• jpreston2005@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    Yeah this is totally warranted given the recent news. I mean, one side trying to expand medicare, the other gutting it. One side trying to close Guantanamo bay, the other opening concentration camps on it. One side trying to get money out of politics, the other side destroying democracy for want of more money.

    Totally helpful, totally warranted, OP. Well done. Way to go. You’re so cool and centrist.

    • AbsoluteChicagoDog@lemm.eeOP
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      Got some citations for those claims? Particularly given Kamala’s opposition to expanding Medicare.

      • jpreston2005@lemmy.world
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        1 day ago

        yeah sure, I love wasting time arguing with bad faith actors! You’re clearly in the special group of the best thinkers, it’s so fun to spend time talking with people like you!

          • zalgotext@sh.itjust.works
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            And? Despite what Trump says, presidents don’t have unilateral power, and members of the president’s party can do and say things different from the president

            • AbsoluteChicagoDog@lemm.eeOP
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              In case you aren’t aware, the president is the most powerful politician in America. The policies they promote have the best chance of succeeding. Polical parties pick a person to represent them to run for president. Democrats picked Kamala and her polices to represent them.

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                1 day ago

                🙄🙄🙄

                presidents don’t have unilateral power, and members of the president’s party can do and say things different from the president

                This is how American politics has worked for hundreds of years. Yes, the president (really the executive branch) holds a lot of power. So do the other two branches of government. One branch can’t really do anything without working with the other two, which means that compromise is a frequent theme throughout the history of American politics.

  • onecarmel@lemm.ee
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    Given the reality of the world we live in, Dems are the best we have right now.

    Obama pulled this country out of the worst economy it’s been in since the 30’s. Brought healthcare to countless Americans (my wife would no longer be with us due to the cancer she had - Medicaid allowed her to be treated). He legalized gay marriage. Allowed gay and lesbian people to openly serve in the military. Gave the order that killed Osama bin Laden. We’ve all seen firsthand cities and towns be fixed up from the stimulus bills he passed in 2009. I could go on and on.

    Hard for someone like Biden to follow that up being the next Democrat in line.

    Meanwhile Trump has done everything to gut the work that Obama did, and make life worse for Americans in general. The last few weeks have felt like years in some sense with all the garbage he’s pulled. He’s bringing back another set of corporate tax cuts that are gonna fuck over a bunch of middle and lower class families.

    They aren’t comparable.

    At least we have a fighting chance for change under Democrats. They just need to give the old goons the boot.

    Say all you want about us providing aid in conflicts worldwide, but that’s what we’ve always done. We all have it great here in terms of safety because of those decisions. I can count on one hand how many times we’ve had foreign powers attack us on our soil since the revolutionary war. Hamas is a proxy of Iran/Russia, so of course we’re gonna back Israel. Same reason we’re backing Ukraine over Russia.

  • polysexualstick@lemmy.world
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    Oh my fucking god, the comments in here are so bad. Nobody is saying “both sides bad”. This is not a centrist meme. This is a case of observing that Republicans are far-right fascists and Democrats are center-right conservatives.

    • madcaesar@lemmy.world
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      It’s like saying one is pure diarrhea and the other tastes like brocoli. Comparing them is insane. There is only one choice.

  • greenracoon@lemm.ee
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    This “both sides are the same” lie is just as tiring as Trump’s lie about winning.

  • Yawweee877h444@lemmy.world
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    The Ratchet effect.

    With this current trump slop, the democrats can shift farther right than they’ve ever been and gain tons of moderates and even conservatives who just feel sour on trump, and obviously they get the liberal moderates, because trump slop.

    Republicans shift right by 10, dems shift right by 6 and seem progressive in comparison.

    Billionaires continue getting richer, and we all get fucked. Eat, sleep, repeat.

  • Geodad@lemm.ee
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    2 days ago

    I’m honestly looking for work in the EU. If I can land a job, I’ll get established and then bring my family over.

  • Dessalines@lemmy.ml
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    2 days ago

    Obama’s legacy:

    Biden’s legacy:

    The democrats are a brutal, vicious, genocidal party.

      • IttihadChe@lemmy.ml
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        Conducting a genocide automatically removes all “progressive” credibility as it’s the worst and least progressive thing you can do.

        Calling him progressive, let alone “The most progressive” is an insult to the very idea of “progress” and legitimizes genocide.

        Grab a piece of paper and list the ways in which he was “progressive” and explain, on paper, how they excuse his genocide. Read it back out loud.

        Also maybe stop insulting people, calling them morons, for not ignoring his genocide.

          • IttihadChe@lemmy.ml
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            If you already made and read back a list of all of Bidens progressive policies and the ways they excuse his genocide in the 4 minutes it took you to respond, then that itself proves both that he wasn’t very progressive and also it doesn’t take much to get you personally on board with genocide.

      • Fidel_Cashflow@lemmy.ml
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        remember when Joe Biden stepped in to stop a federal railway strike, which was asking for more (basically any) time off, an end to precision scheduled railroading, and for basic safety regulations and maintenance, and then two weeks later a train derailed in Ohio from faulty brakes and bathed the area in hydrogen chloride, benzene, and phosgene, causing an ecological disaster that made the nearby area hazardous to live in?

        that’s progress, baby!! 🎉🎉

      • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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        Supplying a genocide is pretty terrible, not to mention the utterly insufficient to downright harmful domestic policy and the incredibly warhawkish foreign policy. Biden did his job as a steward of the US Empire more nakedly than Obama did, though certainly less naked than Trump now.

        It shouldn’t be surprising that leftists are critical of liberal imperialists.

      • Heyting@lemmy.ml
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        Did Joe not send Israel almost all of the bombs and other resources it’s using to commit genocide on the Palestinian people?

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            I don’t care about your previous presidents. I care that Joe is responsible for a genocide on the Palestinians and that you seem to think that that’s a petty issue.

    • UrPartnerInCrime@sh.itjust.works
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      So, going through that website almost every time I tried to look at the source it said 404 file missing.

      Also, what’s up with the color scheme? If the information is damning enough already, stop with all the theatrics.

  • Ephera@lemmy.ml
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    This meme made sense in 2012, not when the Republican Party has decided to be the Anti-Democratic Party.

    • Grapho@lemmy.ml
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      Not three months ago Gaza had a death toll well past fifty thousand by the most conservative estimates, not to mention the huge amounts of women and children maimed, malnourished and the wholesale destruction of the entire strip’s infrastructure.

      Did the republicans do that or did y’all deny reality so much in the pursuit of tHe mOsT iMpOrTanT ElEctiOn oF oUr LiFeTimE that you don’t know what fucking color the sky is unless you ask the DNC first.

      The republicans are not diametrically opposed to the democrats, they’re just the same shit but more brash, and (with Trump at the helm) too fucking incompetent to not say the quiet part out loud, maybe because they know their base is so rabid on American fascism that dogwhistles aren’t enough anymore, they need a fucking trumpet.

      • Ephera@lemmy.ml
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        What I’m saying is that the Republic Party is trying to dismantle democracy. You don’t have to be a fan of the politics of the Democratic Party to want to at least retain the shrivel of a democracy the US had before.

        • djsoren19@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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          Democracy already died, and it died under a Democrat. We’ve been a true plutocracy since Citizen’s United v FEC. What actually would happen is the Democrats would defend the plutocracy until the Republicans inevitably win an election because they take advantage of people’s hatred of our situation.

        • IttihadChe@lemmy.ml
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          Who destroyed the Gaza Strip to begin with?

          There would be no “Trump plan to rebuild Gaza” is Gaza wasn’t destroyed under Biden.

          Why are you so “on board” with the destruction and genocide of Palestinians as long as it’s a Democrat doing it?

        • Grapho@lemmy.ml
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          I’d rather there were an actual human in the white house (or there not be an USA at all) but since libs are so spineless I think it’ll take the complete collapse of the US economy to get y’all to stop treating politics like a fucking team sport. You could put Mussolini on the blue team and y’all would yell at everyone for not shutting up and vooooooting.

          We’re almost there, thank fuck.

      • jimmy90@lemmy.world
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        3 days ago

        so you prefer trump and putin in power?

        did the republicans do it? of course they did. the US has been funding israel for a long time.

        • Grapho@lemmy.ml
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          See? Perfect example.

          Without the republicans, Dems would have no one to hide behind when their many genocides are recounted.

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              Are you at all able to communicate with others without resorting to deflection and loaded questions?

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                simple enough questions but as you’re so busy campaigning against the dems you must be quite happy with trump?

                • Grapho@lemmy.ml
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                  I’m about as happy as I would have been with a dem, which is to say I hope they die and take the US with them and leave the rest of us alone finally.

    • AbsoluteChicagoDog@lemm.eeOP
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      Im not sure if you actually looked at the words on the meme or not, but it doesn’t say they’re “exactly the same” it says they’re less evil. Democrats teamed up with war criminal Dick Cheney for fucks sake, it’s like they are actively trying to make people not vote for them.

      • I_Has_A_Hat@lemmy.world
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        If someone I don’t like or interact with says they support me, that is not me “teaming up” with them.

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          They actively flaunted his endorsement, and brought his daughter on stage. Cheney is a man at least as evil as Putin, and if Putin was American, the Democrats would have brought him on stage too.

  • Sibshops@lemm.ee
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    I don’t understand why people who think this don’t advocate for ranked choice voting. Seems like it would solve this issue, right?

    • Dessalines@lemmy.ml
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      It doesn’t. There are plenty of bourgeois democracies that don’t use FPTP for all their voting: Japan, Australia, South Korea for some of their elections. Doesn’t make a difference (except it might make the bribery a bit more expensive, since you have to buy off more political parties than just two).

      The fundamental problem is capital standing above political power. If it does so, then no amount of alternative voting systems can fix the issue. Socialism is the only answer.

    • darthelmet@lemmy.world
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      Even if it would, how would it ever get passed when the people who would need to pass it are the ones who are only in office because the system works the way it currently does?

      This is just a recurring theme I’ve found when talking with liberals. They like to think about and suggest all sorts of policy ideas as though all we’re missing are some smart ideas nobody has thought of. It’s one thing to say we should have this, but it’s another to have any idea of how it’d be possible to do. Since they have no actual analysis of the system, they’ll just turn around and tell you to vote or call your representative. “We should get money out of politics!” “Yeah, well we checked with the people giving us money and they said no. So…”

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        I imagine it wouldn’t be difficult at least at the primary level. The same party has the power and they can get rid of less desirable candidates like Fetterman.

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      No, RCV wouldn’t. The fundamental problem of electoral politics being a game between factions pre-approved by the bourgeoisie won’t change, there are even safeguards preventing unwanted change that losing parties and government branches can pull in the rare event a worker party won.

      It’s the perfect carrot, it won’t get passed nor would it change much.

    • _stranger_@lemmy.world
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      You have a few options for enacting ranked choice voting at the national level:

      1. Win hundreds, possibly thousands, of state-level House and Senate seats with the largest grass roots voter mobilization ever seen in the US to, a) enact legislation in all 50 states or b) ratify an amendment to the constitution, that mandates it.

      2. Kill enough republicans in a national civil war to make sure that when elections happen, there aren’t enough republicans left to win an election, then enact the above.

      3. Overthrow the entire US government in a much bloodier national coup and set up whatever government you want.

      • Grapho@lemmy.ml
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        Kill enough republicans in a national civil war

        And democrats, too. Don’t pretend they’re not just as responsible for keeping fptp voting, their party depends on it. If you don’t believe me, look into how coordinated the GOP and Democrats were when suing PSL and the Green party to keep them off several state ballots (and severely whittle down their grassroots funds with corporate-money lawfare). Spoiler: there was no overlap.

        It’s one party, two wings.

        • _stranger_@lemmy.world
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          It isn’t, but I suppose if you hang out in an echo chamber long enough you’ll believe anything.

          • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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            What echo chamber are you talking about? Existing on the English-speaking internet at all is to be in a pro-US echo chamber, Leftists carving out little enclaves for themselves to discuss topics with other leftists doesn’t insulate them from the overwhelming majority of their existence.

    • Commiunism@beehaw.org
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      Imma be real as an European, we kinda have the same problem here even with better voting systems. You either vote for “nothing ever happens” parties or literal Russia funded reactionary nazis.

  • wiLD0@lemmy.world
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    Relative to the other fully developed countries, a mainstream Democrat is a homeopathic liberal.

  • esc27@lemmy.world
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    Scenario I’ve been playing with:

    Suppose you are kidnapped by two people. They tell you that one of them will shoot you and then let you go, but you get to decide who shoots. Person A says he will shoot you in the head. Person B says he will shoot you in the shoulder. Which do you choose?

    The more think about this the more I like it. Both persons are clearly awful and contributed to the situation. Both could offer better choices but refuse. Both are rather similar in outcomes. But one is clearly worse.

    Is it rational to choose to be shot at all? Is it rational to not choose the better of two alternatives?

    • IttihadChe@lemmy.ml
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      More like

      One offers to shoot you in the head and kill your loved ones.

      One offers to shoot you in the head and kill a bunch of strangers.

    • djsoren19@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      This is a false dichotomy though. I’d argue the fact that “escape” doesn’t even cross your mind in this hypothetical scenario is damning.

      • UrPartnerInCrime@sh.itjust.works
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        Yes, we would all love to escape. That would be amazing

        We are literally stuck with the 2 currently. No amount of posting on here is going to change. There is literally not enough people who care in this country right now to change it fully.

        You can either have the 2 options

        That’s literally the only options in the US.

        Yes we would love ranked voting

        Yes we would love better options

        Yes we would love for a magical solution to come and save us

        It’s not like that. Trump fans would literally never let that happen right now. And because democrats couldn’t get the votes by not being perfect it may never happen.

        Wanting “to escape” is leaving the fucking country. And you’re free to fucking leave. But if you actually wanted to help, you needed to choose democrate to hopefully get the change you wanted in.

        Now the only way you’ll get change is when everything crumbles, and who knows how many die

        • BrainInABox@lemmy.ml
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          And because democrats couldn’t get the votes by not being perfect

          blueMAGA genocide deniers are as loathsome as their red counter parts.

        • vfreire85@lemmy.ml
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          how about campaigning for other, more radical, revolutionary parties? just admit that you guys somehow grew to like being dipped in sht because who stuck you in this sht barrel told you guys there’s acid outside of it.

          • UrPartnerInCrime@sh.itjust.works
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            Campaigning for a better person left us with the shitty person. This is actually real life, not just the internet where we can hope it gets better

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      Then the people who claim to love you choose for you and say that getting shot in the head would be better for you. Any attempt to convince them otherwise is met with absolute disbelief.

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      Bank robber. Get away driver.

      Would be a good analogy.

      Yes, the bank robber shot and killed the clerk.

      But they are both bank robbers

      Who is more evil? The one that does the act or the one that enables it?