• Allonzee@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    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.

    • OBJECTION!@lemmy.ml
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      3 months ago

      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.

    • Smoogs@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      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.

      • ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de
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        3 months ago

        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.

    • index@sh.itjust.works
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      3 months ago

      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

      • nilloc@discuss.tchncs.de
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        3 months ago

        You’re still going to get a senile president.

        Harm reduction dictates voting for the least harmful outcome, period.

            • RyeBread@feddit.de
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              3 months ago

              The same reality that thinking voting for Biden in a rural deep conservative state is going to swing the vote. You can convince every person in the cities to vote democratic and still lose to the country side that state. Voting doesn’t work the same for every state, don’t shame people for voting their conscious. It’s always okay to shame voting for Trump, but don’t shame people for voting third party.

              • papertowels@lemmy.one
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                3 months ago

                Afaik, that’s simply not true. Take a look at the margins that Biden won by in 2020 in a few key states.

                You’ll notice that the third party votes could’ve easily swung the state outcome either way.

                Finally, you’ll notice how far behind third party votes are. The conclusion I’m drawing is that the possibility of third party votes influencing the outcome between the two candidates is greater than the possibility of a third party candidate winning.

                • RyeBread@feddit.de
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                  3 months ago

                  I think we both agree that there are locations and states where it does truly matter. I think where I’d disagree is that it’s not applicable for every state. Sometimes it’s already decided on where you live. It’s better not to shame third party voters in situations like that. The only way to get a third party one day is by starting in locations like that. Though coming from a situation like that, I also understand it’s a less stressful election than one that you have a chance of winning. Just not worth shaming others who don’t have the option of winning and vote third party for president for their conscious. Still voting blue for everything else though.

      • Resonosity@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        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.

        • TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world
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          3 months ago

          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.

          • Resonosity@lemmy.world
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            3 months ago

            I never refuted your claim in certainty, rebutting with my own truth statements. In my comment, I pointed to the variables in effect leading to whether Biden stays in the race or bows out. Realistically, it’s uncertain at this moment.

            I will say that if and once donors dry up, I do think that the DNC will take action. What action that is will depend.

            It’s going to be an exciting few days/weeks.

    • HomerianSymphony@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      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?)

      • Wilzax@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        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.

        • HomerianSymphony@lemmy.world
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          3 months ago

          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.

          • Wilzax@lemmy.world
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            3 months ago

            If we could somehow ensure that our actual desires were reflected by our votes without simultaneously risking our vote being wasted by splitting support between similar candidates, we could have actual representative democracy. But we all have a duty to prevent the worst to the best of our ability, even at the sacrifice of our support of what we think would be best, but unlikely.

            Vote for ranked choice voting however you can. This paradox is intentional design, not an unforeseen consequence. We need to rework the voting system before things have any chance to get better without violent revolution.

            • HomerianSymphony@lemmy.world
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              3 months ago

              It’s actually been mathematically proven that ranked-choice voting does not eliminate the so-called spoiler effect. It’s called Arrow’s Impossibity Theorem.

              As people who live in a country with FPTP voting, we’re all intimately familiar with the drawbacks of FPTP voting. But all voting systems have their drawbacks.

              (I’ve actually been a volunteer election worker in a country with ranked ballots and proportional representation, and the experience actually soured me on ranked ballots and proportional representation.)

              Countries like Canada and the UK manage to have four or five parties with FPTP voting.

              Stop waiting for the perfect voting system, because there is no perfect system.

              • Olgratin_Magmatoe@lemmy.world
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                3 months ago

                Countries like Canada and the UK manage to have four or five parties with FPTP voting.

                And they both are dominated by 2 parties. Hardly a defense of FPTP.

                Stop waiting for the perfect voting system, because there is no perfect system.

                There may be no perfect system, but there are certainly systems that utterly fail to capture the will of the people, and FPTP (especially the US’s implementation of it) is one such system. People aren’t going to magically all change their centuries long behavior of voting for 1 of two parties. This is a systematic problem, and the solution is election reform.

                • HomerianSymphony@lemmy.world
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                  3 months ago

                  And they both are dominated by 2 parties. Hardly a defense of FPTP.

                  Justin Trudeau’s current government is a minority government being propped up by a minor party (the NDP). That minor party were able to get the government to pass a Pharmacare bill in exchange for their support.

                  With just 24 seats in parliament, the NDP were able to deliver on an election promise to their voters. I’d say that’s pretty good.

              • slickgoat@lemmy.world
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                3 months ago

                I disagree. I too have been involved in elections in my country (Australia) and preferential voting system is pretty popular. As candidates get eliminated your vote keeps moving to your next choice. What could possibly be fairer?

                • Olgratin_Magmatoe@lemmy.world
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                  3 months ago

                  What could possibly be fairer?

                  Approval or STAR voting, since they are more heavily utilized by all citizens instead of just white people, they are purely additive unlike ranked, which allows for easy auditing and making sharing the results possible in real time.

                  They’re also far easier to explain, which makes voting more inclusive, and the results more straightforward to follow.

                  RCV is definitely better than what we have now, but if we’re gonna have election reform we should go for the best possible system, not a half measure like RCV.

                • HomerianSymphony@lemmy.world
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                  3 months ago

                  And yet minor parties fair pretty poorly in Australian elections, and always have. Minor parties currently have 6 seats in Australia’s House of Representatives (up from 3 in the previous parliament).

                  In Canada, third-parties (Greens, Bloc Quebecois, and NDP) have 56 seats between them.

                  In the UK, there are 11 third-parties represented in the House of Commons, with 84 seats between them.

          • yyyesss?@lemmy.world
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            3 months ago

            and he still would have lost. he got nearly 20% of the popular vote and exactly 0 electoral votes. until we change the system, they cannot win. sorry. please vote against fascism

                • HomerianSymphony@lemmy.world
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                  3 months ago

                  Yes, but he would have won if everyone had voted how their heart desired.

                  Both major parties want you to believe that voting third-party is “throwing your vote away”, but it isn’t true. Simply expressing your heart’s desire and having it counted on the public record makes voting worthwhile, even if your candidate doesn’t win. (And in the case of Ross Perot, he would have won.)

                  You might as well say that voting for anyone except the candidate who is leading in the polls is throwing your vote away if that’s how you see it.

                  A woman from a formerly Communist Eastern European country once told me a story. After their country had democratized, there was an election held on the day of a horrible blizzard. Her mother and father wanted to vote for one candidate, and her brother and sister wanted to vote for the rival candidate.

                  “Why don’t we all just stay home, since our votes will cancel each other out anyway”, someone said. And so her mother and sister decided to stay home. But her father and brother went out into the blizzard to vote, knowing that their votes would cancel each other out.

                  They just wanted to participate in democracy. They wanted to express themselves and be counted, even if it didn’t change anything.

      • PunnyName@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        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.

          • AHemlocksLie@lemmy.zip
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            Well it’s certainly not going to happen if you ignore the realities of first past the post voting systems, vote third party, and let the party that depends on tactics to subvert democratic will win an election they shouldn’t have. Do that, and you may just not get to vote at all anymore.

            • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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              3 months ago

              Well it’s certainly not going to happen if you ignore the realities of first past the post voting systems,

              If you’ve got a large popular mandate that reliably shows support for a policy (say, a large plurality willing to change FPTP to STB or Approval voting or whatever) then you can affect the change.

              But even more than FPTP, we have a supermajority mandate to make changes to the electoral system on that scale.

              Easier to win 50%+1 on an issue of policy than 67% on an issue of electoral function.

              Do that, and you may just not get to vote at all anymore.

              Civil Rights and Women’s Lib had to be achieved outside the electoral system, because these groups were deliberately disenfranchised.

      • Olgratin_Magmatoe@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        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?

        • Hyphlosion@donphan.social
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          3 months ago

          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.

          • Olgratin_Magmatoe@lemmy.world
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            3 months ago

            I’d be lying if I said I didn’t have the same fantasy, but until we get election reform it will only ever be fantasy.

              • Olgratin_Magmatoe@lemmy.world
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                3 months ago

                Not necessarily. The MAGA crowd took over the GOP. The same could be done for the DNC, but with actual leftists and election reformists.

                • OBJECTION!@lemmy.ml
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                  There are several reasons why the MAGA crowd were allowed to take over the GOP. First, because they weren’t pushovers, if the party had tried shenanigans to stop them there was a real possibility of people defecting from the party en masse, and even of violence at the convention. Second, because the things they wanted weren’t really all that contrary to what the rich donors wanted.

                  The Democratic base is much more weak willed and willing to go along with whatever to stop the right. We don’t have enough of that Karen energy, that “my way or the highway” attitude. And election reform is directly contrary to the interests of the establishment, and the aim of prioritizing ordinary people over the rich goes against the interests of the doners. They’ll crush any internal movement in that direction, and people will still vote for them because of “vote blue no matter who” and lesser evilist ideology.

      • bolexforsoup@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        3 months ago

        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

          • JimSamtanko@lemm.ee
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            3 months ago

            Most of these people can’t be reasoned with. We’re at the point where there’s no excuses for them not to vote to keep Trump from taking over.

            The gloves are off.

            • AbsentBird@lemm.ee
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              Okay, but swinging at third party people does nothing to sway them, tends to do the opposite, and tires you out. It’s like punching your own dick instead of your opponent in a boxing match.

              • JimSamtanko@lemm.ee
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                3 months ago

                They’re not third party. I’ll all but guarantee it. They’re just trying to ensure no one votes for Biden.

  • Jo Miran@lemmy.ml
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    3 months ago

    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.

    • PhlubbaDubba@lemm.ee
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      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

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        3 months ago

        Jeffries is literally one of the most corrupt neolibs in Congress in terms of taking bribe money.

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      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.

    • RatzChatsubo@lemm.ee
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      Sounds like a great strategy… smh

      Might as well give Trump the presidency on a silver platter

  • eran_morad@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    Biden shit the bed and should fuck off. But I’d vote for his corpse over any filthy republican traitor.

    • RagingRobot@lemmy.world
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      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

        • yrmp@lemmy.world
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          3 months ago

          Because our electoral system was created 200+ years ago and hasn’t had a major overhaul since.

        • Hackworth@lemmy.world
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          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.

        • rottingleaf@lemmy.zip
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          Dunno if it’s interesting to you, but communists in Russia often say that it can only get democratic again when the “against all” variant is returned to ballots (CPRF is usually not considered something genuine).

        • Dkarma@lemmy.world
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          3 months ago

          Jesus fucking Christ I hate that I can’t tell if ur from the us or not cuz our constituency is so fucking dumb

  • Weirdfish@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    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.

    • yrmp@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      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.

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        3 months ago

        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.

  • StinkySocialist@lemmy.ml
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    3 months ago

    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.

    • AnUnusualRelic@lemmy.world
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      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.

    • Desistance@lemmy.world
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      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.

    • SuperCub@sh.itjust.works
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      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.

    • Snowclone@lemmy.world
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      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.

    • GratefullyGodless@lemmy.world
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      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.

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      Any other candidate just wouldn’t have the name recognition. Millions of Americans just vote for the incumbent regardless of who it is

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        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.

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          They really won’t. I think as someone on Lemmy you’re probably overestimating how much the average person pays attention to politics

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        Is this the new liberal bible prayer each night? Keep telling yourself god is real and he loves you Biden will win because he’s a “good” choice for the idiots who don’t know better?

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        Hey now that we have the benefit of hindsight I just wanted to show you how wrong you were and how confident you can be that youre right when you’re so so wrong please be a little more open-minded going forward and listen to people😏

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    People aren’t even giving him crediting for beating Medicare!

    /s

    In all seriousness though, I just can’t understand how someone can watch the 2020 debate and 2024 debate, and say the only thing wrong with Biden was his voice…

    Like, he wasn’t great in 2020, but 2024 made it sound like Obama in comparison.

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        I think he was massively over coached. Trying to fight to remember a ton of talking points and then getting them muddled up and stuck in that detail. He’d have been better off just freestyling it.

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          Seriously he just needed one or two dark brandon moments to get trump on tilt and it’s smooth sailing from there. Oh well. I’ll enjoy the dem campaign managers running around with their hair on fire while I can. They should’ve managed someone else into the spotlight years ago.

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          I hate that the can’t have notes, they should have a whole team up there to craft the best answer because that’s what I want them to do in real life, work as a team leveraging all available resources to make the best choice

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        My bet is that Trump’s stream of bullshit just threw Biden off completely, and his quick recovery to that fiery speech was him getting pissed that he got curbstomped by Shitler in a debate

        Next debate should hopefully be VERY different

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          No way should it have. In fact that should have been the literal one thing they were expecting.

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            Hence him getting pissed after. Embarassment due to being stomped by a strategy he knows about

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              I may be a shitlib for saying this but biden debated trump before and handled him. There’s no reason he couldn’t have handled him now, except his brain is soup. Trump’s brain is likely in a similar situation, but seeing as he already spoke like a 3rd grader, the difference isn’t as alarming.

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          If that’s what’s true then both him and his prep team failed horribly. Everyone knew that was going to be Trump strategy. That’s a very common conservative strategy. There’s even words for it I’ve seen multiple YouTube videos breaking this issue down. Just a constant stream of unending lies. It’s what they do. There’s no way to beat it directly. The only thing you can do is scoff at it and redirect to something else.

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            Oh yeah for sure. It’s why I think his later fire is due to him being pissed - I’d be pissed at myself too if I got thrown off by something I should have KNOWN was coming

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          My bet is that Trump’s stream of bullshit just threw Biden off completely,

          So, you think during those Camp David prep sessions everyone was talking about pre debate…

          Not a single person expected trump would show up and act exactly like he has in the last two elections?

          And you think it’s fine to leave these people in charge of beating trump?

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          The deflection that has caused every Democrat loss in recent history.

          “Biden shit the bed. WhAt DiD tRuMp Do??!?!1/11!?”

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        He’s at his very best when it comes to small talk & happy talk with small crowds of people. Small lines, empty promises. Quick touch-and-go interactions. No opposition. In debates where he’s required to explain himself, answer lines of questioning (without teleprompter), not so much.

        It’s also possible he got another shot of drugs post-debate to perk him up for the crowd of his own supporters.

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      Funny the way you mentioned Obama because you are spot on.

      Obama was by far the best US president in recent history and maybe ever. Then the Dems just went like OK we’ll never ever do something like that again.

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        and maybe ever.

        I voted for him twice and don’t regret it but you’re being a little too generous with this one

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          G.W.Bush looks like an absolute genius compared to the shit we have today. That said, I can see why it would be easy to see Obama as one of the best, because man we’re striking out…we haven’t seen a non-clown contender in a while.

      • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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        Obama was by far the best US president in recent history and maybe ever.

        If you ignore public policy and just fixate on optics, maybe.

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        Youre doing Lincoln a disservice. And Washington too.

        Obama droned a lot of kids, he really wasnt that good

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        Biden has been a far more successful president than Obama when it comes to implementing policies in a progressive direction.

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        Then the Dems just went like OK we’ll never ever do something like that again.

        I mean, it’s because instead of pulling the DNC left. He just abandoned it because it was a relic of the past and it was easier to just ignore the DNC and let state parties handle their own shit.

        His mistake was not completely burning the DNC down. So after he left office and moderates retook control in 2016, they’ve made a lot of moves to ensure a moderate or Republican are the only two options.

        People talk about how much Obama pissed off trump.

        But its nothing compared to how much Obama pissed off “moderates”.

        • PugJesus@lemmy.world
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          But its nothing compared to how much Obama pissed off “moderates”.

          Are you being fucking for real right now

          Obama, and I say this as someone who has a positive opinion of Obama insofar as one can in the political environment that he came to power in, was very much himself a moderate. He didn’t ‘piss off’ moderates. He was one.

          Jesus Christ.

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          Are you kidding?

          The Dems lost the house of representatives in Obama’s years 3 and 4. Again in years 5 and 6. And then lost both the house of representatives and the Senate in Obama’s years 7 and 8.

          And you’re wondering why they didn’t make a big move left after? They lost control in 3 out of 4 elections under Obama. There is more than just the presidential election you know. The left voters never showed up after the first election.

          (And imo Hilary did make a move left in climate change with the map room. And guess what, the left voters didn’t show up.)

          • Semi-Hemi-Lemmygod@lemmy.world
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            And guess what, the left voters didn’t show up.

            To be fair, Clinton didn’t show up in a lot of swing states, either. She just assumed her Blue Wall would vote for her.

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              So what do you as the informed left voter, that wants things to move left do? You vote for Dems. You don’t wait to fall in love, you vote.

            • Viking_Hippie@lemmy.world
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              On the contrary: that person is an “enlightened centrist” that blames every Dem loss ever on “going left”, even those of near-republicans with no charisma Hillary and Kerry 🤦

              Your conclusion that they’re not worth the bother is absolutely right, though.

              • someguy3@lemmy.world
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                Lol I’m not a centrist, nice strawman.

                More accurately I blame the left voters that never show up. These logical voters, that logically want a logical platform, that makes logical sense, and until then they will logically not vote, or logically vote 3rd party, because they are logical, but wait they need charisma to feed their feelings.

                You really do show it’s the old “Dems fall in love, republicans fall in line.”

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                  Nah, I’ve never missed an opportunity to vote.

                  Pretty sad state of affairs that you think it’s a binary of either no criticism of whatever corporatist is selected for you or ignoring that they’re the least awful choice 🙄

                  As for “Dems fall in love, Republicans fall in line”, it’s the opposite now: Republicans worship Trump and most of the people voting for Biden have no love for him but fall in line to avoid Trump.

      • someguy3@lemmy.world
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        Obama was by far the best US president in recent history and maybe ever. Then the Dems just went like OK we’ll never ever do something like that again.

        Here’s what I told someone else:

        The Dems lost the house of representatives in Obama’s years 3 and 4. Again in years 5 and 6. And then lost both the house of representatives and the Senate in Obama’s years 7 and 8.

        You need more than just the president. They lost in 3 out of 4 of Obama’s cycles. And you’re wondering why they aren’t running to the left? They lost 3 out of 4.

        • Shyfer@ttrpg.network
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          You think they lost because Obama was too far to the left? He was extremely centrist in office.

          • someguy3@lemmy.world
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            Sigh.

            Why was Obama center for 6 years? Because he didn’t have control of Congress. You need Congress to pass anything. So he was forced to reach across the aisle.

            Why? Because left voters never show up. And because left voters never show up, the Dems move to the center to find votes.

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              Left voters showed up to vote for him and then he basically abandoned the coalition he formed. He had a super majority and did like one, watered down Republican healthcare policy. He should’ve kept up the organizations and email lists he utilized to get into office to keep up the pressure on Congress in midterm elections, but that basically stopped as soon as he became President. He’s not unusual in that regard, every President except for Trump, does this. But it’s especially annoying for Obama because he had the closest to a broad coalition in recent history and it got him a super majority.

              Bernie is basically the only Presidential candidate who has shown any awareness of how bottom up coalitions are used, not just to get one into office, but to continue to pressure with the power of the people. That’s why socialists were excited for him. Because he would’ve been an organizer-in-chief. Every other politician rules the same standard way.

              Well, Trump does a bit of the organizing thing, too, makes good use of the bully pulpit, and keeps up his movement between election cycles, but mostly to keep himself in power and enrich himself from them. Still, he’s done a similar thing of gotten a lot of non-voters to show up, and pushed the party right. Democrats could do the same thing, and actually push the party left if they wanted to try, instead of showing open contempt for leftists, but it’s admittedly harder because you’d have to fight the corporate owned media and pass legislation, or show you’re actually trying hard to help normal people in public.

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                He’s not unusual in that regard, every President except for Trump, does this. But it’s especially annoying for Obama because he had the closest to a broad coalition in recent history and it got him a super majority.

                Every president does this, right. The DNC will only let in presidents who do this, who never reach out to their voterbase, and instead focus on an increasingly shrinking, aging, middle class centrist population. So they can then go out and every single time compromise with republicans on policy that makes them look good, and then basically be the exact same on most other policy issues, most notably on foreign policy. Then when they don’t get anything done, oh, well, oh darn it’s gonna be by the metric of whoever the rotating super-corrupt bad guy is in the DNC, by whatever margin they might need. Oops, looks like you guys needed to all vote harder to get rid of manchin and sinema.

                Point this all out, and people will call you a conspiratorial “both sides” -ing nutcase, but then people plod along every election with basically all of this baked in as a ground floor assumption, and the same exact strategy as always, and then are either surprised when it blows up and nothing happens, or they stand around with their hands in their pockets and bloviate about how everyone else just needed to vote harder, even though people will endlessly point out about how we have an electoral college, so it doesn’t matter, how the candidates pushed in the primary are guaranteed to be institution candidates, so it doesn’t matter, how voting districts are gerrymandered to shit, how we live in a two party fptp system, how studies confirm that well-funded political interest groups and lobbyists shape policy. How even if we give consistent and overwhelming victories we’ve been shown no indication that things are going to change beyond this, further down the line, because no change is even being attempted earlier on with less power.

                They’ve actually shown the opposite by trying to outflank trump on whoever can be the most racist to migrants. They’re totally unwilling to even briefly entertain the idea that they could or should actually take a progressive stance on that issue, or try to explain how maybe migrants are all pretty much more chill than your average american, so instead their genius-level play is to try to take the same position as the guy who’s entire deal has been how racist he can be to migrants. It’s like they basically want to lose and keep the pendulum swinging.

                It’s nuts, I don’t understand how nobody’s seeing this shit, we’re totally cooked.

              • someguy3@lemmy.world
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                Ok Obama and ACA (or more broadly his first two years). He likely reached out for two reasons. One: he wanted to mend the divisions after Bush’s disastrous wars. Get the country unified and back on track and all that jazz. Two: any intelligent candidate knows it’s unlikely they’re going to have control of Congress for all eight years, so he wanted to come off as reasonable and could be worked with, so that he could still accomplish things later in his presidency. I barely blame him for that. Who knew that the GOP was going to explode and become obstructionist to that degree because a half black man got elected. (BTW Biden learned from that and said nuts to it, he’s doing what needs to be done. Biden ran center, but is acting left. Let’s see if it costs him the election when left voters don’t turn out.)

                And what was the thanks for the most progressive healthcare legislation? He lost control for the next 6 years. And then the GOP tried their hardest to overturn it. (So no, not a watered down Republican healthcare policy. They fucking hate it.)

                pressure with the power of the people

                It’s congress. The house or reps and the senate. It’s not the people, it’s congress. That’s why Obama couldn’t do much for his last 6 years. He lost control of the house of reps and the senate.

                And to further prove this point, congress even shut down the fucking government under obama. That’s where the power is. Bernie or obama or bill clinton, doesn’t fucking matter. It’s CONGRESS.

                Democrats could do the same thing,

                Dems need all 3 of presidency, house of reps, and senate to pass anything. They’ve had all 3 for 4 years of the last 24 years. And when they don’t have that they need to reach across the aisle to do something as basic as pass a budget.

                The GOP needs only one of those to block literally everything. That’s mostly what the GOP wants to do: Block progress. Hit the big giant pause button on society. And they can do that with only 1 of those, which they’ve had for 20 years of the least 24 years.

                That’s the unfortunate reality of progress. Progress takes all 3 houses. Progress takes time, effort, and hard work.

                Stagnation (or regression) requires fuck all.

                So no, the Dems can’t go left like the GOP goes right. If you want things to go left, then you need to give Dems consistent and overwhelming victories on all 3 houses.

                • Shyfer@ttrpg.network
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                  The problem is even when they have control they can barely do anything because of dumb rules like the filibuster, or blue dog senators.

                  Biden also doesn’t act very left. He’s passed a couple good pieces of legislation, but he doesn’t support popular movements like labor strikes and prefers to make backroom deals (which residues their power for the future organizing), and he’s very staunchly pro genocide for some reason, and been as hard on the border as Trump. He’s just not as fascist as Trump but don’t let the skewed Overton Window deceive you. He’s a centrist moderate Democrat, like an Obama who learned to stop trying to reason with Republicans earlier and picked a few really good people for some cabinet positions (not Blinken, but like for the Secretary of the Interior BLM or FTC) and many meh people for others.

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      The people here are either delusional or trying to convince themselves they didn’t see a disaster of a debate.

      “So he didn’t somersault onto stage” That… That’s not the issue here

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        Legitimately I can’t tell how much of it is self-delusion and how much is just blatant lying. Either way, these geriatric ghouls don’t deserve this level of mental gymnastics.

        Even liberal media like the NYT are admitting it, and we can all see him with our eyes, I don’t see what this sort of blatant denialism is supposed to accomplish other than demonstrating in-group loyalty.

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            It is blue MAGAism. I’ve kept telling it people here for months and kept being shunend with the same ridiculous lines of argumentation. Either on Bidens health or for me more importantly on how supporting genocide is somehow a good and acceptable thing, because god forbid we demand and enforce a non genocide non neoliberal candidate.

            Which brings me to another point. Trump was on brand. Everything he said was more or less predictable. Meanwhile Biden trying to talk about social justice and tax justice was clearly not his tune. So not only did the campaign managers not manage to prepare him for Trump being Trump. They gave him stuff to talk about, he doesn’t talk about normally, making his performance even less believable.

            • PsychedSy@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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              I don’t get what blue maga actually means. Does it get tossed both ways?

              And I get frustrated that peeps can agree with others like 95 percent of the time then get absolutely shit on for having a differing opinion. If I can make a chain from what you said to a bad outcome with logical fallacies you’re obvs a nazi.

              Yeah. Trump was Trump. I’ve never bothered watching his insanity so I don’t know if/how much he’s declining. But he’s a known quantity and not super interesting.

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                Blue MAGA as in dogmatically following and defending the leader, while deflecting any valid criticism with extreme vitriol. I have been called a secret Trump advocate for saying that Biden is a genocide supporter and in declining mental health. Pointing out that the Dems could have propped up a better candidate and need to do that, was met with attacks.

                Saying that they are alienating minority voters was met with racist attacks against those minorities, claiming them to be dumb. Actually they willing to face much more threats than the white upper class liberal from a Trump presidency, but they have the backbone to say that genocide is a red line and they understand that if they accept one genocide the next one is coming, until they are the ones being genocided.

                Any notion that the Democrats are an establishment party that is playing with fire by continuing down their establishment road instead of working towards being a real progressive alternative that most people would love to vote for, was shunned.

                It is political delusionalism, fueled by gas lighting from the DNC cabal. Instead of motivating their base, instead of providing a vision and inspiration they chose to gaslight, shame and threat their base into submission. That is how you build a cult and that is how you destroy any progressive political movement. Because then all people are left with is fear of loosing out, which is easily exploited by fascists like Trump.

                • PsychedSy@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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                  They did the same shit with Hilary. Just memory holed anything negative.

                  Because then all people are left with is fear of loosing out, which is easily exploited by fascists like Trump.

                  We need electoral reform that removes as much strategic voting as possible.

        • wick@lemm.ee
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          I don’t think this would convince anyone, but Trump has shown that lying about every fucking thing can convince some people. Maybe a less dumb version of this meme could move the needle for someone who is on the fence and hasn’t watched the debate. (There are dozens of them out there)

          No idea why this was posted here though, or how so many people approve of it. It’s the dumbest shit I’ve ever seen. I guess there’s a lot more people on the platform who have legitimate Trump derangement syndrome and find this acceptable than I would’ve thought.

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          I don’t see what this sort of blatant denialism is supposed to accomplish other than demonstrating in-group loyalty.

          That loyalty is a goal in itself for people not knowing any better.

          For others it’s a way to make Trump win.

          What I don’t get is how RFK Jr is still seen as something worse than a senile man and a man with terminal stages of neurosyphilis. He just has brain damage and some overvalued ideas, very well known and clear. While these two are simply not functional.

          But then maybe it’s good I live in another part of the world.

    • nexguy@lemmy.world
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      Alternative is 4 years of more maga federal judges causing multiple generations of damage. It doesn’t matter at all about Bidens health. He has advisors. He has a vice president. No one would be filling federal benches in sewage. That it all that matters.

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        What does that have to do with anything? Did you reply to the wrong comment?

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          Sounded like you were saying “just calling it raspy voice is gas lighting”

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              Because his voice/health has absolutely nothing to do with the election and shouldn’t change any vote from Biden since his health is of no consequence whatsoever.

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                since his health is of no consequence whatsoever.

                Uhm yes? That is the entire point. It is a stressfull job and you need to be at full mental and sufficient physical capacity to handle it. Biden showed that he is not up to it anymore. Trump also is starting to show signs of decline, but he is further ahead of the curve than Biden is.

                Either candidate is unfit for office, but for Biden health is the crucial issue. And old age is not something you can recover from. Just statistically it is entirely reasonable to expect either one of them to die in office.

                • nexguy@lemmy.world
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                  In the unique situation that the country finds itself in with an authoritarian destructive candidate is that any mid alternative is golden. In any other election then less important things like the health of the leader of one of the parties(pres candidate) does matter.

                  In our situation if the mid party leader dies then he is replaced by another mid. The identity of the mid is of no consequence at all.

              • OBJECTION!@lemmy.ml
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                We weren’t talking about the election or who to vote for, we were talking about his health. You can say that his health isn’t relevant to the question of who you should vote for, but you’re the one who brought that up in the first place. I’m just responding to a lie.

                It’s literally just whataboutism, or a non sequitur. If a Trump supporter says something objectively false and I correct them, it would not a valid response for them to bring up problems with Biden in response to that. In the same way, if a Biden supporter says something objectively false and I correct them, then it is not valid to respond to that by talking about problems with Trump.

                I’m allowed to keep you people honest, even if acknowledging reality is inconvenient for your narratives or goals.

          • OBJECTION!@lemmy.ml
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            Ok then, here’s my response:

            There are strong ethical and practical arguments for going vegan, including reducing animal suffering and carbon emissions and reducing the risk of food contamination.

            If you question how that relates to the conversation and isn’t just a complete non sequitor, then you can’t keep up and I don’t know what to tell you.

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      Debates are little more than performances and Joe completely shit the bed.

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        This. Debates mattered 20+ years ago, when Candidates had just a few opportunities to talk about who they are, what they’ve done, what they want to do, and why those qualities make them the best choice for President.

        Now, we have a near inescapable connection to politics. The content of the message is known, and the only reason for debate is confrontation, and delivery is all that matters.

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          tbf, debates have the potential to cut through the bubbles people put themselves in. You’re not seeing a manacured presentation of potential policy, you’re seeing it actively challenged…

          At least, that’s the idea

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    RBG, Feinstein, now Biden. Selfish geriatric boomers should learn when to retire.

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    most important thing is that he can still use his arm to sign legislation. that’s all you need him for. the actual deal is the cabinet. that’s what you’re voting for.

    too bad most people don’t think about that, and fuck the dnc for putting the country in this situation.

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      This is a terrible sentiment. You need a team and you need someone to lead that team. Having the leader just be a puppet is terrible.

      You’ll get a dysfunctional cabinet this way, you will get grifting, taking advantage of the puppet showing his face to bad ideas and you will get foreign influence prying on the weak puppet president.

      And even if the president is not a puppet and “only weak”. We have a government falling apart and in deadlock because of our chancellor being a weak leader in Germany. The only thing holding them together at this point is the fear of them losing power sooner in an early election. All it does is give even further rise to the fascists.

      You need a competent leader at the head of the cabinet. And that starts with her or him having their mental capacity.

      • pyre@lemmy.world
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        oh you’re right. voting for biden may give rise to fascists… so we should let the actual fascists win instead. how have i never thought of this before‽

        • Tryptaminev@lemm.ee
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          You let the Democrats gaslighting work on you. Since half a year they make us think, that the only two options are Trump and Biden, when in fact they could have allowed for proper primaries. They could have worked to prop up other candidates as viable alternatives. But they wanted the puppet they can control.

          It is not too late to acknowledge Biden to be unfit and put up a different candidate. I have been advocating for this here since months. But instead of acknowledging that there is more real options, the DNC propaganda worked and works hard to limit our thinking to “its either one of them, no looking past the fishbowl”.

          Biden was never voted because he was Biden. He was voted because he wasn’t Trump. Any halfway decent candidate that does not shares Bidens dogmatic support for genocide in Gaza and abusing immigrants can fill this role a hundred times better. Any such candidate could win the election in a landslide.

          Pull the emergency brake on the Biden train. The Biden train is going into the abyss.

          • pyre@lemmy.world
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            just tell us who you think people should vote for, instead of weaseling around it.

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              People should force the DNC to make primaries and have the people decide on a candidate.

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                  Then you vote third party and take the fight to the streets because you do not accept two genocidal mass murderers as legitimate options

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        Biden has been president for almost 4 years and we haven’t seen any of those things. That’s how I know all this FUD is overblown. The things you are describing were rampant under Trump, not Biden.

    • Smoogs@lemmy.world
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      …primaries where you get vote among these candidates. There were options.

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    No. Just no, dude. 64% of Democrats thought he was too old to run, and the party didn’t even hold a primary. Then he walks out for his first debate and gives an incoherent performance that completely validates everyone’s fears about his age, and you want to play it off with a, “bUt HeR eMaiLs!” meme? Screw that. We shouldn’t be trying to convince people they didn’t see what they saw, we should be figuring out how to get him off the fucking ticket.

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        Trump could be the youngest presidential candidate in history and he would still be essentially just as bad. Possibly even worse. If Biden didn’t have these excruciating moments where he seems super senior and gets incoherent he would be pretty good. Unless you happen to be a Palestinian obvs.

        Anyway, people have higher standards for Biden and THEY SHOULD.

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          The people who helped Trump are the ones who made sure the candidate was an unpopular geriatric, not the people who pointed out that was a bad idea.

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            Being an unpopular geriatric doesn’t seem to be hurting Trump with his voters. You’re doing the very thing I called out in my comment.

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              Yeah, the difference is the GOP held a primary, and his voters chose a geriatric. The DNC didn’t hold a primary, and ignored polling that showed their voters didn’t want a geriatric. And since you’ve already admitted you haven’t seen the debate, I don’t actually care about what you’ve, “called out,” in your comment, since you literally don’t know what everyone else here is talking about.

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                I’ve heard Trump speak. I’ve seen the shit he posts. I didn’t need to see yet another example of him acting like a cracked-out dementia patient to know that’s what he is. I have yet to hear a single criticism of Biden that doesn’t fit Trump to a T.

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                  You’re welcome to bury your head in the sand if you want, but then you don’t get to talk down to the people who aren’t choosing willful ignorance. Either watch the debate to find out why people are questioning Biden’s fitness or stop talking.

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        People would start talking about it if Biden stepped down and the Dems put up someone under 70. But since we’re comparing him to Joe those sort of critiques don’t hold as much weight.

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          Thanks for illustrating my point by spewing anti-Biden bullshit while giving Trump a free pass for bent a dottering old moron.

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        I tried convincing trump voters hes shit long ago, but every conservative community immediately bans me.

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        He is too old to run, but he was able to form coherent sentences last night, and Biden couldn’t. Biden lost that debate. HARD. I wish he hadn’t, but he did, and pretending that he didn’t isn’t helping anybody.

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          The problem is that people are judging who “won” the debate by how confident the candidate sounded rather than, you know, how batshit crazy their positions are (Trump) versus how relatively normal their positions are (Biden).

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            Winning a debate isn’t about who’s position you agree with, it’s about who can create a better argument for their position. I 100% support Biden’s position on abortion over Trump’s, but I have no idea what Biden was trying to say about the 3 times of Roe v. Wade, while Trump’s position (that it should be decided by state law) was completely clear. He also threw in a bunch of lies about how it was an unpopular Supreme Court decision (it was actually a pretty uncontroversial decision I’m 1973), but I understood what he was saying.

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          I didn’t see the debate, but calling Trump coherent under any circumstances is very generous. He just spews word salad and bullshit with no regard to the topic he’s supposed to be addressing.

      • grue@lemmy.world
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        1. They do, but it’s always coupled with a mention of Biden as part of a “both sides” argument
        2. Biden’s age is the most problematic thing about his candidacy. For Trump, it’s the least because it’s overshadowed by so. many. other. problems that are so much worse (being a treasonous fascist, for example).
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      Fucking exactly, amen. Biden couldn’t make any sense. Trump should be in jail, and Biden needs to be replaced on the dem ticket asap.

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      Gaslighting the public in to maintaining the status quo for the rich and powerful…

      E: and before the die hard liberals descend on me and accuse me of being a trump supporter because they can only see the world in blue or red - the alternative being worse doesn’t make your guy any good (nor did I mention the word “vote” - or don’t - once), it only proves that the system is rigged to never serve you. Now if only you were willing to confront this admittedly uncomfortable fact and move on from the fairy tale you’ve been sold, we might actually get some progress instead of treading water by “reducing harm” (all the while harm is not actually being reduced, we’re just being held hostage in exchange for it theoretically not getting worse)

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        It’s been obvious for a long time and the lies just kept going. Now, instead of eating shit, they’re changing the narrative. If you see through it, though, welcome to Moscow, comrade!

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        No they didn’t. There were no debates. Alternative candidates were kept off the ballot in multiple states. Florida and Delaware didn’t even hold votes. If this had happened in a foriegn country we’d be calling it autocracy.

        • Smoogs@lemmy.world
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          FALSE. Biden was in trouble for a hot second. And trump was struggling against a young woman. You and the rest of these idiots complaining ONLY NOW WHEN IT’S TOO LATE about elected candidates just thought the trump trial was more entertaining at the time.

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            Everything I said is a fact, except for the last sentence, which is opinion. And if you think I just started complaining about Biden’s age and the lack of a Democratic primary, you’re welcome to go through my comment history and find out how spectacularly wrong you are.

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    Sure, let’s all pretend the problem was his voice. Ignoring all problems will do wonders in november.

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    We should all be screaming at the top of our lungs for Biden to drop out now. Fast. Throw in Newsom or Whitmer. I’ll vote for either, doesn’t matter.

    This is a no brainer, and no loss. Either they do it which would be great, or we’re stuck with biden anyway, who now looks to be much worse off against trump.

    Everyone should be telling biden to drop out. Everyone everyone everyone. And loudly.

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    Full senile moment = “raspy voice”

    Biden apologists are gonna be the reason Trump gets elected.

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    This whole night was so many layers of exhausting, but probably not for the reasons you think… No rational, serious person was expecting Biden to Willy Wonka front somersault into this debate? it was going to be what this was, the only true surprise was probably the volume of his voice (which they chalk up to a cold, okay fine, I guess) and actually how well he did quickly processing and responding to trump’s gish gallop and unchecked stream of consciousness mistruth firehose with little help from the impotent moderators for the majority of the night.

    The people in this country, in their immediate reaction to this debate, demonstrate that they just fundamentally lack the focus, empathv and frankly basic intelligence to process the substance of this or any debate. On average, we respond solely to voice pitch, tonality, body language and facial expressions, like a still developing toddler… Or a dog.

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      Volume is a minor issue, the problem was the half finished thoughts and odd transitions between them.

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        It’s called watching the clock and getting flustered trying to not run over time.

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          It’s always fun when people suddenly forget that Biden has a stutter. I’m not even 40 and, perfectly healthy, sometimes can’t finish a fucking sentence and just move on to the next point. The only reason people don’t say I have dementia is because I don’t look old enough to hurl the accusation.

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            Elections are all about optics, and the optics are he might not even make it to the general election, let alone the following 4 years if elected. The populace is starting to wonder how much Biden is just a real life Weekend at Bernies now where they really weren’t before.

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            How many stuttering acting presidents do you remember?

            Also Biden isn’t just having a stutter. It was clear he lost his train of thought multiple times, like destroying medicaid, constantly mixing thousands, millions, billions and trillions or his talk about abortion trimesters.

            This sounded like they gave him elaborate sentences to remember beforehand and he butchered them all, because of not learning them by heart and not fully grasping what they actually mean.

            Meanwhile Trump was just doing Trump and Biden came wholly unprepared for that. Repeating what Trump said with “the idea that … is ridiculous” is just repeating what he said, further giving it agency. How could they be unprepared for Trump being Trump after 8 years of him already?

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                “We had the best administration ever.” “The economy was great. He destroyed it all.” “We have the worst economy now.” “He is the worst president.” “We will make America great again.” “It is the millions of immigrants.”

                It is the exact same rhetoric like in 2016 and 2020 and during all of his presidency. Trump is the greatest the others are the worst, blame the immigrants and claim the other side to be unpatriotic.

                Trump was sometimes even addressing Biden directly with “Joe what are you doing?”. And in the end the only topic were Biden sought the confrontation was on who of them is the better golfer, which only made him look more detached from the people. He would have needed to attack Trump, provoke him, expose his lies in a way where he is stumbling over his contradictions. If he was rhetorically smart about it, Biden could have overplayed his poor health.

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              Sounds like you’ve never socialized with others who have a stutter. Instead of understanding how different mental/physical impairments affect people, you’d rather just make assumptions and baseless claims that confirm your own biases. Biden’s stutter is a well documented ailment that has affected him, in similar ways, for a long time - we just got to see it when he was clearly under the weather.

              You can factually disagree with Biden’s policies, but to create this elaborate scenario out of whole cloth and purposely ignore Trump’s own verbal missteps just tells all of us all we need to know about why you commented.

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                What are you talking about? There is certain demands to the health, to the intelligence, to the eloquence and charisma of a president. Biden showed little of it in the debate.

                If he has a stutter, which i don’t remember seeing in press conferences a few years back, then it got much worse on the one hand and the strategy for what to say and what not to say on the other hand failed tremendously.

                I know one thing about stutters though. How strongly it shows is often directly related to how nervous, scared, agitated or stressed someone is. If Biden is emotionally troubled with dealing with Trump like this, to make his stutter show this extremely, then i don’t want him to be in a room with leaders like Putin or Xi, who will just eat him alive.

                It showed that Biden is an old men with declining physical and mental health. Anyone watching him in this debate and the many occasions in the last year where he was blitzed out, recognizes that.

                Biden is unfit for office. Trump is unfit for office. Anyone riding the Biden train now and blocking the pulling of the emergency brakes is riding this train into the abyss. And that is what helps Trump and the Reps the most.

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              Oh no, definitely both of them suck, and both are showing cognitive decline. Biden is just showing it worse. Or maybe it’s just that Trump has always been a rambling moron, so it’s harder to tell if he’s having a senior moment or just being himself.

              Either way, Trump’s supporters are too stupid to care or even notice his mental health. Half of them probably don’t even believe in mental health. The people Biden needs to vote for him do notice and care though. It’s just a fact of life, and the DNC really needs to come to terms with reality.

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                I guess from that point of view it really is only a problem for one of the candidates.

                For what it’s worth, watch a video of Trump after 9/11. He was still a narcissistic ass, but he was far more cogent.

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            Not really. I’ve had some close family get dementia, it doesn’t look like that. If Biden had dementia, there is 0 chance they would have stood him up for a debate. It’s really a condition called “fucking old”.

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              This definitely is dementia. I know it from my own family. Especially with people having good days and bad days. The talk now about how Biden just had a bad day, is just reinforcing it.

              Trump was showing what it looks like to “just be” “fucking old”. Probably by the time he is Bidens age he will be equally far demented, but he is three years younger. There is absolutely no way that Biden won’t be a complete vegetable in the last year of the upcoming term and for Trump it is a pretty solid risk.

              The DNC needs to switch out Biden now. They should have done it many months ago, but the denial and delusion about Bidens health are going to help make Trump win this one.

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      You know the moderators are there to enforce the rules of the debate, right? They aren’t live fact checkers. Their job is to manage clocks, present questions, and occasionally, ask a followup question, not to defend one particular position or person.

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        Strawman, nobody is arguing the point you’re trying to make about the moderators themselves? I’m citing CNN as host and moderator, their anchors are just deaf weight seat filters under strict orders from zaslov and the billionaire.

        They are saying that the network that wraps and produces the entire thing should have done it with a real time overlay graphic fed by a room of professional fact checkers working in real time to provide context (you did notice that the debate was coming into your living room through a magic plastic box and it was not actually a tiny window into a tiny room in your home that held two tiny old men inside arguing, right?)

        This is extremely simple and completely necessary with trump - simple because he just repeats the same 5 lazy, limp lies, you wouldn’t even need to research in real time, just 5 big brightly colored buttons to press that display pre-written fact check graphics for each of those stale lies.

        Imagine in your opinion though, a plain text box that says, "There is no support CNN has found for Mr. trump’s claim that ‘everyone in Mexico is a terrorist that is both murdering, and has just been murdered, at all times.’ is “defending one particular position or person”.

        Child.

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          …how well he did quickly processing and responding to trump’s gish gallop and unchecked stream of consciousness mistruth firehose with little help from the impotent moderators

          This ain’t you fam? Maybe read what you wrote before you accuse someone else of building a strawman.

          Now take your shitty ad-hominems and fuck off.