Senate Going Postal: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election

Am I allowed to complain about how bad the Democratic Party leadership is? Because if they continue to exert control, we'll have a second Trump term and even worse.

 

How would we have a second trump term because of them?

 

Biden is for the rich continuing to get richer and giving him lots of money. He's for tens of millions of Americans continuing to be denied healthcare and tens of millions more being unable to afford their deductibles. He's for keeping people in poverty through things such as usurious interest rates. He's for U.S. imperialism continuing to starve and murder millions of people abroad. He's for the planet becoming uninhabitable for humans and the vast majority of complex lifeforms. He's for the status quo of misery and destruction. He has "no empathy" for the struggles of everyday people, no care for the future. He is a bad guy. People need to constantly point to an imbecilic conman to make Biden look good. He doesn't stand on his own merits because he has none.

The message to Democrats was loud and clear in 2016 and they want their response to be more of the same ****.

 

I think you guys forgot that Biden is the one that forced Obama to change on gay marriage. He is more progressive then you guys think. But sure,the Democrats are evil.

 

That fact only highlights that Obama is even more regressive in some ways. Plus when both men in question continue warmongering, then yes the party they represent does come off as pretty evil. I would not even call Dems evil though, just shameless, warmongering, moderate, neo-liberals

 

Bluntly speaking, if the choice ends up being between shameless war-mongering neo-liberalism and shameless war-mongering neo-fascism, it's a simple choice. Between Roosevelt and Hitler, you pick Roosevelt any day.

(Oh, and "moderate" is only a pejorative for totalitarians).

 

Sorry, I don't think the best way to fix a broken house is to burn it to the ****ing ground.

Trump has to go. It's already going to take decades to recover from one term. A second term, and that's likely the end of American democracy. Considering the state of other nations - and the successful rise of right-wing nationalism all across the globe, it might be the end, period.

 

I am not saying I am against picking Biden over trump, frankly no one here is. However people seem to be jumping at everyone who brings up genuine moral outrage towards Biden, with little more than "Trump is worse".

Yeah he is worse, most everyone here will vote for whoever is against Trump, unless their vote is utterly not important as their state is going liberal regardless. This has BLEEP all to do with picking between the two. If we cannot address the fact that Biden is a warmonger and belongs in front of the UN for all the human rights violations that the US did under him and Obama; without people reacting with "bUt YoU arE LeTtInG tRUMP wIN" then this country has proved why the democratic party is a failure.

You two are essentially putting words in the mouths of everyone for the audacity of.......genuinely discussing Biden as a candidate and the major change we need in left communities in our nation.

Also moderate is not just a pejorative for totalitarians, that is such a simplistic and BS mentality. Plus my point is not even that they are bad cause they are moderates, moderates on serious issues are often disgusting or if nothing else annoying; but my problem here has more to do with the Dems being the only actually powerful, ostensibly Leftist party in this nation.

When moderate neo-liberals run the only party with any power on the left, then yeah moderates are problematic in this nation, as their voice up top somehow ends up with more weight than anything even slightly beyond center left. At least organizationally.

Sure........but no one here is arguing for that.

This is not a matter of rooting for a team you usually hate cause they are against a team you loath; this is about opposing Biden due to one's own moral compass. Whether that means voting for him if he get elected changes none of that.

Yinz are deifying and strawmanning @Darth Guy @anakinfansince1983 and @grd4. These are not people who are lacking a conscience, or are fine with allowing Trump to walk all over everyone. People genuinely have specific reasons based on their state's demographics and their own morals for despising Biden. And the fact that yinz are treating all of us (even those like myself who would vote Biden if needed) like we don't care is exactly why the democratic party gets so much of our hate.

We have the ability to vote, and I am angry at those who didnt vote or threw theirs out to a third party last time, in significant states. However we are over a year out, and this attitude is simply going to prevent any actually important change from happening in this nation. If the mere mention of hating Biden and wanting to never have to vote for a guy who was pro-school segregation is enough to gain all this ire, then maybe the world is a time bomb anyways with the American people being so willing to tear each other apart for the mere discussion of voting with one's personal politics and not just with party.

I think people should vote for whoever is against Trump, but shaming people for wanting their vote to be their own is already showing how reading yinz are to turn on democracy. So either support the left being radical and ousting the Dem's as the representatives of leftism, or respect democracy completely and above all else put the process and the right to vote however you choose as your primary focus.

Jumping down Darth Guy's throat is not going to save the world from Trump.

Oh and no one is saying burn the house down, but I do actually agree with that quite frankly. Least when it comes to those like Biden. If we halt our morals based on political expedience and what war criminals say, then we don't have a house in the first place. Plus when said "house" is responsible for people in other nations losing their houses literally, along with their lives; then maybe just maybe, our actual impact on the world needs to be more radically changed than "stop Trump now, figure the rest out later by hoping the DNC will somehow change"

 

I hate to say this, but trust in China.

 

Biden is doubling down on Hillary's 2016 strategy, and to use Trump's words, it's a "big fat mistake." However, the more he talked in his previous two campaigns, the less support he received.

While I agree with Appleseed that only Bernie can beat Trump, and I appreciate his economic proposals, I believe he needs to argue even more against these pointless wars and deception from Trump and Bolton.

 

8 years of Biden will be more damaging to this country and this planet than 4 more years of Trump.

 

That's not possible. Is Biden likely to get us into a war that Trump is threatening to do right now? Will Biden obstruct justice like Trump is going?

 

Really?

This was never about "suppressing discussion " about Biden. I've stated multiple times that I think Sanders has a better chance against Trump; and from personal choice, I would vastly prefer Sanders.
My post was in response to those posting that they were going to refuse to vote for the Democratic Party in the Presidential election if Biden got the nod.
It also cuts both ways. If Sanders gets the nod, do progressives have a strategy to get moderates that aren't thrilled with him to vote for him, beyond saying "**** you, centrist!"?

 

Perfectly put. People don't need to agree with, but they need to accept the distinction between "they just aren't as crass as Trump" and "Biden is legit an embodiment of many of America's problems, and I loath him no matter what. But would vote for him if needed but will never cease my fire at his abhorrence" and the third group of "I loath Biden and may even be someone directly disadvantaged by his policies and will never vote for him on strong moral grounds/ particularly if I live in a state that is more or less safe"

That and importantly while people are accountable for not voting or going third party, and I think the justification many use of "eh...I didnt like either so I didnt vote or voted trump" is disgusting, I DO genuinely think we need to never ever ever ever ever ever ever ever lose sight of the fact that democracy is already dead if we the people decide that it is wrong to vote based on one's own conscience above all else.

We can be angry at others, we can find the way someone votes to be the wrong choice, we can view people as enablers, but we cannot go down the road of equating one's responsibility to vote against the evil of those like Trump, with the idea that the fact that we live in a nation in which one's vote is inherently limited in power and options is something even remotely acceptable.

I think not voting against trump is wrong, but I think those complaining about people wanting to see the DNC gone and even the more extreme of those who oppose any opposition to anti-trump candidates; are themselves a danger to democracy. As democracy cannot work without the inherent belief that one's vote genuinely is theirs and theirs alone and not up to anybody else.

Cause I will vote against trump no matter what, but to compare despising Biden with choosing Hitler over Roosevelt highlights exactly why American democracy is so utterly broken. People have given up on the idea that their vote matters beyond a binary choice, and fighting that, tearing down the established power of the DNC cannot be something for another day. We need to fight against trump, and never let up on the DNC.

Just as during WWII, doing all you can to fight the Axis should never mean letting up in opposing Roosevelt and Churchill. Speaking out against the Japanese internment camps is not the same as going "they are all the same, I will just let them fight it out and not care", anymore than opposing Biden is not the same as saying the later about Trump today.

For starters....time is linear interestingly enough. Vivec posted AFTER I made my post. But let's move beyond sequential events.

To the second point like @Point Given perfectly put, progressives are not the ones who are wishy washy right now. Also yes this is about people getting up in arms or at least overreacting to critique of Biden, since the posts intitally harped on had very specific circumstances, and importantly Biden is not elected yet. Being terrified of him as president is not the same as thinking he is worse than Trump. No one here accept seemingly Vivec thinks that

And Vivec is already the most inflammatory one here (no offense dude, I mean that in the nicest way), but also posted AFTER the post you are responding to. The point is people in safe districts talking about not wanting to vote Biden, not even that they never would, just mostly expressing disgust at him and their hopes and maybe decision a year from now - ended up creating a massive movement of people strawmanning them and progressives.

Someone as of right now not wanting to entertain the notion of Biden is fine, particularly since a lot of people have good reason to personally despise the man. We are a year out still, not all of us are gearing up for the Biden emergency, and it is perfectly fine if you are. But people have a process they go through, and have individual circumstances. No need to put the blame on progressives.

Oh and as for that last part and the again strawmanning, same plan that all of you seem to firmly believe in, people will vote for party or against trump. If you trust that Biden will get progressives, or should; then it is not hard to extend that to moderates getting Sanders

That and loathing centrists is not anyone's campaign slogan, but it is a sentiment that is perfectly fine for us as individuals to have given the fact that it was those very centrists who did what you are preemptively ragging on these guys for. It is not exactly a choice to always have the image of children torn apart by drones during the Obama administration, or Biden voting against school desegregation; it is a duty. That is not cutting both ways, not getting behind Bernie cause he is a socialist, and not getting behind Biden cause he is a war criminal are VERY different things And if centrists are fine with forgetting those images, but can't get behind Bernie. Then yeah ***** centrists!

 

I will never understand the hatred toward those who vote third parties or independents. If Trump, or Bush, wins, this is because many people voted for them and many others didn't vote at all. Yet, the anger is focused on that 2 % who voted for the Ralph Nader of the year.

 

I'm French, not American, and I'll tell you why the parallel: Roosevelt was a machiavellian scumbag with little interest in anything other than himself, respecting the codes of established democracy only because that was the system he had to work with. Hitler was a monster. The machiavellian scumbag wins any day.

Biden is someone less horrible than Roosevelt was. Trump is somewhat less horrible than Hitler was.

 

Pretty sure this is actually true. And I think it would actually be four years of Biden, not eight - and I think it could be more damaging both short and long term than four more years of Trump.

Sitting Presidents always lose seats in the midterm elections. Period. Republicans always swing hard to the right when they are making pick-ups in Wave Elections. So, President Biden would usher in an almost guaranteed House Majority for the GOP in 2022, and that Majority would be so far right they might primary Jim Jordan.

The Democrats are unlikely to pick up enough gains in the Senate to have a true majority. So, The Bastion of Anti-Democracy Mitch McConnell is still going to be your Senate Majority Leader. He's not going to hear confirmation on any federal judges, let alone Supreme Court Nominations, that come up. He's going to force a President Biden to put forth nominees that are Senate Conformable to the Executive Branch that are palatable to him. And, Biden, given his history and his platforms, is going to happily put forward an EPA chief that doesn't care about climate change to pacify McConnell, and is going to put forward an AG that will increase mass incarceration, etc.

So, electing Joe Biden - just so we are all clear - brings about losses to the progressive cause on the legislative front, neuters the executive branch, and does nothing to curtail the GOP power grab on the judicial branch. The GOP runs out the clock on his term and runs someone more competent at working with the legislature than Trump, and uses their gains in both houses from 2022 and the bounce from their new candidate in 2024 to have both houses again, and increase their stranglehold on the courts.



This is not me being appleseed. This is honestly a decent forecast of what would happen under President Biden, and would give way to President Pence or something somehow more awful than that in 2024.

 

Because our system isn't setup for voting for third party candidates. Until that changes, third party votes usually split the vote and we end up with people like Trump. Best thing third party voters can do is to vote for one of the bigger parties and work at the state level to get things changed to a point where third parties become a viable alternative instead of playing spoiler.

 

If they vote third party, it means they are unsatisfied with both the major candidates. We might agree or not agree, I just don't get why the hostility is concentrated toward them, and not to all the other people who, for one reason or another, didn't vote for the democrat either, like those who stayed home and those who voted the republican.

 

Right, because Vivec has never expressed those views before. It was just as much a shock to me.
I quoted him because it was amusing that he posted that almost immediately after you said "nobody" felt that way. Here you go:

This was about people that were outright saying they would rather see the Democrats lose than Biden win. Not about "suppressing discussion" about Biden. Not about "chastising" people who vote in a non-swing state.

As far as your last part, Biden would have to be a ****ing idiot to not try to compromise with progressives if he got the nod. If Sanders wins - which, again, I've said is my preference, do you think progressives can go it alone?

Honestly, Republican propaganda will easily able to exploit divisions in the Democratic Party, regardless who gets the nod; it's likely Trump, despite everything, will win. And with everything going on today, that - I believe - would be a catastrophe. So, no, I don't think "we'll try again in four years, hopefully Democrats will be more progressive!" Is a viable strategy.

 

Whilst Israel continues its march further into right-wing heaven, the Jewish diaspora here in the US remains staunchly anti-Trump and anti-Republican -- though with signs that they are not thrilled with Biden and Sanders either...

https://www.jewishelectorateinstitu...nate-the-priorities-of-the-jewish-electorate/

 

Because you get people like Trump when voters vote third party or refuse to vote; both things feed into getting someone horrible. However, I'd argue voting third party is looked down upon more because you can't motivate people to vote, but third party voters actually showed up. They intended to lend their voice to the process....aaaand they blew it. Voter suppression is also pretty crap, but there's not much you can do about that until you elect people that play or at least pay lip service to the rules.

 

The division of votes by state has a serious consequence in that it makes it appear inconsequential in some states to vote for a third party that doesn't stand any chance at election, or even at winning one state - and in so doing, by severely reducing the difference in individual votes, diminishes the chance that the undemocratic character of the Presidential election may get exposed on a scale that becomes impossible to overlook.