Scolding Democrats and those left of center for being incredibly unhappy with Biden’s record is not my idea of democracy. Holding to the notion that Biden is less bad than Trump is not an ethical or constructive stance. It might be true in contexts, but it invalidates materialist concerns, chills functional platform changes, negates potential new candidate selections, and stunts policy shifts to the left. This is this year’s “electability” nonsense all over again. We move right through this type of political posturing.
The game is rigged. First past the post forces this kind of devil’s bargain, and if we ran an America simulation a thousand times you’d get bored of seeing it. Additionally, neither party’s leaders will ever have any motive to accept an alternative voting system at the national level. Unless you’re advocating accelerationism (itself a deeply unethical route), it makes sense to keep playing the rigged game for now while we build a dialogue about radical reforms.
The entirety of the Biden campaign seems to hinge on the hope that more people dislike whoever the Republican candidate is. Considering that Biden has higher disapproval numbers than Trump ever had (langerresearch.com/…/1231a2IntotheElection-.pdf). The bigger question honestly is why anyone accepts this, literally any Generic Republican could beat Biden and any Generic Democrat could beat Trump (nbcnews.com/…/biden-trump-both-underperform-gener…). This is where I expect to lose people, but at least Trump is being forced on us by the citizens (look at Iowa), Biden is literally being forced by what could be classified as the establishment, the same people who took Bernie from us. The worst part for me honestly is knowing that I get looked at as crazy for being willing to endorse anybody but these two, like if you don’t pick between the geriatric men who both have histories of being racist sexist creeps (you can argue one was worse, but still doesn’t change history) you are the one who is insane.
I agree and I have to think it’s because (white) (straight) (hetero) (cis) (male) (old enough to die before “death by climate” overtakes “death by natural causes” in volume) people are comfortable with the establishment since it keeps the environment where they live relatively static and doesn’t change their lives too much.
Biden stands for the people who pay him to keep things as they are right now (which fucking sucks) and Trump stands for the people who want a theocracy with Trump as the theocrat.
Because that’s not the driving cause of minimum rent ballooning past the “30% of income” guideline for median earners in nearly every city in the US, while home prices are getting too high for someone spending more than 30% of their income on rent to save enough for the down payment necessary to be able to afford buying a home.
THIS is the housing crisis. Not a lack of residential buildings for people to live in, but rather people being priced out of home ownership at every step of the game.
The thing causing such price increases? Corporate ownership of residential buildings, because when they’ve bought out all the housing in an area they can set the price at whatever they want to make that money back. They have far more money and credit to buy up these homes than 999,999 out of a million individual owners, and they can use that to strong arm us out of the market. If you’re not already in the game, you’re barred from entering.
That’s an accelerationist or a nihilist. If the status quo is pro-immigration and pro-LGBT rights, wanting to keep this status quo will make you a “conservative” because you want to conserve the status quo.
“Conservatives” haven’t wanted to conserve anything in a very long time. They want to prop up the rich with government subsidies, hurt the poor, control the women, and hopefully kill some sick people along the way. That’s a damned far sight from conserving traditional American values.
i’d imagine a part of the problem is that at least some of them do in fact see those things as “traditional american values” so from their perspective they are conserving their version of reality.
Genuine question as i don’t actually know the answer, is conservatism considered to be the conservation specifically of “traditional” values. Like, is there an agreed upon timeframe in which these traditional values were held or is it more of a moving target sort of thing ?
I’m no expert, but I always thought the American brand “conservative” stood for “fiscal conservative”, as in, to save money by limiting government spending.
That definition lines up well with their actual policies which tend to be cutting government spending, tax cuts, downsizing government jobs, etc.
Not really conserving traditions. Although there’s plenty of that in their cultural identity.
Edit: to be clear, the party has long since moved past being actually conservative. The most accurate description they might have now would be the party of spite.
This though. People love to harp about the good ole days but leave out that the good ole days were good cause only cishet white men could participate in the economy
I honestly thought critiquing the guy unilaterally funding genocide with taxpayer dollars would be a more popular take on here than the up/downvote ratio is showing.
I fully believe Trump is a bigger threat to democracy being the dumbfuck fascist he is, but I don’t see how I’m supposed to be excited about voting for a guy who’s clearly funded by lobbyists and in turn is paying for the country of Israel to murder innocent Palestinians, amongst other things like ignoring cries for debt relief and socialized medicine and codifying access to abortion
Preach! Biden also nullified the collective action of the union with the most sway in the flow of goods in the United States and forced a contract upon them. He never closed down those immigrant detention centers that were headline news for years under Trump. The two main parties work together, two hands, one with a velvet glove.
I don’t see how I’m supposed to be excited about voting for a guy who’s clearly funded by lobbyists and in turn is paying for the country of Israel to murder innocent Palestinians, amongst other things like ignoring cries for debt relief and socialized medicine and codifying access to abortion
Nobody was “excited” about Biden in 2020 and nobody expects you to be excited now. But the alternative is a guy who will do all of those things you listed (he wouldn’t ignore calls to codify abortion access, he’d actively support a national ban) plus dismantle democracy in America and hand Ukraine over to Putin. Unfortunately our electoral system is a first past the post system that perpetuates this two party nightmare and our bizarre electoral college gives Trump an extra advantage.
Vote in the primaries. Vote for the winner who’s least fascist. Yell at them. A lot. Activism in the streets, calling your representative about pending legislation. Donations to organizing groups you agree with There are multiple stages of the process you can get involved with. 1 vote every 4 years is not enough
You have my updoot. I’m a leftist so I live in this Schrodingers Valley where I’m a useless stupid baby who exists only to be laughed at but simultaneously the #1 reason Republicans win.
I’m supposed to vote blue to avoid fascism as the blue pres sidesteps congress to fund fascism and the blue party tells the primary winner to eat a dick then goes to court to tell their voters to eat a dick.
Doesn’t sound like the antifascist freedom bastion for voters to me 🤷
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