Everytime I read these kind of takes, I think to myself ‘Where the fuck is Russia getting all this money to mess with the USA election?’
Naomi Klein is a real person with a real history of political opinions not controlled by shadowy Russian masterminds. Maybe, just maybe, you’re hearing this criticism all over the place because it’s actually a real issue and “must be Russians” is a comfortable mental shutoff to avoid thinking about how the ego of the most powerful person in the country could be leading us into political danger.
He’s Joe Buchanan
Maybe the answer is that Russia isn’t doing what you think they’re doing. Blaming the failures of our electoral system on Russia is so 2016.
Eh, I mean they did mess around, but they were mainly just exacerbating existing issues and fault lines.
That’s exactly how it works. Find the fault lines and apply pressure. If you do it right, it doesn’t even cost much.
Eh, it doesn’t move the needle very much though. It only really does anything when there’s already a very close situation. If the case were otherwise then there would probably be a lot less spending on campaigns
I disagree. Flooding the internet with disinformation isn’t that expensive and although it’s probably impossible to measure, I think there’s tremendous potential to sway opinions.
Russian troll farms and bot farms come to mind.
To what you said, I don’t think there would be so much effort if it didn’t work.
This is one example: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/fake-joe-biden-robocalltells-new-hampshire-democrats-not-vote-tuesday-rcna134984
I haven’t researched this or anything, but this kind of thing feels like low-hanging fruit that moves needles.
If you know of any interesting articles or studies about the topic, I’d definitely be interested in them! 🙂
Didn’t like 90+% of the online parts of the trucker convoy nonsense come from like 2 Facebook accounts? Small groups can get the ball rolling far more than you seem to think
… yeah they are
You need to wake up, you’re sleepwalking into fascism. The DNC thought Hillary couldn’t lose and forced her through despite Bernie being more popular. They are making the same blunder again.
There is nobody else with the name recognition or independent/middle clout - the swing voters the Ds need to win. Who are you going to put up - Kamala? Bernie? The middle/middle-right would rather stay home and sit on their hands while Trump drags out his base in the big red states. The best possible outcome is for Biden to take the economic momentum into a win and then step down and give the next generation 3+ years to forge their path. Of course, if you’re a Lefty, you don’t want Kamala either, so the only option is for the entire administration to step away and watch a true Left slate fail miserably in every swing state.
Any generic dem will do, just look at the polling and it becomes clear.
A 30 years younger Newsom across the debate stage from angry orange felon would be a slam dunk, even if it is last minute.
Across a stage? Do you really think Trump will attend a debate? Or that his followers will care either way?
No, the play here is you have to find someone that 30% of the electorate will actively vote for. You’ve already lost the anti-zionists, the envronmentalists, the Cubans, the Catholic hispanics, the student loan forgivenessers, the low-taxers, the gas-pricers, and the libertarians. EV enthusiasts are gone too, since half are listening to Musk as a demigod and the other half are mad that everyone is throwing their weight behind his charging standard and giving him patent royalty money. No, what’s left (ha!) are the milquetoast republicans and globalist democrats who you must court enough to register actual votes in actual precincts. Oh sure, there are a handful of centrist body autonomists who are mad about Roe (but weren’t preemptively angry enough to vote in Hillary) that you have in your back pocket, but there has to be enough to counter the brain-washed MAGA crowd. And the MAGA crowd may be a little less confused about whether early voting is Liberal Ballot Box Stuffing or part of the MAGA master plan to spread Patriotism and a Can of American Whoopass™ and get their votes in early this time.
Pilling only gets the opinions of people who actually pick up the phone for pollsters. Who does that sound like to you?
Newsom and Whitmer come to mind. Not saying they’re sure to do better, but it wouldn’t surprise me in the least.
I’d put in Newsom. He’s been in the bullpen.
Hilary wasn’t an incumbent. Biden should have been the go to in 2016. You run your sitting vice president if you’ve got one, because they have a way better chance of winning. Doubly so for a sitting president.
It would be an incredibly stupid political strategy to try to run someone else right now. I think the DNC learned that lesson eight years ago.
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Stop blaming all your problems on another government
Anybody else feel like Lemmy is like 60% Russian trolls lately?
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We found one! Bake em away, toys
Anybody else feel like Lemmy is like 60% Russian trolls lately?
China and Russia both
Most of the super progressive takes are just ways that would definitely help Trump retake the Whitehouse so…yeah.
Always has been man, this place is kind of a dump
Yeah it fucking sucks. Trolls and 14 year old edge lords with no understanding of how the real world works
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Maybe someone here could refresh my memory. I could have sworn that during 2020 campaigning, Biden indicated he would be a one term president that would willingly let a younger Democrat run for 2024. I haven’t seen anyone really rake him through the coals over that, so maybe it was some misinformation that was spread to make him more attractive, but I feel like it was a really key reason I felt comfortable supporting him.
They haven’t put anyone else up. No one has come up to challenge him. The Dems absolutely suck at presenting new leadership.
Probably because the last time someone saw the DNC running us all collectively off a cliff (Bernie in 2016), the DNC actively crushed their campaign, and then blamed them for the as-predicted DNC candidate’s loss.
No one wants to see their future political career taken out back and shot, as the DNC’s next scapegoat, if/when Biden loses.
December 2019:
“If Biden is elected, he’s going to be 82 years old in four years and he won’t be running for reelection,” a prominent adviser to the campaign told Politico.
By Feb 2020 that wording changed slightly:
“I’m in pretty good health, but, look, I guarantee you this: If anything changed in my health, making it incapable for me to fully exert all the energy and mental acuity that was needed to be done, then I give you my word: I would not run again,” Biden said.
I think they wanted to, but the young alternatives that the party leaders and donors liked have almost 0 popular support. Buttigieg, Harris, Yang, Gabbard, and Klobuchar were all relatively “young”, the party insiders liked them, the donors/media owners don’t hate them, but the average democratic voter ether dislikes them or is apathetic.
The people who do have popular support say things that scare donors and media owners. So they have spent years trying to convince the party and moderate voters that they’re not viable candidates.
So Biden it is because incumbent advantage.
You’re still living in 2016 based on the names you put out there. Newsom is the obvious answer, who actually has been extensively discussed for this or next election. He has popular support among voters and the establishment Dems.
Others like Whitmer have plenty of name recognition nationally, and in her case especially a great story to run on (Republicans wanted me dead to shut down my political views, now I’m gonna take that perspective to the office of the president).
There are others, too, but if you’re still listing Tulsi Gabbard as a Democrat I am not surprised you’re not up to date on candidates; she not only left the Democratic Party (and wrote a book about it), she has shifted to the Right on abortion and LGBT+ right, even publicly supporting Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill.
Those were literally all candidates in the 2020 primary? How am I in 2016, the primary candidates of note in 2016 were Clinton and Sanders.
Newsome is hardly new to the talk about potential candidates and is far from exciting. Whitmer is maybe a bit more appealing but we’ll see how much that holds when she starts talking to donors about funding her campaign.
Tulsi is exemplary of the issue with “moderate” democratic candidates, they’re all two bad days from starting to post about the “woke mind virus”.
I will always remember that moment in the 2020 Dem primary debates where Swalwell relayed a story about going to a political rally as a 6 year old and hearing the candidate tell people to pass the torch to the younger generation, and then revealing that Biden was that candidate, and Biden then quipping that he’d “hold onto” the torch for now.
He literally is so arrogant that he truly believes he is the only person alive who can beat Trump. He’d rather be buried with that torch than admit that there are many others that could do far better than him.
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Newsome would wipe the floor with Biden’s crappy poll numbers, and I don’t even like him.
Your argument is literally the argument that was put forth against Obama when he first announced his run. People always falsely claim the DNC’s ordained pick is the only path forward, when in reality they tend to eke out a win (or not, see 2016), while the dark horse candidates run away with elections.
The anti-Bernie rhetoric is #8 on the “Ur-DNC list of characteristics”, where the alternative candidates are cast as both too strong and too weak; having enough support to tank the election, but also so little support as to be safely ignored.
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First off, no one is pushing for Bernie to run now. He’s too old, just like Biden.
Secondly, why should anyone take this position seriously when the very person who was predicted to be “who Democrats actually want” lost to Trump in an election where they got fewer votes than Obama did in either election, despite there being MORE registered Democrats?
Your opinions on who is strong or weak as a candidate are just that.
The only provable point here is that progressive voters were ignored or even actively spurned by the DNC’s aggressively anti-progressive candidates, and that put Trump in power.
What Democrat governer, senator, congressman, mayor or whatever currently has the public profile to be electable nationally?
“Electable” is a subjective, moving goalpost.
You can easily discount Biden as being “electable” from polls that show him losing to Trump.
No one is excited for him, the most anyone can manage is that he beat Trump once, and after Gaza many people are markedly upset with the prospect of voting for him.
Point being, your question is inherently flawed: no one is voting for Biden because it’s Biden, people are only going to vote because the other person has an ‘R’ next to their name, and even more people if that person is Trump. You could probably pick a registered Democrat at random and if they were the general election candidate see them do nearly as well as Biden, barring the crusty pro-Biden fossils who would withhold their votes out of spite.
And yes, I think there are actually politicians on the “left” that you could replace him with and have a much better chance of winning, Newsom (regardless of my issues with him) being the most obvious answer.
I get the idea of voting not-R vs excited to vote for the Dem. But Hillary Clinton would like a word.
I’m old. In almost every election it has been the same for me. Vote for the lesser of the evils. I would vote for a very progressive candidate if I thought they would have a chance. When I was young I did vote 3rd part a few times.
Voting for the lesser of the evils isn’t exciting but you know what, it has been a vastly better plan seeing a Dem, any dem in power, than the R alternatives in my life. Compare to, Reagan, Bush, Shrub, and Mr Indictment.
For this current election, it is crazily out of balance. Contrary to popular opinion (real or manufactured) I believe Biden has been a good president. The Israel situation is deeply depressing and I am not happy with how that has been handled but I guarantee the world will be a much, much worse place with vastly more severe consequences if Biden loses.
I believe Biden has been a mostly-decent president, apart from the whole providing-weapons-for-genocide thing, or the whole authorizing-fossil-fuel-extraction-on-federal-lands-after-expicitly-promising-not-to thing, or the whole campaigning-for-more-police thing, or the whole aggressive-deportations-of-assylum-seekers thing… Oh wait.
And don’t get me wrong, I don’t want Trump to win; but I’m becoming more certain he will, barring a criminal conviction. Biden is weak, and getting weaker, as a candidate.
And you already have the DNC preparing for it, too, putting out op-eds about how if Biden loses, it will have been the fault of RFK, or West, or Bernie, or literally whoever else they can pin it on.
And at some point, if all you’re doing is choosing the lesser-genocider, where any potential non-genociders are being actively sabotaged and removed from your options as a voter, you’re not in a democracy, you’re in a facade that makes you believe you have Representation, so you won’t repeat what happens when you don’t believe that.
And I’m not sure what you mean about Hillary wanting a word; she is the poster child for “not excited to vote for”, and what happens when you force that candidate through anyways.
believe Biden has been a mostly-decent president, apart from the whole
Yeah, But can you name any president in the last 70 years from either party who didn’t bend over for Isreal?
Yes, I was in fact able to find plenty of info written about this relating to presidents before my time. Apparently it was Reagan (surprise surprise) who really kicked off US supporting Israel militarily, but even Reagan had the balls to cut off weapons sales to Israel after they bombed Iraq’s only nuclear reactor in 1981 (which was a much more arguably valid target than city blocks of homes in Gaza). Prior to him, our aid to Israel was mostly limited to food assistance and political shielding at the UN outside of limited support during the 1967 war. Source.
Biden on the other hand, is literally trying to secure MORE military aid for them, so he’s literally doing worse on this issue than Reagan did, which is quite a feat.
But more recently, Obama was absolutely at odds with Netanyahu, and even clashed with Biden personally, over Biden’s support for Israel.
This rhetoric that, “oh well there’s nothing else that Biden can do” is complete b.s. It’s been his open, sincerely-stated desire to support Israel, for decades.
None, of course. This is an ivory tower sort of article, a pining for an America that doesn’t exist right now. She’s the Left’s version of Matt Gaetz saying that Mike Johnson is too liberal and rolls over for the Democrats. It’s a good path to a D loss in the fall, and Vladimir must be excited to have her on his team.
January 6th occurred, Trump has been relatively unscathed, and Trump is running again. That’s what has changed since 2019.
If Trump had been fully prosecuted, or had decided not to run Biden likely wouldn’t be running.
I remember this as well and I posted about it either here or the r/ and got downvoted all to shit over it. Gaslighting that it never happened. He said something about being a transition pres, bringing people back together and would hand o er the reins or some shit. I voted for him and he got his 4 years. Now the old Warhawk has lots of potential conflicts to get us mired in and doesn’t want to give up the chair.
Even if Biden beats Trump, I still fear for the effect of an apathetic, depressed voter turnout on down-ticket races. If Biden holds onto the presidency, but a congress and state and oocal races go the other way, we won’t be in a great place.
Apathetic and depressed is not what I’d call the voter turnout in the elections since 2020. The R’s blew their load too fast on overturning Roe v Wade and it’s been consistently fucking them in the ass since.
Yes, it’s been a good 4 years for getting the American left to the polls, and if that continues, we’d have less to worry about. I hope we continue to vote enthusiastically.
I think it is far too late for that.
Where the fuck is the VP? I have not seen her since she was elected.
She wants to run for president, probably thinks that being too public right now might hurt her reputation long term.
She stuck her neck out and tried to make a name for her self earlier in the presidency and was met by foaming frothing rage from the right (nothing new there despite openly pandering to them) and apathy or distaste from the left. She and her team probably think that response is from her association with Biden, but I suspect that is more to do with the vibe she gives off of being a careerist politician.
Being from Oakland a lot of us also know that she’s totally fine jailing people for weed, you’d think that a rationale move you would try and step away from the “just doing my job DA” to “Vice President of the People” by pushing for policies that prevent unnecessary jailings.
But you’re right, I didn’t even really realize until now that Kamala has been almost seemingly less active than Mike Pence as VP. You’re probably onto something with the long term campaign, although I also wouldn’t be surprised if it was “suggested” that she let Biden take the lead or something.
If this were a company, then this would be a lack of building up the next generation of leaders. I guess politics is a game of everyone for themselves, and not a team.
In a Terry Crews’ book he discussed being a rookie in the NFL. One’s teammates woke to tear a person down, and not build them up. They are all competing for the same small number of spots.
I’d say that’s a good comparison however I would argue that rather than a “team”, political agendas (literally not the stupid co-opted meaning) are comprised of micro-teams based on any given measure. As such, you have the occasional partisan bill where you are directly working with members of any party, or a variety of measures inside the party, but with overlapping groups.
But you’re absolutely right, I think the staunch example is obvious Mitch McConnell, who notoriously will not vote outside party lines even if it’s the right thing that benefits everyone. That’s not a team, there’s no intention of being one. And it seems like all the old people in politics are just like him, just not nearly as long in stay because they force the younger politicians to “wait their turn”. It’s bullshit, young people in politics would help immensely and they know that.
I feel like Feinstein is a sad glimpse at what we have to look forward to from our future, where rather than getting to retire in peace these people are kept in the system and paraded instead of being allowed to gracefully give up their position. I say that with respect to her autonomy, it’s abysmal that she never reached retirement because of how politics has been forcefully designed to be an old person’s game. These people should have been out of politics 20 years ago :(
where rather than getting to retire in peace these people are kept in the system and paraded instead of being allowed to gracefully give up their position. I say that with respect to her autonomy, it’s abysmal that she never reached retirement because of how politics has been forcefully designed to be an old person’s game. These people should have been out of politics 20 years ago :(
My guy why are you acting like retiring was stolen from her? She was a walking mummy long before her mental faculties took a nose dive, and chose to stay in politics. Honestly i wouldn’t be surprised if a sane Feinstein would’ve told her team to keep her around the way they did if her mind declined. She was not a victim here; she was part of the problem
I don’t disagree with that either. It’s a consequence of itself. She, like all these dinosaurs, felt the need to “just go one more term”. Whether the reasons are power or political plays it doesn’t fully matter. I think another example of this is Ruth Bader Ginsburg, had she left her position in 2013 or even before we wouldn’t have been in the position where she “felt like she had to stay” during Trump’s presidency, only to die anyway.
Two things can be true. It can be wrong of all of them to keep politics as an old person’s game and simultaneously be a shame that none of these people get to experience retirement. Just because they’re being inhumane doesn’t mean we need to be.
While two things can be true simultaneously, I just still don’t agree that it should be considered a shame they didn’t get to experience retirement, as that heavily implies they were at some level swept into that shame of a scenario by other forces. To make an extreme comparison, it’d be like saying it’s a shame hitler didn’t get to transition into a peaceful retirement. He (and they) created the destructive environment that closed that option off; it’s not a shame they couldn’t retire, it’s a shame they’re the kind of people in power in the first place.
Just because they’re being inhumane doesn’t mean we need to be.
It’s not inhumane to lack sympathy for someone who actively hurt the system everyone relies on, for their own personal gain, just because they didn’t also get a cherry on the top of their sundae
Remember when Biden told rich donors “nothing would fundamentally change” if he was elected? Man lived up to his word, smh
Biden told rich donors, “If you pay more in taxes, nothing will fundamentally change.” That is, the union will not fall because they didn’t get tax cuts. Don’t be disingenuous about what actually happened.
Please don’t spread misinformation by including something in quotes that is your own editorialization. The actual quote is 10 seconds of googling away:
“We can disagree in the margins but the truth of the matter is it’s all within our wheelhouse and nobody has to be punished. No one’s standard of living will change, nothing would fundamentally change.”
https://www.axios.com/2019/06/19/joe-biden-wealthy-donors-demonize
Thanks for the exact specific quote. I got lazy.
The correct way wasn’t necessarily to look it up but prefacing the quote with said something like so that we knew you were paraphrasing from memory. Maybe even append IIRC.
The older Americans hated Hillary. Much less than Biden, who they see as a benign figure. And they very much vote. Most of them have realized that Trump is a liar and unstable.
They thought Hillary couldn’t lose too.
I went to bed that night and checked my phone looking at the electoral map. I sad to my partner, “Hillary is going to loose…” The numbers and visuals all just right there, election night, telling a very different story of what polls (remember the NYT Prediction tracker? Clinton 96% chance or something crazy?) Indicated. Woke up and was like “The son of a bitch actually did it.”. I couldn’t even think or feel, it was so insane and such a deviation from the norm that I had no ground to stand on. It was en entirely brave new world.
Howdy. I am well aware of Klein, as her investigative journalism is what kept me motivated to keep asking questions about environmental justice and doing research. She, frankly, knows her shit and is one of the most well spoken and passionate people I’ve ever had the chance of reading and hearing.
And she’s absolutely right. Without a shadow of a doubt, “hoping” the DNC doesnt suffer from the self inflicted “no-bernie no-vote” mistake is not enough. It’s too close and too much is at risk for the people who do vote Democrat.
It’s a good point. Biden’s unconditional support for Netanyahu is not helping him at all (even though he seems to be trying to mediate in the background, he’s not very successful and the optics are really bad).
But the question is, who else would be a candidate with enough support? He’s counting on the incumbent bonus now but I also doubt it’s good enough, if “not Trump” is the main thing he has going for him. I don’t know US politics well enough to know about any alternatives. Buttigieg maybe?
But another Trump reign would be bad for the whole world order and climate so I really hope that won’t happen.
I think a Bernie win would be amazing but I doubt he has enough hardliner support even on the Democratic side.
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The people who always talk about “gotta vote blue, even if it’s the lesser of two evils” are going to vote for whichever Dem is in the race in the end.
Of course but isn’t it the swing voters that are most decisive? How would they react to a relatively unknown person?
I’d love to see a woman in that job though. It’s about time.
Georgia didn’t flip because of the “might vote Republic or might vote Democrate” swing voters people usually talk about; it flipped because of hoards of people who don’t normally turn out at all finally were approached and motivated to do so. Another kind of swing voter, between “might not vote of all, or might vote Democrate.”
Pundits make much of the first group because they always have, and because politicians insist on putting that group front and center in their priorities, but I think they become less and less of a genuinely powerful block as the two major parties get farther and farther apart. Who is even left in the middle, anymore? Never Trumpers, who won’t vote for Trump anyway?
Meanwhile, Biden’s unconditional aid for Israel’s genocide is alienting Arab Americans, who have a lot of voting power in some key states, as well as a large (though I can’t say exactly how large) portion of young, Black, and Latin American voters who can see the obvious racism at play.
I think he’s made a political bet here to appeal to the people the DNC always tries to appeal to at the cost of other groups, but I genuinely think he may lose because of it, especially if Trump ends up sidelined and replaced with another Republican.
Then again, maybe pushing the abortion rights thing will make enough of a difference to counteract this. I don’t know. But I hate that I feel like this election could easily go either way.
Meanwhile, Biden’s unconditional aid for Israel’s genocide is alienting Arab Americans, who have a lot of voting power in some key states
Hmm good point yes.
as well as a large (though I can’t say exactly how large) portion of young, Black, and Latin American voters who can see the obvious racism at play.
Yeah I was reading this article about how Trump is super loved by Cubans in Florida. I could hardly imagine it, his whole 2017 campaign was based on keeping the latino’s out with his big-ass fence!! But they love his conservatism. Even though he’s not actually conservative, he just does whatever he wants.
Then again, maybe pushing the abortion rights thing will make enough of a difference to counteract this
It’s also such a hot topic with conservatives that it will really make them go vote, whereas it’s something most democrats don’t really care about as much (until they actually need one).
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Is Trump’s stance on Gaza any different?
It will be far far worse under Trump.
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Bernie
How about someone who isn’t over 80 years old?
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Good point. And a women for a change. Or even a trans woman! That would be amazing! 🏳️⚧️
But it is America so this won’t happen :'( We can dream.
I like Bernie though, despite his age :)
Being a woman or trans (not sure why you excluded trans men there) isn’t a political accomplishment. Yes, it’s bad that so many people vote against them just because of their gender, but similarly it’s bad to vote for someone just because of their gender
I didn’t think of trans men because they’re men and America has already had only male presidents.
Of course it’s not the only reason to vote for someone but considering women are just as suitable for the job in general and are 50% of the population and 100% of presidents have been men, it’s really about time.
And really 99% of women will be better at the job than Trump.
Oh please, don’t act like the powers that be responsible for marginalizing women consider trans men to be men. The subtext of the conversation is supporting marginalized groups, and women are just an easy shorthand to that subtext.
No, it’s not that it’s not the only reason to vote for someone, it’s that it’s not a reason to vote for someone. Hypothetically if we could create identical clones of a person’s mind, with literally the only difference between them being their gender, one doesn’t get an extra pat on the back because they’re a woman. It “being time” is not an argument to boost someone past their actual accomplishments. What it does show is that there’s still a large contingent of the populace that are sexist enough that sex and gender matter to them. When a woman eventually becomes president, it’ll be a good marker for when enough of the country sees the genders as equal, not as one needing a handicap to perform equally.
really 99% of women will be better at the job than Trump.
Lmfao you haven’t met any maga women then. And there’s sadly a lot of them.
Newsom.
Biden doesn’t have support based on who he is. If he wins it will only be because people don’t want Trump, so anyone else who hasn’t pissed off most of the Democrat voter base will do just as well or better. Literally anyone on the street who can say that they aren’t supplying bombs for an ongoing genocide.
Or Jay Inslee from Washington State who isn’t running for reelection, or maybe JB Pritzker from Illinois, or (god forbid) another Democrat that doesn’t fit the white guy in government mold.
The only reason it feels like there’s no alternatives to Biden is that all the alternatives to Biden don’t want to spoil the election, there’s plenty of good and better choices out there. It’s very frustrating.
I don’t want Newsom as president.
I’m done with him as governor. It’s not an all bad policy thing, I view the CPUC in bed with utility providers with unlimited energy rate hikes, as very much a Newsom thing.
Every single CPU Commissioner was appointed by Newsom. Yes it needs Senate approval, but he is the one who chooses who to appoint, and the senate approves it.
PG&E’s rate just went up again upon CPUC approval to $0.42/kWh
Not liking his anti-2A stances is my biggest issue with him, because he also clearly see the State as being the only valid entity to enact violence, which is great if Nazis and white supremacist and (proud) racists and theocrats aren’t allowed in your government, and not great when that isn’t the case (as with the US).
That said, I think he’d be better as POTUS than as a state governor, precisely because his power to enact direct, low-level policy is much more limited, and in the end he’s far better than 70%+ of the other potential candidates out there.
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