Biden says that 'if Trump wasn’t running, I’m not sure I’d be running'
The president took a series of jabs at Trump, the Republican front-runner, during campaign stops in Boston.
Doesn’t fucking matter, I’m voting D because it’s a fucking binary system and the other choice is a dystopian totalitarian shithole and abstaining from voting is voting for said shithole.
it’s a fucking binary system
That can change but it requires people to get involved at ground level politics like school boards, city councils, county supervisors and township offices. It takes about ten years for these officials to reach congressional levels. The teabaggers did this successfully but they had a lot of financial support from wealthy conservatives.
It takes corporations to get involved. Currently it only benefits them to have Republicans. Until the money gets involved it will never sway.
This is something that people constantly miss. It's why you can write off third parties. Plenty of people want to see change, but they think just winning the presidency is enough. It isn't. You need Congress too. And getting Congress means winning individual races on the state level. And winning those often means you need to win elections for state and local positions. You can sometimes skip local and go straight to state, but very rarely can you skip state and go federal.
If we want a better system, it needs to start local with a well organized ground game across every state. You need to build up a reputation and strongholds. Greens and libertarians aren't interested in doing this, which is I write them off as opportunistic grifters.
The Tea Party, at least in this one regard, has been inspirational. Imagine if a hard left wing group managed to get support and glomp onto the Democrats and force their will on the larger party like the Tea Party turned MAGA Party has. We could see some serious progress instead of having token voices to ignore come voting time, because they have no choice but to stick with the main Party line.
"We won't vote for a budget that doesn't include Universal Healthcare. Good luck getting support from the Republicans, they hate you."
Both parties openly backing and arming the genocide in Palestine, the most well-documented genocide in world history, despite overwhelming public opposition, is not a binary system, it's a one-party system. We are living in dystopia already, the Democrats shave 3% off of whatever the fascist Republican platform is and say "we're the best option." Stop being a fool and see the system for what it is.
How about both of you go the fuck home and let an actual progressive do some actual good for once?
That would require getting elected, which would require them being broadly popular.
Barack Obama pulled off a surprise victory over the established Democratic candidates by campaigning on a message of hope and change. Of course his administration ended up only slightly more progressive than a standard Democrat's, but the fact remains that a non-mainstream candidate can run and win on the promise of progressive reform.
It's funny because it's true.
Because Harris would then become the default nominee and Biden knows she can't win. It's either that or a punishing primary resulting in some other nominee, but who would that be? Could they beat Trump? It would be a big gamble. Biden running for a 2nd term is a gamble too, but it probably is the safer bet. His real mistake was having someone as unpopular as Harris as a VP.
I think he would be happy to hand it off to her if he thought she could win.
I also think that it didn't occur to Biden that Trump would still be viable after being defeated in 2020, but of course, like many of us, he underestimated both the cowardice of most Republican leaders and the depravity of Trump's base.
Simple reason is more people who vote Democrat disagree with you than agree with you in terms of policy.
Your two options are "convince more people to share my views" or "complain online"
Do you think people actually want a progressive candidate?
The term "you get the politicians you deserve" is often correct, regardless of country and culture.
EDIT: Downvotes? I thought this place was better than Reddit... If you disagree, please highlight how the demand for progressive policies has been shown by the electorate...
How about no President over the age of 60? I want young politicians. I also want term limits.
What exactly would term limits accomplish? Bernie Sanders would be prevented from running, but people like Kyrsten Sinema would be fine.
The solution to bad candidates is to vote them out in the primary or work towards ranked choice voting so that people have a legitimate 3rd option in the general.
If you want to know what term limits actually do check out Missouri. Basically by eliminating "blood sucking bureaucrats" you eliminate anyone who can actually write effective legislation.
So.... Most legislation ends up being insane and unenforceable or written by special interest groups and handed to dummies who don't seem to be able to even read it.
I used to be a big term limits fan, now that I've seen what actually happens... It's a fucking mess, we need professional legislators.
What will that do? We have term limits already for POTUS. Also, what happens if life extension starts becoming a thing? We've seen how hard it is to rid ourselves of the ridiculous outmoded EC; imagine if there were a rule about an arbitrary age being deemed "too old"?
Not surprising, this is pretty much why he ran 4 years ago. He never wanted to be president, but his party had literally nobody (whom they would allow) that could step up and be a real contender.
That "allow" part being a rather substantial issue for those not really paying attention back in 2016.
Yeah I'm kind of confused at that part. Do they mean allow as in someone who'll toe the party line or as someone who is middling enough to gather votes from both sides? I thought we had some good options, Bernie Sanders being one of them.
I'm not sure you can say he never wanted to be president. He ran in 1988 and 2008 before running in 2020. It sounds more like he always wanted to be president, but I could believe he'd prefer to not feel like he has to run for another term.
he was also all geared up to run in 2016, but then his son died. If I recall, Hilary Clinton actually waited for Biden to decide he couldn't run before she entered the race.
That's because it's bullshit. The lemmy consensus on this kind of thing is badly skewed to the left and is basically pure amateur hour. Without doubt there are many intelligent and well-informed users who have a better grasp of the realities of US electoral politics, they just aren't the majority, and so we find objectively ridiculous comments receiving tons of up votes while anyone who dares to mention an unpopular truth is downvoted to Hades
Well yes, you are correct in that at points in the past he wanted to. But I honestly felt that in 2020, he either thought his time for it had passed, or he wasn't confident he was the best candidate to win. He mulled running for quite a while, and only really entered definitely when it was obvious there was really no other choice left for the DNC. But for a long time (too long really) nobody was even sure that he would run.
Getting 2016 vibes this time around...
Or it is just the vocal few that are more openly speaking out...
Polling and all, it will be in the history books come 2024.
Honestly, this reminds me of 1968. Old president supports war unpopular with youth, people protest, the GOP choose a failed candidate from the previous election, y'know?
Trump also seems the type to actively sabotage any sort of peace process to boost his own campaign.
And he has that Southern Strategy down pat.
Thanks for the info!
The 1968 United States presidential election was the 46th quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 5, 1968. The Republican nominee, former vice president Richard Nixon, defeated both the Democratic nominee, incumbent vice president Hubert Humphrey, and the American Independent Party nominee, former Alabama governor George Wallace. This was the last election until 1988 in which the incumbent president was not on the ballot. Incumbent president Lyndon B. Johnson had been the early front-runner for the Democratic Party's nomination, but he withdrew from the race after only narrowly winning the New Hampshire primary. Eugene McCarthy, Robert F. Kennedy and Humphrey emerged as the three major candidates in the Democratic primaries until Kennedy was assassinated. His death after midnight on June 6, 1968, continued a streak of high-profile assassinations in the 1960s.
God. Trump keeps on fucking us.
Yup
And yet, most people don’t want to vote for Biden. He won because people voted against Trump. I’m not convinced it will work again.
I do. I’m an old progressive and he’s been the most progressive president in my lifetime outside of Carter, and honestly he’s probably been more progressive than Carter.
I don’t get the ambivalence about Biden at all from anyone who’s not a hard core Republican.
Could not agree more.
I just believe there are better options out there that have been repeatedly snubbed by the players in power, media, and an overall systemic problem with the political system that Biden, and others like him, will never attempt to address, let alone acknowledge.
I don’t disagree with what you said, but I do believe that “the most progressive” so far is simply not good enough.
Though my problems are less about Biden directly, and more about the fact that last election and most likely the next election it is a complete illusion of choice. Do we want someone who has effectively promised to make everything worse for the 99%, or the only other name on the list?
Who's most people? If you understand what's at stake then you know Trump can't be your option.
Not wanting to vote for Biden and voting for Biden are different things
Aside from anecdotal evidence, according to cnbc surveys 70% of people surveyed said Biden shouldn’t run again and of that 70%, 57% identified as democrats. https://www.cnbc.com/2022/12/09/majority-of-americans-dont-want-biden-or-trump-to-run-again-in-2024-cnbc-survey-shows.html
I’m not saying people won’t/shouldn't vote for Biden, but I am saying that more people will vote against Trump, not for Biden.
I don’t think any reasonable, rational person would vote for Donald Trump. The unfortunate truth is there are a lot of unreasonable, irrational people who are allowed to vote.
Not helpful.
This is why we have no honesty in politics.
For fucks sake. He's trying to do everything he can to alert the country their democracy is in grave danger to the point of admitting he wouldn't still be there if he didn't think he had the best chance of stopping Trump.
And at the sidelines we have endless hand-wringing about his age and calls for a better candidate.
THEY ARENT STEPPING UP BECAUSE THEY AGREE BIDEN HAS THE BEST CHANCE.
Everyone complains the Democrats suck at messaging and then bitch about everything they say and do, even when it's honest, straightforward, and easy to understand.
THEY ARENT STEPPING UP BECAUSE THEY AGREE BIDEN HAS THE BEST CHANCE.
This is not at all the only conclusion one would draw from an incumbent president not drawing challengers. Incumbent challenges usually cause division and a divided party may be in a worse place than a party unifying around a bad candidate. If Biden decides to run, we're pretty much stuck with him.
"Our democracy" has been dead for a century. You guys are like rats running around a maze with your moronic "lesser of two evils" between two parties all controlled by the same interests.
I liked it. Makes it seem like he isn't disconnected from the world, he knows what we want.
Better question, do you want to be elected by embracing the bombing of children and families by our ally Israel? Because that is what is going to happen. It doesn't matter we know Trump would be no different....but our tax dollars going to kids being killed makes people pissed the fuck off. Stand up to Israel, Regan did it when he was a Senator, he can too!
So who is supposed to run against Trump in 2028? Biden can’t… does he think the idea is to just kick the can down the road another 4 years?
The idea is Trump kicks the can
Whitmer I reckon, Progressive governor of a swing state, and who knows first hand that the ultra right are fucking dangerous loons that need the hand of God brought down on them.
You think that fat fuck is going to live another 4 years?
Trump won't win the nomination in 2028, so if he's still alive and still semi-intelligable, he'll launch a third party campaign that splits the conservative vote and gives the Dems 4 more years. You saw it here first.
Pritzker or Manchin (though I doubt the democrats would allow it) have enough crossover they could get votes from all sides.
Manchin (though I doubt the democrats would allow it)
Honestly, if he announces his candidacy for 2024, I suspect a chunk of the "You're a Trump supporter if you are even slightly dissatisfied with Biden" crowd will happily jump ship.
I hate Manchin so much. But I would definitely vote for him over Trump. Better an ordinary asshole grifter and a fascist grifter with his own cult.
The reason the democratic party won't call a 14a3 vote to ban Trump from office even though the vote to ban is designed to fail is because the axis of DMFI and AIPAC is invested in exactly two partisan candidates for POTUS. Otherwise, we would not be in this pickle.
I love acronym salad
Yeah can we not blame Israel lobbyists for this? It feels a bit uncomfortably antisemitic to say it's all because of Israeli money and they control our politics.
It is uncomfortable, isn't it
Ohhhhh so ONLY Joe can beat Trump! That’s why he’s doing it everyone, no one else has any chance!
This makes zero fucking sense outside of the incumbents advantage. The biggest talking points around the country to get ’moderates’ and ‘undecideds’ to vote for Trump, vote third party, or abstain from voting are almost completely centered on him personally and to a lesser extent the DNC. It also ignores the many 2020 voters who were “I can’t believe they’re going to make me vote for Joe Biden”, people which anecdotally is everyone I know irl that voted for him.
If he had stepped aside and let another primary happen not only do we lose all that baggage(a good portion of which I will freely admit is horsehit and the remainder mostly also apply to Trump) and the candidates could use the primary to get the electorate excited about something new and different, which would be a big gain in the fight to stop fascism. I’m gonna vote for you again Joe, but this is a foolish take imo
Historically incumbents have a huge advantage. It would be foolish to throw that away.
We know Biden can beat Trump. We don't know if that's certain for anybody else.
We don’t know it’s certain he can do it again either
Biden didn’t have a four year presidency filled with deep economic issues for the average person last time, we were also in a plague, and had seen insane political activism all year. Inflation wasn’t on everyone’s mind and there weren’t two serious wars going on that we are funding with him as the CMC. He’s not popular or well liked even by his voters
Additionally Trump was and had been obviously more looming and visible to the average voter who really doesn’t pay much attention to politics or even the news for that matter. People were animated to get him out. I don’t think it will happen that way this time. Most folks have short memories and vote with their pocket book.
Again I’ll crawl over glass to for him because there’s only two possibilities and I hope I’m wrong, but it seems like they are playing prevent defense, and prevent defense prevents you from winning. I don’t feel confident in the slightest
Well, in the end they will keep the status quo going, since they know people will vote for just about anyone that runs in the blue party.
2016 Sanders vs. Hillary reminds me that people are willing to stay home or change party.
Biden thought that Trump would be politically finished if he lost the 2020 election --and in a rational world he would've been-- but he underestimated both the cowardice of Republican leaders and the slavish devotion of Trump's followers, as did many of us, myself included. That's why he feels obligated to take the safe route instead of stepping down. If Trump was gone or otherwise not the existential threat that I and many others believe he is, I doubt very much that Biden would be running again.
We would be fine with neither running. But if the DNC doesnt offer up someone other than Biden, Trump will win.
Riiight... because Biden, who literally chose a trained fascist as his running mate, is so concerned about "American democracy."
It doesn't matter if Trump's running. Biden still wouldn't be sure if he's running. They have to remind him several times a day.
As opposed to Donald Trump who consistently confuses his 2016 adversary as Obama and continues to insist Obama is in charge not Biden?
So clever!