Baron Von J

Also because he can’t withhold any economic/military aid that Congress has approved to be sent.

Meaning the calls to primary were not serious.

How are you reaching that conclusion (especially when just 4 hours ago you seemed unaware that people were calling for it)? I think they were serious. But they were rendered moot because both Sinema and Manchin announced they weren’t seeking re-election before the 2024 primary season started.

Time and again voters complain then reelect the people they are complaining about. That’s why the DNC are not even campaigning, they know they can do jack shit and voters will still vote for them.

Incumbents win re-election so easily because voter turnout in primaries sucks so they don’t have to spend hardly any money or energy to be nominated again. Here in Texas, we had 3.2 M voters in the 2024 primaries, out of 17.9 M registered voters. And 2.3 M of those were Republican primary voters. So only ~1 M Democratic primary voters, selecting who will be on the ballot in November. Now you can try to blame that on Biden being too old and unpopular to motivate people out to vote, but that’s just passing the buck on voters removing their voices from the literally every other office that’s up for election. Biden being the presumptive nominee for president in no way takes away your voice for all those other offices that have 100x more impact on your daily life. And at the start of it all, you have to have better candidates actually willing to run in the primary in order to vote for them in the primary.

Many feel trapped by the system while they keep supporting it because they have been convinced there are no other choices

But they’re not participating in the process of selecting the candidates that will be on the general election ballot. One million Democratic primary ballots cast in a state where the previous mid-term general election had ~3.5 M Democratic votes for the statewide offices and the previous presidential election had 5.2 M Democratic votes. And to be clear, there were 8 candidates for president on the 2024 Democratic primary ballot in Texas.

and anything but a vote for their oppressors is a wasted vote.

If you are aligned left, and you vote in the general for a 3rd party, you are reducing the number of votes the Republican candidate needs to receive to win. That is a mathematical fact in every precinct in this country where a simple plurality of cast votes determines the winner. Pointing it out is not a suppression/oppression tactic, it’s a plea to learn how the system is designed to function because we won’t overcome its intentional problems by sitting on the sidelines.

You asked where are the calls to primary, I told you that the calls to primary were made, and you then said calls to primary are irrelevant. You did not have faith in your own point.

I’m not in a position of authority to suppress anybody’s vote, and I’m not telling anyone to not vote. I am, in fact, advocating for more people to vote, and to do so more often and more consistently. That’s kind of the opposite of voter suppression. Protest voting is how we got Trump when Clinton was the nominee. The next President will be either the Democratic nominee or the Republican nominee. There will be other choices, but they won’t win, voting for them just lowers the number of votes that the major party candidate on the opposite end of the spectrum need to beat to win. If I was opposed to election reform, I wouldn’t be out here encouraging people to vote in the primaries. I would be keeping silent while they continue to ignore how long their tactic has failed at achieving the goal. But I support election reform, so I vote in the primaries and encourage other people to do the same.

Now you’re just sounding like you’re posting in bad faith. You asked “where were the calls to primary” and in your very next comment you’re saying “calls to primary are irrelevant” as though it was my point and you’re refuting it. There’s not enough accountability because voter turnout in the primaries is absolute garbage. Protest voting in the general is useless. We need overwhelming turnout in the primaries for the state legislatures to get better candidates in the general. Election reform to enable viable 3rd party candidates will only come on a state-by-state level. And that will never happen without good turnout in the primaries.

You’re coming across like you just like to rage without actually paying attention.

Voters had been calling for a primary challenge to both for basically the entirety of Biden’s term (since some of the earliest legislative efforts with reconciliation bills including a minimum wage increase, I believe), up until they both registered as Independent and neither are running for re-election, so the primary became moot. However, the W. Virginia seat (Manchin’s) is likely to go R this year, so that doesn’t help us for things like judicial appointments where Manchin was reliable. Arizona (Sinema’s seat) we have a chance.

Except Cinema Sinema and Manchin have both stated that changing the filibuster is a hard no for both of them. So no, we do not have 51 Senators caucusing Democratic and willing to touch the filibuster.

No sane person has a problem with ensuring that womens sports contains biological women throughout

Au contraire. Because of HRT, a trans woman would generally have less testosterone than a cis woman. Some of the top-performing cis female athletes would be disqualified by rules based on hiring hormone levels. And puberty-related changes that would prove advantageous can be avoided with puberty -blockers until fully transitioning as an adult with full HRT. And even then the trans female adolescent is at a hormonal disadvantage during that age range.

They’ve had dozens of chances for that over dozens of years

From 1980-present the Democratic party has had a filibuater-proof majority in the Senate once, in Obama’s first 2 years, and they passed the ACA with it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Party_divisions_of_United_States_Congresses

He can’t do any of it without a filibuater-proof Senate majority (which could mean 51 Senators who are willing to amend the filibuster at the start of the 2025 session).

It’s just the uncertainty whether or not the people voicing their disagreement are also going to protest vote (be it third party or just not voting) rather than vote against MAGA 2025.

School vouchers were supposed to save taxpayer money.

No they weren’t. That’s just the propaganda fed to the voters.

You live in a red state that requires a government ID to watch porn online.

I’m saying don’t think of it as voting for Biden. Think of it as voting for the Democratic platform, to defeat the Republican platform. If a voter is more aligned with the Dem. platform but not voting for the Democratic nominee if it’s Biden, they’re just not understanding the reality of how our elections work.

At this point it legitimately doesn’t matter why Biden is so unpopular … What matters is winning the election

I agree. Which is why I didn’t mention Biden. I don’t care who the Democratic nominee is at this point. I am voting for them. And the people saying they can’t vote for Biden because he old need to reconcile that if they’re not voting for the Democratic nominee then they get Trump and Project 2025 bringing fascism full force. Kamala is t Biden, she has a pulse, she’s presumptively on the Democratic ticket. They can vote for her instead of for Biden. They can tell themselves they’re voting for the platform and not for Biden. Just as long as they vote for the Democratic ticket.

Yeah, but some people require a pulse…

Do those people want a Democratic president but believe Trump would be better than Kamala? Do they believe the Republican platform (ie end democracy and reform as an authoritarian theocracy) is better than the Democratic platform on any particular issue?

The ruling actually said the president “is entitled to at least *presumptive * immunity from prosecution for all his official acts.” Absolute immunity was reserved for “conclusive and preclusive constitutional authority.” I’m not defending this ruling, but we don’t need to misquote it.

Generally no. It’s just a straw man the right wing trans phones have cooked up to rage-bait voters. Just like post-birth abortion.

Yes. We just have to vote for him! Pretty simple really.

He’s the ubermensch!

Conservatives thought Colbert was one of them at first. Then again, they didn’t know Rage Against the Machine hated them or The Boys was mocking them, either.