Both the president and his reelection campaign are going after his coup-attempting predecessor even before the first GOP primary ballots are cast.
A full year out from the 2024 presidential election and nearly two months before Republicans cast their first primary ballots, President Joe Biden and his campaign are assuming that Donald Trump will be his opponent and have already started reminding voters why they threw him out of office in the first place.
Biden personally has stepped up criticism of his coup-attempting predecessor and is framing the likely rematch as one that will determine the survival of American democracy.
“The same man who said we should terminate the rules and regulations and articles of the Constitution — these are things he said — is now running on a plan to end democracy as we know it,” he said last week at a fundraiser in Chicago.
“This next election is different. It’s more important. There’s more at stake. And we all know why: Because our very democracy is at stake,” he told a San Francisco audience on Wednesday.
In a sane world, the party that has only won a plurality of Presidential voters once since 1988 would try having at least a tiny shred of self-reflection. In this world, they double down on the crazy.
That moment was after Obama’s reelection. The RNC did a big post mortem analysis on the 2012 election and reached the conclusion that they need to appeal to a wider spectrum of voter demographics and stop catering to the more extreme wings of the party. But by that point they had already let the tea party get a foothold and the train was running away towards MAGA with no brakes to be found.
https://www.npr.org/2013/03/18/174665725/rnc-report-a-postmortem-on-failed-2012-election
Tax cuts for the rich running up the deficit. The horribly botched COVID response. And the attempted coup. Not to mention all the other crap. Biden’s right: our democracy is at stake. Check out Trump’s statements and Project 2025. Tuberville is blocking military promotions for a reason, and it ain’t abortion.
It’s so that the military leadership who wouldn’t follow Trump’s unlawful orders will be force retired early, and fascist ideologues can be identified and selectively promoted by the next Republican president.
Sayeth the brocislists: “But Biden Same!”
Wealth inequality increases the same whether Democrats or Republicans are in office.
And minorities and women’s rights disappear entirely if Republicans are in office. There’s a bigger picture here.
Getting tired of this obnoxious centrism that “both are the same!” when they’re clearly not. That being said, Biden is still the lesser of two evils and one that people can still live with.
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Exactly and we have been pushing back against it since 2016. It’s a malignant lie that will be a major contribution to the fall of American democracy.
By what metrics‽ Democratic admins consistently have been responsible for job growth (and good paying jobs too), the launching of redistributive programs, and at the very least protecting welfare programs that america’s poor rely on.
Even the man who tried to neoliberalism the democrats into oblivion, Clinton, still put his back into an honest hard fought attempt to expand medicare and medicaid, if not completely socialize american healthcare.
If you think shit’s equally bad under both parties, you don’t have a point worth considering, you’re just far up enough your own privilege that you can’t see the differences that can be as serious as life and death for everyone else.
The gini index. Clinton is a big reason for this. He passed trade deals like NAFTA that screwed American workers and made wealthy business owners even richer. Republicans tried to get it passed for decades, but only Clinton was able to.
You mean that index that keeps insisting we live the comparative lives of pre revolution french peasantry?
Last I checked I’m not being shaken down by private collectors for a tax because I kept salt from last year I didn’t use.
How does it do that? It’s commonly accepted as the metric for measuring inequality, I’d like to know if there are better metrics, enlighten is.
Wage ratio and PPP
NO, that is not true. If the GOP takes power there will be no more democracy or checks on that growth.
Whether you know it or not you are repeating propaganda designed to suppress Democrat voter turnout.
You can’t say anything you disagree with is propaganda. The comment you replied to is absolutely correct and needs to be repeated loudly for people like you that don’t like facts.
https://www.axios.com/2018/06/05/income-inequality-blue-red-districts
https://www.cato.org/commentary/how-government-creates-wealth-inequality
You can argue that Republicans increase wealth inequality but democrats cause just as much, if not more. The facts just don’t agree with you.
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“It’s not propaganda, see!” Posts literal propaganda
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It literally is true, you just don’t want to research it and would rather form your opinions based on your emotions instead of factual data about where our money goes.
dO YOuR rEsEarCH!
the consequences of the inequality do change by party even if the inequality doesn’t.
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Go ahead and enlighten us.
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Idk it certainly seems that the top 1% had a great run 2016-2020. Not so much 2008-2016. Great run going up to 2008 though.
Wow this is a shitty graph. What more can you expect from the religious right think tank of Pew Research.
Why the hell are they going in 9 year buckets? Why not standard decades, or president? Or, for that matter, single years and a trend line.
Why does the first bucket start conveniently after Black Monday but still partway through HWs term?
Why does the second bucket soften the blow of post 9/11 slowdowns and the dotcom burst by ranging from the the first half of Clinton’s second term up to just before the 2008 recession? And of course, includes most of the tail end of the dotcom buildup.
Why was this article published in 2020, graph normalized in 2018 dollars, and conveniently stops in 2016?
Do people not think critically about the data they ingest? This what “just asking questions” should be…why, exactly, is this graph so particular? Because it really seems to me that it is deliberately cherry-picking data to show to drive an agenda.
I choose this graph specifically because it disproves his point that the rich did not do well after 2008, which is obviously false. Wealth inequality grew under Obama, it was not some liberal magic that stopped it during that time.
It’s organized that way because it’s a section about the Great Recession.
Here’s another example for you: https://apps.urban.org/features/wealth-inequality-charts/
Oh no, looks like it did get worse.
I didn’t say they didn’t do well after 2008. I said they didn’t do as great as they did in the years prior.
Reading comprehension.
The comment I posted the graph to did, that’s the whole point and it is true wealth inequality grew after 2008.
I honestly can’t imagine Trump winning legit. His biggest strength was that he was an unknown quantity and his opponent was a woman who had to pay off DNC debt to keep popular democrats like Biden from running and beating her for the nomination.
He may have been an unknown quantity to you in 2016, but for his supporters he was exactly what it said on the tin: a racist, angry old white man who yelled at the dinner table about all the things Fox News told him were wrong with this country. And after 4 years of his administration, he actually picked up votes the second time. Biden had the largest turnout in American history in 2020, but only ahead of Trump’s 2020 numbers.
If anything, he has confirmed to the conservative base that he is who he said he was. If Biden fails to motivate his base, he will lose, because Trump is not going to lose votes.
Trump is already lost the moderates. The only one against hillary, because the media made Hillary and Donald look equally as evil and corrupt out of a sense of fairness. The constant punchline that was the Trump Administration has made it so that that’s not going to work a second time.
At this point the right wing his alienated all but it’s most DieHard fan base, this is about as sustainable for the party, as eating out everyday with the logic that I’ll save by claiming loyalty reward points. Even though I’m throwing money away to claim the free food, when I could just save money by eating what we have at the house and only eating out as a sometimes treat.
The fact that he’s not an unknown quantity anymore is his biggest strength just like it took Hitler a couple of tries. His followers don’t care about democracy. In fact they believe it doesn’t actually exist anymore. They would much rather have the ability to attack the people they’re told to hate than to have democracy. If they can lynch Muslims, “Mexicans” (really Hispanic South Americans), people who have abortions, scientists, LGBTQ+ people, “pagans”, and optionally, Jews, black people, and any other non-white Christians.
From what I’ve seen, his actual base of support gets maxed out at 46%, his original victory relied on people that voted for Obama in '08 and '12 to pick him instead of Hilary. I don’t think this people will be dojng that again.
But he can still easily win with 46% or even less at this point. Technically it’s currently possible to win with as little as 23%. And I’m not talking 23% of the US population. 23% of people who actually vote. Less now actually, since that study was done in 2016, and Gerrymandering has gotten worse, shifting more power to fewer people.
All of the gerrymandering lawsuit losses have been overturned by conservative judges and the Supreme Court is corrupt now so there’s little likelihood of them doing the right thing and fixing the maps.
And if that’s not enough, there are several places that have removed polling places from cities and several places have declared that you can’t drop off absentee ballots for someone else, making it difficult for disabled people or people with “essential” jobs to vote, especially when early voting is also illegal. And if your job isn’t “essential”, employers still only have to give you one hour off. Even if you can make it to a polling place in less than half an hour, with the reduced locations in many cities, it’s often more than an hour wait to vote, so you risk losing your job. That’s if your employer even cares about the law because it might be cheaper for them to risk a fine than to let their only employee take an hour off. Not to mention it’s never actually been enforced anyway, so the risk is very low.
We need a mandatory public holiday, free transportation to polling places, and universal mail-in or early voting to be funded for it to actually allow more than a small percentage of citizens to vote, especially in traditionally more progressive places like cities.
I can really see this going either way if Biden stays with his decision to run. I know every year people complain about having two bad choices, but Biden V Trump round 2 has to be a record for the actual worst options possible.
I think the issues with both Biden and Trump are fairly obvious, but another issue is that if Biden does win, there is a fairly good chance we will end up with a president Harris, probably the one person people like less than Biden as a democratic president. I think she lost so much credibility when Biden promised he would pick a black woman as a VP, basically cementing the idea that part of her qualifications for the role of VP was based purely on gender and race.
I don’t think a sitting president will ever die of natural causes. The doctors at Walter Reed are just too good. Look at all the senators that make it to 95 before they start breaking down.
You know they have some classified technology that isn’t available to Common pores that makes presidents live forever. Donald Trump caught covid and they cured that shit right up with experimental treatments. I’m pretty sure that a president can get AIDS and they can cure that over the weekend
He may not die, but I think it’s reasonable to think he will be deemed unfit to serve, or even step down voluntarily.
I would be shocked. Like I said, the medical care these people are getting is on another level entirely.
Our medical care isn’t limitless, there is only so much we can actually do. Look at how Biden has been progressing even with the best care in the world, he clearly isn’t in the best shape and it’s only going to get worse. It’s entirely possible he gets worse fast and for there to be nothing that can be done about it even with the best care we can give him.
I’ve seen him speak a whole bunch and he always comes off as fine to me. I haven’t noticed any changes in the last 4 years.
He has had some pretty bad senior moments, the worst one I can recall is the “Hey Jackie” one. In general he does talk pretty slow and just appears confused sometimes. He talks like he is really having to think about what he is saying, and that’s not just him, he didn’t use to be like that.
Deemed unfit to serve requires an untested legal procedure that is going to definitely face challenges and will be unpopular. It would be better for them to pull a Wilson or Reagan.
He promised to pick a woman, not specifically a black woman. That’s why there are still unsubstantiated rumors that he/his team had settled on Klobuchar until George Floyd happened. That would clarify how they got Klobuchar to step out of the race so easily, too. If Biden promised Buttigieg a vague cabinet position, and Amy the VP… the two of them dropping out at just the right time makes complete sense.
Harris “represents” her surface-level demographic, but in her time in Oakland, she rolled back the practices of her predecessor Terence Hallinan, who was possibly the most progressive DA in the country. During his two terms, violent crime dropped by 60%, and he was an outspoken advocate for weed legalization. He said sex work was a public health issue and not a criminal one, and worked to steer as many non-violent cases into diversion/rehab and away from jail time as possible.
All of this, of course, pissed off the cops to no end. So Harris cozied up to the police and big money donors, and ran the now-typical “tough on crime” candidacy… And, well, you can see what has happened to San Francisco between when she was elected in 2003 and now.
I know he initially promised to pick a woman, but I’m pretty sure he changed that to black women, saying he has like 4 to choose from. Either way it’s bad taste to make such an important decision openly based on race and gender.
So we agree that nobody wants Harris as president? And that voting for Biden is how we might just end up with her as president?
If Biden wins and survives to the end of a second term, I think the nomination will be hotly contested.
Kamala Harris, only the far left hates her. The moderate left does not. I’m in the far left and I hate gamala because she is a cop who has a terrible human rights record, and has supported the idea of transgender women being forced into male prisons. For the moderate left, she is a black woman and that’s enough.
I think a lot of the left agree with you, and obviously the right hates her, probably more than Biden. I also feel like the far left has grown a lot lately, the fact that Bernie even won some states in primaries just shows how big the far left has become.
It is quite obvious that America is a country without any safety net, and what little safety net there is, our branded Moochers and takers, whereas any other country would have given them the tools to succeed instead of shaming them for needing a little help.
Let it be based on gender and race. Woman are nearly 52% of the population but the politicians don’t reflect that. African background is about 15% and again the political leadership doesn’t reflect that. It is reasonable to expect that the powers that be won’t be perfectly aligned with the demographics but it isn’t reasonable the levels that we have.
Let it be based on the best person for the job. If that happens to be a black woman then fine, but the race and gender should not be a requirement at all. Saying that you will only choose a black woman is just as racist as sexist as saying you will only choose a white male.
How was best determined?
Most qualified and experienced for the job, regardless of race or gender
Electrolytes are what plants crave.
Question for my American friends out there: any worry about the current clusterfuck in Congress making an end to “Democracy as you know it” seem more palatable than people might realize? Just struck me as a potentially two-edged argument, especially to Republicans who are watching their own party implode.
A big reason why Hitler rose to popular authoritarian power was because the Weimar Republic’s government was deadlocked and ineffective
The US is much larger, the government is much older, and the states have much more power.
Not really because the alternative is controlled by the lunatics that have seeped into our current system and are the worst offenders in ruining it.
Congress actually just did something that feels like it hasn’t happened in a while - they passed a budget bill with bipartisan support, effectively ignoring the right wing nut jobs. Granted it’s only a temporary budget bill, not even for the full year, but the fact that they were able to get both parties aboard to sign it is actually a good sign. The House passed that bill with at least 2/3rds approval.
It’s refreshing to see Congress not being held hostage by a minority wacko subgroup. Hopefully it continues.
I personally don’t see that happening. To make any real drastic changes on the destroying democracy level you would have to throw away the Constitution, and I really don’t see that happening.
We also have a pretty heavily armed society, so with anything that crazy I would expect some fight back from civilians and military against the government, and hopefully that’s enough of a deterrent to not even try.
I am not concerned. We have had much worse in our history. If you want anti-democracy look at literally any time in US history from colonial days to the 1970s. Even now it is a far from perfect system.
I hope the people of the USA will make the right decision. But, looking at it from Belgium, I’m also so tired of, since 2016, looking at every presidential election in the USA as being the one that will possibly sent the world into chaos. Every night-show, podcaster, … that I’m able to watch on YouTube can only discuss the situation from the point of view from one side. This makes the programs that once were very entertaining to watch, much less fun. So since I don’t have any impact on the outcome, I’m skipping many of these shows that were once a nice discraction. I’m curious if in the USA itself the people are also taking distance from this rethoric on television to not let it impact their daily lives too much.
This one is neutral (probably because like you, it’s from outside the country), hopefully you like it: https://youtu.be/BWAcwrn0sf0?si=O2kwJEp_XBqucNT5
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Rise of fascism is a global problem and the fix is hard. It requires education, reading comprehension and even attention. It is such a hard thing to reverse so people in power don’t do anything. Politicians love easy to steer masses.
It also requires people who supposedly know better not to be mewling defeatist worms.
Realistically, the way America is going, it’s only a matter of time until it goes full fascist
We’re few decades until 2077…i think Fallout is on to something…
I think we keep hoping the old will die off and the young will save us.
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We do a little less genocide with the Democrat Poggies
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Are those the only people allowed to discuss politics in your world? Not the rest of the voters?
What insightful, pointed analysis. I hope you have more pearls of wisdom to share.
We already know that the democrats offer nothing more than being not republicans. Nobody forgot this. We also didn’t forget that Trump was elevated to the office of the president in no small part thanks to Hillary Clinton’s team: https://www.salon.com/2016/11/09/the-hillary-clinton-campaign-intentionally-created-donald-trump-with-its-pied-piper-strategy/
So yeah, we know that democrats help republicans be villains so that democrats can position themselves as the heroes by comparison.
Edit: Typical. No response addressing democrats actively helping fascists take the stage, only angry downvotes at having to face reality. Spoiler alert: Biden is not going to save you, nor are any of the other democrats.
I’m not angry at all. I downvoted your comment because it’s stupid and your edit is condescending as fuck.
Your stupid reply only indicates that you were angry at being called out. You didn’t respond to how democrats promote fascists to position themselves as heroes because you have no intelligent answer. I’ll be condescending the same way democrats are like “you don’t like Biden? You must be a fascist because that’s your only other choice (that we helped create)!”
same shit said in the last election almost line for line just empty words
https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/biden-promise-tracker/?ruling=true
but he is not trump how many times are demopublicans going to try and use this one
when better candidates are clearly available for both demopublican parties has to some other reasoning
Demopublican? Implying the parties are interchangeable? That is a jaw droppingly ridiculous thing to say.
when better candidates are clearly available for both demopublican parties has to some other reasoning
You’re absolutely right, but if it comes down to Biden vs Trump at the general election, who are you going to vote for?
“Hey, I’m not that other guy!”
What a sales pitch. Pathetic, but after the Trump and Biden presidencies, we understand really well why the rich and powerful want geriatrics who can’t form coherent sentences to run our country.
I mean, if a Hitler clone showed up and started running for president, and my only other option was “not Hitler”, that’s pretty much all I need to know.
Yeah, but you’ve just watched three years of ‘Not Hitler’ doing jack shit to stop Hitler Clone, so I don’t really share your optimism or enthusiasm.
In fact, by doing nothing about the rapid acceleration of housing scarcity and the increase in cost of living, Not Hitler has made it much, much easier for Hitler Clone to get elected.
“Not Hitler made it easier for Hitler Clone to get elected, that’s why I’m voting for Hitler Clone!”
Okay then.
There’s two ways out of this situation:
-
A complete denial of Republicans Far Right bullshit until they put up palatable candidates, at which point you can hold Dems accountable without risking full blown fascism.
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Burn the whole thing down and hope there’s something to recover from the ashes.
I’m not voting for Hitler Clone.
I’m voting third party.
You’re just rationalizing your vote to help usher in fascism, and that’s perfectly fine. I guess it’ll take another 40 years of watching the nation regress before you realize that, maybe, the lesser evil isn’t as lesser as you think it is.
The Dems aren’t great, but I’ll take 40 years of regression over near instant fascism, the end of democracy and a series of genocides against trans people, sexual degenerates, socialists, and the racial minorities that are supposedly polluting white bloodlines in a heartbeat.
Grow the fuck up, and stop risking democracy and lives for the sake of your virtue signalling - the ballot box isn’t the place for activism - you’ve got 1,459 other days per elective cycle for that.
You know what you get if you vote third-party? Fucking murdered by the fascists.
I’m not voting for Hitler Clone.
I’m voting third party.
You’re just rationalizing your vote to help usher in fascism, and that’s perfectly fine. I guess it’ll take another 40 years of watching the nation regress before you realize that, maybe, the lesser evil isn’t as lesser as you think it is.
Ah, the way Hitler Clone got elected the first time! I’m sure the results will be better the 2nd time…
So, you’re saying we could have 40 years in which we could fucking do something like raise awareness, protests, and the like, or we could let Hitler Clone gain power now and hope it burns everything down quickly and we’re able to rebuild from the ashes.
Ah, the way Hitler Clone got elected the first time!
Not at all.
You all were so cocky, arrogant, and self-assured of victory in 2016 that you were making reaction videos the night before as if Hillary had already won.
You didn’t start blaming us until 10:00PM on election night when you realized maybe, just maybe, you should have cared more about workers and the middle class.
And now history is repeating itself. Can’t expect workers to back you if they can’t afford to miss a day of work, which coincidentally, is why I vote third party.
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That’s actually factually untrue.
If a third party receives a certain percentage of the vote, they qualify for public funding.
My vote serves a purpose even if it doesn’t elect the candidate the wealthy want elected.
That third party bullshit is why Trump was elected in the first place. We’re not in a time or area where we should be putting our votes in a third party. The country and our constitution is in danger, get the vote in for the people who aren’t fascists and then we can work on reforming the voting systems to allow more parties to have an actual shot at offices.
Spoken as someone who felt third party was the way to go in 2016 and deeply regrets allowing bad shit to happen to my country
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This is a dishonest response. Biden has been very clear that his administration has made great strides in helping the country recover from the economic impacts of COVID, with record low unemployment and bringing down inflation to normal levels. His American Rescue Plan has stimulated the economy while repairing our failing infrastructure and expanding sustainable energy. If you actually listened to his speeches you would know all this, and that he is a fat more coherent speaker than the last two or three Republican presidents.
with record low unemployment and bringing down inflation to normal levels.
Hard to have high unemployment when people need three jobs to survive.
Blame corpo greed. They all saw an opportunity to raise prices without raising wages and we’re all suffering the consequences.
Who wins against Trump? Newsome? RFK Jr.? Joe Exotic?
If we elect a Democrat or Republican no one in the poor or middle class wins.
Where have you been the last 40 years?
Hell, we elected Joe Biden resoundingly, with a Democratic Congress. What did we get for it? A 30-50% increase in cost of living (depending on where you live), the loss of Roe vs Wade, and record war spending. And he didn’t do anything meaningful to stop fascism.
You have so many things wrong in your comment.
Biden’s Congress and agenda rested on a thin margin in the Senate, with people like Manchin and Sinema voting against important pieces. What he can do unilaterally, he did, but he can’t do that for everything. Then Republicans took the House.
Biden didn’t cause private, for profit corporations to raise their prices, the corporations chose to do that because they knew they could. They could have simply made a little less money, but they chose to pass any increase in global supply chain costs off to the consumers. Not to mention that inflation around the world is much worse than it is here. But I suppose you’d never give Biden credit for that, huh?
Roe v Wade was overturned by a Supreme Court controlled by right wing judges that were appointed by presidents other than Biden. Three of them were appointed by Trump. Again, Biden can’t act unilaterally to undo that or to pass abortion protections, and Manchin proved that he wasn’t going to be any help. So wtf do you even want Biden to do?
And with your point on fascism, again, what the hell do you want him to do? Trump is on trial four different ways in multiple jurisdictions. The fact that it’s been slow going is a consequence of our legal system and Trump’s resources to be able to abuse it. The wheels is justice turn slowly, and that’s Biden’s fault?
You sound like someone who doesn’t know how the government and judicial system works, and is woefully ignorant of the nuts and bolts of policy. You seem genuinely upset that Biden hasn’t magically fixed every problem in 2.5 years, and you’re holding it against him for some reason. That wouldn’t be an issue, except people like you, who are going to cross your arms and pout come next November are going to allow Trump to be reelected.
And trust me when I say that he will do active harm to the things you care about. Don’t risk it.
