A reminder to all you far left and far right nutjobs that think Joe Biden has done nothing significant in office

My local democratic party texted me to ask me to consider running for office (I live in a very deep red state). I laugh at the idea, because I'm pretty sure that they don't want a pro-2A anarchist and Satanist running under their name. My wife nixed the idea because she doesn't want us to get firebombed.

My local democratic party texted me to ask me to consider running for office (I live in a very deep red state). I laugh at the idea, because I’m pretty sure that they don’t want a pro-2A anarchist and Satanist running under their name. My wife nixed the idea because she doesn’t want us to get firebombed.
You should run dude. I'm dead ass serious. You can win rural districts where dickless corporate bootlicking democrats can't.
Here's the secret code: Don't run as a Democrat. Run as an independent.
- Grass roots too. All you need is name recognition and no one, I mean no one, will know what you are actually like.
- Believe me, that does not work here. This is a Republican area. The winner of the Republican primary is the winner of the general election in the county I live in. It is very much Good Ol' Boy as well; you aren't getting any support from the machine unless you've been kissing their ass for years.
We need people like you to run though, it's hard to vote for it if nobody is running to represent the platform. Especially at the local level where it can make a big difference.
- Lmmfao, they already made it clear why they couldn't run (dems wouldn't want them anywhere near their name), never mind that even if they did they'd never get anywhere near power. Just look at the treatment lukewarm Sanders gets for merely suggesting to tax the rich, just imagine what the propaganda machine would do with a self declared anarchist...
  You people still don't get it, do you - the system is running as it was designed to, you never were and never will be who it works for.
  
  word, the USA cares more about protecting it's corporations than it's citizens
  and every USA citizen believes they will be rich one day, let that sink in person reading this. lmao 😂🫵
  
  word, the USA cares more about protecting it's corporations than it's citizens
  and every USA citizen believes they will be rich one day, let that sink in person reading this. lmao 😂🫵
- It worked for Diddlin' Donnie.
- To quote myself,
  My wife nixed the idea because she doesn’t want us to get firebombed.
  I'm sure you think that's a joke. I assure you, it's not.

Im not American but thinking about getting my citizenship before 2032ish (so out of this voting cycle and maybe the next) actually, the more I hear about voting for a third party is a waste, the more tempting it is. Not saying that because I'm trying to be an edge lord, or a trump supporter, or whatever else I'm sure someone will accuse me of - but because if your policy dept is so out of ideas that all you have is "vote for us or else... ...you... will have voted for someone else. And they might be bad. Neener neener" then surely anything except the Biden/Trump dichotomy has got to be worth a try?

Then to top it all that my vote won't make a difference, to either party, it's just pro forma so we can flip between blue Reagan and red Reagan every 8 years like normal... like - how is that not an invitation to want to fuck the system and look at third parties?

If there was no point in voting for a third party because the I didn't have to hold my nose because Democrats smelled good then you'd have no argument from me.

Voting for third party presently is voting for a spearhead with no spear. There's no mass movement for it, thus no pressure to actually stand up to the massive DNC or GOP. That's why leftists need to touch grass and organize, so that third party can be viable.
Getting the order wrong means more GOP fascism in office, getting the order right means an actual third party becomes viable.
Describing Biden as Pro-Regan is insane, or even just the slightly less bad version of Trump is. Biden has been amazing.
- it was a tongue-in-cheek jab at neo liberalism, not intended as a deep dive forensic analysis of which predecessor most closely correlates to each president.

Voting will move the party left, if people vote for that. But they don't because leftists are a tiny, fringe political minority. That's why Biden is in office and not Bernie.

Can't wait to prove you wrong at the democratic primary oh wait shit we're not really doing one of those for some reason
- "Let's do something that we've not done since the 80's (and was disastrous for us) & will greatly increase our chances of a Fascist USA!"
- What do you think would happen that would prove me wrong? A democratic primary is a great way to increase the chances of a Republican victory.
  
  Or it will make it worse. Its not 1976.
  
  I guess we'll see. But pretty much everyone agrees that not undermining the unity of the Democratic party in one of the most divisive elections in American history as facism is knocking at the door, is a good idea.
  
  Highlighting the diversity and love for democracy is better. More authority behavior is not what we need.
  
  It's not more authoritarian behaviour, it's a very standard precedent that people are arbitrarily getting annoyed about this election cycle. Ideally maybe there would be a democratic primary, but the least authoritarian thing to do right now is keep Trump out of office.
  
  Running Biden is a great way to have a trump victory
- LOL. we already had one. Bernie lost... twice I might add. I hope another person like Bernie runs after Biden's, or Trump's :(, 2nd term because even Bernie himself helped talk about things Democrats didn't talk about (healthcare for all for instance).
  
  From your(and my) perspective it's the better of two evils, there are plenty of average democrats that chose Biden on the merits.
  
  I've literally never met anyone in real life who actually supports Biden, I'm not saying they don't exist, just that he doesn't exactly get people excited to vote, it's literally just "not Trump"
  
  Yet he got more votes than Bernie. So people definitely like Biden more.
  
  But did they do that?
  
  Yes, they actively promoted vote counts including super delegates from day 1 in 2016. In no way was that primary fair. This included the actual vote manipulation in Navada.
  
  Lol there is hope for change. 4 and 8 years ago, Bernie could have been a candidate. There wasn't enough people that voted for him in either election, so Hilary and Biden took it. Now, you do need to wait 4 years because Biden is the incumbent, who historically have a good chance at winning. In 4 years, if people want progressive candidate, vote canvas and donate. If not enough people do, then that obviously means not enough people want s progressive candidate.
  
  Bernie ~~lost~~ won then got told to eat a dick, and then his voters were told to eat a dick in court.
  Then democrats blamed those voters for not voting dem after telling them all to fuck the fuck off.
  
  Citation needed
Voting will not move the party left. The only reason the dems are in power at all, is because the vast amounts of wealth of Capitalists support them. There's no bottom-up pressure. Even if Bernie was in office, he'd have to fight tooth and nail with the democrats to get things done, not just the Republicans.
- We don't really know what it would be like to have Bernie in office, because he wasn't popular enough to get there. But I could imagine it would be hard for him, yes, because no one wants him to be President.
  There is bottom up pressure. Clearly. Self-evidently. There could be more if people who don't want the Republicans in power actually made any kind of effort politically, rather than complained on Lemmy about unsubstantiated conspiracy theories that a cabal of spooky capitalists subvert the Democratic process so your vote doesn't matter.
  The Dems are in power because they won the election, solely because more people voted for them than the Republicans. If you VOTE, you effect change.
  
  People wanted Bernie, Biden was voted for during the primaries in states that went to Trump anyways. The DNC does not want Bernie, so even if he made it to the presidency he would not be able to enact change. Who you can vote for is picked by the wealthy who influence the media and government, Capitalists.
  It is absolutely not an unsubstantiated conspiracy, it's a well-known and documented fact. Pretending that the democratic process within America is not hand-picked and chosen by large corporations and Capitalists is naive and unsubstantiated.
  
  Some people wanted Bernie, most didn't. That's why he didn't win. You have no idea what the DNC wants. The DNC has no authority to try and sabotage a Sanders presidency, that's a wild thing to say. There were some emails 7 years ago and those people resigned. They're not going to rig it. Or ignore the vote.
  If who you can vote for IS decided by the Evil Capitalists, how did Sanders get onto the ballot, then get millions of votes in 2016 & 2020? How did he run a campaign without a superpac, beating out millionaires with massive campaign funds?
  I guess it's cool if you think politics doesn't matter because it's all a conspiracy, it just means your political beliefs have zero chance of getting anywhere.
  
  Here is a good article on the hurdles Bernie had put in his way by the DNC.
  https://web.archive.org/web/20201101090855/https://berniewouldhavelost.com/
  Which brings us to the goal for this essay: To allow someone with one hour and no background in polling or statistics to come away with an intimate understanding of the real story behind the 2020 Democratic Primary. If you are someone with even a kernel of doubt about the legitimacy of the results, this is, without hyperbole, the most important document you will ever read.
  
  You might as well be linking me to the Q board on 8chan. This guy is huffing litres of copium.
  
  That's actually ahistorical, Bernie was fucked over in 2016 and was beating Hillary until superdelagates got involved. In 2020, Bernie beat Biden in most states that Biden beat Trump in, Biden only picked up steam when it came to red state primaries. The people want Bernie.
  Did Bernie win, though? No. Again, superdelegates and careful design of the electoral process prevents anyone from actually rocking the boat.
  Politics absolutely matters, elections at the federal level are loss prevention, and at the local level you can genuinely get Socialists into office. However, meaningful political change occurs when there's grassroots momentum, like the Civil Rights Movement and Black Panthers. Unionization is one of the best ways to force political change.
  Please, feel free to continue mouthing off and putting words in my mouth, you can continue being a radlib and supporting the status quo like your life depends on it, unfortunately I'm not privledged enough to not advocate for meaningful change.
  
  Ok I will continue 'mouthing off'.
  Clinton won the popular vote. Bernie would have had to get nearly ALL the superdelegates to vote against the popular vote to win. All they did was cement Clinton's victory. His campaign also raised and spent more money.
  I don't know where your reading of 2016 has come from. Is this just copium that Bernie didn't win? which part of the less votes from more money is the capitalist conspiracy?
  And again, Biden beat Bernie even harder than Clinton did. People vote for who they want to be president. America doesn't want Bernie to be President.
  And look at that, the popularity of Bernie has moved the Democrats further left.
  
  It's crazy how you can be so wrong. The DNC colluded with Hillary against Bernie, it was proven in email leaks circa 2016. As for 2020, again, Biden won against Bernie in red states that went to Trump, Bernie beat Biden pretty handily in blue states.
  Bernie hasn't pushed the dems meaningfully to the left, just the population. The DNC is just as Neoliberal as ever.
  Again, keep mouthing off.
  
  But he didn't win the popular vote in 2016 or 2020! What do you think that means? Yes obviously he beat Biden in the more left wing states, because he is more left wing. But because he is less popular, he lost overall. The DNC 'collusion' was some emails then the emailers resigned. When they weren't colluding, he lost even harder. They're not rigging elections. This is QAnon level shit. The Dems are meaningfully more left wing. That's such a blatantly, irrefutably obvious fact I don't know what to tell you. Look at the shit Biden has done, it did not happen in the Obama era.
  
  You don't understand the process of primaries, I suppose, and again, Bernie won the states that ended up going to Biden. Bernie would've won regardless, likely winning what Hillary lost.
  It's a known fact the DNC colluded, there's mountains of evidence. The dems are not more meaningfully left wing, Biden hasn't pushed America any closer to Socialism, lmao.
  Keep mouthing off, it's funny.
I have been to every size of town and city all over the US and it doesn't appear leftists a fringe minority. The people that accurately labels themselves as a leftist is probably a minority, but many many people are adherents of left wing views, but with no accessible way to push or vote for their ideals. People will support socialist policies without realizing as well, like guaranteeing healthcare or housing for all. People's ideas of politics are all over the place in the US.
- People when polled like the idea of healthcare and housing for all, but support drops off rapidly when you start getting into the weeds of polling actual policy. At the end of the day, coherent 'leftists' i.e. socialist adjacent people are a small fraction of the population, and a small fraction of those people would ever go further than larping or complaining on Lemmy.
  The fact is there is next to zero political will for true left wing views to enter the stage, and has been shown repeatedly in the multiple resounding defeats candidates like Bernie have suffered, who isn't even particularly radical. It's going to be a long time and a lot of work to get a seat at the table for anything like that, and basically no one is putting that work in productively.
  The other option some leftists like the idea of is revolution, but if they can't leave their bedrooms to participate at the basic level in this system, there is no chance they'll put the work in to overthrow it.

Part of the issue that drives us to point out what Biden has done is that we often get a response of "BOTH sides are fascists and exactly the same, so why should I care?", which then must be refuted.

Otherwise I agree entirely.

The answer to that kind of framing isn't to show how good the dems are, but how bad the Republicans are. Again, the dems are not interested in appealing to leftists in any way, so again, this kind of posturing is what encourages leftist voter apathy.
If a leftist says both sides are the same, show how much worse Republicans treat anyone that isn't a cishet white male over the age of 35, and how legitimately dangerous they can be for our loved ones that aren't in that category, even if they are.
- If a leftist says both sides are the same, show how much worse Republicans treat anyone that isn’t a cishet white male over the age of 35, and how legitimately dangerous they can be for our loved ones that aren’t in that category, even if they are.
  But that's the thing, when we point out that the GOP treats anyone that isn't a cishet white male like dogshit, the inevitable refrain is that the Dems are 'just as bad'. How are we supposed to refute that without pointing out policies of the Dems that are, quite explicitly, NOT 'just as bad'?
  
  By showing that the Republicans are worse, like I said. Biden is factually enabling genocide in Gaza, yes. The answer isn't to support Israel, of course, but to show Trump's track record of foreign policy blunders that would lead to acceleration, as a quick example.
  If this theoretical leftist genuinely believes there's no difference, they likely haven't read theory, are a fed, or are only interested in virtue signaling and genuinely won't be harmed by Republicans anyways.
  
  By showing that the Republicans are worse, like I said.
  My point is that any relative comparison requires both positions to be demonstrated to the doubting, otherwise all that's proven is that Republicans are bad, which we all already know.
  
  Show how dems are less bad, don't frame it as "dems are good actually." That's my point.
Nah, what you want to point out is that Biden winning is the most accelerationist outcome due to how few would accept his victory and how much the Republicans will attempt to sabotage the results.Trump winning will just usher in fascism without any fight.

The only way to move the party to the left is to get more involved. Whining that they aren't reaching out won't achieve anything. A party is made up of people. Want the party to move more left and reach out further left? Be one of those people in the party and do it yourself, don't expect others to do it for you.

No, a party is an interest group. Both major US parties act in the interest of the bourgeoisie and the US voting system is designed to make it hard to contend that. Until you guys discover representational voting on a national level, the democracy will falter.
The only way to move the party to the left is to get more involved. Whining that they aren’t reaching out won’t achieve anything. A party is made up of people. Want the party to move more left and reach out further left? Be one of those people in the party and do it yourself, don’t expect others to do it for you.
Yep. And work outside of it.
But mostly be involved and become a leader in your community. Find ways to engage with people, identify their needs, and address them.
People love making this argument until you actually show up and get bullied for not showing up sooner then bullied for having different priorities than the herd then bullied for not supporting the milquetoast candidate at the moment.
Dems are just as faschie, even at the local level. You can't move people left who are just as religious about their mid right position as christofascists are theirs.
So sad to see Lemmy is downvoting something like this. Really shows how clueless even the most politically opinionated are.
- For such a politically active platform, people here don't seem to really understand how people work in politics. It's not as simple as "come up with the right policy and people will vote for it". The vast majority of voters are not paying that much attention and are easily misled. A good example is California. One of the most liberal states, and they have a direct democracy system for amending the state constitution. Should be a slam dunk for leftist right? Nope, couldn't be farther from the truth. Corporations pull every dirty trick in the book and spend billions of dollars spreading misinformation and pulling every legal trick in the book to get their will through, and as a result voters, not representatives, but voters, vote for props that go directly against their interests because they've been lied to and fell for it. Every election year there's a bunch of horrible things on the ballot and it's a nail biter seeing if the voters fell for it. Getting the right things passed, and also getting voters to actually go for it is nowhere as simple as people here act like it is, and people here don't even provide any solutions, they just want to meme and complain while sitting on their asses instead of getting engaged and getting others engaged.
The wealthy DNC donors pick and choose who makes up the party at the federal level. You may get an upset local win against a Neoliberal dem, but the party is the way it is by design.

You can also lobby your local government. Look them up, book a 30 minute appointment, dress the part show up and make your pitch. Sure it will barely bump the needle but if normies start doing this it can start to nudge that needle a little

Even just calling your local politicians can nudge that needle.
Sooo many people think electoralism is is just casting your vote every 4 years when it's necessary to vote twice a year and stay in contact with your politicians.
I started going to school board meetings recently and have had a few people shocked at me just being a dude with a young child in, the district showing up to see how things run, sure it's boring as hell but I had established a report with one of the members(long story) so him seeing me at the meeting was encouraging to him.
- Man, I need to start attending my local school board meetings. My kids'll be starting soon and it would be a good way to get a feel for the direction of things. I was a student senate nerd in college so I have a feeling I'll be weirdly engrossed in the whole thing.

Of course you can vote a party harder to the left. You just can't be lazy about it. So many you people sit there and wait until a presidential election and then complain. That's not what you do you have to start early. You have to find candidates and nurture them you have to vote in primaries you have to work on elections. You want change you got to make the change. Most leftists don't do that. They'd rather sit back and wait.

You cannot vote a party to the left. I do vote, especially for leftist candidates in local elections, but the DNC exists as it does because of large, wealthy Capitalists influencing it via donations, same as the GOP. Even if Bernie won, which I would have loved, he would have had to fight tooth and nail against the Democrats to get anything done.
The system is designed to prevent radical change.
So theoretically people on the left have done this work and have fielded Marianne Williamson, Dean Phillips, and (at one time) Kennedy. What happens when states simply don't hold primaries?

That just encourages voter apathy.

The fact that you can say all of that yet still come back to electoral politics as anything other than a charade and a farce is mind boggling..

Playing within the limited rules set by those in power to give the little people the illusion of choice is NEVER going to change anything of any substance.

I don't think you read my whole point. Voting won't bring positive change, just prevent negative change. Positive change comes from actually touching grass and unionizing, organizing, and building up bottom-up movements.

Dont fall for the third Party rethoric.
Just swallow your pride and vote for something that does NOT help the fascists win.
Which is Biden.
Mathematically, 3rd parties cannot work in the USA until we get rid of FPtP voting. The GOP outlaws other voting methods where they can. See Florida & Tennessee.
3rd Parties also don't seem to want to put in the work required at lower levels of governance to be taken seriously.
If you could prove Duverger's Law wrong, you'd be famous, but you can't, so you're just shouting into the ether instead.
Voting is a chess move, not a love letter.
I said the dems will never move to the left via electoralism, and without bottom up pressure, third party is a spearhead with no spear. You need to build up grassroots pressure from the bottom up for third party to ever be viable.

Leftists won’t vote for dems. Your point is invalid.

I'm voting for him as an avowed leftist.
Besides impeding fascism, his reforms on student loans mean I'll be debt-free with $0 payments in 10 years. That is a material improvement of my life that I am infinitely grateful for.
But I still think he's a piece of shit for aiding and abetting a genocide and would vote for another candidate if I meaningfully could.
Politics is nuanced. 🤷
- I have similar feelings. My student loans will be way easier to pay off with the new SAVE repayment plan and the IRA should help cover some well needed window replacements, and the very well needed furnace and air conditioner replacement. At a larger scale some of the bills he passed are greatly expanding rail and renewable energy both of which I greatly love to see. There's a couple of new rail corridorsthat will connect me to friends and make it possible to go to places I want to go to by rail instead of driving so I'm very excited to have those options opening up in 10-15 years
  I didn't get the free universal 3k schooling for my kids, nor the permanent expanded child tax credit. I didn't get my student loan forgiveness (which at least was down to republican fuckery since the law was pretty clear in allowing it) and our tax dollars are going to a yet another oppressive regime in the middle east with the bonus of killing of thousands of kids
  Ultimately I'm not thrilled but it's far more than I got under a Republican government and it's far more than I actually expected under Biden
If a particular leftist isn't rational enough to recognize the important of impeding the progress of fascism, at any level possible, its a vote that can probably be missed.
If you have the power to impeded fascism in any way, and you choose not to do so, I'm don't believe you are a leftist.
- But they will still call themselves leftists, which muddies the water and makes it impossible to actually tell.
  
  What is a leftist to you though? I'm not arguing for this position, but there are different beliefs in electoralism, there are leftists who believe legitimazing the system through voting just cements the dominant power further. By abstaining from voting or letting someone unpopular be elected it weakens the state structure which some see as a more efficient path to the removal of the main class division.
- In 2016, Bernie was shafted in the primary to protect capitalistic interests. When challenged in court, the DNC won under the premise that they are a private organization that can do what they want and votes don't mean shit.
  In 2024, we're watching Biden sidestep Congress to fund genocide in Palestine.
  Democrats are fascists, putting a pride pin in their cap doesn't change that.
  
  I agree. Its incredibly tough and an almost impossible task.
  We have the choice of diet fascism, or the full blown thing.
  We can buy some time if we stick with diet fascism. The only real solution is to get involved in the political process and try and change things. I think we're in a highly 'activated' community, so I'm sure, along with others, I'm not the only politically involved person here. I think beyond physical training, doing your best to set yourself up to be independent from the requirements of the social system, and engaging in the political process, there isn't much more I would promote doing. But those are also all very important things, especially becoming involved in the political process.
  You can run as an independent. Find a rural district. Become the dog catcher (or hell, become the sheriff).
  
  Fascism (/ˈfæʃɪzəm/ FASH-iz-əm) is a far-right, authoritarian, ultranationalist political ideology and movement, characterized by a dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural social hierarchy, subordination of individual interests for the perceived good of the nation or race, and strong regimentation of society and the economy.
  Fascism is not just people supporting things you don't like.
  
  far right
  Certainly mid right
  authoritarian
  Try being left of Biden in a room full of Democrats.
  ultranationalist
  See above, Dems are resistant to any meaningful change because they believe USA #1. They wave their little equality flag but suggest overhauling a US system and see how quick they become conservative.
  centralized autocracy, militarism
  Even after a Trump presidency, we can't reign in executive privilege because Dems are just as reliant on it. See: Biden sidestepping Congress to fund Israel, also.....gestures broadly at America for militarism
  forcible suppression of opposition
  3rd parties have met requirements to be included on ballots and in debates before, dems were just as quick as Repubs to move those goalposts everytime they're met. Also, 2016 - Bernie won the primary, no he didn't shut up also we'll go to court to show our voters they don't mean shit
  belief in a natural social hierarchy
  I mean, that's just capitalism and Dems are all in on defending that at all costs (See above)
  subordination of individual interests for the perceived good of the nation or race
  Go to any thread discussing politics or Democratic function IRL and mention any political/social interest other than "Not Trump" or whatever the DNC flavor of the day is and watch how quickly you get told you're a stupid baby. (Case in point, your reply - "You don't have real concerns you just think fascism is anything you don't like nyahhh")
  strong regimentation of society and the economy.
  Again, capitalism, but politically - Any primary winner would have been rejected for Hillary in 2016 because they just owed her one, and here we are doubling down on Biden for a second term at 81 after 50 years in politics instead of, well, anybody else at all no matter how many people tell them how weak that play is.
  Democracy is not shutting out any people supporting things you don’t like.
  
  Thanks for illustrating my point.
  
  Give me a leftist anti-fascist candidate and I'll vote for him. shrug "Leftists don't want to vote for fascists OR fascists waving a pride flag so they don't" isn't the hot take you think it is. Every year, democrats lose voters because they refuse to go any further left than mid-right to placate the donor class and every year y'all go on these tirades about how y'all don't need leftists anyway (as you simultaneously) blame us for Republican wins, usually in the same post.)
  If leftist votes are so critical it'd probably be a good idea to stop actively pissing on them, huh?
  
  I'm sorry, how is this different from a Trump speech, exactly? Dehumanization, outright falsehoods, false generalizations, personal insults, de-legitimization, etc.
  Democrats are fascist, and the US isn't a democracy. It's a right wing Corporatocracy and we're in such late stage capitalism everyone's taken their hoods off and saying the quiet part out loud.
  See ya after the downfall, bruddaman
  
  Cool beans. Don’t cry when you’re blamed again like you were in 2016.
  
  You can blame me all you want, but how voting works is you give people a suitable candidate to vote for and people vote for them because they're a strong candidate supporting people's needs and desires - not because you bully them.
  The options are mid right, far right, or 3rd parties who get the goalposts moved everytime they meet requirements to participate in debates and ballots. I lose either way. YOU will lose because you ran a shit neolib and told everybody that thought that was a bad idea to fuck right off cause you don't need em anyway. Enjoy your shocked pikachu face when the people you told not to vote with you don't vote with you.
  
  You trumpers are hilarious if you think we’re buying into the ruse.
  
  My god that’s some hardcore embarrassing cringe.
- voting for fascist Democrats doesn't impede fascism. implying that voting for evil people is rational, and therefore refusing to vote for evil people is irrational, is pure ad hominem.
  
  ROFL!
I'm a leftist and I vote for dems, at least at the federal level or if a republican actually stands a chance of winning, and it isn't a leftist vs an incumbent dem.
Your point is invalid.
Source? You fade
You're wrong of course.
Or gatekeeping, which would be pathetic.
- Only under perfect circumstances, and that almost never happens.