Did he do it for the memes?

  • Sterile_Technique@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    Even if he goes full and permanent vegetable, he’s still not Trump. Top priority is stopping Orange Hitler from taking control again, so please for the love of human rights, vote for whoever has the the best shot at beating him - if that’s Biden, cool. If it’s Harris, cool. If it’s a literal ham sandwich, fucking fine - all three are orders of magnitude more qualified to do the job then Trump.

    • Lucidlethargy@sh.itjust.works
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      5 months ago

      Yeah, I’ll vote blue… But get this fucker off the ticket. I’d much rather it be Kamala, or like… Nearly anyone really.

      • zarkanian@sh.itjust.works
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        5 months ago

        Yeah, the question isn’t who Democrats will vote for. It’s who independents will vote for. And there are a lot of independents.

        Relying on the “Never Trump” vote to win this election feels like a terrible risk.

        • ShepherdPie@midwest.social
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          5 months ago

          And if we’re simply relying on “never Trump” then it shouldn’t matter if Biden steps down because the goal is still the same.

        • FatCrab@lemmy.one
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          5 months ago

          The question is who will turn out to vote. The number of “independents” who don’t overwhelmingly vote republican or democratic is vanishingly small. This is found time and time again. Ultimately it’s a question of which electorate turns out and which is demotivated enough not to.

        • OpenStars@discuss.online
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          5 months ago

          We don’t have democracy anymore.

          First, the SCOTUS ruling did away with that last week, but let’s ignore that for now…

          We have a fascist authoritarian in charge who refuses to even consider stepping down until he dies - certainly he is not going to let the people decide who gets to be the Democratic nominee - vs. someone who will become a dictator for life and do the same, but somehow much, MUCH worse.

          I hope that many people vote Blue No Matter Who… yet I fear that many independents won’t.

            • OpenStars@discuss.online
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              5 months ago

              It’s a bit hyperbolic in this context, yet also technically accurate in a surprising number of ways, though mostly I was focusing on how he won’t allow an election to determine who gets to be the Democratic nominee. Also, he has the legal ability to murder his opponents, and is both supporting (in Gaza) even while also decrying (in Ukraine) genocide. Anyway, the point is that he is suppressing opposition (from within his own party, by not allowing a debate about who may replace him), which yes he has the legal ability to do, fwiw. So he is not much of one perhaps, but has some characteristics not entirely dissimilar to one.

              • TheFrirish@jlai.lu
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                5 months ago

                yeah those observations are fair. Regardless now I’m afraid Trump has sealed his win with this shooting. His voters are going to be mobilised like never before for the election

                • OpenStars@discuss.online
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                  5 months ago

                  Hrm, so he wasn’t seriously injured, and the outcome ends in his favor, hrm… I see.

                  And Biden’s administration ends up looking weaker than ever before, for allowing it to happen. I hate politics.:-(

        • scarabic@lemmy.world
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          5 months ago

          Anyone supposedly independent or undecided at this point is and idgit voter who will either stay home or vote for Trump.

      • fine_sandy_bottom@discuss.tchncs.de
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        5 months ago

        I’ve been trying to be positive about him but he’s really indefensible at this point.

        His hubris is very likely going to fuck things up for everyone.

        Any other candidate will wipe the floor with trump.

      • Jax@sh.itjust.works
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        5 months ago

        I think Kamala would be one of the single worst candidates we could put forth, but what do I know? I only worked for the dumpster fire of a DoJ she was partly responsible for.

        • mPony@lemmy.world
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          5 months ago

          hey now, the US has a long and storied history of loving the fuck out of female presidential candidates.

      • LeadersAtWork@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        Maybe. Though I say we just come together, get his ass in, and then in the first year also get his ass out and let the VP or Speaker step in. Like it or not, changing now IS risky and it is arguable whether it’s the better choice. I’ll go with what the majority chooses because fighting against Trump and the GOP is what’s important.

        Let me repeat: We are in the game where we must do what the Republicans do and come together against a common enemy. So I recommend everyone agree on a candidate then shut up and checkmark that box. We can go back to verbally juxtaposing our positions through digital larping, or whatever it is we do when most of us forget politics exist for four years.

    • ChillPenguin@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      I will take weekend at Bernie’s in the White House with people who actually understand policies over fascist bat shit crazy any day. Not even a discussion for me.

    • Imgonnatrythis@sh.itjust.works
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      5 months ago

      I think this is a dangerous attitude. He’s made some gaffs recently but overall has not been a terrible person or leader. Supporting the possibility of dropping a candidate this late in the game especially when there are no super star saviors waiting in the wings is the kind of party weakness the GOP would eat up and is a recipe for failure. You don’t have to love him at this point, but it’s too late to start over, just suck it up make a donation to his campaign and vow to become more involved in political change at earlier levels so hopefully we are not in this mess again.

      • VintageTech@sh.itjust.works
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        5 months ago

        I’m voting Joe because he is still the only qualified candidate for the job. The package he brings is a Vice President who could do the job if he were to step down due to health/age concerns to guarantee a female President as his dream come true. She then gets to pick her Vice President which should absolutely be AOC. The opposition has no convincing argument to draw this out in a court as they would need to present their arguments to AOC for rebuttal,

        It’s just so batshit crazy it can’t fail.

        • wewbull@feddit.uk
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          5 months ago

          I’m voting Joe because he is still the only qualified candidate for the job.

          There’s a couple of hundred million other qualified candidates in the US. If you’re looking for politicial experience, there’s several hundred in Washington alone.

          Dems have totally failed to bring through the next two or three generations of candidates. That the party feels that he’s their only choice is shameful.

        • lightnsfw@reddthat.com
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          5 months ago

          Since when has the opposition needed convincing arguments to drag things out? They’ll come up with whatever bullshit they want just to keep stuff from moving forward until they get the ball again.

      • Asifall@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        He has been a terrible candidate though. If the polling is accurate and trump has a slight lead in popular vote, Biden has less than a 5% chance of winning the election (according to Nate Silver’s models). Unfortunately, this is probably optimistic as polling has overestimated the democratic vote in the last 2 presidential elections including the one that included these same two candidates.

        • HappyStarDiaz@real.lemmy.fan
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          5 months ago

          Nate Silver is terrible and usually terribly wrong, but just step outside the last year and it’s been crystal clear Biden would and will 100% lose the Electoral College to Dump. No amount of Cult Jr telling us to just vote blue no matter who is going to change that. Most Americans don’t know the difference between a row and a column or a watch and a warning, they aren’t thinking critically about Presidential elections.

          • ShepherdPie@midwest.social
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            5 months ago

            It’s so ironic to see the “vote blue no matter who” people argue against replacing Biden when data shows a high probability of him losing. If they suggest we vote blue no matter who then why are they so ardently telling us that it has to be this one guy?

            • Imgonnatrythis@sh.itjust.works
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              5 months ago

              “the data” would also suggest that a late replacement could be destructive and have an even Higher probability of losing. More importantly the process to oust Biden is highly unlikely to succeed. Therefore the very act of pushing for these kinds of changes only demonstrates weakness for the GOP and accomplishes nothing but push away any remaining undecided voters toward a party that at least has a clear favorite. I wish people would support the current candidate more aggressively rather than destructively attempt for replacement when doing so is futile.

              • OpenStars@discuss.online
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                5 months ago

                While you are at it, you might also wish for people to vote Blue. It’s not going to happen though - independents refuse to tow a particular party line, preferring instead for candidates to earn their votes, and they will watch the world burn, or even turn to Trump to help it, rather than give in. This is what true democracy looks like - sometimes people lose, when enough people on the other side vote to win. We can only control ourselves - e.g. if the Dems were to pick a replacement, there may be a better chance, while otherwise we simply sit back and roll the dice to see whatever happens.

            • TheGalacticVoid@lemm.ee
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              5 months ago

              Who will replace him? Michelle Obama doesn’t want to run, Gavin Newsom has full support for Biden, and Kamala Harris is already VP.

              • ShepherdPie@midwest.social
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                5 months ago

                I’m sure plenty of people would step up if he actually stepped down. What you’re seeing now is people doing damage control to keep from undermining his campaign. It doesn’t mean that they’re actually telling us their true beliefs. Newsom says he fully supports Biden, and if he stepped down, Newsom would fully support whomever took his place.

                I think Harris is just as bad of a candidate as Biden or Clinton. Michelle Obama is an option but I don’t see why we have to treat this like a TV reboot where we keep rehashing the same names and faces that we saw previously. I’d personally love Bernie or AOC, but I know the party leadership hates leftist candidates and will actively work against them, so we’re probably screwed either way just like we were in 2016.

                  • ShepherdPie@midwest.social
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                    5 months ago

                    How would any of us know who’s going to step up when none of the potential candidates want to come out and undermine Biden’s campaign by saying they want to replace him? Even if they don’t believe in Biden, they’re going to back the current party pick because they too need the party support should they wind up running. This should be obvious.

                    We can do it now or wait until November and roll the dice, but current polling isn’t looking good for Biden. If the party doesn’t do anything and he does lose, there better be a fucking retribution because this will be the second time they’ve handed a victory over to Trump by forcing terrible candidates upon us.

    • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      That’s just not flying with the ~100,000 people who are actually going to decide this election. They aren’t going to vote Biden. Polling is making this very clear over the last week or so.

    • scarabic@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      Since literally anyone will be Not Trump then can we have someone actually good? That way we’d have “not Trump” and “actually good” both working for us! Win win!

    • Avialle@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      Going into survival mode forever, where either party can do whatever the frick they want, because they others mustn’t win! Nice system you got there, where it’s like 50\50 every time!

      They present you a Trump and therefore they can even kill your kids, as long as Trump doesn’t win. It’s a scam… both parties are in it. But they divided you all so perfectly fine, you stopped thinking a long time ago.

      Looking forward to your comments, telling me about NO BOth SIdeS!

      • Imgonnatrythis@sh.itjust.works
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        5 months ago

        Not sure why the downvotes. The American duopoly is a scam, you are very right. If there is any hope for change it needs to start lower down the food chain. Support the forward party, get involved in local politics, rally against gerrymandering as a hard as possible.

      • 9tr6gyp3@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        Its truly an absolute shit system and it keeps itself propped up this way. What will it even take to see blue and red completely removed? Theyre both terrible options for the future of our world, but when November comes around, they’re still on the ballot.

        Until a revamped Constitution is written by people of all genders, colors, faith, wealth, and education, this will never end.

        We can do better than this and it needs to happen now. Its already too late, but we can help slow the damage to our planet if we act quickly.

        Tired of these popularity contests when we’re literally living in a mass extinction.

        • RaoulDook@lemmy.world
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          5 months ago

          The US Constitution is not responsible for the 2-party duopoly. It actually grants us the freedom to have all the political parties we want, and corporate oligarchy has entrenched the current 2 parties. What we really need is corporate money banned from politics, starting with a reversal of Citizens United decision.

          • 9tr6gyp3@lemmy.world
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            5 months ago

            The Constitution was written in part by white men who owned slaves/supported slavery. It does not reflect what America is today.

            The two-party system has held American with a tight grip since the early 1800s. It has done nothing but cause arguments about how much power the federal government should have or not. That argument will continue (and probably get worse) until the USA can embrace having the full support of all of its people. Elected officials are not the answer to this. At the moment, they are people who have time/money to participate in political activities. They generally aren’t aware of what this country is really going through. They only focus on a certain set of issues that they have the passion for. Rarely are they able to properly address other issues, so they end up taking their own party’s stance.

            America was never designed to have parties. In fact, it was said that we should avoid having them at all.

            • LustyArgonian@lemmy.world
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              5 months ago

              We also are no longer constrained by horses and written mail. We have significantly changed how communication works and idk why we can’t have a direct democracy nowadays.