Trump is even worse than Biden on Gaza. I get trying to push Biden to do better, but let’s all keep the truth in mind. The actual truth, not the click bait bullshit horse race covered by the media.
Electoral pressure is literally the only lever we have to push Biden to do better. There’s no other way. Biden’s team is making a bet that we aren’t serious and that they can just use Trump to hold us hostage in the party.
So! No ceasefire, no votes. If this war is still going on by November, and Netanyahu has been saying it will, I will not vote for Biden.
It’s so easy to earn our votes! Why is Biden sabotaging his own campaign?
Electoral pressure is literally the only lever we have to push Biden to do better. There’s no other way.
This is correct, barring revolution.
Biden’s team is making a bet that we aren’t serious and that they can just use Trump to hold us hostage in the party.
You are incorrect. Biden’s team, under the direction of the Democrat party, have taken away your lever because they don’t want to win. The Democrats have said this, publicly. They said back in 2016 that they would rather lose to Trump than win with Bernie. The Democrat party is happy to lose, always.
To say that they don’t want to win is to imply a secret conspiracy to lose, but that’s not what we see. With Hillary, they didn’t conspire to make Hillary lose. They really did want her to win! They didn’t want Bernie to win because he wasn’t a Democrat. Winning with Bernie would have fundamentally changed their shitty party, they didn’t want that. That’s just lose/lose for them.
If this analogy applies, if they would rather lose the election than stop doing genocide, then death to America. I won’t give a shit about who wins, hopefully whoever wins destroys this shithole.
The trouble you guys face is Trump is worse.
Just on Israel-Palestine alone, Trump is the person that recognised Jerusalem as Israel’s capital city. If that isn’t informative about his attitude about the situation…
If the choices are genocide lite and genocide deluxe, the only answer is for America to be defeated. MLs call it revolutionary defeatism.
While I have serious issues with Biden on Israel, he really has no ability to force a ceasefire. (Short of sending US troops in to enforce it, and that would be a terrible idea.).
Biden could pull all US support for Israel, but that would create a power vacuum that China or (more likely) Russia would gladly fill. It still wouldn’t end the genocide, but it would put a wedge between Iran and the Palestinians. (Iran is their only powerful ally.)
Biden’s rhetoric needs to change, and we need Israel to feel some real heat for their actions, but the US doesn’t have Israel on a leash.
While I have serious issues with Biden on Israel, he really has no ability to force a ceasefire. (Short of sending US troops in to enforce it, and that would be a terrible idea.).
Did you forget about the UN Security Council votes? The ones the US ruined?
Trump is worse than Biden on anything and everything. But if any president can get away with supporting a genocide campaign, is this not the way they get away with it? By simply claiming it will ruin their campaign efforts?
It’s sad ppl only read your first sentence and then are fully satisfied with whatever shit you throw on, as long as you don’t specifically say ‘Biden is really bad’
A president has already gotten away with it. Trying to selectively punish Biden now is actually a bit of hypocrisy. We should have done it in the first place. But we largely got in that position because of people who couldn’t bring themselves to vote for Clinton, etc.
Biden’s moves are optically bad. But make a lot of sense as far as strategy goes. Traditionally. You have a much more powerful position to bargain as an ally than as an enemy. But that does not stop people like yourself from making hyperbolic claims.
Don’t get me wrong. Eileen, libertarian and communist. I have no real investment in Biden. I’m simply intelligent enough to know that he or Trump are going to win. And that he is by far the better choice. Which you yourself said. You just want to make some example of him despite your own face etc.
Unfortunately, the Democrats keep going back to the well of “what are you going to do, vote for the other guy?” Their success on this has been hit or miss the last few cycles. In fairness, it’s been a viable strategy in the past, if Democrats can get those few persuadable voters in the middle of the political spectrum to vote Democratic and not Republican, that’s a net win for the Democratic candidate. But, that begs the question of “are there enough persuadable voters left to offset losses when parts of your base stay home?” With Biden’s continued support for Israel’s actions, it seems that their political calculus says, “yes”.
However, we’ve seen this go both ways in the last few cycles. Clinton deployed the tactic in 2016 and commenters were out in force to brow-beat any of the deplorables who offered anything less than a full-thoated support of her turn. It got her the popular vote, but that has never mattered, she lost the election. The “vote blue no matter who” force was on full display again in 2020 and managed to eek out a win. And here you are again, ramping up for 2024. It’s going to be interesting to see how it works out this time.
Biden in 2020 had the advantage of being somewhat unknown. Everyone knew him as Obama’s Vice President and that provided him some of Obama’s popularity. This time around, he’s much more of a known quantity and he’s going to be running on his own record. Brow-beating people with “anyone but Trump” seems less likely to work when voters may be looking at specific policies and actions which they find at odds with their beliefs. When Biden was more of an unknown, it was easy for voters to map their own views onto him. We see this with polls which include “generic Democrat/Republican” as an option. People map their own views onto the “generic” view and so are more supportive. When a candidate becomes a known quantity, support can drop off, as the voters know which areas they agree and disagree with a particular politician. In the same way, Biden’s policies are now more understood by the voters and people may be less inclined to support him based on those policies.
Personally, I’m doubtful this sort of brow-beating is going to work this cycle. Biden’s popularity isn’t fantastic and he’s too well known for people to map their views onto him. Moreover, responding to people being upset with his actions with a brow-beating seems like a poor response to peoples’ legitimate issues. It seems more likely to convince them to disengage or push back even harder. Sure, what are they going to do, vote for the other guy? No, probably not, but they may also not show up on election day. And with the closely divided state of the US electorate, that might just be enough to swing things the other way.
Since when is Centrist defined as “I will shutdown the border as soon as you sign that bill”, “More kids in cages than the last guy”, “No prosecutions for leaders who incite a violent coup”, “More weapons for genocide”, “Let’s destroy the economy of our allies”, “We must keep the torture center at Guantanamo open”, “Who’s Epstein?”, “No I won’t pardon Peltier”, “No I won’t commute sentence of political prisoners”, “Yes, more black people in jail”, “Yes, it’s OK for prisoners to produce $11Bn in goods for private companies through slave labor”, “I swear we’ll do something about women’s health but it won’t be part of our political platform for the election”.
All of the evidence says we have the same two groups of white supremacist leaders we have always had: the plantation owners who bought the slaves, and the financiers who sold the slaves. You want to claim that the financiers are “centrist” in that formulation because they don’t personally whip people?
I get trying to push Biden to do better
Do you, as a group, though?
Every time someone posts an article about how it’s a bad thing that Biden is actively contributing to a genocide, the top comment is Trump whataboutism.
Yes, Trump is much worse, both on Israel and in general, but that’s not the fucking point!
Trump is much worse, both on Israel and in general, but that’s not the fucking point!
Except that the only two actual choices for the next 4 year cycle are Trump and Biden. Do that really us the point.
Putting your progressive politics focus on the president is a losing game, anyway. Praxis is local.
Wouldn’t this energy be better invested in getting Biden to stop supporting the Israeli genocide so that his Arab and Muslim voters don’t abandon him?
I didn’t realize the primary was over.
It’s funny how that and the fact that the Democratic party has already, against it’s own rules, removed all candidates other than Biden from the ballots in 10% of the States never gets brought up.
Instead we get a bunch of people posting in an attempt to shame people into voting for someone who supports genocide because ‘what else are you going to do’
I wish the Democratic party acted like Trump was the existential threat we all recognize him to be.
So as long as he’s marginally better than a deranged fascist rapist, criticism of him isn’t allowed at all?
Fuck off with that authoritarianism bullshit!
Um, what? How are you entirely unaware of the Trump administration’s support of Saudi Arabia commiting genocide in Yemen while Saudi officials dumped loads of cash at Trump resorts?
Just for the records, the same Yemen genocide that Biden continued to support and the same Yemen that he is now directly bombing?
On foreign policy the US remains a genocidal bully with questionable morals and alliances. But domestically the Democrats present a veneer of somewhat moral, inclusive values. So with the presented choice I would recommend to go with the seemingly moral guy and try to hold him accountable, rather than vote for the fascist maniac that acts the same domestically and foreign.
Just hope you get locally active to organize a stronger left for the future.
The Canadian Conservative party is the one that usually runs on “imagine/look at how bad the other guy would be” as a party platform. It’s a bad look and a sign that you have nothing better. It’s politicking for the sake of politicking.
Why does CNN put genocide in quotes in the article after the international court has already ruled that the actions in Gaza meet the definition?
Guys. Vote in your interests. Sure Biden might be a complicit war criminal but the other guy is a domestic criminal who would be an enthusiastic war criminal given half a chance.
Secure your country from the Putin’s pet orangutan for another four years, then rake Biden across the coals.
If we’re lucky, we won’t have to deal with either of them in 2028.
I agree with you and I’d like to point out we’ve done studies and found that “Russiagate” in 2016 was a big nothingburger. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/01/09/russian-trolls-twitter-had-little-influence-2016-voters/
Democrats don’t want to hear it, though, because it’s a very convenient excuse for their own failings. Just like them blaming Bernie Bros, despite Bernie supporters voting for Clinton in larger numbers than Clinton supporters voted for Obama 8 years prior.
They simply don’t want to take responsibility for their own actions (and inaction).
There are a lot of reasons to be suspicious about trump when it comes to colluding with foreign powers, and there is even some evidence. I agree that people often take it too far, into the conspiracy theory territory. But I don’t think it’s quite comparable with QAnon, either in feasibility, or in scope, or in the problematic effects that it may have.
Also, the American system is, at best, only semi-democratic. The politicians are the ones who determine who is in power, much more than the people who actually vote. Are the citizens really responsible for what politicians we have? Am I responsible, as a man who votes conscientiously, who has campaigned during important elections, and yet does not have any real influence in who gets elected? Is the average person, who is just barely getting by, really expected to change the system by themselves?
We need systemic change, but we have no class consciousness, and we are not likely to get there. These facts are manipulated by the people in power.
Hey yeah, I should stop picking on that Putin guy! 😁
I said Trump was Putin’s pet. He’s a foreign agent only by happenstance and perhaps through manipulation.
I don’t know what country you live in but that sure is a lot of words that don’t really mean anything.
Can you please elaborate on what the “foreign agent bullshit” you’re talking about is?
And can you please also explain how said bullshit is akin to how republicans are blaming Qanaon? (And also please explain what republicans are “blaming” Qanon for, as it’s my understanding that most republicans are followers of Qanon, not critics.)
If you are a bot account I am sorry for putting you through the wringer as it’s my first day.
So… When your choices are between two war criminals, your first thought isn’t that the system needs change but that we should vote for the war criminal with a track record of war crimes?
The system needs to change, but with one of those criminals it’s slow progress in the right direction and with the other it’s a sprint towards fascism. Take your pick.
At least there was opposition to Trump when he did his fascism. Biden is literally funding, arming, and defending the modern day holocaust and liberals are still flocking to support him. Anyone who votes for him is just as complicit in the genocide as he is, just as the Germans liberals who voted for the Nazi party were. How are you lot still not-seeing the full picture??
Remember when the professionals were saying that Trump was an incompetent fascist and we should be worried about is the competent fascist that would come after him? Biden is that competent fascist. If Trump did half of what Biden did, it would be because he fucked it up half way.
Biden is actually the current figurehead of a very effective facist machine, imo, but I still don’t want someone as incompetent as the alternative running the USA. That shit has a major affect on the rest of the world.
First you prevent the orange man from taking office and further accelerating the deterioration of international order – please – then you can look into your own country’s issues, among which are milking conflict for profit and power (my country is the same, we’re just smaller. I’m looking into it!)
Remember, Biden is carrying on the status quo. The USA has a long history of letting shit slide with Israel, long before Biden. It’s just that Bibi is an evil trapped rat who has inadvertently “blown up Biden’s game.”
Imagine thinking you’ll even be able to legally protest if Trump is president.
Pelosi is already directing the FBI to investigate pro-Palestine protestors https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/pelosi-fbi-pro-palestine-protesters-russia-1234955648/
Is this what we can expect for every criticism of the Biden administration for the next year? All you are really telling swing voters is that their opinion is irrelevant. What do you think that will do for turnout? Why do you think the administration itself isn’t making use of this brilliant electoral strategy? When Trump wins, you can thank the guy in the mirror.
Did I say their opinion is irrelevant? I said, like last time, Trump will attack them and try to outlaw protests while working for the highest bidder. It’s not an attempt at swaying, it’s stating fact. You don’t get change by replacing the status quo guy with a straight up fascist.
And when he was president he regularly tried to outlaw protests, tear gasses them, etc. Not to mention a Trump presidency costed Roe v Wade and stacked the supreme Court with bought and sold Christofascists. I didn’t say he never was president, I said he’ll straight up outlaw protests the next time he is, which he was well on his way to doing the last time.
Trump would probably bomb the shit out of Palestine.
Biden isn’t sending drones to bomb Palestine, to my knowledge. I’m saying that Trump would do that. If Trump were in power, it would probably be worse.
Not to excuse Biden, and his complete apathy for this ongoing genocide. It is unexcusable, and no one who tolerates genocide should be allowed anywhere near politics.
Biden isn’t sending drones to bomb Palestine, to my knowledge.
He bypassed Congress to send weapons to Israel. I think similar shit happened on several occasions, and it’s not nearing an end. What’s the difference? American tax money all the same.
I don’t think you will find anyone on this thread who supports Trump or thinks Trump will not be “worse”.
EDIT: wait, one second, seems like Biden actually may literally have done what you suggested: https://theintercept.com/2024/01/11/israel-air-force-targeting-intelligence/. And apparently the “hold my beer as I bypass the congress” happened twice
It’s already been decimated. By Joe Biden.
If you think that’s a good enough argument, you are severely mistaken.
