Via Berkeley Mews
Pretty fucking relevant in this thread it seems.
No, not everyone that disagrees with me is a secret agent. A good chunk of them are. The rest are the idiots that believe and agree with them.
I’m still waiting for a good argument about how no voting or voting 3rd party gets better outcomes.
Maybe I’m the idiot for thinking there might be a good argument for it. Who knows?
The rest are the idiots that believe and agree with them.
Like any good conspiracy, it accounts for any possible contrary evidence one might encounter. If you find someone you disagree with irl, or someone online who doesn’t seems like a secret agent, then it’s simple - they’re just people who have been manipulated by secret agents! The secret agents are still surrounding you and influencing every aspect of your life, regardless of silly things like “evidence” or “falsifiability.” It’s completely indistinguishable from a schizophrenic convinced they’re surrounded by lizard people.
I’m still waiting for a good argument about how no voting or voting 3rd party gets better outcomes.
It’s pretty simple. In a negotiation, having a credible threat of not cooperating gives you more bargaining power than if you show up like, “I will accept any deal you give me, I need this!” Voting is a negotiation. If politicians know that you’ll vote for them no matter what you do, then they have no reason to listen to your concerns, whereas if you say, “I’ll only vote for you if you do this, otherwise I’ll vote third party” then they have an incentive to do the thing in order to earn your vote.
not sure why everybody’s butt is hurting over this comic
Biden has ran on this platform his entire four years
if his wrinkled catholic ass and his prosecutor wanted to do a better campaign and presidency they could but as it stands him and her just look like outdated, police loving, religious, zealots standing in the way of progress just like republicans
both parties are actively saying “I am not that other guy.” and “We failed to get shit done because of that other guy and his guys”
also both parties say you are wasting your vote voting third party
at this point it is running like a cheesy ad with a company who says buy our product because the competitor’s offering sucks never bringing up actual pros and cons
I’d say, take the L, vote third party this election, and the next and so on
The entire premise is BS because Biden has a list of accomplishments from infrastructure to debt forgiveness, progressive drug guidance, progress in gender/race equality, departments like the ftc and irs being competently run again with actual resources, to judge appointments. Hmm I wonder to who’s benefit it is to ignore all that and label him “not Trump”?
He certainly did give a ton of handouts to corporations with nice sounding names, yeah.
And he offered the GOP every fascist policy they want on border with literally no strings attached. Twice. What a great totally-different-from-republicans guy.
Really knows how to reach across the aisle and be bi-partisan by…-checks notes-…giving the GOP everything they want with no conditions.
cough supporting a genocide cough
Until then he was doing great yeah. Bit of a big one though.
And before you hit me with the usual I know Trump would be worse for Gaza but it doesn’t change what Biden has done
1 he always supported it, so if you say “until” you just didn’t care until it went hot, 2 I don’t think it changes it that his opponent supports it harder, but it does speak to your options.
So if you are against genocide, you don’t get a candidate that can represent you. And americans would rather drag their dick through miles of broken glass than to vote 3rd party.
He always supported Israel… I think the ‘until’ is in reference to Israel’s more recent and more blatant attack on Gaza - prior to that, Biden’s support for Israel wasn’t nearly as flagrant as it is now.
Like, no one would bat an eye if I told them I support my wife’s decisions, but if she started breaking into the local NICUs and stomping on people’s babies, my continued support for her decisions would be a tad sus. …especially if I regularly said “honey could you tone the baby-stomping down a bit?” as I handed her a new pair of baby-stomping boots.
I’m not a both-sides’er (unless I’m talking to a trumpanzee in an attempt to steer votes away from Agent Orange). My vote is going to Biden and I encourage anyone reading this to do the same, but our complicity in the genocide on Gaza is genuinely upsetting, partly because it’s complicity in a fucking genocide, and partly because this WILL cause voter disengagement and could hand that other dipshit the presidency on a silver platter.
Care to offer an actual list? Every time someone tries to offer an actual list it turns out to be meaningless victory laps. With the possible exception of the NLRB Cemex decision. But that’s getting it’s stress test right now so it’s a bit early to celebrate.
Here you go:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_executive_actions_by_Joe_Biden
All of it is pretty decently documented.
Biden bragged about cutting social security, has no desire to reform healthcare, and doesn’t care about income inequality or labour rights. He looks at America’s race-to-the-bottom economy and he’s like “yeah. Everything is working just fine here”
Also, many of the things you listed here are basically just “not Trump/not Republicans” in their own way. You really think “appointed competent people to run government departments” is a positive and not just a non-negative point (as compared to what his opponents would do)?
Also, Biden is obviously fucking senile and I’m tired of people pretending he’s not just because they’re afraid it will give Trump power. It’s totally fine to vote for Biden because he was the lesser evil, but let’s not pretend he was ever a good option. When you ignore reality because it makes it harder to like your preferred candidate, you are doing the exact same thing the MAGA idiots do.
Before you accuse me of anything, you should know I’m Canadian and have absolutely no dog in this fight. This is my unbiased outsider perspective. I could give a shit who wins the next election in the US, but I’m tired of people lying to themselves about either of the candidates not being a steaming pile of shit.
You’re never going to get these people to acknowledge any of this stuff.
They’ll still be defending whatever Biden 2.0 clone is in office a few cycles from now because “He only sent half the number of people to the gas chamber compared to [Identical GOP Incumbent]!”
That is the thing, the GOP isn’t identical. It is pretty much worse every single time.
It’s pretty rare for anyone to praise Biden on his own merits, especially on Lemmy. So maybe don’t get so irate because in comparison to trump, people praise him
And yes you have every dog in this fight, the US is kinda fuckin important for global stability
The US is currently the world’s dominant Imperialist power, if “global stability” means extracting vast amounts of wealth from the global south then perhaps your idea of “global stability” needs to be reevaluated.
Yeah, but sometimes that really is enough
Not enough for voters who are undecided about whether to vote or not.
Democrats win when turnout is high. It’s not enough to be better than the opponent, to win they must beat apathy.
The two current candidates are so far apart the people who claim to be undecided are ignorant or stupid, willingly or otherwise. I’d understand riding the fence between Biden and Bernie, even if I’ve made my choice between them, but between Trump and Biden?
That’s the kind of person who is undecided if they want to drive to work or walk down the middle of i-95
I think you are perhaps uninformed about the economic state of the poor and working class. Biden hasn’t done a whole lot about people’s grocery bills doubling and tripling, or the soaring increases in rent while the housing supply has remained artificially low, but he’s made sure that blank checks for war appear out of thin air at every turn.
Can’t expect to win an election like this when people can’t afford to miss a day of work.
Stop thinking that you vote “for” someone in a FPTP system. You don’t. You vote against the guy you don’t like.
It sucks, and I hate it, but don’t delude yourself into thinking otherwise. We’re playing a badly-designed game with a shitty controller and we’re only allowed to press a button once a year at best.
Think Twitch Plays Pokemon, but with a lot more trolls and no moderation. There will be a constant stream of people voting to do something stupid and destructive, so you spend all of your time voting against them.
Oh, and their votes count for more, so they can win even if there’s fewer of them. All we can ever hope to do is try to stop them and hope they don’t fuck everything up and give themselves even more power before the next time we’re allowed to pick a move.
Yay America. Greatest democracy in the world right there.
Both Democrats and Republicans have a vested interest in keeping the system as it is. They won’t change it unless citizens make them change it.
Honestly I’m kind of losing hope that it’s even possible at this point.
Positive change in the American system usually comes from the bottom up. If you’re interested in fixing the system, the first step is to switch your local elections to Approval Voting, probably through a referendum. There’s a whole bunch of reasons, and lots of second and third steps, but that’s the first one.
Whenever people come up with these solutions I’m reminded that it took Jon Stewart over a decade to get money for 9/11 first responders.
If it takes that long to do something so universally desired, it’s going to take a thousand years to change our voting system.
But it’s nice to dream.
They won’t change it unless citizens make them change it.
They’ll send a fucking SWAT team to the house of any citizen tries to change it.
Honestly I’m kind of losing hope that it’s even possible at this point.
At some point, “we just need to vote for the most right-wing Democrat and then blame the leftists any time we lose” is not a productive long term strategy.
That’s an early-stage FPTP system. After a bunch of people with minority support start winning you end up with two options, and you vote against the one you hate least because there’s not really a choice anymore.
You vote against the guy you don’t like.
What if I don’t like any of them?
There will be a constant stream of people voting to do something stupid and destructive, so you spend all of your time voting against them.
I would simply not participate in a system that sounds this miserable and tedious. I would play a game that’s more productive and enjoyable.
Oh, and their votes count for more, so they can win even if there’s fewer of them.
But it doesn’t matter, because casting a vote for Ralph Nader from my bright red state of Texas is still the reason Al Gore lost Florida in a 5-4 SCOTUS decision.
What if I don’t like any of them?
Join the club.
I would play a game that’s more productive and enjoyable.
That’s not possible. We voted on what game we’re playing and we glued the cartridge into the console. Much to my disappointment we don’t get to change the game, or not play, or even ignore it.
It’s a stupid world and we all live in it.
But it doesn’t matter, because casting a vote for Ralph Nader from my bright red state of Texas is still the reason Al Gore lost Florida in a 5-4 SCOTUS decision.
Exactly: The system is built to let them win as much as possible. You’re not going to ever beat it. It’s like Getting Over It with Bennett Foddy except even more frustrating and without the pleasant voiceovers.
That’s not possible.
That’s very possible. It’s just not what Americans are used to doing.
We voted on what game we’re playing
That’s a naive perspective, as it misses the historical, financial, and sociological roots of the game. You can’t play a game of basketball if the other team picks up the ball and walks off the court.
This is Lockean Theory 101, and its the entire basis of democracy. We use democratic tools to divine popular intent. But when the democracy is subverted and political leadership is divorced from public sentiment, the institutions fail. But if institutions aren’t failing because people are too afraid to withdraw their support from them, the system is implicitly endorsed and corrupt officials get to continue abusing their social mandates.
It’s a stupid world and we all live in it.
Its only as stupid as we make it. Atm, we’ve got a country that’s invested an enormous amount of time, energy, and labor hours in infesting our senior population with brain worms. That needs to change and simply voting isn’t going to be the thing that does it.