South Lawn 10:34 A.M. EST Q Mr. President, what — do you hold Iran responsible for the death of the three Americans? Q Have you made a decision how you’ll respond to the attacks? THE PRESIDENT: Yes. Q And — Q Mr. President, do you hold Iran responsible for the death of those three Americans?…
I really think Trump will win again. Regardless of my opinion, I see that Republicans are focusing mainly on “look how good our guy is” and Democrats are only saying “look how bad that guy is” . The Democrats don’t seem enthusiastic about their candidate.
I’ll probably get eaten alive by this comment section, but I’ll try anyway. I think there is more nuance here.
Trump has no respect for the rule of law, checks and balances, or the intended role of the executive branch. Trump at president will do anything possible to achieve his goals, no matter what he tramples along the way.
Biden isn’t that type of president. He does respect checks and balances and the idea of a powerful, but constrained presidency. He’s not going to go slam through a blatantly unconstitutional EO every time he doesn’t get his “wall”.
Much like before Trump, if you want change, you have to vote for more than the presidency, unless you’re willing to trample everything about the three branches of government. And maybe you’re also looking for an unleashed sort of populist presidency, but that’s not going to fly with the majority of democratic voters who still want to return to some degree of governmental normalcy.
Biden isn’t that type of president. He does respect checks and balances and the idea of a powerful, but constrained presidency
Cough cough
The Biden administration went around Congress on Friday for the approval of an emergency weapons sale to Israel that includes “projectiles and related equipment,” per the Defense Department.
Why it matters: This is the second time in December that the administration has done so, and the move comes as Israel continues its war against Hamas and faces criticism for its military actions in Gaza.
You would be absolutely correct if Biden gave weapons to Israel or if the narrative the White House pushes wasn’t that Israel is defending itself.
I don’t think that Israel is defending itself, I think that it’s intentionally trying to commit genocide, but the law doesn’t explain who gets to determine when a country is acting in self-defense. Claiming Biden circumvented Congress is inaccurate, as the President has had the sole authority to do this since the '70s. Biden, like the other commenter said, isn’t that type of President. Trump would have actually circumvented Congress by straight up giving stuff to Israel, rather than merely authorizing a sale.
To be clear, I don’t like that Biden did that either.
the law doesn’t explain who gets to determine when a country is acting in self-defense
Literally the same exact reasoning Trump used to declare an “emergency” and divert funds to a border wall. Words are meaningless so I can do whatever I want!
It’s sooo much different that they used some of the over billion of taxpayer dollars that we give them annually to “buy” them…
And reality isn’t just whatever the current administration says it is…
The Act of Congress requires international governments receiving weapons from the United States to use the armaments for legitimate self-defense. Consideration is given as to whether the exports “would contribute to an arms race, aid in the development of weapons of mass destruction, support international terrorism, increase the possibility of outbreak or escalation of conflict, or prejudice the development of bilateral or multilateral arms control or nonproliferation agreements or other arrangements.”[2]
For fucks sake, by your logic all of Trump’s ridiculous claims he made as president were true because he said it was.
It’s really getting old seeing Biden defenders act like trump supporters
Selling and giving are absolutely different, regardless of where the money comes from. I see what you mean, in that it is effectively giving, but that’s just now how the law works. It should, I think Biden shouldn’t even be able to override Congress in this regard, but that’s just how it is. Congress can change that at any time.
The situation in Gaza is gray for many people, it’s not easy to claim it’s objectively defense or offense without proving it in court. I’m not trying to debate the morality of this context, I’m saying that Biden did not circumvent Congress.
It’s really getting old seeing Biden defenders act like trump supporters
Bruh come on, you know that’s a bad faith ad hominem. Someone isn’t acting like a trump supporter because they call out a blatantly false argument lmfao. If anything, it’s the other way around, attacking a person by baselessly comparing them to the other political side.
If I pointed it out that it’s also disappointing trump and Biden supporters both don’t seem to understand that definitions matter, it wouldnt be an an ad hominim either. Because it’s now relevant to the topic at hand.
If you’re upset at the comparison, maybe Biden supporters should stop acting like trump supporters?
Biden’s had no more regard for the intended role of the executive branch than Trump, he’s just less openly antagonistic about it. Trump openly derides the system, while Biden just quietly whips it into line.
I disagree. If Biden was anywhere near that level, we’d be seeing him use much more power to at the very least earn some political capital he needs going into a contentious election. Most of the time this gets brought out, it’s for transferring arms to Israel. Regardless of your opinions on the transfer itself, which I also disagree with, it’s at least arguable those transfers are legal. Someone else in this thread linked more info. If it’s not that, I’m going to need to see some examples of overreach that come anywhere close to the Trump admin.
But we’re constantly reading about Biden bypassing Congress to supply more weapons it Israel that are being used to kill children so maybe Biden could use these powers for something decent instead?
There are some fantastic primary contenders on the dem side, but Biden and the DNC have been working overtime to remove them from state primary ballots or cancel state primary elections altogether. Similar kind of brazen corruption we saw from the DNC in both ‘16 and ‘20 to steal the nom from Bernie, now they won’t even risk a challenger getting the primary votes to begin with.
So, you could start by contacting your state DNC committee and ask why they think primaries aren’t necessary, despite Biden’s historic unpopularity going into an election year.
There was no Democratic incumbent president in 2016 or 2020.
Unless your president is wildly unpopular…like, tried and convicted of child molestation unpopular…it’s generally considered very unsafe to primary them.
Thats generally speaking. Given the state of the GOP and their no-holds-barred disregard of law and tradition, the DNC has to play it as safe as possible. Primarying an incumbent who is comparably not very unpopular within your party is not playing it safe.
Especially when the RNC front runner is Trump. He’s incredibly unpopular among the left. And Democrats aren’t going to pull any votes away from him no matter how hard they try.
They know that the only people they might be able to pull votes from are the near edges of the Trump camp. Moderates who don’t hate Trump, but don’t exactly like him either. To them, Biden is the lesser of two evils. They may not feel the same of an unknown, especially one that’s far to the left of Biden.
The real thing to be concerned about in the general is the far left. Any spoiler candidates that’ll appeal to them. My biggest fear is that 2024 will be lost because of some well-intentioned people voting for far-left third parties because of a distaste for Biden.
In other words, I think it’d be far easier to get the far-left to fall in around Biden, then it would be to get the slight-rights to move away from Trump, and certainly to get the party to coalesce around someone new and progressive at this current time.
I’m bitter about Bernie too. But I’m more bitter about Gore, and the hundreds of Nader voters in Florida that cost 2000. Bush 43 won FL by a margin of 537 votes. Nader had 97,488 in FL.
To be a fly on the wall in that alternate timeline. I bet the weather is nice.
Your whole statement sums up nicely why the Dems CAN blame the left: you “will not be voting for Biden”. Even if you abstain from voting for either candidate, in political speak a non-vote is a +1 for your opponent instead of the +2 your vote would have been for the Dems.
Looking at this as a third party, you Americans really need to break out of the 2 party system by finding a way to add at least a third viable party, using some version of Ranked Choice Voting or ideally both. Mainstream + Social Media + 2 party system is killing your country.
Isn’t playing it safe literally what got us into this mess?! I say no, the time for sincere, meaningful, and drastic change is NOW. We’re on the titanic cruising towards that iceberg, and we need to change course quickly or our democracy will be lost. We have to root out the corruption in DC before it’s too late.
Biden claims that democracy is on the line in this election. So why is he working so hard behind the scenes to ensure there isn’t even a primary debate, or primary elections held? If he is so deserving of a second term, wouldn’t he naturally come out ahead in those? And if not, wouldn’t the platform for the emerging candidates give them the national boost they need to clinch the win? He doesn’t care as much about democracy as the non-MAGA 2/3 of us like to think. The truth is Biden’s ego is telling him he deserves a second term, and not his record, which is an incredibly dangerous game for this absolute dinosaur to be playing with our democracy.
I hear you on Gore, the world would be so different. We could be leaders in renewable tech and have ushered in a new age of prosperity free from the fossil fuels which are wrecking our ecosystem. But let’s be clear - Nader voters did not cost Gore the win. After several recounts, it was proven that Gore did in fact win FL. The Supreme Court at the time decided to give the win to W Bush, because the corporate news media had already called the elections, and they didn’t think it was worth causing too much of a ruckus. A court which Biden has left incredibly biased at a time where they’re stripping away women’s bodily autonomy - he should be pushing to resize it, remove corrupt justices, etc and he’s done none of that.
Biden’s only promise he truly delivered on was to his donors - “nothing will fundamentally change.” I’m telling you, that’s not good enough to “save democracy”. Not by a long shot.
A court which Biden has left incredibly biased at a time where they’re stripping away women’s bodily autonomy - he should be pushing to resize it, remove corrupt justices, etc and he’s done none of that.
You call him out on something that he has absolutely no control over, aside from solutions which would set dangerous precedent.
There is a mechanism for recalling corrupt judges. It requires a non-corrupt Congress. The founders never suspected that we’d be dumb enough to vote for half of Congress to be equally corrupt, but here we are.
The alternative of a president unilaterally removing seated judges, sets an absolutely disastrous precedent. And expanding the court would just be met with the courts growing in size every time control of the executive branch changes.
Better would be to reform how judges are seated and for how long. That would take a constitutional amendment. But at least we’d have a maximum end-date for some of the insanity, as long as we’d be smart about how. My opinion is that SCOTUS seats should be a 36-year appointment, with one judge nominated per presidential term. Special nominations (due to death/illness/treason/early retirement) would be for the remainder of that seats term only. The most tenured seat get replaced at the start of the next presidential term after ratification. Judges should be a long term - the intent of SCOTUS is to be outside of the sphere of political, industrial, or social influence as much as possible so they can focus directly on the intent of the law as written… and that’s difficult to do on a short term.
Playing it safe is the only option. Picking a candidate that sits any further left of Biden (which itself is not difficult) would only move more moderate voters towards Trump, and his base would be even more enraged. Picking someone more moderate than Biden would upset the far-left more and possibly keep them home on Election Day, with even more substantial damage done down-ballot as a result.
The game has to be played knowing that the other side is a way better cheater. They start out with votes that are more valuable and then make sure they carve out their voting districts to suppress any dissenting voice.
In New Hampshire Biden wasn’t even on the ballot and won handily by write in against his primary opponents. I’ve only heard that there are 3 states in which Biden is the only candidate - and that’s because other candidates didn’t qualify.
Also, I’ve not seen any fantastic primary contenders step forward anyway. What makes you think Biden is “historically unpopular” enough to be the incumbent and be voted out in the primary?
Well, when the DNC pulled delegates making the primary pointless and Biden simultaneously pulled his name from the ballot, it would keep and have been a waste of money for a primary challenger to keep campaigning there…
Meanwhile Biden spent campaign funds to drive a “write in” campaign for a literally meaningless election so people would think it was a sign a non progressive could actually still win in NH to make them feel more confident in Biden’s chances.
Biden is polling in the low 30s, as an incumbent. Nobody in the history of US federal elections has ever come back to win with such a disastrous approval rating going into election year. Not once, ever.
Biden is not that guy. He’s not going to make history here, and the DNC foisting him upon us is the establishment handing the presidency to Trump.
I really think Trump will win again. Regardless of my opinion, I see that Republicans are focusing mainly on “look how good our guy is” and Democrats are only saying “look how bad that guy is” . The Democrats don’t seem enthusiastic about their candidate.
The thing is they’re half assing it.
They want voter to believe at the same time:
If trump is president he can do anything he wants.
If Biden is president, the president has no power.
Only Republicans and neoliberals are used to dealing with that level of cognitive dissonance.
It’s why 1/3 of eligible voters don’t vote.
I’ll probably get eaten alive by this comment section, but I’ll try anyway. I think there is more nuance here.
Trump has no respect for the rule of law, checks and balances, or the intended role of the executive branch. Trump at president will do anything possible to achieve his goals, no matter what he tramples along the way.
Biden isn’t that type of president. He does respect checks and balances and the idea of a powerful, but constrained presidency. He’s not going to go slam through a blatantly unconstitutional EO every time he doesn’t get his “wall”.
Much like before Trump, if you want change, you have to vote for more than the presidency, unless you’re willing to trample everything about the three branches of government. And maybe you’re also looking for an unleashed sort of populist presidency, but that’s not going to fly with the majority of democratic voters who still want to return to some degree of governmental normalcy.
Cough cough
https://www.axios.com/2023/12/30/blinken-biden-administration-emergency-israel-weapons-sale
You were saying?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arms_Export_Control_Act
You would be absolutely correct if Biden gave weapons to Israel or if the narrative the White House pushes wasn’t that Israel is defending itself.
I don’t think that Israel is defending itself, I think that it’s intentionally trying to commit genocide, but the law doesn’t explain who gets to determine when a country is acting in self-defense. Claiming Biden circumvented Congress is inaccurate, as the President has had the sole authority to do this since the '70s. Biden, like the other commenter said, isn’t that type of President. Trump would have actually circumvented Congress by straight up giving stuff to Israel, rather than merely authorizing a sale.
To be clear, I don’t like that Biden did that either.
Literally the same exact reasoning Trump used to declare an “emergency” and divert funds to a border wall. Words are meaningless so I can do whatever I want!
Yes…
It’s sooo much different that they used some of the over billion of taxpayer dollars that we give them annually to “buy” them…
And reality isn’t just whatever the current administration says it is…
For fucks sake, by your logic all of Trump’s ridiculous claims he made as president were true because he said it was.
It’s really getting old seeing Biden defenders act like trump supporters
Selling and giving are absolutely different, regardless of where the money comes from. I see what you mean, in that it is effectively giving, but that’s just now how the law works. It should, I think Biden shouldn’t even be able to override Congress in this regard, but that’s just how it is. Congress can change that at any time.
The situation in Gaza is gray for many people, it’s not easy to claim it’s objectively defense or offense without proving it in court. I’m not trying to debate the morality of this context, I’m saying that Biden did not circumvent Congress.
Bruh come on, you know that’s a bad faith ad hominem. Someone isn’t acting like a trump supporter because they call out a blatantly false argument lmfao. If anything, it’s the other way around, attacking a person by baselessly comparing them to the other political side.
For it to be an ad hominem it would have to be something irrelevant…
Excusing Biden for pulling a standard trump method, is a relevant comparison to what trump supports excuse from trump.
Words have meaning.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem
If I pointed it out that it’s also disappointing trump and Biden supporters both don’t seem to understand that definitions matter, it wouldnt be an an ad hominim either. Because it’s now relevant to the topic at hand.
If you’re upset at the comparison, maybe Biden supporters should stop acting like trump supporters?
Biden’s had no more regard for the intended role of the executive branch than Trump, he’s just less openly antagonistic about it. Trump openly derides the system, while Biden just quietly whips it into line.
I disagree. If Biden was anywhere near that level, we’d be seeing him use much more power to at the very least earn some political capital he needs going into a contentious election. Most of the time this gets brought out, it’s for transferring arms to Israel. Regardless of your opinions on the transfer itself, which I also disagree with, it’s at least arguable those transfers are legal. Someone else in this thread linked more info. If it’s not that, I’m going to need to see some examples of overreach that come anywhere close to the Trump admin.
But we’re constantly reading about Biden bypassing Congress to supply more weapons it Israel that are being used to kill children so maybe Biden could use these powers for something decent instead?
It is because they aren’t. Biden is a “not Trump” candidate. That’s it. We are voting against Trump, not for Biden.
maybe try voting for something? Let’s not be feckless.
I would LOVE to vote FOR something. It’s been many years since that has been an option.
What, pray tell, would you suggest that we vote for then?
There are some fantastic primary contenders on the dem side, but Biden and the DNC have been working overtime to remove them from state primary ballots or cancel state primary elections altogether. Similar kind of brazen corruption we saw from the DNC in both ‘16 and ‘20 to steal the nom from Bernie, now they won’t even risk a challenger getting the primary votes to begin with.
So, you could start by contacting your state DNC committee and ask why they think primaries aren’t necessary, despite Biden’s historic unpopularity going into an election year.
There was no Democratic incumbent president in 2016 or 2020.
Unless your president is wildly unpopular…like, tried and convicted of child molestation unpopular…it’s generally considered very unsafe to primary them.
Thats generally speaking. Given the state of the GOP and their no-holds-barred disregard of law and tradition, the DNC has to play it as safe as possible. Primarying an incumbent who is comparably not very unpopular within your party is not playing it safe.
Especially when the RNC front runner is Trump. He’s incredibly unpopular among the left. And Democrats aren’t going to pull any votes away from him no matter how hard they try.
They know that the only people they might be able to pull votes from are the near edges of the Trump camp. Moderates who don’t hate Trump, but don’t exactly like him either. To them, Biden is the lesser of two evils. They may not feel the same of an unknown, especially one that’s far to the left of Biden.
The real thing to be concerned about in the general is the far left. Any spoiler candidates that’ll appeal to them. My biggest fear is that 2024 will be lost because of some well-intentioned people voting for far-left third parties because of a distaste for Biden.
In other words, I think it’d be far easier to get the far-left to fall in around Biden, then it would be to get the slight-rights to move away from Trump, and certainly to get the party to coalesce around someone new and progressive at this current time.
I’m bitter about Bernie too. But I’m more bitter about Gore, and the hundreds of Nader voters in Florida that cost 2000. Bush 43 won FL by a margin of 537 votes. Nader had 97,488 in FL.
To be a fly on the wall in that alternate timeline. I bet the weather is nice.
Removed by mod
Your whole statement sums up nicely why the Dems CAN blame the left: you “will not be voting for Biden”. Even if you abstain from voting for either candidate, in political speak a non-vote is a +1 for your opponent instead of the +2 your vote would have been for the Dems. Looking at this as a third party, you Americans really need to break out of the 2 party system by finding a way to add at least a third viable party, using some version of Ranked Choice Voting or ideally both. Mainstream + Social Media + 2 party system is killing your country.
Removed by mod
Isn’t playing it safe literally what got us into this mess?! I say no, the time for sincere, meaningful, and drastic change is NOW. We’re on the titanic cruising towards that iceberg, and we need to change course quickly or our democracy will be lost. We have to root out the corruption in DC before it’s too late.
Biden claims that democracy is on the line in this election. So why is he working so hard behind the scenes to ensure there isn’t even a primary debate, or primary elections held? If he is so deserving of a second term, wouldn’t he naturally come out ahead in those? And if not, wouldn’t the platform for the emerging candidates give them the national boost they need to clinch the win? He doesn’t care as much about democracy as the non-MAGA 2/3 of us like to think. The truth is Biden’s ego is telling him he deserves a second term, and not his record, which is an incredibly dangerous game for this absolute dinosaur to be playing with our democracy.
I hear you on Gore, the world would be so different. We could be leaders in renewable tech and have ushered in a new age of prosperity free from the fossil fuels which are wrecking our ecosystem. But let’s be clear - Nader voters did not cost Gore the win. After several recounts, it was proven that Gore did in fact win FL. The Supreme Court at the time decided to give the win to W Bush, because the corporate news media had already called the elections, and they didn’t think it was worth causing too much of a ruckus. A court which Biden has left incredibly biased at a time where they’re stripping away women’s bodily autonomy - he should be pushing to resize it, remove corrupt justices, etc and he’s done none of that.
Biden’s only promise he truly delivered on was to his donors - “nothing will fundamentally change.” I’m telling you, that’s not good enough to “save democracy”. Not by a long shot.
You call him out on something that he has absolutely no control over, aside from solutions which would set dangerous precedent.
There is a mechanism for recalling corrupt judges. It requires a non-corrupt Congress. The founders never suspected that we’d be dumb enough to vote for half of Congress to be equally corrupt, but here we are.
The alternative of a president unilaterally removing seated judges, sets an absolutely disastrous precedent. And expanding the court would just be met with the courts growing in size every time control of the executive branch changes.
Better would be to reform how judges are seated and for how long. That would take a constitutional amendment. But at least we’d have a maximum end-date for some of the insanity, as long as we’d be smart about how. My opinion is that SCOTUS seats should be a 36-year appointment, with one judge nominated per presidential term. Special nominations (due to death/illness/treason/early retirement) would be for the remainder of that seats term only. The most tenured seat get replaced at the start of the next presidential term after ratification. Judges should be a long term - the intent of SCOTUS is to be outside of the sphere of political, industrial, or social influence as much as possible so they can focus directly on the intent of the law as written… and that’s difficult to do on a short term.
Playing it safe is the only option. Picking a candidate that sits any further left of Biden (which itself is not difficult) would only move more moderate voters towards Trump, and his base would be even more enraged. Picking someone more moderate than Biden would upset the far-left more and possibly keep them home on Election Day, with even more substantial damage done down-ballot as a result.
The game has to be played knowing that the other side is a way better cheater. They start out with votes that are more valuable and then make sure they carve out their voting districts to suppress any dissenting voice.
In New Hampshire Biden wasn’t even on the ballot and won handily by write in against his primary opponents. I’ve only heard that there are 3 states in which Biden is the only candidate - and that’s because other candidates didn’t qualify.
Also, I’ve not seen any fantastic primary contenders step forward anyway. What makes you think Biden is “historically unpopular” enough to be the incumbent and be voted out in the primary?
Well, when the DNC pulled delegates making the primary pointless and Biden simultaneously pulled his name from the ballot, it would keep and have been a waste of money for a primary challenger to keep campaigning there…
Meanwhile Biden spent campaign funds to drive a “write in” campaign for a literally meaningless election so people would think it was a sign a non progressive could actually still win in NH to make them feel more confident in Biden’s chances.
Like seriously, you didn’t get that?
Biden is polling in the low 30s, as an incumbent. Nobody in the history of US federal elections has ever come back to win with such a disastrous approval rating going into election year. Not once, ever.
Biden is not that guy. He’s not going to make history here, and the DNC foisting him upon us is the establishment handing the presidency to Trump.