Is there any way to defend Biden’s failed policies without mentioning Trump?
You ain’t black!
… Jack.
sniffs your hair deeply
There is no election in sight, this is prime time to criticize the DNC. Anyone trying to shut down discussion right now is the biggest loser DNC shill you can imagine.
100%, I even made a Marxist reading guide for anyone disillusioned by the election results.
There are only two years before the midterms. We cannot afford criticizing the party right now /s
There’s a dang Cheeto in the White House!
It’s like we don’t even have a direction anymore. Vote to stop the trump agenda? He has all three branches, if there is anything locking up congress will do it will be fringe. They run on not passing legislation. Stop a trump third term, sorry he’s not allowed a third term and if he’s running for one I don’t imagine the DNC can do much to stop it because major fuckery is going down.
Ok well maybe it’s not all about trump. Alright, what is is about? Maintaining the status quo and never implementing any change?
Remember the hundreds of memes about how it was fine to do it except
3 months6 weeksa month17 days96 hoursbefore an election.Turns out 4 years and a month is a little late to talk about the as yet undecided DNC leadership.
Depends on the critique. “Joe is a hypocrite for pardoning his son” is reasonable. “Joe proves that it’s normal for politicians to act unethically, therefore criticisms of all unethical behavior are invalidated by the rule of whataboutism” is a transparent defense of Republican corruption.
I hate this discourse that what Joe did is okay because Trump did something similar. Trump did a lot of horrible things. That doesn’t make it okay for the next schmuck to come along and do the same thing. Two wrongs don’t make a right. I shouldn’t have to explain this to people.
I don’t think it’s OK, but I think it was entirely expected. I agree that his prosecution was political, and that most other defendants would have gotten much less focus. I also agree that he broke the law and should serve his time.
Ultimately, our entire system is corrupt and we should do something to fix it. Sadly, we’ll have to wait at least two years for the next election to hopefully at least take back the House and/or Senate. But even if Dems take both, nobody seems to be interested in actually addressing the injustice baked into our government.
There needs to be a constitutional amendment that says that presidents can’t pardon themselves, family members, or anyone that worked for them.
The pretense that the Hunter pardon is the first time that Joe Biden has acted unethically is rich given he’s instrumental in a current genocide that he’s lied repeatedly about.
Also you know his entire history from being anti-bussing and eulogizing Strom Thurmond then turning around an telling people they aren’t black if they don’t vote for him.
He’s the best at being part of a big mess, saying that everyone was doing it, then pretending to be the solution, wiping his hands clean and not even rectifying half the damage he’s personally caused.
Just look at his involvement with finance, war on drugs, Iraq, etc.
He’s a good retail politician which is why he’s a classic beneficiary of “we didn’t know any better when we were doing this horrible thing but we were the good guys” type shit that Americans love to do.
I assumed that this meme was just a reference to his latest bullshit. I’m well aware of Biden’s record, and have been a consistent critic of his for my entire adult life. The earliest memory I have becoming aware of him was when he presided over the Anita Hill testimony.
You would think so but every critique is #2.
Yeah, there’s a reason for that. One has motives outside of the current situation.
Don’t forget being called a tankie for daring to rightfully criticize the democrats for being the frauds they are.
Tankie basically means “any Leftist” at this point, though Marxists get the brunt of it.
Yeah, meanwhile the only actual tankies are the ones who cheerlead the USSR and PRC.
As an anti authoritarian, while I can see some redeeming qualities in those countries, overall I’m not a fan. Though I do love me some propaganda art from the time.
To be clear, the vast majority of Marxists support the PRC and USSR. The only major exceptions are Trots, who are mostly found in the Western Left due to their anti-AES slant aligning with the overall liberal Western hegemony, and small pockets in South America. Trots have produced no successful revolutions, so they pose little threat. Though I do think it’s funny that Trots love newspapers.
As for “anti-authoritarian,” I’m not really sure what that means unless you are either an Anarchist or have an arbitrary level of government you deem unacceptable.
Anarchist. I lean somewhere between anarcho communist and libertarian socialist. In the most basic sense, I’m suspicious of power because I believe power corrupts and no system of economics or government is immune to this.
Why do you believe Anarchism is better at solving this problem than Marxism?
Marxism already proved itself corruptable.
Can you elaborate? Moreover, can you explain why you believe Anarchism to be better at solving this percieved problem?
Corruption exists in all systems, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be fought against. Letting perfect utopia be the enemy of massive progress is fatal. Even in an Anarchist system, there can and would be differences in power and access to resources, only without a spread of power across the system.
Also dont forget being a tankie and being called a fascist for the same reason
Leading up to the election? Very reasonable. The Democrats are frauds, but they’re not as bad for the left as Republicans. It’s in our best interest to big tent with them for damage mitigation, to prevent the fascists from gaining power. Criticism, however deserved, helps the fascists.
After the election? Have at 'em. They’re not as terrible as the Republicans, but they’re awful nonetheless.
you committed a genocide; you are a fascist. shut the fuck up ‘those guys are fascists’ you are literally the same
I didn’t do shit. The unwavering support of Israel is the natural extension of the exact same foreign policy we’ve adopted since Israel was founded. And don’t pretend it’s magically gonna get better now that Dems lost. Talk to Palestinians, they’re terrified of Trump’s bromance with Bibi.
Both parties are the enemy. Democrats are an easier to defeat enemy. Why would you want to fight the harder enemy? The odds are already stacked against the left, why make them worse?
I didn’t do shit. The Palestinian genocide is a built in feature of both parties. I support one of them.
Talk to Palestinians, they’re terrified of Trump’s bromance with Bibi.
Fuck you just making shit up to win an internet argument. Bloodless fucking ghoul.
Democrats are an easier to defeat enemy.
Based on what? How for 3 out of every 4 years it’s fucking forbidden to say a bad word about them and how they siphon off everyone who would otherwise have human morals from actual good work? How the fucking shit are you having the goddamned fucking gall to say this shit when the only fighting you want to do against them is telling people to vote for them?
Well good news! They got beat, so now we can move on, right??
“Support” and “damage mitigation” are two very different things.
Fuck you just making shit up to win an internet argument.
I’ve been donating directly to Palestinians distributing aid for years. I talk to them, that’s what they say. But sure, you know better.
the only fighting you want to do against them is telling people to vote for them?
Who said anything about “only”? I’m talking about setting the floor and working from there. Look at the two options on election day, and vote for the better starting point.
Don’t listen to the Palestinians who correctly observe that they’re being exterminated with a democrat in charge. Listen to the Palestinians I claim exist who support the democrats that are committing a genocide against them. The people of Palestine want Juan Guiado as their president.
Who said anything about “only”? I’m talking about setting the floor and working from there. Look at the two options on election day, and vote for the better starting point.
No one said shit. I’m watching what you actually do and what happened the last 4 years when you got what you wanted. It puts the lie to all the hollow bullshit you’ve repeated to death here.
You distributed aid with one hand and you voted for their extermination with the other. I don’t give a fuck what you have to say or what percentage of it is not a lie. I’m sure you’re telling the truth about the last part. You’re a nazi.
Don’t listen to the Palestinians who correctly observe that they’re being exterminated with a democrat in charge.
I listen to both. Neither party will end this. One party will expand and accelerate it. Both things are true. That’s what they have been saying, that Biden’s policies, and by presumptive extension Kamala’s, were horrific, but Trump would be even worse. And you claim the voices saying that are a rhetorical fabrication. Erasing victims of genocide in an impossible situation pleading to mitigate the damage, because that conflicts with your Internet argument. Who is the bloodless ghoul?
I’m watching what you actually do and what happened the last 4 years when you got what you wanted.
You don’t know the first thing about what I actually do and what I want. I don’t want the Democrats. I just want MAGA even less, and no one else has 80 million votes.
You distributed aid with one hand and you voted for their extermination with the other.
I voted to keep out the greater evil, but sure. Pretend that if Biden lost and Trump was in office on Oct 8, Palestine would be better off. One thing is true, the genocide would have ended much sooner. Get out of your Internet bubble.
The Dems are just as bad as the Reps for Leftists because both represent Capital above all else.
Very false. They both represent capital yes, but one is objectively more opposed to leftist policy than the other. Republicans are more anti-Union, more against single payer healthcare, etc.
Voting isn’t about choosing who best represents you, that person isn’t going to win. Voting is about choosing who you’re going to be fighting for the next 4 years. I’d rather push left against the Democrats than the Republicans.
You’re confusing social reforms with genuine Leftist movement. Both the Dems and the Reps are thoroughly anti-Leftist, and neither can be worked with along Leftist lines.
I didn’t say work with, I said fight.
You specifically mentioned policies like “single payer healthcare,” not the establishment of Socialism. How do you get these policies without establishing Socialism? By trying to use the existing system and parties in it, however futile that may be. Hence why Leftists focus on establishing Socialism, and why the Dems and Reps are equally hostile to Leftists.
If you can’t tell the difference between bad and worse, I can’t help you. They’re both hostile to the left, but only one is also hostile to the center.
I believe if leftists actually started showing up, and petitioned the Democrats for charge, they might get some meager nominal concessions. The Republicans not only won’t do that, they’ll double down on authoritarianism.
The very same tepid institutionalism that prevents them from boldly accomplishing anything is exactly what makes them a more favorable enemy. Republicans don’t care about the institutions at all, they’ll install a Christo-fascist ethnostate the exact moment they have the opportunity. I’d rather fight neoliberals than Christo-fascists, and I’m not sure why you wouldn’t.
But go ahead, don’t vote strategically to support an easier-to-defeat enemy. I’m sure playing on hard mode will establish socialism faster.
this is the reason why democrats keep losing.
Democrats keep losing because they have a fundamental misunderstanding of the game they are playing. Democracy is not a game of having the best ideas or plans or even character. You can win hearts and minds with passionate leadership and rational persuasion, but we’ll never win another election if that’s the only lever they want to press. It’s a progressive truism that people, given the same information and the same priorities, will reach the same conclusion. So therefore if a conservative has a difference of opinion, they must either not have the same information, or they must have different priorities. That’s why progressives are so frequently astounded at the hypocrisy and mental gymnastics required to support Trump while claiming any moral highground on any position.
How can they claim they want traditional family values when Trump is a thrice-divorced rapist with an obvious attraction to his own daughter? How can they oppose immigration when Trump has had two foreign national brides and Musk was an illegal immigrant? How can they oppose a woman’s right to choose when Trump has paid women to abort fetuses he sired? How can they claim to be patriotic while Trump gargles Putin’s sweaty raisin bag? How can they claim to want fiscal responsibility when Trump has driven his businesses into the ground, routinely declaring bankruptcy and using his political influence to line his own pockets? How can they claim to want lower costs of living when Trump plans to raise tariffs on imported goods, making literally everything more expensive?
The answer is that they don’t care. They don’t care about having all the information, or having true information. The conservative mind is not a rational actor. It’s not built on priorities or fundamental beliefs. There is only one core idea at the nexus of every conservative ideology:
Me good.
That’s it. That’s all there is. Dig down far enough, under all the bullshit and psychological spaghetti of beliefs, and you’ll find one nugget of truth. I am a good person, therefore whatever I want is good, and anyone that wants something else is bad. If it helps me to lie or cheat or murder, then I’ll do those things and they will be good because I did them to help me.
This has always been the comforting lie of conservative thought. Conservatives claim to want stoic preservation of national values, but the reality is that those values inexorably align with their own personal gain. It is not, as most conservatives prefer to believe, a resistance to change for change’s sake, but a narcissistic demand that all policies and decisions benefit themselves.
It’s more transparent now because Trump has worn thin the veneer of reasonable discretion, but the closer to the surface it gets, the more effective the messaging. It’s OK to be selfish, and ignorant, and cruel, and criminal, because deep down we deserve to do whatever we want. We deserve to get whatever we want. Anyone trying to keep it from us deserves to be destroyed. Anything we do to destroy those who would stop us is righteous. Cuz me good.
You’re never going to convince a conservative to vote for the lesser of two evils, because the greater of the two will simply lie to them. The greater evil will tell them they can have it all, that the dangers of climate change or viral pandemics aren’t real, that they don’t have to change their behavior or learn something new. They don’t have to get out of bed in the morning, they can stay warm under the covers and skip school or work or adulting, and everything will be just fine.
To win an election, you have to convince the conservatives that it is in their best interest to vote for the progressive candidate. That might sound like a tall order, but we already know how to do it. We already see the gameplan that works on all conservatives. We have seen how centrists and moderates and neoliberals win in conservative strongholds.
Progressives just need to start lying.
To win an election, you have to convince the conservatives that it is in their best interest to vote for the progressive candidate.
I disagree with you, to win an election, you need to convince voters to vote for you. That’s it. Democrats have tried to win over conservatives in at least 2024 and the start of the 2020 campaign (before Biden worked with Bernie’s campaign to run on more progressive stuff).
And they keep losing. If what everyone on Lemmy keeps saying is true, roughly 1/3rd of the country voted Dem, 1/3rd voted Rep, and 1/3rd didn’t vote. And if we’re to believe people who say “both parties” genuinely feel that way, and those people are likely to belong to the 1/3rd who don’t vote…
Why are Dems trying to win over the conservatives at all? Show the 1/3rd of the populace who doesn’t vote that you’re not both the same. No, you’re never going to get 100% voter turnout, but if 77 million (Trump’s popular vote count) is 1/3rd, that means there’s roughly 77 million people that can be won over to vote.
So the Dems need to go after them, and they need to start running on actual progressive policy and positive change for the average American. They need to stop letting Republicans control the narrative for them on their ideas and policies. Obama won on the message of Hope, Biden won on the back of Bernie’s progressive policies, and Trump has won twice now on change.
The common denominator is change, the current system isn’t working for the average American, and people aren’t going to support the status quo. We can sit here and insult Magas and conservatives and comment on how empty their brains are or how selfish they may be or ignorant or incestual or whatever. I get it, I’ve done it, but I bet you at their core, they want something in this country to change for the better.
So they gambled on Trump in 2016, and regardless of your opinion on it, Trump spent four years showing people that you can change things, you can get things done, you just have to break all the rules and norms to do it. Biden gave people hope in 2020 (plus the COVID handling by Trump) so they rebuked Trump.
After four years of the average American seeing no material improvement to their lives (that’s all I’m arguing here, not whether or not Biden actually got anything done), and the Dem candidate running on “I’m going to maintain the course,” people stayed home. They showed the Dems in 2020 that progressive policies win, and yet the Dems still tried to win over voters from the other side as opposed to winning over the roughly 77 million who stay home.
It almost feels like willful ignorance on the behalf of these so-called liberal elite. The simpler explanation, though, is probably money, and that’s why people say “both sides are the same.” It’s because money: both sides of the aisle still insider trade despite it’s unpopularity with Americans, both sides of the aisle still hold expensive campaign dinners with the wealthy elite, and both sides still accept billions of dollars in campaign funds from the oligarchs. My cousin supports Bernie with his heart of hearts, but will not vote because “both sides are the same, I want actual change.”
Progressives need to take the helm from the liberals of the DNC and get PAC and oligarch money out of their organization (which will never happen). They need to show the American people that they not only believe in change, they will get it done, and it will benefit the people. They need to ditch this air of superiority and moral enlightenment and just get things done, stop condescending to your voting base, and make your constituency feel like you hear them.
Anecdotally, my dad and I were talking the other day about the election. He supported Trump in 2016 with some enthusiasm (just because Trump wasn’t a politician and “I make more when Repubs are in office”). Him and I stopped talking for almost 2 years after the election. But the other day, he kinda surprised me by saying, “Y’know, I don’t like Trump, I think he’s an asshole, I didn’t want to vote for him… But I just can’t vote for those pompous Democrats.”
I told him how disappointed I was in the DNC, and he said he liked Kamala, but didn’t trust the Dems (I know, the irony is not lost on me). I asked him how he felt about Bernie, and surprisingly, he made a joke about how we’d all have to learn to talk with our hands if he won. But talking policy ideas, my dad supports all of Bernie’s stuff, he just thinks the Dems are out of touch with blue collar folks like himself.
He doesn’t care that you’ve written a letter condoning the breaking of precedent to the Parliamentarian, and through the process of Habeas Corpus and Secretariat, after 12 years maybe they’ll acknowledge they did wrong. Doesn’t make sense to you, right?
Well, that’s because it’s nonsense, which is basically what the average American hears whenever the Dems get on their pulpit and start finger pointing and blaming everyone but themselves about why they couldn’t get things done. The average American living paycheck to paycheck, who doesn’t have a college degree, and likely hasn’t taken a civics class since high school, doesn’t care about all of these little caveats and the intricacies of an arbitrary system of rules and norms that they created. They aren’t going to sit down and research various political theories and then do a deep dive on the various roles and powers each different tiny figurehead amongst the federal government has and does not have, rounding out the night with a hefty portion of the history and precedent surrounding constitutional law.
They’re just not, and we need to stop pretending they will, or that people will even do the bare minimum of understanding how a bill becomes a law. So run on things they understand, and then actually get them done.
But lying? Nah, look at the division Biden pardoning his son has caused on Lemmy, lying isn’t the answer. They need to run on actual, positive change, and then work to actually make it happen, not these half-assed attempts we keep getting like the ACA.
This turned into a book, but I liked your write up.
To win an election, you have to convince the conservatives that it is in their best interest to vote for the progressive candidate. That might sound like a tall order, but we already know how to do it. We already see the gameplan that works on all conservatives. We have seen how centrists and moderates and neoliberals win in conservative strongholds.
it’s not that tall of an order since we did it with obama and can do something similar again with bernie if the dnc doesn’t cockblock him again.
Progressives just need to start lying.
they have been; to themselves if not to us.
Democrats were lying about trying to achieve a ceasefire. But their current position in office slightly undermined their lies.
Progressives just need to start lying.
What do you mean “start”? They already have been.
About what?
Oh I don’t know, Gaza ceasefire, Biden being a one turn president and not fucking the party and the nation, pardoning your crackhead son, we can keep going all the way back to card check if you want won’t help.
Also my favorite saga of this presidency was price controls. 2 years ago the CHUDs had their gas is expensive meme phase with their “I did that” Brandon stickers and the entire Dem party went on the offensive of saying “THE PRESIDENT DOESN’T CONTROL GAS PRICES YOU ABSOLUTE MORON YOU ABSOLUTE IMBICILE” and then 2 years later Kamala Harris’ platform (the one that nobody actually read except to send as a PDF to people to prove that they’re wrong about her) says she can lower the price of groceries. Which one is it guys?
Dems lie all the time. There’s just an entire media ecosystem ready to give you a technocratic puppet theater about why or how it’s smart, or how it actually doesn’t count and how they’re still the good guys.
Hell Glen Kessler makes an entire department’s paycheck by writing “fact checking” where he picks and chooses the dumbest most obvious lies to call a lie, promotes the most innocuous irrelevant truths and then conveniently ignores the statements/lies that would actually impact the American people if they were fulfilled.
This will get deleted because you’re on the .ml instance. Comments here will be carefully pruned to enforce a narrative.
If you don’t like what you see, block the instance.
It wouldnt matter if the democrats lost if 3rd parties had equal and fair access to the electoral process.
Unfortunately, democrats prefer republican authoritarianism over having to actually compete for your vote.
Party over country all the way until the dissolution of this stupid fucking nation state that enslaved us all.
And the war & genocide thing
I mean… Who won?
If you think your political role is to uncritically support whoever is chosen for you by the Democratic party, you are simply throwing away your political power. Worse, you are indicating that their strategy of shaming you into compliance works and they never have to provide you with any political program that aligns with your positions.
Instead of doing what the party tells you, think for yourself and work to build actual power for the people around you, not the capitalists picking your pocket.
But do you condemn Trump?
I already see people running disclaimers in their comments that are critical of democrats. If only we weren’t handcuffed to these garbage people by First-past-the-post voting.
Except it literally was during the election.
Good. That’s when Democrats should be criticized the most, because that is the only time you have the power to exercise any leverage over them. Why would you refuse to criticize them when you actually have a tiny bit of leverage and wait until you have no power at all and your criticism is completely irrelevant and will be ignored? That is just someone who wants to complain but doesn’t actually want anything to change.
