The Democrats knew this was going to happen. There’s no way they couldn’t. And I don’t mean Democrat supporters, many of whom were vehement that Biden was fine like so many anecdotes in this thread recount. I mean the Democrat leadership, who manage his campaign and more than likely manage his presidency. Unlike the public, they have access to him. They have his medical records, the reports of his doctors and caregivers, everything. There’s no way they didn’t know this would happen if he debated.
They might start seeding support for a different candidate into their supporter’s discourse after this, but they will have been planning for this outcome long ago. And when a left-leaning (left from a US Overton window) news platform hosts a debate that shows him up that badly and then publishes commentary like this, you have to wonder if that caused friction with the DNC or if they assented to it.
As the party starts singling out a replacement, the question I hope people start asking is why they didn’t replace Biden earlier? Did they need to wait until the urgency of imminent elections made their new candidate more palatable? And if they don’t replace Biden, why are they letting Trump win?
I’m more worried that he won’t win the election rather than he will win it. I don’t think the debate changes anything about that, people are likely still going to vote who they were going to vote for. He is the not Trump vote, and it’s just as important as ever if not more important to vote not Trump.
And he’s still the better choice
Nothing that was said or done in this debate has changed my views or voting preferences. This is an election between two dementia patients. Both are previous generation religious bigots. But only one is an authoritarian fascist. I’m a single policy voter this election. I’ve seen and been shot at by the Aryan Nations. I don’t want to deal with that shit nationally.
You don’t really have a choice. Biden basically just joke show to support Trump being elected and don’t get me started on that nightmare. There’s really only two responses to this but it ain’t electing and I ain’t gonna say it here.
I’m off to start my fire for this dark fucking night.
authoritarian fascist
Please just say fascist, authoritarian has horseshoe theory vibes which we don’t allow on this com.
alarm bells?
wait they didn’t know he was old before this debate?
Apparently millions of people during the 2020 primaries didn’t math long enough to realize Biden would be 86 years old after two terms.
Actually, the other way around. We keep on compartmentalizing, Trump can lie all he wants and nothing happens, but Joe stutters and it’s a national disgrace… How can you compare one without including the only alternative?
Why is Trump the only alternative? There have to be 1000 better democrats than Biden.
The fact that the democrats have selected such a terrible candidate that Trump has a running chance for the third time in a row and that the US as a whole has selected two awful candidates for possibly the most important job in the world, that is a disgrace, and it is shameful.
Trump would have a running chance regardless of who the democrats pick would be, the electoral college and republican party have made sure of that.
Republicans accept a post-truth society where everything is someone’s propaganda, that the federal government is out to get them and that the union would be better served as a union of state-level republics. Democrats still believe in the existence of a ground truth and want a union with centralized control (i.e., they are Federalists). Like the Federalists, the Democrats are backed by wealthy financial states (New York, California) as opposed to more rural/working-class states (Alabama, Ohio) and support heavy industrial subsidies (Biden’s IRA, CHIPS) as well as weak state governments.
This is a fundamental difference that explains a lot, actually. The role of government has always been to convince populations to pursue the policy goals of the elite. The foundations of representative democracy involve choosing which elites’ policy goals to follow. The Republicans want to follow state elites (to borrow a Chinese proverb, the mountains are high and the President is far away). The Democrats want to follow federal elites.
Here’s the real problem. The US gets to choose between a career politician and a career businessman (swindler, by definition). Who represents the working class? Who represents the people who actually built America’s economy?
Nobody represents the people, but that’s not a new problem nor, in anyway, a new thing in this Trump era
My biggest fear is that the USA always gets to chose someone who does not represent them at all but at least had the notion that we need a planet to live in
Trump is a man child and will see the world burn out of petty spite. And us, in the rest of the world, would have to still live with those consequences
So back to the debate and the choice between Biden and Trump… Sure Biden is a terrible option, like chosing to get cancer… But Trump is like chosing to be gang raped, shot and left for dead in an open sewer and here we are pretending the 2 bad options are somehow the same
Can you actually explain the difference between the options and reconcile the fact that Hillary and the DNC purposefully elevated Trump behind the scenes (entire “lesser evil” rationale is a farce)? Thx!
Every American election for /years/ was coke v Pepsi. Not sure when it became coke v battery acid, nor why so many people are like “well I don’t like cola so maybe it will be okay to drink battery acid” and why it is that the Democrats still want to run coke when America has made it abundantly clear we’d like to be offered the chance to drink SOME CLEAN FUCKING WATER JESUS FUCKING CHRIST
Exactly right
My biggest fear is that the USA always gets to chose someone who does not represent them at all but at least had the notion that we need a planet to live in
That’s the part you’re missing. People are legitimately asking themselves “If these two people are my only choices and won’t improve my quality of life do I want to keep living?”
But again, maybe Biden is the status quo which is not great I admit, but Trump is torture then death… How is that even a “close” call to make?
Again you are not fully empathizing with people’s experience under… whoever for the last 20ish years. Some “young” people who are now in their 30s and 40s never really recovered from the financial crisis. Each day is already torture working a dead end job with shit pay where customers scream at them only to return to a tiny apartment with rent creeping up every single month.
It’s not a matter of empathy… If each day is torture under status quo, how is going under a regime promising to make it worse a better option?
You’re trying to trump despair with reason bud. Doesn’t work like that.
As bad as Biden was, CNN were worse. Fuck that shitty network for allowing Trump to lie pretty much nonstop for 90 minutes unchallenged.
they gave both people plenty of time, biden is supposed to be capable of challenging on his own
It takes longer to debunk a lie than to say one. It’s easy to spout out a hundred lies in two minutes, but it takes longer than that to debunk them without just saying “No, that’s a lie” to every one, which also sounds dumb if Trump is saying that, too.
And if Biden wasn’t senile he would have been able to do that.
This post truth thing is a real problem because the average person does not bother checking facts. What they notice is some division, controversy etc. not that one person is lying. Also any moron can see that Biden is old.
Someone with simple answers wins these debates. Notice how Biden says the right things all the time but he won’t reach people like this.
Notice how Biden says the right things all the time
Are you talking about during the debate? “We finally beat Medicare!” ain’t that.
And if you think Biden said the right things about the rail strike or protests around the weapon shipments to Israel you’re living in some kind of grand delusion that excludes millions of people you’re depending on to get Biden re-elected.
Not necessarily.
Perhaps 20 years ago Biden WorldCom acquitted himself better.
That said Trumps performance is a well established debate strategy called a gish gallop - just say dozens of lies and your opponent won’t be able to rebut them all. If they try, they won’t have time for their own points.
Hey if you’re trying to tell me Biden is a shit candidate you’ll get no argument from me. I remain furious at anyone who voted for him in the 2020 primaries.
I disagree. Trump indulged in a gish gallop of lies and bullshit. Biden spent too much time trying to refute some of it and in doing so wasted time which he could’ve used to make his own points.
There should’ve been moderation in place to stop this, there was none.
which he could’ve used to make his own points.
Well I mean he did let everyone know we finally beat Medicare.
Certainly the “moderator” isn’t expected to moderate the thing! /s
It wouldn’t do Biden any favors to be the third most charismatic person on the debate stage.
This whole thing gonna take the U outta the USA
It was good knowing ya, murrica
Biden is well past his prime, had a shitty performance last night, hate his record on Israel, but I’m still voting for him because he’s not Trump and I’d prefer that our representative democracy continued. Moving to a braindead, functionally illiterate dictatorship just seems like an all-around worse move in every respect. Not sure about his chances, but whatever, there’s not really any other alternative at this point.
Can you tell me what makes you believe that Trump is or will be a dictator? Don’t use Jan 6th.
He said he would in exactly those words.
Don’t use Jan 6th
explain why you think he’s authoritarian, but don’t talk about that time he instigated a failed fascist coup
I’ll admit, if you move the goalposts like that it gets a lot harder to score.
Can you tell me why Hitler was a bad person? Don’t use the holocaust.
Lol at supposedly asking an open question, while simultaneously stipulating that the open rebellion cannot be mentioned. That’s not how open questions work.
Don’t use the time he instigated a coupe attempt as a reason?
Can you tell me why putting my hand on an electric burner that is red hot is a bad idea? Don’t use anyone’s past experiences being burned by hot objects.
Sure you could technically go into a complex explanation using physics as to why it’s a bad idea, but why?
My defense is the U.S. Constitution. I don’t see it as even a possibility that anyone would attempt to become a dictator in the U.S.
The Constitution is a piece of paper and says whatever 6 Republicans think it says.
Regardless, SCOTUS has no actual enforcement mechanism. Whoever can order the guys with guns is in charge just like everywhere else in the world.
You don’t see how many brazenly unconstitutional acts there were during the Trump presidency? And don’t see that nothing was done about them because no one in his party was willing to challenge him and they held the majority? That’s exactly how a democracy turns into a dictatorship. Without mentioning that democracy depends on smooth transitions of power. Unfortunately I no longer believe our constitution is as strong as I once did.
I agree, I dislike when congress gets bypassed.
The constitution is decided by the Supreme Court in the end. The American system of government makes the selection of justices political appointees for life. That is why you have Republican and Democrat justices. Political. So the constitution gets bent into any political shape according to power possession.
Don’t for a second believe that the United States can’t sleepwalk into a dictatorship. People are already describing Jan 6 as an ordinary tourist visit. What will it take for the public to see the danger with their own eyes.
I highly recommend “On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century” by historian Timothy Snyder If you can’t get a book or audio book the author also reads it on YouTube.
It can absolutely happen. Nothing stopping a republic from becoming a dictatorship. If it happened once in history, it will happen again. This thing in particular has happened multiple times. The US may show more resilience but in the end, it is a human system run by humans, and it will be broken by humans.
I can waste my time going through that exercise, but it’s pretty clear to any thinking person that that’s what the plan is on the Republican side, just look at the words, rhetoric and actions they’ve been taking for the past 10+ years. Otherwise, you’re maliciously asking me to go through the mental effort of writing up an attack on Trump that you’ve already decided to ignore and/or counter with some feeble bad faith argument. You’re a waste of my time and everybody else’s.
Ah okay… so you’re full of chit as per usual. Let me guess, Maddow is your favorite all-time commentator?
Why don’t YOU go ahead and write me up a 2-page essay on why Trump isn’t planning a dictatorship, cite your sources. That’s essentially what you’re asking me to do and it’s guaranteed you’ll give a short, flippant remark that doesn’t actually address any of the issues brought up, basically wasting my time. It’ll be a bunch of whataboutism, gaslighting, misdirection, and BS, that’s the standard MO.
The answer is simple. Because of the U.S. Constitution. It’s not just a piece of paper.
Congrats on doing exactly what they said you would.
That’s the only answer needed. No one is becoming a dictator in the U.S.
A Massive Fraud of this type and magnitude allows for the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution.
He wants to ignore or terminate the constitution.
Election fraud means the election would be voided and it would have to go to contingent election? I forget the process. I have no idea wtf Trump is talking about.
I’m not a, “MAGA” soldier. Quite frankly he’s just the better option of the two.
Constitution only matters if it is being enforced. And 2017-2020 showed us that very few Republicans were willing to do that.
Currently SCOTUS is debating whether president has absolute immunity (in other words, if he can commit any crime, including murdering his political opponents) something that is absolutely against our constitution, yet they have to debate it.
chit /chĭt/
noun.A child. A saucy girl or young woman. A statement of an amount owed for food and drink, especially one signed to indicate acceptance of the charge.I looked it up too because that’s wild.
chit /CHit/ noun a short official note, memorandum, or voucher, typically recording a sum owed. "write out a chit for whatever you take from the drinks cupboard"How is it wild? Because you use it incorrectly in almost every comment you make?
Because I’ve never heard nor read someone use, “chit” instead of “shit” and come to find out it’s an actual word (excluding chitchat) with multiple meanings.
I’m intentionally using, “chit”… being that I’m Latino and if you ever heard a boater Latino say shit, it sounds like chit.
The more you know!
So - ignoring the time he sent a mob to try and overthrow the US government, how about we use the fact that he literally said he’d be a dictator?
Or maybe the fact that his legal defense against trying to overthrow the government was that the President is immune from all crimes. His lawyers even literally said he could have his political opponents murdered, and so long as the surviving politicians don’t impeach and convict him he can’t be held liable for it.
They’re arguing a legal framework under which he can murder the opposition, and then kill anyone that tries to remove him from office.
If inciting an attack on the capital and destabilizing the worlds oldest democracy doesn’t immediately discount Trump from your voting decisions then you’re braindead lol. Imagine trying to argue past that, despite 9 years of existing with Trump as a political figure.
destabilizing the worlds oldest democracy
What did he do to San Marino???
Have you been paying attention to the details of Jan 6th? So far it looks like it was a setup, completely out of Trump’s control.
Before you respond, have you been paying attention to the details of Jan 6th?
The details like Trump saying he loved the insurrectionists? Yeah, I paid attention to that.
Lmao. Cite them sources or me saying Trump blows maggoty cum all over Melania is literally as true as that statement.
Yeah, sure. And what prompted trump to show up in DC in January 6th, which before 2021 was day that didn’t have any special meaning in US history?
Lol
“Do not use an incredibly concrete example”
Bake me a bread, but don’t use any flour or water!
Heitterslly said he would be.
His own words at 55 seconds. Typically the people who say “I’ll only take power temporarily” never give it back.
Like the camel’s nose, once you let a little bit of dictatorship into your country, you soon find out there is no room left for democracy.
What democracy?
Voltaire said, “A witty saying proves nothing.” In your case, this only partly applies.
You see the irony here right?
I wouldn’t classify it was witty. Pithy, succinct, a truism, sure, but not particularly notable beyond who said it.
If I was looking for a witty saying by Voltaire, I would go with, “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” Note also that it’s value is not because it is witty, which I believe it is, but because of the content of the words. Unlike your words, which I can only hope was an attempt to be witty, yet also had no content.
He told Hannity he would be dictator for one day. No dictator goes one day. One is too many to begin with.
- He has said he plans on being a dictator for day one.
- He regularly talks like a dictator jailing and killing his political opponents.
- Even if he were to win a second term, he is to egotistical to let it go a second time.
- Hes putins little bitch who looks up to him, so of course he would want to be as great as the greatestness of putin.
I just wanted to add that I’m pretty sure Trump is jealous that Putin has something that he doesn’t… owning an entire country.
He wants to be like Putin and Kim Jong Un and is playing some warped version of “keeping up with the Joneses” to the detriment of our entire country. It’s a disgusting display of self absorption I never thought possible.
That’s literally it. He’s going to try to become a dictator so he can boost his fucking ego and not be ‘outdone’ by someone else.
He has said he plans on being a dictator for day one.
Source?
He regularly talks like a dictator jailing and killing his political opponents.
This is literally Biden and Co… This includes Obama and Hilary. Obviously you have a source for this too, right? Surely you have literal videos of his speeches/rallies where he speaks like a dictator announcing he’s going to jail and or kill his political opponents.
Personally, when Trump wins, I think he should definitely pull a Bukele and have all politicians on all sides investigated for corruption, including the DOJ, the FBI, and the CIA.
Hes putins little bitch who looks up to him, so of course he would want to be as great as the greatestness of putin.
Russia-gate is and was all BS… If you’re referring to that. Trump’s commentary of Putin was really no different than Kim Jong Un of North Korea. Also, the cold war is over. Hating Russia today just because politicians do, is mindless drone territory.
mindless drone territory
The only part of this you seem qualified to weigh in on.
Only for one day, wink wink.
Ohh… I thought you meant from day one.
Yeah, I wish I was God for 1 day. Lots of cleaning up to do.
Not American, and hate Trump and Biden equally. I say vote Trump. He’s the slim shady of US politics - he’s only giving you things you say with your friends inside of your living room, the only difference is he’s got the balls to say it in front of you all and don’t have to sugar coat it at all.
So instead of avoiding your discomfort of acknowledging what the US is, just vote trump and let it be clear to everyone
Or not. It doesn’t matter what you do, Trump is winning anyway. You guys are going to have cheetos man for president whether you, or we, like it or not.
I’ve never seen someone so blatantly tell on themselves as you have in this comment.
Yea the things my family who likes him says in the living room is mostly ignorant compilations of how they think the government works and dumb white trash racist garbage so no thanks.
My point was entirely that the US taken as a whole is white trash racist garbage, but ok.
That’s not the whole US, just mostly the south.
So your logic is that supporting garbage is better than supporting the anti-garbage because it makes clear to everyone that you and everybody else are supporting garbage? Don’t you think voting Trump because “he will win” is a self-fulfulling prophecy?
This person lives in London, that pretty much says everything you need to know about whether they should be weighing in on this situation.
Yeah homie, you tell yourself that it’s YOUR SINGLE VOTE that’s going to. Make all the difference haha.
You got a loicense to be online bruv?
Ahh see the fatal flaw there is that you assume Biden is anti-garbage. That’s your mistake, right there. But your tribalism won’t allow you to admit that. So, feel free to respond if you like, but I’m out.
Trump is garbage. Biden is running against Trump. Therefore, Biden is the anti-garbage. Basic reasoning, man.
Jesus, this is third grade level. Best of luck to you dude.
I mean with sweep generalizations like that you’d fit right in with the MAGA crowd, no wonder you like trump lol.
he’s only giving you things you say with your friends inside of your living room, the only difference is he’s got the balls to say it in front of you all and don’t have to sugar coat it at all.
Things like what, exactly? We must be hanging out in different living rooms.
If Trump was in my living room, I’d spit in his face. He’s so far removed from how I live my life, it’s hard for me to even acknowledge people like him exist.
Nice try tankie Biden is still less embarassing than trump was
I work in Finance in London, lol, tankie is nice. You will keep saying what you said even after Biden shits his pants live on CNN. Do you fam, I dgaf.
And they’d still be correct, I would prefer a man who shits himself on live television every single day, over Trump. No contest. I’d vote in a potted cactus before I vote Trump. What the fuck is wrong with you.
I would vote for a cactus before either of them. We had a lettuce outlast a PM over here a short while ago. But you are blind if you see any fucking difference between them, dude.
Like, I was telling my 2 year old last night he could have the dinosaur Pj’s or the elephant Pj’s for bed. But it was IMPLICIT that he is going to bed.
Similarly, it is IMPLICIT that you and all other Americans are going to be exploited, and brown people are going to be killed, but you can pick the red guy to do it, or the blue guy.
Similarly, it is IMPLICIT that you and all other Americans are going to be exploited, and brown people are going to be killed, but you can pick the red guy to do it, or the blue guy.
And that is no excuse to explicitly support the far more vocal and exploitative of the two, cheering forth the exploitation and murder because “BoTh sIDeS aRe GoiNg tO DO iT!” Fuck that. One side at least has the decency to appear publicly shameful of it. The other revels in it, where the cruelty is the point. If both sides are the same then I’m going to pick the side with a veneer of civility because to do otherwise is to give up entirely on any hope for a future. If both sides aren’t the same then we all know which color is going to end up on the right side of history, that isn’t even a question. So regardless how IMPLICIT it is that America is fucked up shit creek, it’s also EXPLICIT that the average voter doesn’t get much of a say in it and we can only either vote for ineffective neoliberalism, or vote to actively set our own faces on fire.
“I hate the way everything is. Candidate A will make everything mostly stay the same, shitty garbage that I’m used to. Candidate B will make everything that I hate several times worse, as well as present new and novel problems we’ve never even known about before now, as well as inventing new non-issues to pad his own pockets with culture war profits. There is no candidate C. You know, I’m seriously considering voting for Candidate B.” is a brain damaged take, end of story.
Opinions like yours is what brought you BoJo and Brexit. Forgive me if I don’t want to entertain them across the pond.
A “veneer of civility” is all that’s needed to buy your vote? A ‘veneer of civility’ over a fucking genocide? Listen to yourself, you sound so proud of that shit. .
Fuck that. You KNOW the truth about Biden and about the US political establishment and the only reason you vote for Biden is because you are too much of a coward to look reality in the face. You grab on to this fucking ‘veneer’ like you are stix2your fingers in your ears and squeezing your eyes shut and shouting “Aaah I can’t hear you LLALALLALALALA”, and then you act all sanctimonious like you are better people than Trump supporters. You are not.
And no, people believing a bunch of hokum and lies was what bought on Brexit and BoJo. Not very different from the copium you are smoking.
We fought a war so we didn’t have to hear your shit takes.
Apparently you didn’t win hard enough, pookie.
Yah fun things to talk about like “hey, isn’t it interesting how you have less medical rights now.” Jfc
I distinctly remember that before I left Reddit, I had some lovely discourse with someone who was absolutely inconsolable over my opinion that Biden was too old for the job. Got called ageist and everything else they could think of.
Trust me, I hate being right.
I had a grandmother who died at 88 but was still sharp until that day she passed. It’s clear Biden needs to retire, he’s cognitively unable to act as a president, the media and Democratic establishment need to stop gas lightning us.
Biden shared a stage tonight with the only man he can reasonably defeat in this election. I think I should announce my candidacy, I could run on a “my dick can get hard without pharmaceuticals” platform.
Braggart!
Prove it.
Trump would only win if the Democrat party found someone seemingly more inept than him.
I am impressed that the Democrat party managed to present not one, but two outstandingly incompetent candidates. In a row. That’s some bottom of the barrel advanced scraping techniques right there. They even managed to get a representation of both sexes.
I’m sure Mr. Biden will be terribly distraught, as soon as he is able to understand what’s happening around him at the moment.
The Democrats are still stuck in this post-Clinton seniority mindset where they unofficially pick a candidate before primaries even begin, based on who has been around the longest and who has held the highest position. Remember “it’s her turn”? Yes, yes, I know it didn’t work against Obama, but heading into the debates everyone assumed Hillary would be the candidate until Obama put on the better show. More to the point, I think Obama breaking through scared the establishment Dems into doubling down on primary fuckery. See what happened to Bernie, twice. So now we have a president who knows all the right people but plays politics with the 1990s rulebook and has a terminal case of crusty old man voice.
Still better than Trump.
Obama has absolutely absurd charisma. He’s the Democrat version of Trump - knows exactly what to say to his base and knows how to convince moderates he’s not insane.
Clinton and Biden have the charisma of a limp noodle. Sanders has absurd charisma, but he’s seen as too big of a threat to Democrat lobbyists and big corporations.
Sanders would’ve mopped the floor with Trump because he would’ve actually been able to grab the 18-44 demographic (which last saw peaks in 1992 Clinton/Gore and 2008 Obama/Biden, both to unseat a Republican and, coincidentally, a Bush).
Sanders would have been able to avoid the collapse in turnout from working-class Black people in 2016.
Sanders would’ve stopped the increasing right-wing radicalization of the youth of America, or provided a counterweight for left-wing economic radicalization.
The US federal elections are basically a pony show and the DNC doesn’t know how to play the game without throwing out their playbook.
This is about a succinct of a deconstruction of the DNCs hand in this cycle as I’ve seen. They’re effectively Ned Stark
He literally is an old man. Which is the core issue.
I do not understand how Elizabeth Warren didn’t get more interest 4 years ago. She was clearly the best candidate and one who has the kind of broad appeal Bernie Sanders does. I think I’m at a point where my belief is that the bankers who are probably gonna vote Republican anyway who fund campaigns very explicitly don’t want someone like Sanders or Warren to be president
The Democratic establishment doesn’t want people who go after their donors. Mainly big banks, but also pharmaceutical and insurance companies which if you ask me all need to be reformed and heavily regulated and a lot of people need to go to prison for what they’ve done to the country over the past 24 years. But hey, who am I, just somebody who wants better for the country that doesn’t have to do with sucking rich cocks.
Corpo’s lapdogs are on both sides but some how GOP ends appealing to the masses.
Some fucking warped reality.
It is easy to understand. The people who the Republican party appeals to are unlikely to vote Democratic, the Democratic Party by trying to appeal to them it is losing its base while not winning any Republican voters. The people who are likely to vote Democratic are more idealistic and will hold the Democratic Party to a high standard. The promised “push to the left” never came, and so the people are looking at two right wing candidates, the Republicans already got their guy in Trump and anyone even slightly left of center has no one to represent them.
One-fucking-hundred percent.
Warren was my choice over Bernie for strategic value even though I like Bernie more. If we didn’t have explicitly Republican propaganda outlets I think conservatives would have been more comfortable with her too as she was once a Republican and understands business law.
Hell she literally wrote the book on my, and others, biggest issue “the two income trap” where society has defined economic success by “family income” instead of individual incomes. People like myself suffer because we’re perpetually single so we only have one income. Family income says everything is rosy because it’s now 2 incomes. :(
Seriously though, I don’t follow American electoral politics much, but why didn’t they swap him out for someone else? It’s a country of ~330m people. Like even the likes of Blinken would have been acceptable to them surely? What’s the actual reasoning?
There’s some stupid adherence to precedent where we don’t primary an encumbant because in the past it didn’t work out well. So now we shut our eyes and pretend he isn’t absolutely one of the worst candidates ever because we refuse to primary him.
An old American tradition to not run a primary during a President’s second term who is running for office. I guess it’s supposed to help unify the party behind a proven winner or something. That’s mostly it. Liberals love traditions, guidelines, and rules more than anyone.
When Jon Stewart referred to Biden’s expression as resting 25th amendment face. 💀
The conspiracy theorists all say Joe is supposed to step down and Gavin Newsom somehow is added to the ticket which then will win. These conspiracy theorists also say that candidates are selected in advance by the powers that be and it’s all pagentry to deceive the gullible masses. If this is true, the “outcry” of concern may be a part of the plan.
Californian here: I’d rather have Biden than Newsom. The man is a snake. He’s a snake man. Human snake. 🐍
I am not saying I like him. It’s just what the conspiracy theorists all say, that it’s a done deal and he’s already selected. If it were up to me, I’d vote for ChatGPT.
The fire alarm has been going off for 5 years and they’re just now noticing the fire.
Yeah, while the republicans have basically openly moved to reactionary and fascist politics, thus implicitly accepting the status quo is over, the influential parts of the Democrats seem to have been clinging completely to the idea that the status quo is what is to be preserved - even though material reality will not make that possible.
Right now, we seem to be in a historical moment, where old privileges are breaking away from a continuing crisis in capitalism that basically has been smouldering since the (late) 70s and kept stable through neoliberal policies thus far. Old privileges being lost results in a reactionary shift worldwide at the moment. It will be harrowing, but there is at least always the possibility of the pendulum swinging the other way - right now, in the coming years, organisation, connecting people, openly presenting radical alternatives to prepare for that moment seems to be the most important work to me.
The Dems are reactionaries and that is a terrible best option.
Would you mind expanding on what you mean by material conditions and fascism in relation to old privileges (don’t know what you mean by the latter)?
So, I am heading to bed for the night, because I have been awake all night and day and the day before to catch the debate - but the short answer is: The decline of the middle class and the petite burgeoisie - which I in this case view not in the traditional definition, but also broader, as all the people owning a little bit of capital i.e. savings for old age in some fond or maybe a house of their own. Also the disappearance of job security and stable work relations.
With it, the conservative “lets keep things as they were” mindset of people who had a decent enough life, i.e. mostly boomers that lived through the economic growth phase of the post-war era, but also younger people dreaming of that time or having profited from it through their parents, comes into crisis. But as this mindset argues from its own experience, it dreams of the past (“Things worked back then, right?”), while missing, that the very same “working” system was what had within it, already the inherent nature that eventually led to it decaying around us. So they need to explain the decline as something caused by an outsider, a malevolent force.
At the same time, this decline of the middle class leads them to try and grasp to divisions that might “save” them from proletarisation - becoming properly dependend on paycheck to paycheck and owning nothing but their own labour power to sell on the market. So, racism for example - if you are white, you might just be spared from the above fate. And you can kick down, targeting all those brown people below instead of punching up - the latter is a lot more risky after all. And the people up above can’t be at fault, after all, you (or the people you heard about from the past) had a great life when those were around, right? It just have to be the “right” people, like you and the people of your nationality/race/religion/other ingroup - often depressingly arbitrary.
This is still a very reductive summary, a lot is missing, globalisation, how it relates to the net rate of profit, how consolidation happens, details about the ideology of our current times. But broken down to it’s basics it can be summarised as such. The middle class is disappearing as a consequence of capitalist development, which leads to them becoming panicky and diving headfirst into ideology.
Well, anyway, good night, hope it was possible to understand what I was trying to bring across in my rambling
Thanks! The increasing difference between material conditions of the upper middle class / petit bourgeoisie and the proletariat, and the often ensuing split of the middle class into these two, is definitely a contention point that allows for quick fascist demagogues to capitalize on. I see that the loss of “old privileges” for the former fortunate middle class allows for admiration of some greater past, which plays well into the fascist textbook.
However, I do think the far right’s success within young males, for example, is a different symptom of the same condition. That young people whose futures are diminished by capitalist exploitation tend towards fascism as their solution, while fully educated about its past and its options, is what baffles me the most.
Maybe I am overlooking something and that is why I did not get your point originally nor that which I described above, but to me there seems to be a disconnect of logic that is exceptional, even when taking into consideration that we are talking about supporters of the far right.
Yes, you raise a very important point that I completely glanced over with sleep-deprived tunnel vision brain. Young males are a group, where ideological factors are a lot more prevalent. A constant barrage of presenting the desirable thing to be succesful - everything from sexual gratification to security in life depends on it - is given to, well, actually everyone, but even today still predominately young males. In addition, the ideological explanation presents no proper “out” that has analytical value: If you don’t succeed, you are just some sort of beta cuck or whatever. How about you buy this course by this YouTube influencer, on how to get money and pussy by changing your own inadequacy, which of course in reality throws the vast majority of their fans into dependence and diminishes any resources they had.
This demand to be succesful, dominant, happy and stoic, weighing on the superego as basically an old dream of success that is becoming more and more unattainable but is still presented everywhere, is also in conflict with material reality. Being the breadwinner of a household where you have a wife that delivers reproductive labour and sexual gratification to you, while you earn the money and keep her dependent? Even with chauvinists that are deep into that ideological prison, households being able to earn enough money without both people working (often even more than two jobs) is not what we are seeing in the present and the future. So, this discrepancy has to be explained in a way, that is compatible with their ideology.
As a side note: parts of the liberal, more well-off “left” (a very relative term here) will basically just give them the answer “well, you are a stupid, low-IQ chud loser, so its your own fault” - basically reinforcing the very “sink or swim, be succesful, if you can’t be, it means something about you is wrong” ideology that creates this whole mess to begin with.
But of course, the answer many will then land on is a variant of my previous post: It worked in the past, right? An outside malevolent force must have corrupted this. It’s the feminists. It’s the Jews. It’s the insert enemy here. That is the core of it again - discrepancy between material reality and ideological demands and dreams within society. Concerning young men, the extreme right also has good illusionary ways to provide them with a sense of being powerful when they are in reality not, through violence that doesn’t threaten the upper classes, and relative privilege within their ideological stratified view of reality.
Ironically, that material reality of proletarisation can even fuel “tradwife” romanticism for some women - basically, the dream of being a loved and loving housewife, being submissive to and dependent on their husband and his income, anything, just to escape the dread of having to work under current conditions without any of the security of the past. (Note that actual submissive impulses that people potentially have as a fetish are a whole other thing in that discussion, but it is relevant, that for some submissive people at least, that can of course also add to the allure of that fantasy, just as the idea of being a breadwinner that has a dependent person giving them sexual gratification and admiration is alluring to people with dominant fetishisations)
You are a hexbear lmao. You suck up to dictators around the world. I dont think we can take your comment serious since you always argue in bad faith.
Ad hominem
You argue in bad faith
Get bent
Yeah, obviously they are the laughing stock here… You should pay more mind to content than affiliations. Even though dbzer0 is a cool admin with a cool community, your comment does not portray you as such.
pay more mind to content than affiliations
That’s not really possible when commenters with certain affiliations are known to be manipulative and participate in bad faith.
Eh, to the extent that Hexbear meme-culture is both prevalent and constitutes as participation in bad faith, that would be true. This was not an example of this, which only serves to prove that the reply was actually in bad faith itself.
