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dragontamer@lemmy.worldM
36 points
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I realize that this is a very hot political season. Its impossible to keep a “good vibes” feel with this year’s election politics, so I’m not asking for “Don’t be an Ass” or other such naive statement. But please try to be on your best behavior. This is “BestOfLemmy”, and not a political debate site.

I’ve nuked a couple of subthreads that have gotten too hot. Please report anything you think is unhelpful to the greater discussion. I’ll remove distracting posts as I see them, but I don’t promise “good moderation” here. I’m just gonna cleanup what I can see and when I see it.


The general rule for “BestOfLemmy” is to be an appropriate place for a Lemmy beginner to get a feel of Lemmy in general. Yall are somewhat forgiven for the heated topic, but its not a complete pass. Try to keep the perspective of “newbies to Lemmy are stopping by here first”. And think about how you’d like to present yourself to them.

This is my guiding principle for moderation. This isn’t a debate subsite, or debate community. I’m not necessarily interested in having everyone here complete their back-and-forth discussion (especially if it gets heated, swear words, accusatory tones, etc. etc.).

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-40 points
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So to you, the best of Lemmy is “vote for my candidate or you’re a traitor”? And ON TOP OF THAT, you want people to accept it or get their comment deleted? What kind of reasoning is that? You could just remove such an obviously inflammatory post instead of acting in such way. Especially since you literally admitted this is not to encourage a conversation or a debate:

This isn’t a debate subsite, or debate community. I’m not necessarily interested in having everyone here complete their back-and-forth discussion (especially if it gets heated, swear words, accusatory tones, etc. etc.).

I’m sure new users will love to see this kind of behavior by the mods of this community

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15 points

“vote for my candidate or you’re a traitor”?

More like, vote against the conservative-fascist coalition if you don’t want the US destroyed. If you’re skeptical, we can open up any history book and read about how the German conservative-fascist ruling coalition of the 1930s turned out.

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-5 points
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I’m not skeptical. I know exactly what I said and your paternalistic tone is not necessary. You’re not the only one who heard of the Nazi, you know? We are all very aware.

It’s not even about the post itself (even though it’s an extremely low effort screenshot). It’s about the fact that, a community that is supposed to showcase the best of Lemmy, is:

  1. Proudly showing that this kind of post is supposed to represent Lemmy, which would be sad
  2. Moderated by someone who legitimately is defending such low effort memes (and honestly mentality) without even pretending that it’s for the sake of engaging in a conversation.

It’s literally just a screenshot of a comment with 4 upvotes that is proudly saying “follow my reasoning and stfu. Otherwise you hate your country”. And the mod is in the comments saying “yeah, agree with this and myself or I’ll delete your comment. I might ban you too depending on how I feel. After all, this is not a conversation”.

And you can tell this is exactly what is happening because every single user that is pointing out how hypocritical and low effort this is, is getting downvoted to hell and called a fascist. And keep in mind, you don’t even know how I’m going to vote in all of this. You and most users here are just attacking other users because they are voicing a different opion than “vote for Harris or you’re a traitor”…Now THAT is truly the best of Lemmy: mindlessly downvoting and replying with a snarky joke.

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6 points

“Vote for my candidate or you’re a traitor” is not an opinion anymore. You’re an American traitor if you vote for somebody who’s killing the rule of law from within. The destruction of America that Putin wants will not be militarily.

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-2 points
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You’re not a traitor. You are just proving the point I made below in my comments about not knowing anything about the user and mindlessly accusing them. You’re also just talking about unrelated stuff since nobody has mentioned Putin, so miss me with your scare tactics and focus on what we’re talking about instead of going off your own tangent. Do better

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10 points

That’s what you took from their comment?

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-3 points
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That’s literally what they wrote. I even quoted them. At least read the whole comment before writing nonsense

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21 points
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I’m deleting the worst of posts that have degenerated into just two members insulting each other over and over again.

You can see the topic is mostly open for your discussion. Just don’t make your posts devolve into useless bullshit and I’ll keep the posts up.

I know it’s careful balance and it’s basically impossible to get it correct on political topics. But I’ll do my best.

I’m simply being honest here. I’m not going to let 5+ posts of insults just stay around here. But this is also a topic with literally hundreds of comments so I’ll be making mistakes as a moderator.

I’m not passing out bans here, yet anyway. I’m just deleting posts that have gone off the rails (as well as the threads / earlier posts that led to overheated discussion).

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-28 points

It’s my second day on lemmy. I came from Reddit because their moderation is so careless.

I am so tired of moderators using their power to police discussions, rather than keep people safe. Anyone can walk away from an argument at any time; you’re not protecting them from that. In fact, what you’re doing is silencing them at a time when they’re frustrated and have no where else to vent. They come here because they need to get it out.

I’m going to start looking for another platform. People like you are the reason I left Reddit.

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-2 points
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Removed by mod
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-38 points

The general rule for “BestOfLemmy” is to be an appropriate place for a Lemmy beginner to get a feel of Lemmy in general. Yall are somewhat forgiven for the heated topic, but its not a complete pass. Try to keep the perspective of “newbies to Lemmy are stopping by here first”. And think about how you’d like to present yourself to them.

This is what you want new people to see? “vote for my candidate or you hate America”? Propaganda bullshit? I’m sure I’ll write in a candidates name as I do every four years as, once again, neither major party is worthy of my vote, but the arrogance of people like you makes me want to vote for Trump out of spite.

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3 points
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News flash bud:

You don’t get to just show your ass and then expect people to kiss it. That’s not how it works. You’re not entitled to anyone’s respect when you refuse to offer it yourself. We all saw you all whine and cry in 2016 and again in 2020. You’re no different now.

So no, you don’t get the respect you demand just because you can stomp your feel loud enough.

Theres a reason no one takes any of you seriously,

You taught them not to.

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-8 points

Are you drunk? What the hell are you talking about? Showing your ass? Respect being demanded? Kissing my ass? Who was whining? Who is “any of you”?

:/

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13 points

Voting for fascism out of spite lmao

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3 points

That’s exactly what they do. One in ten Bernie Bros voted for Trump in 2016.

That should tell you all you need to know.

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0 points
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Removed by mod
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2 points

This post being presented as the best of Lemmy with all the downvote brigading for wrongthink is making me want want to leave Lemmy again. I used to run an instance a while back before the first reddit migration and just gave up (when lemmy.ml and lemmygrad was dominating the lemmyverse) and this whole mess of a post have only made it seem like everything is worse.

And that’s after I’ve spent the last two weeks blocking users I find awful instead of spending all that time insulting and downvoting people “that have the wrong opinion”.

Maybe the best of Lemmy is downvotes and snarky “don’t let the door hit your ass in the way out” comments? I see no point I’m mentioning what seems like the worst of Lemmy these days.

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-3 points
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Removed by mod
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1 point

Thank you mod!

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-11 points
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Removed by mod
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1 point
Deleted by creator
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-8 points

USAmerican politics really seeps into every nook and cranny on the goddamn web. I’d much rather read about something happening in the rest of America than USAmerica. It gets really annoying…

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-5 points

Why do people keep saying USAmericans? It looks and sounds stupid, you can just say Americans, everyone will know who you’re talking about .

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2 points

OMG, how could I have forgotten that the country taking up less than a quarter of two continents, both called America, called dibs on “American”? Sorry Beta #1. I shall discard the fact that there are 34 other countries which use the demonym “American”.

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2 points

I didn’t know geographical size denoted who gets to claim being called Americans. You’re arguing in bad faith and you know it, because you know no one else in the world calls anyone else Americans except for people from the United States of America. It’s silly to argue otherwise, I’m not saying anything controversial here.

People love being anti-american contrarians on the internet even if it means being abhorrently wrong.

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2 points

Ask someone from South America

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1 point

Does anyone else in the world call them Americans? No and you know it

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4 points

you can just say Americans people, everyone will know who you’re talking about USA.

Fixed this for you. Kind of a pet peeve of mine when people use ‘defaults’, like everyone on the internet are in America, or if you’re talking to someone from a capital of a different country they will assume you’re also in the capital, everyone lives in America timezone, everyone using English uses en_US locale, and if by some bizarre chance you’re in another country you can only switch language and country together, etc

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6 points
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Because USians didn’t stick, but their pompousness continued on. E: in the form of saying usamericans

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0 points

I prefer burgerlanders personally.

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0 points

Considering America’s choices and influence impact every country on earth, (positive or negative), is it really a surprise?

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3 points

Does it have to be a surprise to be annoying?

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3 points

Probably not, but then it also shouldn’t come as a surprise that you being annoyed will have little impact

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3 points
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As a USAmerican in a swing state I’m pretty sick of it too.

Imagine this shit polluting your SMS and email and postal mail and people ringing your doorbell in addition to the rest of the web.

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32 points

Like it or not, these guys can duck up the entire world pretty badly. I can’t afford to ignore it, even if I don’t live anywhere near the U.S.

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-35 points

What are you going to do with the knowledge of them fucking up their economy and voting for a talking orange? What’s that knowledge worth? Are you going to pull your money out of all the AMZN stocks you bought? Send a strongly worded letter to Kamala for not being more radical? Fly across the sea to assassinate an upcoming dictator?

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16 points

Talking about it would be enough.

It would find it’s way to a citizen that could make a difference.

There is a reason most modern dictatorships restrict access to the the Internet.

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2 points

No yeah even most people that live here can’t do shit about it. It’s basically celebrity shit, to most people, it’s just that they’re obviously going to removed about it because it maybe tenuously has an effect on their lives. We may be cooked

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18 points

Why is this where your mind goes? Genuinely.

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49 points

It’s because we have the least stable democracy and the most economic influence out of any country in the world

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12 points

!bestoflemmy

wait

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1 point

Read it as ‘we have at least stable democracy’, hung for a few moments

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-3 points

Nothing’s stopping you from reading anything else? The internet as a whole is mostly american-based, so there’s plenty out there to read about.

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1 point

The internet as a whole is mostly american-based

Well that’s a narrow-minded view…

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1 point

It is though. Not saying it should be that way or that it should remain that way, or that there aren’t internet spaces out there that aren’t American based. Just that the large majority of it is.

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7 points
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I live here. I want Trump to lose this election so bad. Mostly because if he is elected, I do think there is a real danger of him abusing his power. That his policies may kill thousands of Americans again.

But also, because I am so fucking tired of hearing about every little thing he says. I wish we could go back to the not verging on the edge of fascism politics were I don’t have to hear or worry about what inane thing the most powerful person in my country has said today.

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8 points

Can’t wait for this to be over. In the meantime I should set up some keyword filters in my Lemmy client

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2 points

Ah that’s actually a great idea

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-30 points

nope.

tldr: If you vote for Trump, you hate America.

longer:

If you vote for Trump, you’re selfish, psychopathic, and are trying to damage the US more than it already is.

If you vote for anyone who isn’t Trump, you are helping the US take a step in the right direction.

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32 points

Working to split the vote against Harris is effectively a vote for Trump and for fascism.

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-29 points

third party voters are not working to “split the vote”, they are voting for their preferred candidate.

also known as “voting” in healthy democracies.

and no, a vote for a different candidate is not a vote for Trump, that is fundamentally inaccurate fear-based alarmism.

it’s okay that you’re afraid, but that’s no reason to dismantle democracy.

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12 points
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I really want this to be true, and I used to believe it, but our voting system is convoluted with a winner-takes-all mechanism. It isn’t a direct democracy where all votes are equal and it’s naive to ignore our elector-based system that encourages total domination of the big boys over everyone else.

Give me ranked choice voting and I’ll vote for my actual preferred candidate. Otherwise, I have to vote for who can actually have a chance to win.

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20 points

third party voters are not working to “split the vote”, they are voting for their preferred candidate.

Unfortunately with the electoral college, it is splitting the vote. Without ranked choose voting, voting for anyone other than a D or an R is literally throwing your vote away.

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77 points
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tldr: If you vote for Trump, you hate America.

This part is true

If you vote for anyone who isn’t Trump, you are helping the US take a step in the right direction.

Until we are no longer bound by the Electoral College, this is dangerously false. “Not Trump” isn’t a candidate, and the single candidate with the most votes get the electoral votes. If Trump gets 49% and the “not Trump” votes get 51% but no single “not Trump” candidate gets above 49%, then Trump wins even though Trump got less votes than “not Trump”

The only way to meaningfully vote “not Trump” is to vote for the “not Trump” candidate who everyone is rallying around rather than throwing a stupid protest vote to a third party candidate.

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5 points

In the 2016 republican primary, Trump got 44.9% of the vote. Three “not Trump” candidates got 50.2% combined, but it was divided between them.

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-30 points
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If it is a protest vote, as goes your assumption without evidence? it’s dumb, but it’s their right.

most people vote on policy, so they’re voting for third party candidates that have a stronger stance on whatever policy there is.

in this particular election, Harris already achieved more effective policy change than third candidate platforms in terms of environmentalism, minority rights, and so on, so it makes logical sense to vote for her if you’re a political liberal, but if somebody wants to vote for Stein or anybody else because that candidate is more aligned with their views, that is just as valid as voting for Harris.

they are voting as they should, not as some are hoping they will be scared into voting.

voting sincerely is not “stupid”.

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0 points

It is their right and it’s our right, if not duty, to call them out for exercising their right to the extreme detriment of the very constitution that grants them that right.

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22 points

voting sincerely is not “stupid”.

If we ever move to some kind of ranked choice or go by the popular vote instead of this gamed Electoral College system? Sure, vote your conscience. Until then, I expect people to rub two brain cells together, see and acknowledge there is a bigger picture, and realize that their moral purity protest vote is counter-productive when everything they want will be impossible if Trump wins.

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5 points

Sincerity doesn’t preclude stupidity. Voting to maintain an aesthetic while knowing it’s causing greater harm is stupid.

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17 points

No. It really is. In 2016, 50,000 Pennsylvanians, including myself, voted for Jill Stein because we didn’t like Hilary. Trump won Pennsylvania by less than 50,000 votes and won the presidency.

It was fucking stupid and we wouldn’t even be discussing this piece of shit today, if we hadn’t revenge voted.

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10 points

Https://youtu.be/s7tWHJfhiyo

This explains the stupid in America’s voting system that makes “voting for not-kamala” the same as “basically voting for trump”. It sounds like idiotic extremism if you don’t have the specific context this video provides. In truth it’s just a weird aftereffect of bad voting rules. It’s worth checking out!

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-5 points
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i’ve been well aware of us electoral problems for a long time.

I’m assuming your video is either about ranked choice voting or the electoral College?

I am happy that Americans have finally learned about ranked choice voting this election cycle and are eagerly spreading the news, I really am.

it is “idiotic extremism” to blame third party voters for systemic problems.

you want third party voters to vote like you vote.

That’s fine.

but they don’t have to listen and them voting for Jill Stein or anybody else’s just as valid as them voting for kamala.

it may not be as effective, or logical this election cycle, since Harris has already enacted so many third-party progressive policies, but everyone should vote for their preferred candidate.

yup, FPTP videos.

I am very glad Americans are finally paying attention to this part of electoral reform.

you can track down gerrymandering, registration purges, and several other significant problems in the US electoral system that actually difference your elections.

after you collect them all, it is glaringly obvious that third party voters, who vote for good candidates, unjustifiably receive the brunt of ire that should be focused on systemic electoral policies.

voting is good.

it is good that people are voting for third party candidates.

it’s great that people are voting for Harris.

voting is good.

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15 points
0 points

duverger’s “law” shows that the problem with fptp is that people strategically vote, leading to party consolidation. values voting prevents party consolidation

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-21 points

You’re right, I do hate America.

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15 points

Yes, we all know that’s your motivation

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-26 points

I voted for Biden because I wanted to stop fascism. I hated America, but I figured the world would suffer from a Trump presidency.

Then Biden did genocide.

The world suffers and fascism is already here. You’re just voting for red or blue flavors. Death to America, I won’t do it anymore.

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18 points

“I hate genocide - but death to America”

Gonna assume you’re a troll…which makes me the idiot for commenting

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-26 points

I wish we’d get a candidate that didn’t run purely on hey look how shitty trump is. It’s so lazy and barely worked last time.

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7 points

This is what happens if your only source of news is Reddit and Lemmy. Just watch any of her extensive interviews and rallies and you will get a whole lot more.

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16 points

Finding out more about her is very easy, your lack of knowledge does not equal a lack of information

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5 points

It’s weird nobody ever posts about her policies then. It’s always shit posts like the one we’re on now.

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2 points

There are tons every day. Not surprised you don’t see it on ml

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1 point

Because all the media will report is what Trump farted today.

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1 point
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Deleted by creator
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52 points

She has a platform, proposed policies, lots of positive working class messaging, and tons of other stuff.

She is not only running on look how shitty Trump is. That is just the part that gets attention.

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-9 points
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And yet during the q&a she fumbled so hard because all she could say is “Trump bad”, going so far as to avoid every question. Shit like “if you could push anything through the Congress, what would be the one primary issue you would choose?”. Literally there on the plate. But she didn’t answer, instead saying “all of them are important”. She said that Trump’s wall was a good idea. When asked if she’d be for appointing more judges to the Supreme Court, she said she wants to reform it but she doesn’t know how and needs to do research. Of course no change re: Palestine. She even said that now that Sinwar is dead, there will be peace in Palestine. And then she said that people who see Palestine as an important issue will still vote for her because of the price of groceries. And then kept talking about Trump. And then when asked if she would support Israel more than Trump would, she again avoided the question, and again defaulted to “Trump bad”.

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-39 points

Her platform is how shitty trump is and embracing republican policies.

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11 points

Have you actually read her 70 page platform?

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25 points
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https://kamalaharris.com/issues/

She has a website that very clearly explains her platform.

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1 point

And yet, when she was served up an easy gimme question at the last town hall debate, she shied away and waffled about bipartisanship.

CAROL NACKENOFF, POLITICAL SCIENCE PROFESSOR AT SWARTHMORE COLLEGE: Good evening… My question is this: if you could accomplish only one major policy goal that required congressional action, what would it be, and why?

HARRIS: Well, there’s not just one. I have to be honest with you, Carol. There’s a lot of work that needs to happen.

But let’s – let’s – I think that maybe part of this point that – I how I think about it is we’ve got to get past this era of politics and partisan politics slowing down what we need to do in terms of progress in our country. And that means working across the aisle.

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2 points

It doesn’t though. She states what she wants to do, but not how she will do them. Because she doesn’t know how things work. She says she’s cutting taxes, but then talks only about child tax credits. Sorry, tax credits is not the same as cutting taxes, and the credits she’s talking about doesn’t help everyone, just parents and business owners. How will she cut taxes? It never says.

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2 points
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It’s not working this time at all.

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