I’ve seen much ado about what happens if Trump wins, and those points are especially valid. But at the same time, I don’t know if I can accept that you can brazenly fund and support genocide and receive my vote.
If you don’t believe there is a genocide in Gaza then good for you. This post isnt meant for you and I’m not interested in debating that point today.
Similarly, at least for myself, the answer of “what happens if Trump becomes president” isn’t the point here. I’m not saying that I’m not considering the impact of a Trump presidency, but i think it’s really important to answer what the world would look like after four more years of Biden.
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What happens in Gaza when Biden gets another term? He has lately taken some, IMO, token efforts to curb the genocide. But this is the best he’s done, and only after voter pressure. What happens when he’s no longer subject to pressure from voters like that? I cannot see it getting better.
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In the linked video, Burnie talks about workers rights, and I agree again that Trump would be worse. But Biden isn’t a progressive icon. Practically speaking, if he gets another term, I simply don’t see him moving the needle whatsoever on the rights and lives of small workers. I concede that he showed up to a UAW strike, but that cost him nothing. When the rail workers were striking, and his support would have actually taken literally any sacrifice, Biden chose to end it through legislative action.
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The environment was the thing in Burnie’s video which actually has me reconsidering. But I just can’t see Biden meaningfully curbing emissions. Not domestically, nor globally at the expense of diplomatic capital. It would be different here if I thought there was meaningful down ballot optimism. But, IMO, were going to lose the Senate and won’t reclaim the House. So if Biden gets his second term, he’s not going to have the power to take action on the environment. And so again I’d ask, what really happens if he gets to a second term? Another 4 years of inaction is too late. And worse, I wonder if he’s going to damage the democratic party while in office bad enough we’ll never have the chance again.
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It’s going to come up, and I’m not opposed to considering novel opinions here. A vote for a 3rd party is a vote for the opponent. Everyone says this. I simply do not buy it. Trump says it. Biden says it. Does that mean I’m voting for both of them? Are they lying? Because right now what I see is a vote for either of them is a vote in support of genocide.
a vote for a 3rd party is a vote for the opponent. Everyone says this. I simply do not buy it.
Doesn’t matter what you “buy” it’s about what the data tells us.
But let’s set that aside. Want to know why voting 3rd party is a waste of time? Because suddenly people get passionate about it months before the general election. Where are y’all the other 3.5 years of the presidential term? Where are your local and state level candidates? Why do you feel entitled to my attention and vote if all people like you do is complain and hope for a moonshot third option at the last fucking minute when you refuse to be engaged the rest of the time?
Change takes work. Third party advocates need to get to work. Y’all are generally just lazy and entitled and disengaged, then come crying about how you’re not included every presidential election year. The data tells us this.
Yes, the deck is stacked against third-party candidates. Yes, it is going to be difficult. But I won’t really give a shit what you have to say until you actually put in a little elbow grease.
Canuck here, and I really hate weighing in on your politics, but… Biden is old. An old politician, with policy experience, advisors, and hopefully at least enough common sense to step down if his health takes a turn. Trump is also old. And a lunatic. A criminal, a predator. No redeeming qualities whatsoever. A human shaped waste of space. When you guys voted for him last time, the rest of the world smacked their foreheads in astonishment and lost any respect for the voting populace of your country. We all honestly thought he was a joke right up until he won. Every single thing you see online about Biden is an attempt to get enough sane people to abstain so the lunatics can squeak a victory out of sheer disgust. Vote. Vote for a human being who means well, or vote for a bag of orange toxic waste shaped like a person. But realize that all the crap about Biden is a blatant attempt to get you to stay home and not vote. How many criminal charges…? Seriously?
A vote for a 3rd party is a vote for the opponent. Everyone says this. I simply do not buy it.
That’s the part you got wrong. The voting system means that no 3rd party has a chance. Therefore you’d effectively abstain. And that means you don’t vote to keep the candidate you hate more out of the office.
And if you really think that Trump isn’t worse in every way to your interests as a leftist, you live in a deep hole under a rock.
The only sane option is Biden. Take that how you like.
Do you see Trump meaningfully curbing emissions? Because I see him disbanding every possible effort to lower emissions and lighting shit on fire just for fun.
Trump will not stop the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians either. It seems like he, or any other GOP president, would accelerate it.
I’m so sick of this discussion. Your opinions and feelings don’t matter. The reality is you have a binary choice. Do you want A or do you want B? That’s the reality.
Regarding Gaza, do you want A) the current genocide, or B) a much bigger one? If you vote for a third party, you’re tipping the result towards B, because you were never voting for B in the first place.
Instead of voting for A, perhaps you could think of it as voting against B? Because those are the only two possible outcomes. Pick one.
I honestly think people left of center have lost their minds with this stuff.
I honestly think people left of center have lost their minds with this stuff.
You wonder how real some of these people are. They make a few topics the main reason to oppose Biden, but excuse them for any other politician, especially ones that will make it even worse. They always come off as non-American agitators. Many of which seem to be just Russian actors on top of that.
It’s worse than that. I have no idea why it’s apparently important enough to me for me to want to investigate as much as I have, but just from the last few days:
- Here, I ask one of them what he thinks about a topic not connected to the election and he angrily refuses to answer because I must be trying to trick him or something.
- Here one of them lapses into total nonsense when forced to go beyond his talking points; he says that Biden wasn’t trying hard enough to make change, and when I point out concrete ways that Biden actually enacted what he was talking about and was sometimes overruled on it, he said that Biden could have ignored the Supreme Court’s cancellation of his order because it “doesn’t have an enforcement arm”.
I have a bunch more examples. But generally they are articulate and on-the-surface sensible when spouting one of a handful of talking points in a variety of different contexts and with different decoration around them, but anything outside that, they react like no human being I’ve ever had a conversation with.
Which is why many of them probably aren’t. They’re agitators from outside the US. At best, very poorly informed people from other countries with some obsession with US politics. At worst, people intending to spread misinformation.
honestly think people left of center have lost their minds with this stuff.
despite all of the postering and hand wringing on lemmy, I dont think this is broadly true. in this insane moment, any still sane individual can see a demonstrable difference between the two candidates being shoved down our throats and, once again, hold their nose and pick the lesser of two evils in a national election.
with luck the orange clusterfuck remains out of office, and perhaps this country may finally have develped the maturity for a national conversation about (and push for) ranked choice voting - in spite of ruling class wishes.
ranked choice voting
We have this in Maine and fucking love it!
It’s so good! I’d love to see our neighboring states make the move to it or STAR voting
I honestly think people left of center have lost their minds with this stuff.
I think the actual human people on Lemmy have their minds very much on-point about this stuff.
There are a handful of very vocal accounts who are saying a particular way to look at Biden that makes absolutely no sense if you examine it for 2 seconds, but they all behave in a particular type of way that isn’t really consistent with how people who genuinely believe things (whether right or wrong) behave.
Trump having a second term is not, like, an ambiguous or borderline situation. I think the number of actual human Lemmy people who are at all confused about the results of voting for Trump vs. voting for Biden vs. not voting is very small.
I just want to ask the question, will Biden actually improve things once he isn’t worried about burning the good will of voters? Can we only ever vote for genocide, or genocide with an apology tacked on to the end of it?
Do as you wish. Say you don’t want to debate Gaza but then debate Gaza in your post? I’m with Biden and will do anything within reason to keep cheese turd out of the White House. If you are a 1 issue voter, so be it.
I’m right there with you. It’s tough, and there is no good answer.
there is no good answer
There is clearly a worst option.
Yeah. The “lesser of two evils” used to be about a republican being republican, and a Democrat at least pretending to be left of center. It wasn’t genocide or genocide.
And people wonder why younger voters don’t engage with the system.
One of the two men you mentioned will win – barring a death before the election, either Biden or Trump will be elected.
All the wanking in the world isn’t going to result in a third option with even the remotest chance.
I don’t actually think a 3rd party will win. I’m more likely to write in “free Palestine” than pick a 3rd party.
But I’m wondering what I’m actually voting in favor of with Biden.
It’s pretty obvious you’re not a liberal at all. If not a foreign agitator, probably a right-wing kook.
But I just can’t see Biden meaningfully curbing emissions.
Biden’s climate plan was estimated to reduce US emissions by 40%. 40% five years from now is not nearly enough given the scope of the crisis, and I’d be surprised if it pans out exactly according to that estimate unless more action is taken, but I am floored that he was able to get that bill to pass through the current “climate change isn’t real please don’t look out the window” US government. What would you refer to as “meaningful” here, if not that?
And republicans and will make it worse and the election is months away.
Give me a viable solution.
