liberals know (despite their pretensions otherwise) that leftists threaten their oh-so-precious status quo.
Liberals also know that, when push comes to shove, they are going to need the fascists to protect said oh-so-precious status quo for them - despite their pretensions otherwise.
Nothing liberals do or say is a mystery once you understand that.
Maybe if these supposed leftists would stop screaming about how they’re okay with fascism taking over for a while because we need a cleanse. Can’t believe how many times I’ve seen that sentiment on Lemmy alone.
Can’t believe how many times I’ve seen that sentiment on Lemmy alone.
Never, you have never seen that sentiment. You’ve just refused to actually listen to what any leftist has tried to tell you, and made up a strawman in your head.
Yes that must be it. Because there’s never been a time in history where that exact same thing happened. It’s not like leftist in a country allowed fascist to take over and then we’re surprised when they were murdered by said fascists. That’s never happened…
Correct, it’s never happened. What has happened before is liberals annihilating the left because they tried to stop the slide of liberalism into fascism, only to be shocked when they got annihilated by the fascists in turn.
And it’s happened again now.
Just wow.
Liberal left speechless by basic historical information.
Aw did a both sideser get called out? 🥺
Oh no, it hurt his feewings. Maybe a little advocacy for fascism will cheer him up!
Democratic voter outreach at it’s finest, everyone.
At this point, I hope Trump does win, and persecutes you fuckers just like you imagine. You fucking deserve it, and it’s about the only justice left in this world.
Cue all the shitlibs pouring out of the woodwork to come and shill Genocide Joe…
Solid comment, real world changing shit right there bud.
real world changing shit
Not like “vote harder,” eh?
Dobbs sends its regards
Yessssss, finally meme I agree with, and therefore am required to like. Our funy memes, their horrible propagandist image macros, our nuanced conversationalism, their lunatic screaming, etc.
I dunno guys I think I’m just like an exhausted contrarian maybe. Can I get like, can I get a lemmy where every post is just a link to an interesting blog post, or something? Do I have to construct that lemmy myself, only to watch it totally fail because nobody reads blog posts in the year of our lord 20XX?
“Why would these mean shitlibs push back when we shit on them???”
No clue. It must be their inherent social fascism coming out. Don’t worry - I’m sure accelerationism will totally work out this time!
Fragile?
