Honestly you guys are fucked, Even if Biden scrapes a win these are going to be the stakes every 4 years until the US turns into a dictatorship. Fuck knows how that’s going to affect the rest of us around the world in the long run.
One thing that might save us is if Trump dies without managing to get elected. A sizable chunk of the GOP’s base are people who worship him specifically, and if he were gone it might splinter them. But it’s hard to know how that would play out for sure. The situation is definitely very, very grim.
They will just turn to DeSantis or whomever. If you can be sure of anything, be sure that Project 2025 has a list of contingency candidates.
DeSantis flopped miserably the last time he tried. The ones that are diehard GOP supporters will indeed flock to whoever is thrown at them, but the GOP has tied themselves to Trump because he has a cult that they rely on to get enough votes to win. It’s been 20 years since they’ve managed to get someone other than Trump elected.
Trump is just the face of the problem. The real threats are the organs; much deeper inside and far more protected than the face.
He is indeed a symptom, but he’s also something more, a cult leader. You’re right that the rot will be there regardless, but the GOP needs every single person willing to support them to vote to stay in power. There are a lot of people who specifically worship Trump, not the GOP.
He’s also a complete moron, therefore easy to control. And lord knows there no shortage of fools that’d line up to replace him. No, the problem runs much deeper than Trump.
easy to control
Yes and no. Do you honestly believe that the GOP likes being attached to him? By all accounts, most people who have to work with him hate him. But they just can’t get rid of him. If he were that easy to manipulate and replace, they would have done so long ago, to get a more predictable stooge. No, there’s something about him specifically that they need, or at least, they think they do.
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It’s the chicken/egg of politics, really. Does Trump represent his base or does his base represent him? Do politicians campaign on the wishes of their constituents? Or do their constituents develop their views based on their politicians?
really? you’re really not sure if a bunch of protestant christo-fascists are cruel and oppressive by nature?
My friend… My poor confused friend.
TRUMP IS NOT THE ENEMY, simply a symptom of a greater disease: the FEDERALIST SOCIETY in addition to our FASCIST OLIGARCHY.
When Trump dies, none of this will go away. NONE OF IT.
Regardless of his importance, Trump is very much the enemy, as are the other things you mentioned. Hopefully I’ll get the chance to find out just how important he was after he’s gone.
Maybe, but Trump unifies the left just as much. If Trump died, how many on the left would continue to hold their noses and vote Biden?
the supreme court just confirmed that the castro, allende, etc. style assassinations are publicly legal so maybe biden should consider it. lol
but i’m sure that another will take his place if trump fell.
Trump won’t be so easy to replace - if you want proof, look at how the GOP stuck with him even after he lost an election. No political party has ever done that in modern times. There was a (sorely missed) period where we didn’t hear from him for quite some time. You’d think during that time a big, evil organization like the GOP could have found a better replacement that’s smarter more predictable, but no, they desperately want his cult for their votes. Replacing a cult leader can be difficult, especially since Trump is such a uniquely horrible person. Usually, the leader has to give their blessing to someone else to transfer leadership, and that’s something Trump would never, ever do.
It ain’t just us pal, open your eyes and notice all of EU is falling to these same goddamn fascists.
Yes, but at least European countries have more than 2 parties, making them more resilient. It also makes it easier to kick the fascists out of power after they got in.
Fascism is very much growing in Europe as well, but the situation is not as dire.
I disagree with this, I think the Republican Party is waning and they’re now in the sweet spot where they have a large enough base to enact a fascist takeover but not enough to win by appealing to the electorate. If they aren’t able to change the rules in their favor in the next couple cycles I think they become further marginalized and lose their chance.
That’s not to say we won’t face a similar problem again after we have a party realignment, but I do think the GOP specifically has a limited window in which to seize power.
As long as corporate capture isn’t addressed fascism is only going to get worse. We’re angry that our politicians have sold us out. The dim ones will listen to the guy that blames their inability to have a decent life on immigrants, gays, trans, taxes, regulations, ect.
I agree with you there, but I think the upper class is going to increasingly push their agenda through the democrats rather than the republicans, and I think the republicans though perfectly willing to sell out will regardless lose power if they can’t seriously cement their hold somehow.
Yup, as the weak-willed establishment Republicans realize the insane people can’t win anymore, they will turn tail and bail on them. Then the shitty people can go back under their rocks and moderate conservatives can come back into power. Hopefully the Democrat’s constituents can get ranked choice voting through so this doesn’t happen again. Then we can get critical thinking education spread and the lunatic fringe right-wing wond be able to live here anymore.
where are you from friend? and I agree, we’re fucked 🍻
If he’s such an existential threat (and he is), why the fuck are they not forcing the geriatric incompetent running on their ticket to drop out? They’re sleepwalking into fascism and it’s terrifying.
My semi-secret conspiracy theory adjacent theory is it’s intentional. That not all, but many, of the Democratic national party is in bed with the same big businesses paying off Republicans, and they’re prepared to pull a Hindenburg and install the very fascists they claim to resist once they can no longer hide their betrayal.
I also do think it’s primarily a money issue. Some of it might be those donors wanting the two parties to do different things, by basically leading the democrats into their graves.
If he’s such an existential threat (and he is), why the fuck are they not forcing the geriatric incompetent running on their ticket to drop out?
Because their rank-and-file voters who voted in the primary voted for him. This primary and last primary. And if you want people to leave your party in a big exodus, invalidating their primary vote is how you do that. They learned that in Bernie’s race. I voted for Biden, he wasn’t the only person to run in the primary, I’ll be damned if the “party elite” select some other candidate anyways, why even vote in the primaries at that point? May as well register for the R primary since they at least had more candidates and (so far) appear to respect their primary process so my vote would actually mean something.
One thing you’ll notice is that the venn diagram for people who complain about only having “two choices” and the people who don’t participate in primaries is nearly a perfect circle. You get an overwhelming amount of choices if you vote in every primary and every election.If you only vote once every 2 or 4 years and skip the primaries, yeah, you get two choices.
I’ve voted in every primary and local election since the year 2000 and had a Kucinich for President bumper sticker and I still complain about the choices because my preferred candidate has never won. Ever.
Because the most popular alternative is Kamala Harris, but there is no evidence she would do better against Trump.
I stand that Kamala’s best chance is to hold the ship steady as is, and then ask Biden to resign in December or January.
There’s a lot of racists out there. I feel like if she’s at the top of the ticket, she’s gonna get dragged down. Biden truly is serving as an effective shield for her. Either way, Kamala is the implicit vote if anything wrong happens to Biden (which I admit is increasingly likely given his age).
It makes no sense for Kamala to rush to the top of the ticket given her position.
Wasn’t this always the angle, even when people called his age out last election? The argument was that Kamala Harris would step up, and that Biden didn’t want a second term.
Given Harris’ recent comments in the press regarding stuff she’d fix “if given power”, I wonder if she’s even on the VP card this time around? IMO, AOC might be a smarter choice for VP, since the left love her and the right loathe her. She’d bring a lot of younger disenfranchised people back around, and that might be enough.
Biden never any public or official statement about only serving 1-term, in fact when that story started circulating, the official response from his campaign was to say that they were not ruling it out.
There’s a lot of racists out there. I feel like if she’s at the top of the ticket, she’s gonna get dragged down.
This is just preemptive cope to avoid having to reflect on whether the Democratic leadership and its preferred candidates are actually the thing that needs change, and she’s not even an actual candidate yet. Kamala’s biggest problem is not that she isn’t white. Obama was a Black man, but he had heaps of charisma. Kamala has all the charisma of a plate of lutefisk,and people flat out do not like her. She is also irrevocably tied to Biden and his legacy, likely to her detriment amongst the crowds you would most worry about not voting for her because of her not being white.
Most polls put her on par with Biden. Dataforprogress.org has her leading when “fitness” and “strength” are brought into question, but that’s the only poll I’ve seen where she has any lead at all.
Polls of 1000 people are stupid.
Treating an existential threat as existential requires the one thing that the Democratic coalition has increasingly struggled to do: prioritization. It means putting aside personal feelings, individual ambition, and subjective preferences in favor of a single goal: success. Otherwise, it’s just empty rhetoric.
As New York Timescolumnist Ezra Klein, who has been pushing the possibility of an open convention to replace Biden, said on his podcast after Thursday’s debate: “If the fate of American democracy is hinging on this election — as Democrats are always telling me it is and as I think there is a chance that it is — then you should do everything you can to win it.” That a strategy, any strategy, might make people or groups uncomfortable cannot be a reason not to pursue it in the face of an existential threat. Not if you believe what you’re saying.
Over a dozen paragraphs and no name brought up to replace Biden if he leaves. (Kamala? Kamala is team Biden)
Glad to see that the prioritization is to attack Biden before you even have a replacement lined up. Good job media, you’re whipping the dumbasses into a frenzy and taking unnecessary risks.
Lets just say Biden is out. Start listing names. Serious contenders. If Kamala (effectively on Biden’s team anyway) is your best shot, then it doesn’t matter if she’s VP or Top of the Ticket, if the plan is for Biden to resign after November anyway.
The never do. Despite the system constantly being corrupted in the opposition’s favor, they just roll over and talke it. IMO it’s a money problem. The big donors want the ROI, and big businesses are dictatorships. Those dictatorships align more with fascist/conservative policies more than they do liberal so democrats don’t want to upset the big business donors by inconveniencing their profit stream.
He’s only a threat in so much as they can turn it into political donations. The rest of us, on the other hand, see an absolute menace ready to implement fascism. But Dems are ok with just having scary news articles and no real action.
Biden’s speech was infuriating. Just came out and basically said “This is bad. I’m not going to do anything about it. This is just the way it is now so I hope we always have good presidents from here unto eternity. Good bye.” and then doddered off stage.
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The pompous condescension completely undercuts any point you were attempting to make. I hope I end up the opposite of whatever you are as I get older. Have a great life.
The pompous condescension completely undercuts any point you were attempting to make.
Centrists use pompous condescension when they don’t have a point.
You should go back to reddit
cowards
When it comes to the Democrats and* the left* — from the Biden campaign on down to the activists
What’s with calling out the left on this, when the closest they get to a leftist organization they take issue with is a climate advocacy group. The left has been pretty clear that Biden is not the man for the moment since the go, and for our troubles, we’ve been called everything from stupid and naïve, to privileged white people who don’t care about insert minority group here (and ignore that not all leftists are rich, white people, there are plenty of POC active in leftist politics, though critics, often privileged white people themselves, do love to erase their existence in the same breath they claim to be looking out for them), to either useful idiots or fully cognizant agitators working on behalf of enemy states. Centrist Democrats and liberals have been the ones trying to tell anyone who will listen that the same old play will not just be good enough, but is actually our only option to win, and they’re trying to leave the left to take the fall for their mistake, yet again.
Some of it is political calculation. If the president steps aside, the logical candidate is Vice-President Kamala Harris, but Harris has struggled in office and her poor poll ratings mirror those of Biden. If the Democratic Party tries to sideline Harris and open the door to other candidates through an open convention, they risk alienating her and her supporters and opening up further wounds in the Democratic coalition.
What, risk all four of her supporters? Oh, darn, there go the chances of winning ever again.
Democrats are not going to win with a staid campaign by the usual corporate boot-licking line of candidates they’ve relied on up until now. The sooner they accept that and get behind a candidate who is pushing for systemic changes on issues that actually resonate with your average Americans and the problems they face in their daily lives, as opposed what matters only to their donors, the better for them this time around. Heck, if they actually follow through and make some of those changes, even better.
there are plenty of POC active in leftist politics, though critics, often privileged white people themselves, do love to erase their existence in the same breath they claim to be looking out for them
you must be a 1st generation american, poor, brown, gay man because you’re clearly me since i had the same thought 1/2 the time i engage w a liberal on the lemmyverse. lol
the other 1/2 the time i spend trying to think up of a comeback when they imply that i’m a chinese or russian bot or shill.
A reminder that Trumpy candidates to run against is what some Democrats wanted:
https://www.axios.com/2022/06/28/democrats-colorado-primary-ron-hanks-joe-odea
I mean this strategy is how we got Trump in the first place. Zero lessons learned.
I’ll admit it. I was one of the people who loved it when Trump started rising in the polls. I’m far from a Democrat but I believed that he would be the easiest Republican to defeat. I was so very wrong and my whole view of my country has changed since 2016.
I think the immunity ruling of yesterday ended the U.S.'s checks and balances against a King, Monarch, or in more modern terms, the Unitary Executive. Overturning Roe Vs. Wade was the Judicial Branch warning shot.
I predict that in the future the U.S. will have a new revolution, but it’ll probably be at least a century away. “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.”
It’s on purpose. Democrats whole platform is “other side is evil and you’ll go along with anything we do.” If you mention this on Lemmy, people put their tin foil hats on and call you a Trump supporter. Now we have two fascist parties that we “have” to vote for.
But thank God those people who call me a Trump supporter are also trolling users (of most likely Asian descent) about how evil China is and they should like Biden better than whatever Winnie the Pooh’s real name is.
Edit: I just reliazed that Winnie the Pooh reference is more than about the shape of his face. I’m sorry I just reliazed that ,I never put two and two together till just now. I am very sorry about using that.
The Winnie the Pooh reference was because of his overall shape, not just his face. Specifically it was about a picture of him and Obama where the proportions of both leaders were fairly similar to a picture of Pooh and Tigger walking together.
The dictator’s real name is Xi Xinping
Winnie the Pooh is also Xi Xinping’s nickname on Chinese bloggers. It was a way to avoid Chinese Censors and still talk about him without explicitly getting disappeared by the Chinese secret police. It worked for a while, but the jig is up and everyone knows that Pooh is codeword for Xi now.
Its a nickname embraced by Chinese specifically. Its not racist at all but instead its us Americans trolling Xi Xinping by taking an codeword/insult used by the internal Chinese dissenters.
That’s very funny. As I brushed my teeth before heading to the office for a few hours, a thought hit’s me, “has this meme been racist this whole time?” Thank you both for the explanation. I was over thinking this.
just imagine this with other existential threats. “a meteor the size of the moon will crash into the earth in 5 months if we don’t do anything. so please vote for the meteor kindly changing course. btw current polls show that the meteor has higher approval rating than I do so please stop that too”
Biden was talking about golfing with the guy…THAT was his big fuck up that night.
More that he spectacularly failed to even land the words, and gave Trump the high road position. Millions of people saw Trump tell Biden that they should be adults.
Joe can do it!
Sure, just watch the debate and see whose cognitive function is still intact. Clearly, it’s not Biden. That was the most embarrassing debate I’ve ever seen.
I don’t know how anyone can hear a single sentence out of Trump’s mouth and think he’s cognitively in tact.
Biden can’t even put together a single sentence and this is the guy you want running as president? Bro can’t debate past 9PM.
Name checks out.
Trump hasn’t been able to debate past 2004. Every single sentence out of his mouth since before his first 2016 campaign has been either gibberish or lies. I’ll take a doddering old man over a pathological liar every time if those are my two options. Not to even mention Trump’s extremely obvious dementia and extremely obvious fascist tendencies, racism, sexism, 34 felonies, convicted sex offender, on tape saying he’d like to fuck his daughter, on tape partying with Epstein, on tape committing voter fraud, can’t stay awake at his own criminal trial, moans and complains and cries at every little thing that hurts his widdle feewings…
And this is the guy you want running for president?
Want? You seem to be confused. If I had a choice between a cold soggy grilled cheese and Trump, I’d take the grilled cheese.
And everyone around him is doing a great job and not bringing about a christofascist dictatorship ruled by an atheist narcissist compulsive liar real estate millionare…so yeah, the best of two options. I don’t care if the face-man is old, I am voting against project 2025.
Trump operated within the lines of democratic institutions. Y’all really throw the word ‘dictator’ around like candy. I really don’t think you know what a dictator is.
I’d tell you to read the Mandate for Leadership 2025. But you’d probably agree with it.
Biden gave answers that made sense, Trump lied and said we abort already-born babies. Jesus fucking christ, you must be braindead.
Solid, sensible answers such as
making sure that we’re able to make every single solitary person eligible for what I’ve been able to do with the with the Covid, excuse me, with, um, dealing with everything we have to do with, uh, look, if…we finally beat Medicare.
and
Look, there’s so many young women who have been, including a young woman who just murdered and he went to the funeral. And the idea that she was murdered by a by by an immigrant coming in to. They talk about that.
