“I’ll put my cards on the table: I’m a permanent resident of the US which means I’m not allowed to vote.”
Then you can STFU and sit down. You want to be able to vote? Get your citizenship. My daughter-in-law JUST did. This will be her first election. She’s not going to do anything that supports a Trump win.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/31/us/politics/trump-travel-ban.html
Hint - She’s from one of these countries.
👏
I’ll blame each and every eligible person who didn’t show up to vote for him, regardless of what their excuse is. This isn’t the time to be playing around.
Looks like the US is going to get some tough love.
Turns out you can’t just fund, supply and cast UN vetoes in support of the genocide of an entire people and still get unconditional support at the ballot box, whoda thunkit.
And yes, the consequences are going to be hideous.
I guess you should have thought of that, what with everyone telling you over and over and over.
Cabin in the Woods moment, and you brought it on yourselves.
Does this mean that the victims of the next genocide the democrats preside over can blame you for supporting the last one unconditionally?
When is the time to be ‘playing around?’ Your phrase gets repeated every single election meaning you’re doing nothing more than reinforcing the status quo.
This is the behavior of sycophants and rivals that of the MAGA base. “Shut up, don’t criticize, and mindlessly vote for my guy, or it’s the end of the world as we know it!”
The primary. A general election in which a fascist like Donald Trump isn’t the only other viable option.
Like it or not, we have a two party system. Either Biden’s going to be the next president, or Trump is. When it comes to the general election, if you do anything besides voting for Biden, you’re complicit in electing Trump.
If you back Biden and he loses, you’re also directly responsible for electing Trump. Another candidate would have beaten him.
Which candidate, specifically, A) Wants to be president and is willing to run, B) Is better than Biden on the issues you mentioned, and C) Has a reasonable chance of beating Trump in the general election?
I’m dead serious, pitch me a name.
The people in these threads never have an alternative. They are drunk on righteous fury and just want their clarity of purpose to result in clarity of action. To do this, they flip the classic logical fallacy on its head and have to argue, “the means justify the ends.” Voting against Biden to them is an unassailable means, wherever the ends lead.
Sanders 2016. Americans still defending the system tho ¯\(ツ)/¯
Sanders isn’t running this election. In fact, he’s supporting Biden. He’s not a reasonable option to try to dump Biden for.
But you won’t blame the Biden administration for disregarding the wishes of their constituents?
Do you (or anyone who thinks not voting for Biden is a smart thing) think that Trump would do anything differently? Because those are the two choices. If you don’t vote for Biden then you are either voting for Trump or helping Trump by taking away votes from Biden… unless you live in a blue or red state where your vote doesn’t matter anyway.
I do blame Biden for how he is handling this situation. However, I am smart enough to understand that there is more than one situation that a president has to handle while in office. For the most part, Biden has honored the wishes of me as a constituent. If the only thing you care about in life is how the President of the US handles a conflict on the other side of the world, as opposed to the US economy, civil rights in the US, US Supreme Court justices, US circuit court judges, environmental policy in the US, etc., then that is your right as a voter. I hate what is going on over in Gaza (and the region in general), but I also care about is going on in the country I live in.
If you don’t vote for Biden then you are either voting for Trump or helping Trump
I’m so tired of this rhetoric. Let people vote for who they believe in without shaming them. Americans should not be strong armed into voting for a candidate they don’t actually want.
If you are eligible to vote, and don’t, that is the same as a vote for the winner - whoever that is.
Nah, only half as strong.
Candidate A and Candidate B.
Vote for A: Candidate A has 1 vote
Vote for B: Candidate B has 1 vote
Vote for neither: 0 vote for either. Midway between the two outcomes.
That being said, voting for neither doesn’t make much sense for anyone in terms of outcome. If you prefer one outcome, it doesn’t make much sense to only use half of the strength of your vote to support that outcome.
Not voting makes more sense if you’re making the argument that the time spent voting isn’t worth the return you get.
No, it’s not. For the record, I’m a huge advocate of voting. I think everyone should vote for the candidate they believe in.
If you’re driving in a bus with 40 people voting on where to go, with 14 wanting to drive to a buffet, 16 wanting to drive off a cliff, and 15 saying that they don’t care enough to vote but they don’t really want to go to the buffet because they’re not hungry, yes, I am going to judge the 15 people who are content being driven off a cliff.
And before anyone judges this analogy because one option is objectively good while the other is objectively bad: Everyone is guaranteed to get food poisoning at the buffet. Now both options are objectively bad, but I’m still judging the people content with going over the cliff.
You can criticize the fact that they didn’t vote, I literally just said that I think everyone should vote. But that’s not the same as saying they did vote for the winner. If you’re mad that the bus is driven off a cliff, then be upset with the people that did vote for it.
This is excusing that I personally think your analogy is an oversimplification.
I am going to judge the 15 people who are content being driven off a cliff.
But you’ll happily sit on the bus, never questioning why you’re helping to maintain a system that results in such terrible options, and then blame others when that system you help to maintain comes back to bite you in the face.
Let people vote for who they believe in without shaming them.
Voting is like freedom of speech. Everyone is free to vote for whoever they want, but they aren’t immune from criticism for how they vote. If someone votes for a guy who says he’ll “be a dictator on day one” and encourage Russia to “do whatever the hell they want”, I’m gonna shame that person for supporting such an insupportable candidate who espouses such insane ideas.
To be clear, I was directly responding to someone who was claiming that not voting for Biden is like voting for Trump. I hate that rhetoric and it’s not true. If you want to blame someone for Trump winning, you blame the people that voted for him.
Sure, but what I’d say is I’ll still say in this fricken 2 party system, you also have to justify not going for the lesser of two evils, however you define that. And if your position is “I want someone to stop Israel continuing their war on Hamas”, you also have to contend with the idea that neither option is likely to do what you want. This just reads to me like throwing a fit that mommy brought you peas instead of beans with your dinner and saying you want daddy, when he’s not bringing any food at all.
I don’t have to justify not voting for the lesser evil when I can vote for an option that is, in my opinion of course, not evil at all. I encourage every American to vote, and vote for who you actually want to be the President, not just against who you don’t want.
Sure, but you also said not to shame people for how they vote. I responded specifically to that statement and not the others because I understand wanting to vote for a candidate you actually want in office.
Unfortunately, strategic voting has to occur in order for things to get better in the USA. Until we massively overhaul the voting system, voters need to understand that you either vote for the lesser of two evils, or are (albeit passively) contributing to the greater of two evils’ ascent to power.
Even far-left progressives like Bernie Sanders or Noam Chomsky were like, “Dude, you gotta vote for the Democratic candidate or else these crazy far-right candidates are gonna push the country further to the right. At least if the Democratic candidate wins we either stay where we are, or maybe get to move a bit further left during their tenure.”
It’s a deeply flawed system, but in the general election, it’s a simple calculus. There’s nothing Biden could do to lose my vote in November because I owe it to our society (and our allies worldwide) to prevent another Trump term.
I said that as a direct response to someone saying not voting for Biden is like voting for Trump. I wasn’t trying to make some general statement. I don’t know how else to say that.
If you want to judge a Trump voter for voting for Trump, judge them on that merit. Don’t judge someone that didn’t vote for Trump if Trump wins, that’s bullshit.
Okay but we’re in a 2 party system. It sucks, but it is what it is. It’s either Biden or Trump winning no matter how you feel on the matter.
Both of them support Israel, one with slowly(very slowly, yes) waning support and the other essentially saying he’d gladly help turn Palestine into rubble.
Domestically, Biden has been doing pretty good. The rail strike was a fiasco but besides that he’s mostly been a small step forward from Obama.
Meanwhile, Trump is Trump. His first term was a complete disaster for the country, and now he’s outright saying he’ll be a dictator rounding up the “enemy”, he’s saying he won’t defend our allies from Russia, he’s well and truly dementia-addled now(Mercedes? oof), etc…
Voting for Trump is far worse obviously, but not voting against him still makes it more likely he wins. Just as you have the freedom to make that decision, I have the freedom to judge the shit out of you for it.
Okay but we’re in a 2 party system. It sucks, but it is what it is. It’s either Biden or Trump winning no matter how you feel on the matter.
Ever consider that we only get to choose between these two parties because people like you fear mongering and demanding everyone maintain the status quo?
If it’s guaranteed that Trump or Biden are winning then elections are obviously foregone conclusions, our votes don’t really matter, and neither party has any reason to ever change because they’re guaranteed to hold at least 50% of power at any given time. We might as well eliminate ballots and just automatically declare a winner based on party registration numbers.
If Biden is polling to lose and Trump ends up winning, you’re also supporting Trump by backing a losing candidate and handing the election over to Trump.
This is rhetoric from party loyalists who don’t give a shit about the country. It’s the Democratic version of MAGA, people who actively vote against their own best interests just to ‘stick it to the other guy,’ while the country crumbles and the rest of us suffer.
The Democratic Party is well past due for a purging. If they won’t do it themselves, I honestly won’t be mad to see them face the MAGAts they helped raise. Trump is 80 years old and has had a lifetime of cheeseburgers and spray tans, in the worst case scenario, he’ll last five years and America would be better off in the long term for it.
If you really think the US would be better off in the long term if Trump gets elected, then you obviously haven’t paid attention to the very long term damage he did while in office. Trump 1 got to replace 3 justices. Biden has had the chance to replace 1. With looming retirements of a couple justices, Trump 2 would get to replace another 2. That would cement a 5 to 4 ultra-conservative Supreme Court for a good 20 years. Additionally, his tax cuts for the wealthy and refusal to raise interest rates weren’t exactly great for long term stability of our economy.
I agree with the D’s needing to have a wholesale change of leadership, though.
Comservativism is a race to the bottom; its a naturally implosive idealogy. Yes, America will be better off in the long term (read: more than five years) once the Dinocrats are put out to pasture and the MAGAts kill each other in a power vacuum after Trump kicks the bucket. America needs a revolution - any revolution - and the Dems are married to the status quo. I think most actual leftists in America are waking up to the idea that they are a dead-end for actual change and the only possible route for things to get better is by weathering a decade of Trumpism and building new from the damage that is promised to bring.
Protecting the White House from Trump is more important than anything else going on in the World.
The top of the wishlist of any reasonable and rational American should be, “Don’t permit a fascist demagogue to become a petty tyrant.” Biden fulfills that order handily, and if that’s not enough for someone to get them to vote for him, then the blame lies with that voter.
If Biden can’t beat a fascist demagogue and petty tyrant and Trump ends up winning, then I’d argue it’s your fault for backing a losing candidate over someone who actually might have actually defeated Trump. The blame would fall squarely on your shoulders.
I’d argue it’s your fault for backing a losing candidate over someone who actually might have actually defeated Trump
Who, exactly, is this mythical figure that could beat Trump at this point in the game? C’mon, give us a name.
Haley.
All you care about is beating trump right?
Sanders.
Once Biden steps down all the nevertrumpers will jump on board.
The blame will fall squarely on the voters who stood idly by navel-gazing while a fascist took power.
Oh, not the party loyalists like yourself who would rather back a losing candidate than allow a winner to run in their place?
Have you ever stopped to consider how someone could find a bloated, orange maniac more appealing than the guy you’re trying to shame everyone into voting for and what that says about your political views?
Which person, specifically, would be better to vote for than Biden that has a reasonable chance of winning?
Sanders would bring in the most, make him the nominee and you would keep the never trumpers, bring in some moderates, lose some moderates.
The math comes down to would the amount of moderates/independents you lose to apathy or trump, double points for the ones who would vote trump instead of sanders since the other team gains 1 and you lose 1, compared to how many moderates/independents and how many leftists you get.
The top of the wishlist of any reasonable and rational American should be, “Don’t permit a fascist demagogue to become a petty tyrant.” Biden fulfills that order handily, and if that’s not enough for someone to get them to vote for him, then the blame lies with that voter.
Right now, today, supporting Biden any further is handing Trump a W.
Biden has lost the election at this point. It would be the biggest election upset of ALL TIME if he came back to win it. No incumbent this far down in the polling has EVER won an election.
If you truly want to stop Trump, stop brow beating people into supporting a lost cause and work to have a conversation around how we can get a better candidate. I think Shawn Fein.
And Obama solidly lost his election against Romney if you looked at polls this far out. A strong case can be made that polls at this point are not predictive.
I think Shawn Fein.
Ignoring the fact that mine and most American’s immediate reaction to this is “Who?”, the fact that he has zero experience in elected office will be disqualifying to most people. He seems like a decent guy, and I’d love to see him in some sort of office some day, but this is not a serious suggestion.
Also, to quote him:
Proud to cast my vote for President @JoeBiden today, the first day of early in-person voting in the state of Michigan!
Oh god, finally gave a name. Who the hell is Shawn Fein? If I haven’t already heard of them, it’s a lost cause too - because they have no brand recognition. This is the dilemma and one I’ve been banging on about since before Obama. It’s kind of insane the Democratic party seems to hope for a repeat of that once in a lifetime basically out of nowhere candidate / win. For reasons I don’t get, Democrats are not building up people in advance to be candidates. So people have at least heard of them.
The problem is as far as I know there aren’t any well known middle aged democrats who could run that have any national stance. Schumer is also too old, Bernie is also too old, and then there’s the sexism that makes me question if Warren could run, and then there’s the racism that makes Kamala and Cortez pretty unlikely to get far either.
I thought the entire four years that Democrats needed to have someone in the news and convince Biden to back them a year ago. That didn’t happen. We already lost this years ago if Biden can’t win it. I’m just still amazed that there’s any support for Trump (well, ever, but certainly after the facts of his first term).
Point taken on Shawn Fein. He is the UAW president, and got Biden to come down to the picket line.
But overall, almost 100% agree. I don’t see any current Democrats with ‘enough’ of the right stuff to get handed the reigns and win. Its why I’m looking outside the party. I really think if Jon Stewart were to throw his hat in, he could win. He’s young enough, he doesn’t have the baggage that an existing candidate has, people know him, he’s a darling of the left. He’s been politically active although he hasn’t run (point against I supposed, but not a deal breaker. Didn’t stop Trump did it?).
Biden has blown this campaign with his position on Israel. He needs to drive voters out, and he’s pulling a classic Democrat move of just assuming that the support for him is there. The ship is sinking. This is a five-alarm fire moment. He has no opponents in this primary and is losing support. You don’t win elections like that.
If the liberals are going to keep insisting that we support Biden even though it becomes more and more clear as time goes on that he isn’t going to win, I don’t know where that leaves us. I don’t want to suffer through what Trump will do to this country. If Trump wins, I’d be shocked if we even have elections again. Expect every non-cis person in this country to be rounded up and executed. I don’t think its hyperbole to suggest that. I think the right would do that today if they had the power.
Or the Democratic establishment rigging a primary in 2020, and then forgoing one in 2024, to have one of the least democratic races of all time?
If this was an election in Turkey, the US would be imposing sanctions.
No, I will blame them. Make your threats to Biden all you want, put all the pressure on him to stop supporting the genocide, absolutely. But come election day if you don’t realize that Biden, even as is, is still a far, far better option than Trump, then yes anyone staying home over this is absolutely partially to blame.
As a non American I thank you for the chance to have more Trump, you fucking morons. 😕
As a non American I thank you for the chance to have more Trump, you fucking morons. 😕
Biden should consider campaigning then. If this election is so important, maybe we need a more effective candidate?
Biden could literally not say another word the rest of the year and still be the smarter choice than letting Trump in.
Do I wish he was 30 years younger and more active? Of course. I wish a lot of things. That doesn’t change that democracy is literally on the line and I’d vote for a corpse to keep Republicans out of office.
Look at the polling. Biden isn’t winning this election.
If you really want to stop Trump, you have to start using your brain and realize that by all metrics Biden is losing. This blue no matter who attitude, where its turning a blind eye to the actual campaign failure which is Joe Biden, which is happening in real time, WILL ensure us a Trump presidency.
The only poll that matters is in November. Hillary was a shoo-in in March of 2016. (And in front in March of 2008 IIRC)
No, the polling right fucking now matters.
NO candidate EVER has come back from the deficit showing.
Do you actually want to stop Trump or not?
NO candidate EVER has come back from the deficit showing.
Stop making shit up. (Or, stop getting your facts from Social media, as it’s really the same thing as making shit up).
Here, I found some actual facts for you. This is December, not March, but still relevant.
https://news.gallup.com/poll/103351/clinton-maintains-large-lead-over-obama-nationally.aspx
Obama wasn’t running on a 39% approval rating you dummy.
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/biden-approval-rating/
Thats what fucking matters. Do you want to fucking beat Trump or not? Whats your priority here? Running Biden or beating Trump? You have to pick one.
Edit: Oh you want Gallup? We can do Gallup
https://news.gallup.com/poll/103495/election-summary.aspx
Clinton at that time had a net favorability 30% higher than JOE FUCKING BIDEN has currently. Obama’s net favorability?
FUCKING 50% higher than Joe Bidens CURRENT NET FAVORABLY.
You are INSISTING we crash the fucking car into a brick wall.
NO candidate EVER has come back from the deficit showing.
Trump did.
Again, what the ACTUAL fuck are you talking about? Trump was NEVER net negative in polling.
Trumps 2015 polling.
and guess what? When Trump slipped in the polling in 2020, he went on to lose the election.
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/president-general/2020/national/
Trump was polling ~8 points higher than Joe Biden is currently and went on to lose the election. Biden was polling 30 points higher than he is currently and barely squeaked it out.
Obama did vs Romney. He was consistently down during May of 2012, and then proceeded to have a slam dunk victory.
I heard the same rhetoric in 2020 and 2022… Besides, the campaign season hasn’t even started and Biden is out-raising Trump already.
Since you raised attitude, the problem with your attitude is that you’ve got no alternative substantive solution. You can throw peanuts from the peanut gallery all you want, but until you offer up a better solution that is consistent with reality, then people will not take you seriously. Sorry, there is no magical Obama waiting to save us. Joe Biden is what we’ve got, and at least he’s got incumbent advantage.
Nothing short of complete annihilation of it’s current incarnation will fix the political system in America. That being said you realistically have 2 choices. Bad, and worse. Choose wisely.
Filmmaker and Michigan native Michael Moore agreed that Biden’s stance on the ongoing slaughter in Gaza could easily cost him the state, and in turn, the entire election. In a recent interview with CNN’s Abby Phillip, Moore said “I’ve been saying this month that he’s going to cost himself the election. …If Trump has any chance, it’s the decision that [Biden’s] made to embrace slaughter, carpet bombing, babies in incubators dead because they cut off the electricity, on and on and on.”
Inb4 Michael fucking Moore gets accused of being a conservative. You know it’s going to happen.
Michael Moore has been an idiot for a long time.
Was he right about Trump in 2016 or not?
Dumb gotta dumb. They’re willing to burn their country to the ground for something happening in another country. Under any other time, I’d be ok with it, but trump is an existential threat to everything the country stands for and will bathe in it’s smouldering ashes. Reap what you fucking sow.
We all know how devastating a second Trump term would be. It’s also important to understand the damage that Biden is doing by funding a plausible genocide
“That’s a nice country you’ve got there. Be a shame if something happened to it…”
I mean,
If Obama’s handling of Guantanamo not closing and the drone striking of Somalia and Yemen didn’t stop his second term.
I can’t see how Gaza’s situation will affect Biden’s.Truth is, most of your population doesn’t even pay attention to the details of news, unless it’s something to do with Kardashian’s or Taylor Swift.
There is a significant Muslim population in Michigan that is paying attention. Michigan is a swing state, if Biden loses it he probably loses the election.
Good luck with Trump, the defender of the Islamic people and totally not going to bomb them trust him Bigley
That’s centrist copium really. This shit is making the news everywhere and it’s turning young voters against him. There are 10 years’ worth of voters today who weren’t eligible 10 years ago and most of them (especially if you only count democrats) are not happy about what’s going on. This is to say nothing of the Muslim voters who are destroying Biden’s chances in multiple swing states.
This whole thing is so depressing. Not Gaza, which is a tragedy, but the conversation around it. People who have family members starving and dying right now are upset, and there is zero empathy for them. Just anger directed at them by people who are (or were) ostensibly on their side.
I will not be commenting further in this thread because it belongs in !politics and I’m out of antidepressants but not booze.
It’s difficult. On one hand, it is a fucking atrocity, and it’s hard to blame people for being upset that someone with the power to at least lessen the harm, isn’t.
But on the other hand, ensuring the greater evil gets in does nothing. No Palestinians are saved by a Trump presidency - and it’s very likely that MORE will die compared to a Biden administration, considering Trump’s all-in attitude with Netanyahu. Not only are no Palestinians saved, but many Ukrainians, Americans, and Taiwanese will likely suffer and die in not inconsiderable numbers directly due to a Trump presidency.
As such, it’s difficult to look at someone grieving and saying “Everyone’s throat should be cut, not just my son’s!” and react with sympathy when that has very real effects on whether or not everyone’s throat gets cut.
(Breaking my word but only because you’re cool)
If your family members are going to be shot on your dime, I don’t blame people for checking out entirely or even pushing for collapse. They’re basically powerless in our political system, and when they exercise what little influence they have to stop their families from being massacred, they’re treated like shit.
And now it’s time to drink and pet my kitty because I hate this fucking system so goddamn much.
And now it’s time to drink and pet my kitty because I hate this fucking system so goddamn much.
Yeah. World’s fucked. But maybe it will get better someday.
I will absolutely blame the voters, because it’d literally be their fault. That’s how elections work.
Well, there are also Belarussian elections.
I guess at the basic level Biden must think the pro Israel vote is bigger than the gaza vote?
Statistically, your one vote is as meaningful whether you vote for a major party or a third party.
You don’t vote to get your preferred candidate in. You vote to pull the one that might closer to where you want them.
Voting for Biden is voting for a genocide, whether you want it to be or not. Assuming Biden gets in, all you’ve done is tell the DNC that their voter base actually don’t care all that much about genocide.
anyone who doesn’t vote for Joe or someone like him is the same brand of selfish and stupid, and you can all eat shit
