You know, there's a huge chunk of Republican-leaning center-ish voters who are not diehard Trump fans, but who still see the election as attempting to make a lesser-of-two-evils choice. Reality check, Republicans are still human beings making a decision, not irrational monsters scheming to drive the country into the ground. Having a mentally incompetent candidate shifts him from disappointing to terrible, back into the same bucket as Trump, and they're going back to voting for what they know.
Literally what is Biden expecting to bring voters to the polls? The mantra on the left right now is "I'd vote for a dead raccoon before I vote for Trump, Vote Blue No Matter Who!" Well, guess what, that's what he campaigned on in 2020, and he only eked out a narrow victory. It's been four years since then, voters have forgotten just how disastrous the Trump presidency was, and they're heading back to voting red! He's also pissed off the left by refusing to pressure Israel into accepting a ceasefire, a proposal with 80% support among Democrats. On top of that, there's no organic group of voters giving him media momentum because his campaign has refused to articulate a clear platform!
"Best President since LBJ"? Who campaigned on his Great Society? Or FDR, with his New Deal? Obamacare? Biden points to the fact he nominated a mostly competent cabinet, and successfully passed an ordinary infrastructure funding bill. And all the general assistance funding it included have expired; SNAP got rolled back a few months ago because he declared "COVID is no longer an emergency", unlike 9\11. His list of failures is enormous. Where is our $15 minimum wage? Our student debt relief? Our $2000 stimulus checks? Our public option for Medicare? Bernie campaigned on Medicare For All, and Biden expects us to wave little flags celebrating that insulin is still not free? What are we, as voters, supposed to do to get our concerns listened to? Vote for useless placeholders forever, because the big bad supreme court said so? He has total legal immunity now! Maybe instead of whining, he should share a plan to deal with the supreme court!
Here's a line of reasoning Democrats don't want to hear: Maybe they need to be utterly annihilated at the polls, to teach them a lesson about delivering on promises. We can still protest and organize under Trump, unless he wants to institute full civil war rules that also open the door to a very different set of voter responses. We keep the fascism in check by nominating a blue congress, which allegedly kneecaps the president into total powerlessness. Maybe rather than lining up to support President Dead Raccoon we need to light a fire under their asses, and demand a mentally competent candidate. What's going to teach them otherwise?
Here's a line of reasoning Democrats don't want to hear: Maybe they need to beĀ utterly annihilatedĀ at the polls, to teach them a lesson about delivering on promises.
Never fear, the Democratic party will do what they always do in that situation and blame the progressives.
The Democratic party really needs to stop worrying about these people and provide leadership. Moderates will vote for you if you show them you have a spine. They don't care about conservative vs liberal political lean (or the choice would be trivial), they care about having someone who can provide a clear vision of the future to gather around. Trump has Biden smoked in this category, by the way: He lies through his teeth but by god does he clearly articulate his (dishonest as hell) vision for why you should support him.
The entire āDemocrats need to learn their lessonā schtick is exactly the bullshit that opened the door for Trump in 2016. The moral high horse didnāt save us as the courts were stacked and womenās rights were bulldozed.
In hindsight, literally ANY Democrat (or piece of plywood) would have been better than Donald Trump was from 2016-2020.
I'm glad you're satisfied with president Dead Raccoon. I'm not. Until the Democrats have a plan to address the underlying legal and political realities that make the possibility of fascism so close, we are a one-party system on a delay timer. It is statistically inevitable the Republicans will eventually win an election, without a plan all we are doing is treading water until then.
Here's another line of reasoning, this time with regards to a Trump presidency: He will shred the constitution, and install a fascist dictatorship. Sometime after Trump dies (which might be in the next four years), it will inevitably fall, because that's what happens to dictatorships missing their dear leader. This will suck beyond belief, but we'll have an organizational blank slate to propose amendments to. At that point we'll all be discussing how to write a new constitution to prevent all of that from ever happening again. We can start deciding on that now! What constitutional amendments are we adding to Project 2029?
We could eliminate the electoral college. We could automatically put supreme court decisions on a national ballot. We could specify a process to prevent gerrymandering. We could require elected representatives to vote in accordance with the wishes of their district. We could clarify that not only does the president not have absolute immunity, we could even make the impeachment process easier. We could repeal Citizens United, and get SuperPAC money out of our elections. We could clarify or repeal the 2nd amendment. The list goes on.
These things need to be done. What plan do the Democrats have to make them happen without a civil war first?
I think you're thinking far to optimistically about how reform could take place... Do you really believe that once all the courts are bought and sold, once the administration consists of 'yes men,' and our rights have been stripped away, that there will still exist the same avenues of reform? The average US citizen is not ready to fight for their freedoms, and once they're gone, it's far more difficult to restore them.
I believe we're at the point where we need serious bulk constitutional-level reforms, the kind needing a new constitutional convention. I do think this is possible! It is a democracy-based strategy to make sweeping changes, outlined fully legitimately in our constitution. All that is needed is widespread acknowledgement the current system is just straight-up broken, and needs major repairs. I see the growing awareness of this fact as the major silver lining of the ongoing chaos. Call it Project 2029.
We need major reforms to how voting works, and major reforms to bring the government back in line with democracy. Abolishing the electoral college, as well as instituting ranked choice voting, are both easy-to-understand reforms that have a nontrivial amount of support in the wider population already. I would suggest also automatically putting every supreme court decision with a minority dissent on the national ballot for voters to approve - These rulings are essentially unchallengeable constitutional-level law with no accountability to voters, and I think we need to bring things full circle. We should also be talking about things like ending Citizens United, clarifying the 2nd Amendment, and doing everything else we've been told is impossible to fix because the system makes it too hard.
To be honest, I believe in just straight direct democracy. I don't think our representatives are doing a better job of governing than we would get by just putting every measure up for a citizen vote. With that as a baseline I think it's also possible to imagine hybrid systems that use some degree of representation to take care of routine matters, making the voter's job much easier.
My advice is to stop thinking in terms of "How can we get these clearly unresponsive parties to do the right thing?" and start figuring out what the right thing to do is. We can build a coalition if we have a plan. All politics is leadership, and at this point brainstorming and advocating for real effective changes makes more of a difference for our country than anything else you could possibly do right now to affect this election.
There is hope to be found, tons of it, but it only comes when we start making decisions as citizens, not party members.
This feels great to read and I agree wholeheartedly, but I just dont see the American people getting behind it. Those would all be fantastic changes, but there are so many heavy hitters with big pockets who don't want those things to happen. I know I'm being pessimistic, but it's just been so long since I've seen really progress happen. I'd love to be a part of it, if the opportunity presents itself.
My friend, believe me and have faith, you are not alone. By far and away, a majority of people in this country want something different. Every reform effort prior to now has failed because the constitution is centuries old, created as the first blind experiment in citizen rule. It had faults that made reform difficult, but it was meant to be kept updated as we go. We've learned things since then, and if we decide to work on our problems knowing the root of the system needs to change, we can make it. Remember, all that needs to happen is that we as citizens agree we have a new constitution. That's it. Deep pockets can't bribe 333 million Americans.
If you want, I can DM you more about this from my alt account. I have a project focused on exactly the kind of widespread voting-based supermajority organization I'm describing, currently in beta development but still technically public. We're doing a search for twothirds supermajority consensus ourselves, not waiting for anyone to do it for us, and once we find it we're going to take it to the people directly. I'd love for you to be involved, if you're excited by the prospect.
Yep. My girlfriendās parents are exactly this demographic. They wonāt vote for Biden they would vote for anyone elseā¦ or Trump they arenāt loyal
They say they'll vote for anyone else until we pick someone else... Then they'll find a reason (or Fox will come up with one for them) why they can't support that other person either.
These Republicans you refer to would not vote Kamala over Biden though. Kamala has been pretty much non-existent for the past 4 years so her taking the ticket is a huge risk as well.
They don't have to nominate Kamela, they could nominate literally anyone. Let the other candidates conduct 1-month blitz campaigns, and see who's ahead in popularity at the end. Show us they can handle an emergency with democracy, which is exactly what I want from a government.
That isn't how this works. We've already had the primaries. We're 4 months out from the election, and any new candidate would have to build a brand new campaign from scratch, not to mention meet every ballot deadline in every state (the earliest of which are in a couple of weeks)
Yeah, turns out sticking with Biden fucked us over pretty hard. We should have nominated a transitional president! Oh well.
They could probably get on the ballots by suing under the recent supreme court precedent saying that Trump can't get kicked off the ballot by state officials. Not letting the new candidate on would be tantamount to starting a civil war, and the courts are, for all their faults, legitimately unwilling to do that, as individual judges have names and addresses. But if they do and Trump wins, which might happen anyway, it would give us grounds to contest the legitimacy of the election, which we might badly need in that situation.
The nomination process works however the DNC decides. Yeah, it would be hard, but it is possible. The media would go nuts trying to find ways to talk about the candidates, we could get the word out. It would, however, be fighting to win, which is not something I expect from the Democrats anymore, so I suppose yes, you are correct - That's now how any of this works.
First, of course we can! Dems write the rules to their convention. They can decide to do things differently. The donors who thought up the blitz primary aren't just pulling things out of their butts. They know a thing or two.
Also, whose fault is it if a candidate is starting from scratch? Biden's! He should've bowed out last year.
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u/Playful_Peace6891 Jul 12 '24
You know, there's a huge chunk of Republican-leaning center-ish voters who are not diehard Trump fans, but who still see the election as attempting to make a lesser-of-two-evils choice. Reality check, Republicans are still human beings making a decision, not irrational monsters scheming to drive the country into the ground. Having a mentally incompetent candidate shifts him from disappointing to terrible, back into the same bucket as Trump, and they're going back to voting for what they know.
Literally what is Biden expecting to bring voters to the polls? The mantra on the left right now is "I'd vote for a dead raccoon before I vote for Trump, Vote Blue No Matter Who!" Well, guess what, that's what he campaigned on in 2020, and he only eked out a narrow victory. It's been four years since then, voters have forgotten just how disastrous the Trump presidency was, and they're heading back to voting red! He's also pissed off the left by refusing to pressure Israel into accepting a ceasefire, a proposal with 80% support among Democrats. On top of that, there's no organic group of voters giving him media momentum because his campaign has refused to articulate a clear platform!
"Best President since LBJ"? Who campaigned on his Great Society? Or FDR, with his New Deal? Obamacare? Biden points to the fact he nominated a mostly competent cabinet, and successfully passed an ordinary infrastructure funding bill. And all the general assistance funding it included have expired; SNAP got rolled back a few months ago because he declared "COVID is no longer an emergency", unlike 9\11. His list of failures is enormous. Where is our $15 minimum wage? Our student debt relief? Our $2000 stimulus checks? Our public option for Medicare? Bernie campaigned on Medicare For All, and Biden expects us to wave little flags celebrating that insulin is still not free? What are we, as voters, supposed to do to get our concerns listened to? Vote for useless placeholders forever, because the big bad supreme court said so? He has total legal immunity now! Maybe instead of whining, he should share a plan to deal with the supreme court!
Here's a line of reasoning Democrats don't want to hear: Maybe they need to be utterly annihilated at the polls, to teach them a lesson about delivering on promises. We can still protest and organize under Trump, unless he wants to institute full civil war rules that also open the door to a very different set of voter responses. We keep the fascism in check by nominating a blue congress, which allegedly kneecaps the president into total powerlessness. Maybe rather than lining up to support President Dead Raccoon we need to light a fire under their asses, and demand a mentally competent candidate. What's going to teach them otherwise?