She knows she has little to gain personally from calling for Biden to drop out and potentially has a lot to gain if she sides with him and he ends up winning. She’s a savvy political operator and deeply cynical.
She’s savvy, but she’s one of the least cynical of the bunch.
She saw how they stitched up Jamal Bowman and chose to protect her job. It’s pretty damn cynical.
It’s definitely the right move for her at this point. If Biden steps aside (or dies) before the election, the Democrats aren’t going to nominate someone who didn’t back Biden. Publicly backing lets her stay on the team, and maybe one day have a shot at the Presidency herself (assuming we get more than four more years before fascism wins).
It’s the right move for her career, anyway.
She’s playing the cynical game of the Democratic party. I don’t know if it will pay off.
But fuck she is WAY better than my gerrymandered representative who is a full corporate military machine.
So I don’t exactly have a better representative to even reference let alone represent me. So I’ll take that cynicism until I can get that changed.
You get the cynicism because you keep taking it, it really can’t change as long as you’re willing to settle.
Catch 22
I mean she isn’t my representative so there isn’t really a taking it or settling at work here. I’m trying to oust my own zionist rep where there’s actually a shot.
I just get that she’s up shit creek so I don’t expect her to have a paddle.
Honestly I am more frustrated with the failure to leverage her support. The whole ‘Squad’ and Justice Democrats as a whole should be out laying out leverage to back Biden instead of the ‘Welp, he’s the nominee!’ nonsense. If she isn’t getting any support then I got some criticisms for more than just AOC here.
This seems kind of like the difference between Bernie and Warren in 2020. Both agreed that the primary was over and their previous foe was important to support. Bernie did an admirable job and brought the party together to support Biden. Warren did the same, but she also got a bunch of her personnel picks to staff various agencies. Unifying in a big allied tent is good, but the side you’re unifying with should also be moving towards you as well. That’s what makes it unity rather than just submission.
And I will fully admit that Bernie may have demanded something behind the scenes, and that Warren’s people may simply have been more attractive because they were better prepared and vetted, but despite becoming the main progressive in the primary, the progressive wins in staffing sure look like Warren’s doing.
Warren stayed in the race until after Biden cinched the nominatiom because her dropping out would have likely meant her support would have shifted for Sanders. That was the deal she got, like Buttigeig got a cabinet position for dropping out to back Biden for example. Same with Clyburn’s kids getting appointments for SC.
To be fair “He is in this race and I support him” is like saying “He’s one of the candidates of all time”. It is a milquetoast, borderline sarcastic endorsement.
No kidding, because she knows he’s going to lose, but if he’s unwilling to step down it’s literally the only play she has at this point.
No one is going to come out and pretend Biden is some great candidate, because he’s not. No amount of fake-hype is going to change his chances.
You SEE the fallout from Project 2025 becoming mainstream?
I see the polling that matches up with every lost campaign going back decades.
Was this the same polling that said Hillary was going to win?
No, that polling was taken regarding a different person 8 years ago.
It’s what republicans do. Back your team. It’s one of their best plays to win.
I would rather have a Muppet for a President than white trash like Trump.
Please don’t insult white trash like that.
Fuck Trump. But also, I think with divisions the way they are, we have to be careful how we engage with our criticisms. And my problem with calling Trump “white trash” is layered. First, white trash has classically been used to denigrate lower class white folks. There’s more to unpack there than I want to tackle, but to oversimplify, I feel like it is unnecessarily classist and brings in race at the same time. I’m sure there are plenty of people who you could call white trash that aren’t racist, traitorous, scam artists. Also, I would consider Trump either not lower class, or a class traitor. And on top of that, it kind of seems like the least concerning thing about him. Him being cringe or gross or just generally repugnant is so 2016. We’re now in the midst of several global catastrophes that this animated blob of greed and hatred will almost certainly pour rocketfuel on.
Take note how all the world politics experts that were yelling “gEnOciDe jOe”, are now somehow experts on cognitive function and one’s ability to run a political cabinet.
Also take note how seemingly overnight- they all shifted their concern to beating everyone over the head with reports on how Biden isn’t up for the job- despite the fact that we all know that news media is in the business to profit from dumbasses that eat this shit up.
This is an obvious movement to disrupt the election. VOTE LIKE LIVES DEPEND ON IT.
Their narrative is that they don’t want an old man incapable of making speeches, yet they’re fine to see for a rapist felon that spent the entire debate lying his ass off.
VOTE!
I think a lot of people are overthinking this. She’s supporting Biden because as of today the battle is “over”
https://www.axios.com/2024/07/09/biden-house-democrats-withdraw-nominee
No use falling on swords anymore, apparently.
This is going to be awful though, as Biden is going to get demolished in another debate, and it’ll look terrible if he refuses.
- One House Democrat who was in both meetings said: “Most of our caucus is still with him … meaning he’ll stay in. Which sucks for our country.”
Pretty sure ballot rules and campaign finance laws are a big reason why it is too difficult to switch.
Harris would have access to the funds from their campaign, she’d essentially inherit Biden’s war chest. That’s part of why she’s the logical choice, she can actually use that money to hit the ground running in terms of spreading whatever message they need to get out in the event the candidate changes.
If democracy is at stake, and the threat of fascism is serious, they should change the rules and laws.
First- I actually really like seeing AOC not being one of those “burn the house down” politicians as I knew her when she started. It seems like she’s learned what it takes to get a large group of people to do one thing, and outrage politics does not do that. Frankly this is the restraint I would look for in a future presidential nominee.
Second- at a base level I’m very for Biden stepping down and giving us the opportunity to escape this hellhole of an election cycle. John Stewart put it pretty well to the DNC- “Do you understand the opportunity you have here? Do you have any idea how thirsty Americans are for any hint of inspiration or leadership, and a release from this choice of a megalomaniac and a suffocating gerontocracy?”
I always look for reasonable takes from opposing viewpoints, and I did find American Historian Allan Lichtman’s argument for why Biden stepping down would not be the best idea. Here’s the 6 minute video of his 13 keys to the Whitehouse which has predicted 9 of the past 10 elections.
TL;DW:
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Party mandate: After the midterm elections, the incumbent party holds more seats in the U.S. House of Representatives than after the previous midterm elections.
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No primary contest: There is no serious contest for the incumbent party nomination.
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Incumbent seeking re-election: The incumbent party candidate is the sitting president.
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No third party: There is no significant third party or independent campaign.
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Strong short-term economy: The economy is not in recession during the election campaign.
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Strong long-term economy: Real per capita economic growth during the term equals or exceeds mean growth during the previous two terms.
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Major policy change: The incumbent administration affects major changes in national policy.
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No social unrest: There is no sustained social unrest during the term.
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No scandal: The incumbent administration is untainted by major scandal.
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No foreign/military failure: The incumbent administration suffers no major failure in foreign or military affairs.
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Major foreign/military success: The incumbent administration achieves a major success in foreign or military affairs.
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Charismatic incumbent: The incumbent party candidate is charismatic or a national hero.
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Uncharismatic challenger: The challenging party candidate is not charismatic or a national hero.
If 5 or fewer of these statements are False, then it is predicted that the incumbent will win. His take is that replacing Biden will do nothing but make point 2 & 3 turn from True statements to False statements, and increase the chances of Trump winning.
While crystal balls are everywhere and you could point to other political scientists who would say different, I was looking for a decent take on the counterpoint. I would also say that in political science, we like to have tools to help us make predictions so we can make actions. Just going on deep gut feeling won’t cut it. Having a tool whose measurements don’t always align with how you feel an outcome should be doesn’t necessarily mean the tool is bad, it means it works independently from your biases. If you watch the video, I think he puts it well as the election is a thumbs up or thumbs down on the party more than it is the individual leader. It might be a helpful thought exercise to change the words “Trump” to “Republican” and “Biden” to “Democrat” when discussing the race as charisma and celebrity only goes so far in politics, but that’s what we get caught up in the most.
I actually really like seeing AOC not being one of those “burn the house down” politicians as I knew her when she started
But that’s why peopled liked her. Who she is now is basically totally unrepresentative of who she ran as.
This isn’t really a progressive politics issue though. The alternative to Biden isn’t a progressive, it’s an establishment moderate who can reliably form a coherent sentence. I’m disappointed the people with the sharpest critiques of the decay in Democratic politics aren’t taking on this fight, but it’s not something I’d hold against them. I think whatever was said in that meeting convinced them that nothing would ever make Joe Biden resign. No influence campaigns, no public statements by politicians, no donor rebellions. He’ll drive the car off the cliff before he gives up his ego, so they’re just trying to see if somehow they can make it work.
I don’t agree, but it’s a reasonable choice to make if you fully believe the guy holding the party hostage will die before giving in.
To some degree this is always going to be true when you elect a new person to a new position. Think of it as a video game enthusiast becoming an actual developer.
As someone playing a game, it’s really easy to suggest ideas and changes and fixes which sound like simple common sense to do. When you actually see the intricate code however, and how it’s structured and run, you realize all your ideas from before aren’t as easy to implement as you thought. Your mindset evolves to instead focus on practical solutions which have clear ways to implement.
AOC adopting more practical positions is exactly what you want to see. It shows that she’s thinking of how to get those goals done. Bernie operates much the same way.
What would be concerning is someone who goes to Congress for the first time and doesn’t change. It would mean they’re dishonest about what’s actually realistic to get done, and they’re just telling you what you want to hear so you’ll vote for them.
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Et tu, AOC?
I agree with much of what AOC has to say, but not this. I’ll bet significant money if Biden remains the nominee that we will lose, unfortunately.
I’ll bet significant money if Biden remains the nominee that we will lose
In a repeat of 2016, we found the most beatable candidate in the Democratic Party and ran that person for President. sigh
(lol whew there is some serious vote manipulation going on around these parts. I hope admins begin implementing some safeguards soon).
There is a strong contingent of Blue MAGA on Lemmy. Anything even remotely critical of Our Dear Leader gets trashed, your account gets reported, and people spill out of the woodworking insisting that you are on the personal payroll of one Mr. V. Vladimirovich Putin or possibly the insidious Hand of the Dragon Himself, CCP Supervillain Xi Jinping.
AOC has been increasingly aligned with the Democratic Party elite these days. My guess is she’s wants to run for senate someday and needs to appear loyal to the people who could make or break her campaign. That said, I do think the kind of insider politics she seems to be engaging in is a betrayal of the progressive values she once held.
You either die a hero or you live long enough to become the villain.
Biden doesn’t make policy decisions standing at podium reading a teleprompter. He sits in meeting and has discussions with advisors and has follow up discussions and rewrites policies and discusses votes and rewrites again with further discussions. That’s who I’m voting for and I think he is still able to do that.
For 4 years? We need 2 vice presidents if biden doesn’t drop out for me to vote for his dying brain
If the president dies and the vice president takes over then the a new president appoints a new vice president subject to congressional approval.
Aite I guess biden gets my vote then. Mybad i wasn’t knowledgeable about the process.
They know this already. They aren’t going to be educated on the matter. They’re not voting and working hard to convince others not to as well.
The best thing you can do is call this out when you see it. Ask them to answer how they’d prefer life under Trump’s thumb. Ask them who else could defeat Trump that is running right now. Ask them what are our other options. They’ll do their best to bullshit through responses, but at the end of the day-
They know we have none.
Ask them how they’re support a free Palestine, while being able to see Trump suggesting Israel “finish the job” but that is somehow not enough to vote against him.
These people cannot answer any of these questions in good faith. I’ve asked them, and tons of others have. They distract and counter with bad faith bullshit. Then they disappear- only to reappear elsewhere with the same bullshit.
You cannot reason with, or inform to educate them. They know the facts. And they’re here to urge you not to vote against Trump anyway.
What does that tell you?
That there are a lot of bot accounts that can quickly inflame an issue with a pretty obvious grain of truth to it. And that there doesn’t seem to be much of a response other than “Biden is better than Trump” or “I support Biden due to his past competence”. Which feels like a very nothing burger of an answer, and instead gives plenty more questions rather than reassurance for Biden’s campaign. Trump is an dangerous idiot and I’d be the first to say not vote for Trump, a frankly sane and common sentiment. Honestly, the more time goes on, the more it feels like the arguments that are posited for voting for Biden without answering basic questions actually feel like they are being posed by bot accounts.
Biden’s accomplice to have been posted time and again in these arguments. I’m not going to repeat them here as Al the times they’ve been listed clearly does nothing.
The fact remains- you vote for an administration- NOT a single man. And his administration has brought a positive.
He is better than Trump because he isn’t a felonious rapist.
That shout be enough. If it isn’t, your president isn’t really your biggest problem.
Why is this particular political structure and electoral process and set of parties the best? Can’t we be more creative? We can do so much more than vote in this same process which makes us choose the ‘lesser evil’ to save democracy, every election for decades now. I can’t bring myself to legitimize the US and still feel a clean conscience any longer.
Oh we can do a HELL of a lot better. We have weeds here that are more charismatic. But this is where we are because a large portion of our population doesn’t like to do shit about politics until it’s too late- which is a cycle that resets every four years.
America is essentially a cautionary tale on how not paying attention hurts people.
Someone mentioned it in the thread about Elizabeth Warren supporting Biden. It isn’t odd that smart, anti-wealthy, and anti-Trump at all costs progressives are backing Biden, and wealthy Democrat donors and centrist Democrats are demanding change.
These people see the risk a new candidate would bring. The wealthy just want someone who reflects their image. Either candidate doesn’t really hurt their lifestyle.
It isn’t odd that smart, anti-wealthy, and anti-Trump at all costs progressives are backing Biden, and wealthy Democrat donors and centrist Democrats are demanding change.
The wealthy centrist Dems believe they’re in an excellent position to foist an even bigger turd on the party (I’ve seen Joe Manchin and Michael Bloomberg and - of fucking course - Hillary Clinton floated as “moderate” replacements to Far-Left Super Radical Joe Biden).
The younger and less influential (although hardly anti-wealthy - AOC is a prodigious fundraiser who represents one of the richest districts in the nation) politicians who have already stacked up political favors with the incumbent don’t want to see him casually replaced by an even more obnoxious neoliberal.
That doesn’t make Biden a strong choice. It doesn’t even make him an “anti-wealthy” choice (Biden was fully on board with the Wall Street bailouts under Bush and the Silicon Valley bailouts during his own term). It just makes him the “safe” choice for the AOC-aligned caucus, relative to an even more nakedly corporate convention insider pick.
She didn’t though, she dodged the question and the Boston Globe called it support. If she wanted to support him staying in, she would have said that.
Part of it has been that Biden has been implementing a lot of progressive policies. He may not be the perfect progressive candidate, but he is a lot better than other options.
Yet another reason why the wealthy class of the Democratic party wants him replaced.
Bad take. Biden clearly isn’t up for the job anymore. If it really was “just a cold” he would be out doing unscripted interviews and reassuring the public that he isn’t too confused to work after 5pm. The fact that he isn’t means his team thinks it’s more likely than not that he can’t actually convince the public that he’s still with it.
Putting someone else in is a risk but keeping him in is a bigger risk. Models are predicting a 60-70% chance of trump winning if the election was run today. This ignores that now the trump team and conservative media will now be pushing the age issue constantly. Who is going to be confident in Biden after he hides away from the public for the next few months and then drops out of the second debate?
Last, I’m deeply uncomfortable with the Democratic Party giving cover to a president that isn’t mentally fit for the job. There was so much talk about following norms and respecting the office of president while it was trump in the white house, but now some dems are openly saying they’re ok with Biden being controlled by his cabinet and family. Even if it all works out and Bidens cabinet runs the country for 4 more years it’s going to cast a long shadow on future elections where republicans can point to Biden as proof that democrats don’t respect the office and don’t even care if the nominee is competent.
Putting someone else in is a risk
Again, what you mean to say here is “historically a 100% failure rate”.
Biden clearly isn’t up for the job anymore.
He’s currently in the job and things are going reasonably well. Do I wish he was more left wing? Yes, but he’s been more left than any POTUS during my lifetime. Do I wish he would stop supporting Israel? Absolutely, this is a huge mark against him.
Maybe we can argue that we can see the writing on the wall and we think he won’t be able to do the job, but to argue that he clearly can’t requires ignoring the reality.
Trump, on the other hand, we had 4 years of and that was a disaster that ended with people attacking the capitol. So if we can say we know any of them is not up for the job, it’s clear which way that should point.
Two things though
1 if he can’t get up and speak coherently for an hour at a time I’d argue he actually isn’t doing the job. Communicating clearly and responding to crises at all hours is crucial to the job.
2 there’s little proof that Biden is actually the one calling the shots even ignoring his lack of public appearances
There’s also little evidence he isn’t the one calling the shots either.
And normally absence of evidence does not mean evidence of absence, but the total lack of transparency is a bad look for an administration that supposedly has nothing to hide.
- I’m a proof is in the pudding type of guy, and it’s been smooth sailing. You’re conjecture that he can’t lead us during a crisis is just that: conjecture.
- Again, I’m a proof is in the pudding guy. Whether he is actually running the administration is inconsequential: it’s doing well. So if he isn’t running it, then all the less reason to worry about re-electing him because if he is already hands off, then that’s proof his cognitive ability doesn’t really matter.
I don’t totally disagree with you, but the logical conclusion is that if we get trump again and he goes batshit crazy the dems aren’t going to have a leg to stand on regarding the 25th amendment.
I’m worried that the democrats are playing the short game again and we’re all going to suffer.
This is a weird position for a bunch of reasons.
First, you aren’t really challenging my claim. You’re just kind of stating it as a given that Biden is unable to serve and thus subject to the 25th amendment. My point is that there is no good evidence of this; you’re basing that just on a bad debate performance.
Second, there is no reason to assume that the next congress won’t be closely split. That being said, the dems will have no power to remove the POTUS via the 25th amendment. Hell, even if by some miracle they do get some massive majority in both houses, the VP still has to be on board for it. It’s not like the Dems can just invoke the 25th amendment on their own. That would require Republicans to do something. . .and if it is simply that “Trump goes crazy” well, good fucking luck getting 2/3rds of the house and senate to oust him. Never going to happen, the cult is just too entrenched and his lackies too beholden or afraid of the consequences of going against him.
It’s not just the debate performance, it’s the months of Biden being sheltered from any unscripted speaking, his relatively sparse interview schedule, the Hurr report, his refusal to do interviews following the debate, his refusal to take any kind of cognitive test, and reports that when he does do supposedly unscripted interviews his team has been feeding the interviewer questions.
I don’t have any way to know what goes on in biden’s head, but if the debate was a fluke then both Biden and his team have been acting very irrationally before and since.
On the other hand, if we assume his handlers are acting rationally then we can only assume that they believe his speaking ability has gotten so bad that even at this point putting him in front of reporters will only make his image worse.
Also the debate was pretty fucking bad. Don’t forget his team basically got everything they wanted in terms of no audience, cut microphones etc. and they had weeks to prepare. Biden should have been at his best for the debate and his best didn’t seem very good.
I don’t think we should fight fire with fire here. If the answer to Republican fascism is democratic fascism then I’m out
The DNC is a centrist party at best. Leftists have almost no representation.
Yeah there are some pretty frightening implications to all of this.
So they’re all saying that they’re ok with the president being a puppet but also having absolute authority? Sounds highly, highly abusable.
Who is saying both of those things? Everyone that would support Biden is strongly against Trump’s court’s ruling.
Are they? Almost no one is doing a damn thing in response, while also saying that they would be fine with Biden being president while in a coma. People are literally saying things like that all over the place.
I don’t think people with power to respond to the situation and people shit posting about Biden on the Internet are the same people
I’m sure you’re right. I’m sure that Biden’s cabinet that has been essentially running everything the whole time he’s been in office is just so ready to lose all of their power.
Are you even reading the things I’m saying?
I don’t think you understand subtext.
Fuckos take the worst possible shot of AOC into the article. IDK what’s this mediaite site is, but they seem to present her position as stupid.
Look at how Donald is presented even in articles he’s criticized in.
Yeah the bias is immediately obvious, it’s not even their photo so they very deliberately chose this
Realistically, I’m not crazy about Biden, but if we wanted someone better we should have held primaries. Changing now is short sighted and won’t get us a more progressive candidate.
All we’ll get now is someone further to the right of Biden. It won’t be the electorate choosing a new Democratic nominee, it will be party insiders who choose someone even more out of touch than Biden.
Some seem to think Harris would be the presumptive nominee:
https://www.axios.com/2024/07/04/kamala-harris-replace-biden-2024-election
Do you think “we” as voters didn’t want a primary? It’s party insiders the whole way. And if you vote for Biden anyways, you’re saying “yeah, i liked how this worked just fine.” DNC screwed bernie twice, and RFK, Marianne, and Dean this time. Regardless of who you would back ultimately, the DNC removes all democracy from the process then says they’re saving democracy.
but if we wanted someone better we should have held primaries.
Bruh …
Biden and the DNC is why we didn’t have a primary…
They’re the ones that prevented the primary. They’re the ones that decide if it’s Biden. And they’re the ones that would get to replace him.
They’re the fucking problem, why act like voters have any say in the process?
oh my god, you’re right! i totally forgot to schedule the primaries this year, sorry!
You must live in Tennessee.
though he was the only Democratic candidate to appear on the party’s Tennessee primary ballot.
should have held primaries.
… cheerfully overlooking the fact that saying “we thought this was the guy 4 years ago but this other guy is definitely the one” has never gone well EVER?
It went so bad in 68, that we got Nixon.
If our goal this time around is “save democracy by not electing Trump”, is it fun to risk certain loss by switching?
Rare AOC L. This is absolutely the wrong call.
Everyone who’s paying attention can see that Biden is heading toward a loss with tragic consequences and only digs himself deeper every time he tries to convince people that the sky is green and replacing him is impossible.
Fact is that, despite spending two campaigns saying the opposite as a tactic, Biden wouldn’t lose any sleep over losing. He knows that, because he’s rich and privileged in the US, he’ll be ok when fascism comes.
Apparently he cares less about the vast majority of the population who emphatically WON’T be ok than he does about his own ego and career. Yet another reason why he’s definitely the wrong man for the job and would have been even if he WASN’T on course to lose. Which he is.
Check username…yep, I don’t need to read that, it will all be propaganda
checks recent comment history if that isn’t the soot calling the window opaque… 🤦
I’m not a Biden fan, but sewing discontent is not helpful.
The “I would be at peace” thing is taken out of context as you well know. Biden knows as well as anyone how bad a Trump presidency would be, but how would you have him answer that question? The only possible answer is to say you’ll give it your best and deal with the outcome.
sewing discontent is not helpful.
I’m not sewing anything. My point is that the discontent is already there and it’s only growing.
The “I would be at peace” thing is taken out of context as you well know
No. He said the words in the context of whether he would care much if he lost. That’s how I presented it.
Biden knows as well as anyone how bad a Trump presidency would be
For most people, but not the ones he cares about the most: himself and his rich owner donors.
how would you have him answer that question?
“Yes, losing to the last president and first dictator of the United States of America would obviously be devastating. That’s why I’m doing everything in my power to avoid it”
The only possible answer is to say you’ll give it your best and deal with the outcome.
No it isn’t. See above.
AOC is definitely a voice in politics I’ve come to respect. I can assume pretty confidently that her opinion is well founded and with the right intentions… if she thinks Biden is best option at this point, that tells me pretty conclusively that Biden is genuinely the best option at this point.
The debate shenanigans, the age, whatever: all of that is a fraction of a drop in the ocean compared to the shitstorm that would be Trump presidency. It doesn’t matter if any of us like Biden. Do you want a literal fascist running the country? If no, vote Biden. If yes, abstain / vote for literally anyone else.
I wish it was possible to convince trump supporters that he’s literally not on their side
I’ve been making pitches for the libertarian party to my trumpanzee coworkers. It’s a similar flavor of bullshit as the turds the GOP is already feeding them, so they’re somewhat susceptible to it.
No chance in hell I’ll be able to convince them to vote Biden, so burning a would-be Trump vote on the spoiler effect is the next best thing.
One of his better nuggets for this crowd is his suggestion that they “take the guns away first and do [sic] process later”.
I’m sure you’re an excellent spokesperson for ideas you think are similar to maga bullshit.
That party itself in USA is definitely bullshit though
I mean, the local people put up a huge fight in our state fight to change the constitution to allow banning abortion. Printed stickers, organized marches, protected speakers and organizers.
Have you looked at who won the presidential nomination this time? Kinda neat.
It’s a shitshow, and not at all monolithic. I’ve drifted toward left anarchy in the last couple decades, but they’re not nearly as bad as progressives want to paint them.
I mean, you’re being sarcastic, but being able to give an elevator pitch for something you’re personally against is a great skill. I was a speech & debate nerd in high school, and that was definitely one of the more valuable lessons.
If nothing else, it helps to understand what ‘other side’ is thinking. We (self included) have a tendency to demonize others who don’t align with our values.
Abortion is one of the best examples of this. If you look at the other side exclusively through the lens of the other’s echo chamber, you have 1) misogynistic bigots who want to control women down to their organ function and punish them for failing to adhere to a religious standard that they don’t subscribe to, vs 2) women who recreationally murder babies and redirect responsibility for their promiscuous lifestyle onto the healthcare system.
I think this is why we never make any meaningful progress on that controversy: all of the mainstream arguments are shit arguments in terms of their ability to actually resonate with the people they’re directed at. You can probably guess where I stand on abortion based on my first post here, but I can 100% make a pitch for either.
Other topics are no exception. I fucking loathe the MAGA crowd, but calling them a Nazi isn’t going to change any minds. I didn’t love the LP, but they’re significantly more benign than the GOP. The two have overlap, so fuck yeah I can work with that. I’d love for the LP to continue to grow and refine itself - best case scenario is the GOP shrinks to an obscure extremist group, while any shreds of sanity flock to the LP to make a much more productive rival to big blue. I don’t have to actually support the LP to want them to do well in that regard; if I can boost them at the expense of the GOP, win-win!
Steelmanning is hard. I have gotten better at it, but it’s kinda through empathy rather than analysis.
Abortion rhetoric is a shitshow of fallacies. Almost nobody is willing to slow down. And, yeah, the best part is that while failing to understand the other side’s motivations they’ll accuse the other side of lacking empathy.
I can handle the “trump funny” people, but anyone that genuinely likes Trump drive me batty. I don’t think Trump has any ideals to hold onto to begin with, so it’s all cult of personality shit.
With some exceptions, a lot of the anti-tax racist rednecks have been sidelined - the dinosaurs are dying. I went to the 2020 LP state convention because I was asked to, and I was really happy seeing the dudes that made me leave 16 years ago sitting at a table alone.
Steelmanning
I didn’t know there was an actual word for it!
The abortion shitshow was actually the topic of that lesson because of how tribal each side has gotten. That was… idk, 15 years ago? Not much has changed lol. Initially we were just told to prepare a debate on it, so we ofc pulled heavily from whichever echo chamber we adhered to, and we had all our (very flawed) talking points ready to go. Then the prof dropped the ol’ switcheroo. Thoroughly broke highschool me’s brain - in hindsight it was pretty funny to be in the middle of a room full of people who thought we knew our shit, all suddenly realizing we don’t know squat.
That was a fucking good prof!
The LP… they sound alright on paper. The non-agression principle is solid. All the emphasis on a ‘free market’ sounds nice if you assume corporations elect for ethical practices when they’re not mandated (lol). I can talk em up in the scope of a lunch break; it’d be hard to keep the ball rolling much passed that though.
No, nothing has changed. And that was a good professor. I’m kind of in the place where we’ve picked metrics to decide when it’s fine to let a life go so why can’t we look at the other side and aim for a non-magical start.
The LP has pretty good social ideas. First electoral vote for a woman. First to include sex workers in the party platform. The NAP is interesting because both the left and right are down, we just define aggression differently.
With sane liability laws and a financial system that isn’t built for large corps, a free market could work. Where business has responsibility for its actions and is rated based on customer liability vs assets. Libertarians don’t want no regulation, they just prefer private regulation. Ancaps are kind of the same. So long as we keep trying to patch up our bullshit system instead of addressing root causes, we’ll continue getting fucked.
I’m still kind of a libertarian. My anti-corp and non-propertarian leanings make me somewhat left politically, but I have strong ethics about helping each other and those that can’t really help themselves. I just don’t like using violence to make people do what I want.
ideas that are objectively similar to maga bullshit.
When your knowledge of them is bullshit, sure.
You are cute. How far into the shit-filled rabbithole do I have to go into libertarianism before I find your specific flavour of bullshit? Somewhere between rand paul and ayn rand? Or do we go deeper?
Libertarians man. What a fucking joke.
I’m ethically closer to a leftist, but your choices highlight your ignorance but I guess that makes it easier to be smarmy.
The DNC is going to run this playbook again in four years. Stuff some establishment democrat down our throats “for the fate of democracy”. I agree that another Trump presidency would be terrible, but can the American people please get a real choice of which Democrat to vote for? Please DNC?
Probably. And when that time comes, I’ll make the same pitch for whichever not-a-Nazi is running against the actual Nazi. Should it be better? Fuck yeah! But if we don’t play along, we get actual Nazi. I suspect we’ll rinse-and-repeat until we’re extinct; but I’d prefer to spend that time with as few Nazis in power as possible.
I’d really prefer another candidate, but under our current system and circumstances, Biden is our best option.
That’s how democracy works. You rarely get to pick a candidate who is perfectly aligned with you. You pick the least bad option.
