John Stewart always finds the best way to express what I’m feeling.
Regardless of the outcome, this election will go down as a shit stain on history.
I just hope the outcome doesn’t turn it into explosive diarrhea.
Why the fuck are these two the choices?!
Because the system is set up to prevent any real change for the benefit of the common people. So your choice is between the friendly, somewhat reasonable oligarchy stooge and the utterly deranged oligarchy stooge.
A somewhat less pessimistic take: the system is set up to be self-stable.
And it was also designed so that States would have most of the power, not the Federal government.
At various points in history the common people did get benefits. New Deal. Universal suffrage. Civil rights. Abolition.
But it always requires a critical mass of the population to support change.
Like in the 2016 election? Or in 2000? The system is set up to prevent the will of the people from being enacted and it takes a massive crisis for everyone to be pissed off enough to do something. Add to that the control of nearly all media by the oligarchy and you get to where we are today.
And it was also designed so that States would have most of the power, not the Federal government.
Yeah, but then we changed it because of the civil war…
The system was designed for the president to be a mostly performative figurehead. Then we gave the president real power, but left determination like the president didn’t matter.
Same reason every independent store and restaurant gets replaced by a chain.
People want what’s familiar. Both these men won their primaries and have the most support out of anyone in their parties.
Look at the last handful of democratic presidential losses to see this in action:
Gore gets nominated due to familiarity. He has the charisma of a warm sponge. He loses (barely, and not the popular vote; by the way, FUCK the electoral college) to George W. “I’d have a beer with him and hey wasn’t his dad president?” Bush.
Kerry somehow rises to the top of the next democratic primary, a fact that I will never understand, because he also has the charisma of a warm sponge. Bush is familiar and a wartime president. He is re-elected in defiance of God and nature.
Obama comes along and is a once in a generation political talent. Things are pretty good for a while.
Hillary enters the primary and wins mainly based on name recognition. She presents herself as having the charisma of a warm sponge, when we all know full well that she has the charisma of a wood chipper, and since we’re pretty good at detecting artifice she loses.
In 2019 we’ve got a pretty good set of primary choices, but Biden gets into the ring and that’s pretty much fucking it, because, again, he has name recognition, so he blows past some better, younger choices and manages to leverage his name and Trump’s fuck-ups enough to win.
The pattern is that name recognition will get you a real long way, especially with low information voters, and that is a real goddamn problem when there are objectively better options who aren’t as famous.
So anyway, I think we need a constitutional amendment forbidding members of one’s immediate family from running for president after one has been president. No sons, daughters, husbands, wives, etc. Fuck dynasties. Fucking fundamentally un-American.
Because that’s all our owners will let us have. Thanks citizen United for hammering in that final nail in our collective coffin
Do you think it’s just that, or that maybe the fact that too many people don’t give a shit in-between election years might play a role as well? Because from what I’ve seen over the decades- is that a lot of SJWs enjoy rising up every four years to complain about shit- then disappear until the next election.
Without fail.
Shit Show 2024 begins.
First of all- I agree concerns about both their ages are very much valid here but hasn’t Biden had a stutter from a very young age and struggled with it most of his life? Surely we should cut the guy some slack here?
That said, of course there won’t be slack. Political debates (especially one of high stakes as this one) are cut throat and no one has room for error.
Brother don’t lie to yourself, that was way more than a just a stutter. Nobody who watched that debate is under the impression that the problem was Joe Biden stuttered sometimes. I understand you’re disappointed and trying to cope somehow but it’s not healthy to just create a fantasy. It was a train wreck. It was real real bad. Just accept it and move on.
It was a disaster. Trump lied for 90 minutes straight, but he did it confidently, with a straight face, and without rambling. It was a vast improvement over his stump speeches. Biden mostly told the truth, but he meandered, stammered, got mixed up, and was obviously ill. That’s just what happened.
I’m going to vote for Biden anyway, because the old man stands for policies that actually benefit me personally (and a second Trump term is a threat to the existence of the Republic). But the debate was bad for him, possibly catastrophic. His campaign desperately needs an October surprise, and at this point it’s hard to guess what it might be.
@njm1314@lemmy.world My dude, go easy. I’m from the UK, I have no reason to create a fantasy, just making an observation. Please don’t make these kinda discussions a “shut up and listen here” kind of thing.
Edit: tagged user
I honestly didn’t think he went that hard on you… It definitely didn’t come across as a “shut up and listen here” comment.
That said, if you saw any of the clips, I think it was clear and obvious that his stutter was not the issue.
In 2020, there was a lot of talk about his stutter, and that made seemed right. Here lately Biden is giving me “Weekend at Bernie” vibes.
hasn’t Biden had a stutter from a very young age and struggled with it most of his life?
It hasn’t apparently impacted his public speaking for most of his political career up until recently:
https://youtu.be/86Nrv5izaTs?si=bZ9WNXIEZNOaBV3T
And even when not speaking during tonight’s debate, he often looked totally bewildered.
People have been saying this for quite a while now despite the excuses from the Democrat establishment, but tonight there was no hiding the fact that the dude just looks unable to last another four years as president.
And even when not speaking during tonight’s debate, he often looked totally bewildered.
To be fair, my partner and I also looked totally bewildered by the things falling out of Trump’s face. I don’t know that he actually answered a single question, but rather spouted the same racist nonsense over and over.
That’s a silver lining.
Biden looks like he’s on the verge of croaking, so maybe, just maybe, we’ll get a black, female fascist enabler instead of an old white male fascist enabler for once.
Being a narcissistic, bloviating despot is exactly what everyone expected of Trump. In fact, he came off rather well from the time constraints, muted mics, and the total lack of fact-checking because the format of the debate didn’t expose his weaknesses like it did for Biden.
In his first presidential primary in 1988, Biden was the front runner despite his youth because he was wildly regarded as one of the best public speakers in the country and he was (at the time) charismatic.
Then he started yelling at reporters about how high his IQ was after they found out he plagiarized speeches plagiarized work in law school, and lied about his grades and class standing.
Because he got over his childhood stutter. In childhood.
What’s happening now isn’t a stutter. It’s 100% normal for an 82 year old.
That doesn’t mean an 82 year old is fit to be president, just that Biden acts how an 82 year old is expected to act. Because he’s 82 years old.
One thing to remember is they didn’t have notes, earpieces or teleprompters.
Trump just straight up rambled out a stream of bullshit, lies, and projection every time he had the mic. Biden was not only answering factually, but also had to counter bullshit. They were on the same stage but playing two completely different games.
And when the debate is analyzed down to “who was more truthful?”, Biden slightly flubbing a fact/figure will be treated near equally to Trump straight up spewing out bullshit.
Well, this American sure does and will be voting in November. Suggest everyone does the same.
Go back and watch his 2020 debate footage or his VP debates. This was not his stutter.
Shit just go back and watch the fuckin STATE OF THE UNION. Where was THAT Biden???
It worries me that people can listen to trump say “we have the most unsafe border in history when I was president we had the most safe border in history” and not question that statement in the slightest.