I don’t like Joe Biden, I’ll never forget the Neoliberal bullshit he did with the Republicans in the 90s we are still suffering from further eviscerating the safetynet to the draconian war on people suffering addiction. He’s one of the OG former opposition party members the Reagan Revolution convinced to take the bigger bribe checks from Wall Street than Unions could ever match, today’s neoliberal(D) party.
That said, I voted for him in the last election, and I will again out of harm reduction. He has improved on policy, but l even if he didn’t, the American people do not get a vote on whether or not to elect a senile President this cycle.
You can have any President you like, as long as he’s senile. If you vote, we’ll get a senile President. If you don’t, we’ll get a senile President.
The question is whether you want senile and gleefully cruel®, or just senile(D). I’ll take just senile.
the American people do not get a vote on whether or not to elect a senile President this cycle
I feel like I’ve somehow become trapped in some kind of simulation or thought experiment where the purpose of it is to make lesser evilism seem as ridiculous as conceivably possible, and every time I think it’s peaked with just comical levels of absurdity, it somehow manages to escalate.
Except you do get to vote for no senility. That is what the primaries were for. Trump was actually struggling quite a bit against a young woman.
As was Biden for a hot second against a younger candidate. That was short lived. Biden was also getting a bit of a slap by a few people who were not on board for having Biden run the party again.
This is why you don’t sleep through the primaries and complain you only get the only one vote on parties.
2016 proved that wasn’t true. The DNC pushed the candidate they wanted, and the guy who kept being up or near Hillary just got ignored by the press so most people barely ever saw him. You don’t get to pick anything in the primaries. The two parties in charge tell you who you get to have.
You can have any President you like, as long as he’s senile. If you vote, we’ll get a senile President. If you don’t, we’ll get a senile President.
there are other candidates you can vote for
You’re still going to get a senile president.
Harm reduction dictates voting for the least harmful outcome, period.
do not get a vote on whether or not to elect a senile President this cycle
Yeah this is just false.
Which candidate of our only 2 parties that matter isn’t senile this cycle?
He said, with no examples or evidence of any kind.
Edit the way "vote’ is used in that sentence isn’t so much a ballot transaction…it’s more a “choice”.
Biden or trump WILL be the next president.
This sucks but cannot be avoided.
Edit edit choose left right or abstain, it’s all the same. A senile president will be the next president
Biden or trump WILL be the next president.
Both are over the mean life expectancy, neither is in particularly great health, and it’s another six months until the inauguration.
It’s up to the DNC as to which candidate takes the running ballot. I’m betting there are a lot of conversations right now about who will be that person.
You are half right and half wrong because that decision will come down to whether establishment Democrats or populist Democrats win.
And to be quiet frank, I don’t even think the DNC gets a say. Since Biden is the incumbent, unless he bows out voluntarily, I don’t think we the people or the DNC get to choose.
Our hands are really tied when it comes to the presidential frontrunner, unfortunately.
It’s always telling when some one insists that a statement is true when they themselves know that it isn’t.
It’s 💯 the case the Biden isn’t the nominee today. I’m not arguing if it’s going to be a progressive or a insider that replaces him. Frankly, I could give a shit because either will be doing instantly better than Biden.
Biden is replaceable and there is a cult of personality that has developed that believes this isn’t the case. They’re wrong. There as delusional as the right wing MAGA crowd and their doing MAGAs work for them as the useful idiots that they are.
It’s important to keep it clear that I’m not arguing that some how magically were going to replace Biden with a progressive. I’m arguing that needs to, and will be, replaced. That’s what Thursday showed us, and I know for a fact that the Beltway heard this.
The party that needs to be convinced is Harris. And I think she can be. All of these machinations are happening this weekend, as we speak.
My called shot: Biden steps down as early as Monday, as late as two weeks from Monday. I’m going to be making some calls and seeing what tea I can find spilled.
Or vote third-party, and you’ll probably get a senile President, but maybe not.
And more importantly, you’re helping to break the Duopoly and normalize voting third-party.
If a minor party manages to get 5% of the vote, they qualify for federal funding in the next election, and that might lead to real change.
Cornel West is polling at about 3% (and after Biden’s performance, I wouldn’t be surprised if Cornel picks up a couple more percent). We could be close.
Edit: Or just keep on thinking you have to settle for the lesser of two evils. (How’s that working out for you?)
If you’re in a state that will certainly be blue or red and has 0% chance of swinging unless a huge proportion of the population changes their party affiliation (California, New York, Mississippi, Alabama, to name a few) then vote 3rd party, sure.
If your state was within 10% of flipping colors in any of the past 3 presidential elections, DO NOT vote 3rd party. Your vote matters too much to risk it.
Yeah, that’s the conventional wisdom. When Ross Perot ran, most of his support came from states that weren’t swing states.
(Despite often being called a “spoiler”, he probably had little impact on the result of the election because of that.)
But! Later polls showed that 35% of voters would have voted for Perot if they thought he could win. And if all those people had voted for Perot, he would have won!
Just something to think about.
Once First Past the Post voting is gone, and ranked choice is in, third party will be viable.
But right now, that’s not the reality we live in.
Or vote third-party, and you’ll probably get a senile President, but maybe not.
Vote third party and we are guaranteed to get a senile president. It’s a two party FPTP system.
Edit: Or just keep on thinking you have to settle for the lesser of two evils. (How’s that working out for you?)
Better than telling people to throw away their vote. How’s that working for you? How many 3rd party presidents have you gotten elected with your strategy? How many fascist policies has your strategy avoided us?
I’ve long fantasized of people being so fed up with both parties, that along would come a third party at the right time and enough people would flock to them that and vote them into office.
But it’s just that: A fantasy.
And anyways, there’s always the chance that said third party would be way way worse and maybe there’s a good reason why they weren’t more prominent to begin with.
If every single person on Lemmy voted third-party I guarantee you they wouldn’t carry a single state. In a two party dominated FPTP/winner takes all system voting third-party for president is irresponsible
In a two party dominated FPTP/winner takes all system voting third-party for president is irresponsible
So the two major parties keep telling us.
I am not going to vote for Joe Biden. I am going to vote for the Biden Administration. They can “Weekend at Bernie’s” the old man for all I care.
Biden could drop dead on January 21st and we’ll still get to call this mission accomplished, VP Jeffries ain’t a half bad outcome personally, although Kamala having her eyes on that incumbent effect is gonna make me groan come 28
That’s been the standard US Presidential SOP since Nixon developed a serious drinking problem and Kissinger demanded all orders go through him first (so as to avoid WW3).
They had an old, dementia ridden actor, and the dumb-ass Bush son for that reason, too. HW Bush could handle his shit but he raised taxes and puked on the Japanese PM so that’s a pass. Trump is just another stooge to be kept in line so that his doners get what they want.
Sounds like a great strategy… smh
Might as well give Trump the presidency on a silver platter
Tell me you skim when you read without telling me you skim when you read. 🤣
Biden shit the bed and should fuck off. But I’d vote for his corpse over any filthy republican traitor.
Both candidates would be more attractive to me if they died actually lol I wish we had the option to just skip having a president for 4 years haha
Why is there no option in the US to vote no confidence and force both parties to reelect new candidates?
Because our electoral system was created 200+ years ago and hasn’t had a major overhaul since.
At least as pretense, the primaries are meant to prevent the need for that. And we like to pretend a third party could be successful if the other two are sufficiently incompetent/corrupt. In practice, the lawmakers will never implement a process that gives any amount of their power to the people. There was a window of time in the 90’s - 00’s where we thought the future might hold something other than the cyberpunk dystopia we all see coming. Now I’m reduced to just trying to enjoy the last vestiges of the middle class before it’s gone. Umm, but yeah, we should be able to vote no confidence.
So the man has a stutter, and he’s old, what ever. All I can do is cast my single vote. Last time, I voted against Trump, and honestly, even after the debate, I’ll cast my vote this time for Biden.
I’d much rather cast my vote for Hakeem Jeffries, or Shift, or Bernie, or a dozen other people who aren’t an option.
Thing is, I’m going to cast my vote in Cook county IL, so it literally won’t matter. IL is going blue no matter what, and I feel like my participation is merely token.
I wish I could do more, I want to scream at clouds about what is happening to the country, and it doesn’t matter.
Saw a stat that says Trump is 65% to win, and want to physically grab people and shake them, but what would it matter?
Had I walked into that debate blind, not knowing who those people are, what the “facts” and the facts are, I’d have thought, that Biden guy seems weak and befuddled, and boy that Trump is sure a confident leader. It made me feel sick.
As I told my mother today, I don’t have kids, I live in the midwest, have a good job with a big stable company, truth is, even a second Trump term won’t effect me that much. I can just sit back, enjoy my 30 so years left, and watch the world burn, but damn it, I have empathy for others, and there are many, many people whose lives and livelihood are going to be seriously impacted, and that bothers me.
I’ll also be casting my vote in Cook county. I have hispanic kids. My wife is Salvadoran. She is a US citizen born and raised in the US. I’m a white atheist and a dual citizen of the EU who has had the audacity to previously speak poorly about my corporate overlords. I grew up in the south. I don’t trust these project 2025 fucks to stop at illegal immigrants. Biden sucks, but I’ll vote for him anyway because the system literally gives me no other option. Until the system changes or fails, this is what we must do.
If you value the supreme court, lower court appointments, social security, healthcare, childcare, the environment, action on climate change, a competent CDC for the pandemics we’re going to experience more frequently, etc., vote Biden. Yes he’s old. Yes he sucks. Unfortunately he’s the lesser of two evils. And by a wide margin.
If your district is definitely going blue then you could safely vote 3rd party… Think of it as a vote to change the fptp system. There is no way the system will ever change if we don’t start forcing it to.
2016 called, they want their apathy for keeping fascists out of the government back.
This Biden protection is crazy. we need a candidate who actually stands a chance against Trump. this is insane. It’s 2016 all over again.
I don’t even see why that matters. Even if the candidate was an actual real turnip, the choice would be obvious.
I mean I don’t vote in your election but it seems quite clear to me.
I think part of our different view might be based on how our electoral system is.
So to explain: Trump’s never won a popular election before. Even when he became president, most Americans voted for his opposition Hillary Clinton. We have a very gerrymandered and corrupt voting system to oversimplify. Because of that The main decider for presidential elections is voting turnout. If a lot of people come out to vote, the Democrats usually win. If they don’t the Republicans win. Voter turnout is higher when people want to vote for the Democratic nominee. No one really wants to vote for Biden. Most of us will vote against Trump myself included. That being said, if we run a very unlikable candidate against him like we did in 2016, he might win and that’s terrifying. This election is serious so we should take it seriously and run somebody likeable and not half way to being a turnip.
God forbid if Biden stays in there, I hope he wins. I’ll even vote for him but I am not feeling good about his odds.
I think you missed their point. They, and many others, don’t know why anyone would vote for Trump to begin with. Of course, I said the same thing when he first started being presented as a candidate for 2016. Like, of all people, him? But, here we are today, wondering if he actually had a chance for another term.
A different voting method may have avoided him getting this far, but he really shouldn’t have even gotten out of the joke candidate category to begin with.
Yeah, this is where I’m at. I’m not an American, but I will feel the impact of your country’s decisions very quickly. I think the best option is to beg the non-voters to get out and vote however you can while building a new party, or rebuilding an existing one, from the local level on up until you have a realistic chance of putting a leader worth having in place.
For what it’s worth, I think the Biden administration hasn’t done terribly. They could have done much better with the latest episode of the Israel-Gaza conflict, but we literally had Congress people advocating for a nuclear response. A lot of improvements in other areas were quietly made in the background that wasn’t really talked about. I can’t say if that’s because Biden picked the right people to get things done, he had the right vision, or he just had good handlers. I’m not sure I care because, whatever the answer is, the opponent certainly doesn’t have any of those.
Because he has to be effective for four more years after the vote.
Fuck its like you people think everything just closes up for the next four years and elections are just a one-day championship ceremony
After the ceremony, you plant the turnip in a flower pot and have the administration run things. There’s hundreds of other people, from ministers (or secretaries, over there) to all kinds of aides and attachés and whatnot. Just one guy missing wouldn’t really make much difference.
I’m not voting for the insurrectionist in 2024. I don’t care how frail Biden looks. The choice is obvious. I’ll worry about the next candidate.
No one Is suggesting you should vote for Trump and his fascist. I’m saying I’m worried Biden won’t beat Trump and his fascist in an election because he’s not a strong candidate at all. This is the same problem we have with Hillary in 2016
You’re not wrong, but he’s the incumbent. They were never going to switch him out. He beat Trump last time, and there’s no way the DNC was ever going to float someone different. Hillary was not the incumbent.
But man it would be awesome to have “Yes we can” slogan energy back again. The speeches on the runup to Obama’s first presidential election were so morale-boosting. I ended up canvassing for him when I lived in northwest Indiana with my baby in a stroller and my toddler walking around with us. It was awesome.
Now I mostly just vote and get really upset a lot.
The reality is that with the Republicans embracing fascism America will not recover without the candidacy of another FDR, someone who voters can not only want to vote for but will replace any overly partisan Congresscritter that opposes his agenda.
That’s not happening. Period. Maybe the Democrats will win this year, maybe not, but in 2026 and 2028 they’ll still be ratcheting America to fascism regardless with their neverending deluge of “moderates” that are always a little more right than before in an appeal to voters who want a dictator instead of picking candidates their base actually wants.
This road isn’t ending well no matter what happens.
I dont care who you vote for. It is very clear to me you will vote for Democrats. That is great.
I do care about who my aunt and her family votes for, a lot. She is democrat leaning. Her husband is republican leaning. They both believe the middle class is getting destroyed by politicians for the last 2 decades. They are both retired. They used to be middle/low income. These days they are clearly low income.
- In 2004, they both voted for Bush.
- In 2008, they both voted for Obama.
- In 2012, they both voted for Obama.
- In 2016, they both claimed to vote for Trump, although I believe my aunt might have voted for Hillary. (Uncle has military background. He kept saying if he did what Hillary did when he was in active duty, he would be in prison for the rest of his life.)
- In 2020, they both voted for Biden.
For the last 2 years, they both are saying that they don’t want to vote for Trump but Biden destroyed the economy for middle class. It was clear they might give Biden another shot if he managed to recover the economy before the election.
Ever since the debate, they both are dead set on voting for Trump. All I hear is “Of course the economy would be bad, he is senile.” or any “Of course xyz would be bad, he is senile.”
As I said, I don’t care who you vote for. I care for the votes of people that have not decided whether to vote for Trump or Biden. In the debate, Biden lost a lot of them. Biden lost that debate, clearly! Saying “they both are senile” or “Trump lied during the debate” is damage control by Dems. If Dems insist on going forward with Biden, Trump will be president. I am sure of that.
Now you can say my aunt and her family are stupid. You can say I am stupid for not changing their minds. You can say Trump is an insurrectionist and we are all stupid. You can even say all of the Americans are stupid, it is your first amendment right. You can down-vote me to hell if it makes you feel good. None of these will change the fact that my aunt and her family will vote for Trump unless Dems change the candidate or Biden manages to shit rainbows and use it to gift a million dollars to my aunt’s family.
At this point being a Biden apologist is the same thing as voting for Trump. Trump will win.
Democrats will go down blaming the other Democrats that kept warning them of other centrist voters calling them Russian shills.
No sense of self blame and simply calling everyone else idiots cause they didn’t see their idea of a perfect future that no one else was included on.
Apparently a whole party of “being right” is not a good way to get others to join you.
Agree, this astroturfing is insane. I can’t help but think it’s a coordinated campaign, because Biden was very clearly senile in that debate, if not something worse. Democrats can still win if they let Biden retire and choose someone who can rebut Donald Trump.
Just look at my two recent submissions to c/politics that were immediately down-voted anonymously for highlighting FOCUS GROUPS of UNDECIDED SWING VOTERS.
Not one substantive argument.
And you know I can’t tell if it’s scared Dems, or astroturfing right-wing operatives trying to ensure we maintain course with this sinking ship.
Are there any communities where we can look at that kind of data and commentary without being censored? Lmk, c/politics is insane.
How can someone even expect him to not be senile at this age.
I can’t help but think it’s a coordinated campaign,
Social media with bots and shit allow for such, yes.
By the way, I don’t think the organizers of this campaign want Dems to win. They want Dems to lose.
It may not be seen from the US and the EU, but Trump’s presidency has helped quite a few disgusting things to start happening in various parts of the world, though they continued during Biden’s presidency.
Bush was clearly the face man of an executive admin that he didn’t run, he was s figure head. Clinton, it was assumed by the press and a lot of the voter base wasn’t running his admin, the first term Hillary was said to be running things and a slew of technocrats was assumed his second term, Reagan, we now know historically, was experiencing Alzheimer’s all through out his presidency, much like Trump, he also had a strict schedule of not even pretending he showed up to work.
There’s nothing wrong with electing the face of an administration you want in office, this is largely Obama’s admin still running the government, that’s what we all want. Unkie Joe can take all the naps he wants, it make no real difference.
I don’t know why everyone thinks this is some rarely understood point. I think most people get this.
However, You have to be electable to a country where 30 to 40% of people. Think Trump is a god king who can do no wrong and never lies. Hillary’s administration almost certainly would have been better than Trump’s. Hillary still lost. Biden running as he is now is dangerous. That’s where it makes the real difference. Biden might lose to trump and we might get Trump again. Any other sane and half way competent milk toast politician won’t have that problem. Biden continuing to run is a danger to democracy.
This is a really important point.
The president is really only as good as his staff. They can only do so much as an individual person.
Joe Biden knows how to hire a good staff, and respects the limitations of hisnl office.
Meanwhile, if Trump could’ve harnessed the energy from his revolving door of “loyalists”, we might’ve been able to stay under 2°C.
But, part of Project 2025 is actually planning to make 50,000 merit-based non-political positions (basically middle-management, and sometimes lower, at NASA or ATF or Dept of Education or FDA) into political appointments, and fire them if they don’t toe the party line. In order to circumvent Congress and run everything unilaterally.
Are you telling me that a younger progressive would not have a good staff?
This is a terrible sentiment. Yes, no leader can do things by himself. But he needs to be present. He needs to understand what is going on. He needs to be able to resolve conflicts and make decisions. And he needs to smell it, if someone is trying to sell him bullshit.
Do you think the administration is just all great teamplayers who have no agendas of their own, who have no conflicts or problematic histories with each other? Of course not.
Think of it like any team sports team. You cannot win the superbowl or champions league with a bad trainer.
I think it’s more insane to say that Biden doesn’t have a chance against Trump when he’s already beaten Trump once, which is why he’s President Biden.
No, he hasn’t. He’s always been slower and more measured in what he says because he used to be a stutterer, so he comes across less strong in his speech, but it’s his actions that matter much more.
Hey buddy how does it feel to have been so wrong? You thought the idea that biden didnt havw a chance was insane but even Biden dropped out because he knew he didn’t. I just wanted to remind you how confident you were that you were right when you couldn’t have been more wrong 😏 😜
Except I wasn’t wrong. If he had stayed in I believe he would beat Trump. He only dropped out because he could see the party infighting, and dropped out to try and unify the party. But, had he remained in the race, he ultimately would have beaten Trump. The only way we would know if I had been wrong was if he had stayed in the race and then lost, otherwise I still believe in the end he would gave defeated Trump.
Did you see the debate last night? That ain’t the dude who ran in 2020. Also I think the political pressure pot of 2020 was unique because people were trapped inside and forced to watch the news even more. People would have voted for anyone but Trump then. There’s still a lot of people that feel that way myself included. But not everyone who felt that way in 2020 feels that way in 2024. That’s just the reality. I really don’t think Biden has it this time.
Biden seems to misunderstand why he won.
He seems to think that people were really impressed with him as a candidate and that since he’s so much more impressive than all the other potential Democratic nominees, he’s the only logical choice to try to beat Trump.
He certainly enjoyed the support of many people who believe that but he relied heavily on the support of several other cohorts to push him over the edge. Those cohorts didn’t like him. They didn’t like him at all. They just hated Trump more, held their noses, and voted for Not Trump.
Biden has been telling several of those cohorts that their priorities don’t matter. He had tenuous support from those groups and he took that support for granted. Many of those groups are now thinking, “You failed to deliver on the one thing we wanted from you. I no longer see you as a significant improvement over Trump.”
Claiming that they’re just throwing a tantrum over a raspy voice further trivializes their concerns and pushes them farther away.
A clever MAGA troll would make exactly this kind of post. All it does alienate critical voters from Democrats.
It’s important to remember Bernie was set to have the lead after Super Tuesday.
Then within like 24 hours of Super Tuesday, pretty much every other candidate dropped out and endorsed Biden.
It was too late notice for Bernie to campaign in all the states, or for voters to decide. They just followed their candidates advice and voted Biden.
Biden never had a mandate, and 2020 came down to a handful of states by like 10k votes each.
Mainstream media has been calling him “the next fdr” for so long I think he legitimately believes. He has no idea how unpopular he is with the average voter, because he doesn’t interact with the average voter. His campaign is tailored to getting donations from the wealthy, so Biden just gets handshakes from the famous and wealthy that tell him he’s perfect.
He’s insulated from real feedback and believe his yes men.
Biden literally hung his mouth open like a brain dead zombie. He lost his train of thought multiple times… He said “we beat Medicare” ffs. Wtf does that mean?? I want to defeat Trump, but Biden is not going to accomplish that. Change the Democratic candidate before it’s too late.
Any other candidate just wouldn’t have the name recognition. Millions of Americans just vote for the incumbent regardless of who it is
If Biden gets out of the way (of his own accord or not) and somebody else becomes the nominee, they will have name recognition immediately. I promise you.
They really won’t. I think as someone on Lemmy you’re probably overestimating how much the average person pays attention to politics
That’s not how public perception works. Most people don’t watch the news.
