- cross-posted to:
- politics@kbin.social
- cross-posted to:
- politics@kbin.social
These candidates are really the only challengers to Biden in the primaries. All of their campaigns are extremely long shots (but not impossible in my opinion- if we decided we liked them more than Biden they could win). Let’s all have a civilized discussion/debate over them. Let’s try to not focus too heavy on their perceived inability to beat Biden but focus on them as actual candidates.
my take
MW: I recently watched an interview with Marianne Williamson who I’d never heard of before (I’m sure there’s a reason media doesn’t cover her). She really impressed me with her views, especially on neoliberalism. She heavily reminds me of Bernie and isn’t running just for the sake of it or as a protest like some other long shot candidates do. In my opinion she deserves everyone’s vote in the primaries, at least. She is also very talented at oration.
CW: I’ll be honest, I know very little about him and need to do more research.
RFK JR: He’s literally a clown. He’s a nepo baby and all his views are inconsistent, harmful, and crackpot. He has no shot at winning.
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RFK is a conspiracy theorist and has more ideologically in common with Republicans than Democrats.
has more ideologically in common with Republicans than Democrats
not only that but his favorability with Republicans is substantially higher than that of Democrats. guy’s probably running in the wrong primary and if he didn’t have a handful of “too liberal” takes he’d be getting a VP call come 2024 convention season
He’s probably financially backed by Republicans to help split the democratic vote.
MW: Is an anti-vaxxer woo-woo person, so no thanks. CW: Nothing to wrong with him in a vaccum but all he’s going to do is take away votes from Biden. RFK JR: conspiracy theorist and generally a POS, hard pass
Not completely dismissing the criticism about woo-woo spiritual stuff, but she has directly addressed accusations of being anti-vax
Misrepresentations of my work are in high gear this morning, so just in case it need be said: I am not anti-vaxx. I am pro-science & medicine. I’ve never suggested to anyone they should pray away their illness & not see a doctor. I’ve never blamed a victim nor fat-shamed anyone.
I don’t think she’s a malicious nut like Kennedy, but does seem into spiritual and self-help stuff. Which is fine to me as long as she’s grounding her politics in the real world.
There’s a reason why these crackpots have no chance at winning
Let’s get some atheists in the mix. So sick of having Christians running the country.
They’re not all christians, it’s just a necessary inconvenience necessary to get elected in this country.
CW is the only one that’s remotely interesting to me, but I don’t think any of them are particularly good for anything except being a spoiler and getting Donald Trump elected.
CW is also sorta kinda but not totally antivax
Edit: oh you said MW…
Just read this about CW
Westerners safe from bombardment like long-shot third-party presidential candidate Cornel West continue to accommodate Russia. In a July 13 interview with CNN’s Kaitlan Collins, West called Russia’s invasion “criminal” but insisted it was “provoked by the expansion of NATO” and is a “proxy war between the American Empire and the Russian Federation,” adding Neville Chamberlain-esque icing on the appeasement cake by proposing Ukrainian territorial concessions to Russia.
So that’s enough for me to lose any interest I had in him.
Weird. I agree with West.
You think that giving Ukrainian land to Russia is the right way to solve this conflict?
Not necessarily. Maybe Crimea. Russia has their military navy there. They only have 2 facing Europe/NATO .Asking them to give that up may be too much. If Mexico joined BRICS and China started placing weapons there, ya think America would be happy. That’s what is going on in Ukraine. I’m not defending Russia or Putin. I just understand that there’s a lot of geopoliticking going on that we aren’t privy to. If you were Russia, would you want NATO on your border. You can be against NATO and Putin. Not everything has to be a false dichotomy.
What’s going on there is more similar to if Mexico invaded Texas, Louisiana, and Oklahoma. And you are saying, “eh, just let 'em have Texas. They used to own it anyway. And they deserve it since the USA aligned with Canada”.
Giving Russia Ukraine essentially means that Ukraine will never be able to effectively export anything again since Russia will exert total control over the Black Sea. That means that Ukraine’s main economic means of survival, the produce and export of grain will become impossible.
Does Ukraine not get to decide what treaties and organizations they join? Or does Russia get de-facto control over everything it’s neighbors do? If we allow Russia to invade and annex any country they want, how long before we are dealing with the invasion of another country such as Moldova or even the Baltics or Poland?
It’s quite clear that they want their borders to extend to the Carpathians to make them more defensible with their shrinking population. Do we just allow this? Then they will need to expand south and East to close the gaps there from the lost USSR as well. And at that point, why stop?
So, just to reiterate, we need to allow Russia to invade and destroy whichever country it wants so that it can “feel more comfortable” by owning that country’s land? Is that a fair assessment of your position?
And then I suppose we need to let China do this too, right? And then when we are down to 3 superpowers running everything, we can just duke it out for who’s the final winner in one big war?
What you are recommending is called “appeasement”. It was tried in very much the same way with Germany by Neville Chamberlain in the late 1930’s in the country where I live, Czechia in an area called The Sudetenland, under extremely similar circumstances as you describe today. It wasn’t very effective to say the least.
So I must say, it’s a very interesting plan you’ve got.
Watched the interview again. Still agree with West. You are prioritizing land over lives. Should Russia have invaded. No. But here we are, and people are dying, homes lost. The alternative is to play this out. Where everyone loses, but America and NATO. If that’s the goal. Proceed. You want Russia to retreat and concede. Would NATO do that? The solution is concessions. Is it optimal? No. But again, the alternative is death and destruction.
I just read cw’s Wikipedia page and boy is it a doozy. He’s really outspoken and rude. The article paints him as a 0 or 100 type of person who either hates or loves you. The is no in-between. I don’t think he’d make a good president but I think he has the right politics overall. One really odd belief cw holds is that Marxism and Christianity are incompatible with each other. I don’t understand how that can be but I didn’t look further into it.
How is MW? She seems like she’d be generally the same political alignment as cw but maybe not so ready to throw insults at people. At least how you described her. Both cw and her endorsed Bernie.
This really encouraged me to vote in the primaries and I’m going to see what it takes to do so in my state…
Just weak attempts at putting together a manchin or sinema-esque “dem” ally for the presidency to try and split votes
Fuckin yawn
I like Marianne Williamson’s willingness to just call a horse a horse in interviews and the like. While I understand she doesn’t have a lot on the line at the moment politically, so she can kind of say whatever she wants, it was refreshing to see her go on neoliberal outlets like MSNBC and CNN and deftly avoid the pitfalls that they routinely try to lay out for progressives.
Her announcement video was really fantastic (sorry about the twitter link), and she grounded her campaign in progressive principles from the start. Rational National had some coverage of her campaign and tv appearances that illustrates why she’s compelling. [1] [2]
She speaks well and seems quite quick and present. She also doesn’t seem to have too many obviously annoying or off-putting characteristics that critics could latch onto. She’s polite but also has a sort of naturally commanding presence and matter-of-fact assertiveness.
Williamson would have a better chance in a general as a woman than someone like Elizabeth Warren who, regardless of whether you like her politics or not, comes off as a bit shrill. Like, sonically her voice is unpleasant to listen to. I don’t think people should care about that kind of thing, but it’s undeniable that it does in contemporary politics and the first female president will have to navigate a lot of extra-stupid social perception hoops.
Regarding Cornell West, I think I’ve said it on here before, but I’m kind of generally skeptical of people who overtly style themselves as intellectuals. I’m not against intellectuals, but he kind of gives me Michio Kaku vibes, and his campaign announcement of being in the People’s Party was kind of weird. If nothing else, affecting the trappings of intellectualism in the current climate seems a bit politically oblivious, which is not a good sign of how his campaign would go in a general. People on both sides of the spectrum are over “Big Ideas”, promises and political theory, they’re suffering and want tangible results.
So, I would vote for Williamson in a primary in 2028.
Why 2028? Why not ‘24? Great points though.
Yes, in 2024 too I suppose but, and perhaps I’m too cynical, I really do not see Biden losing the nomination despite rock bottom approval. I’m registered, so I may as well vote in the primary but I don’t have any expectation that it’s going to be very impactful in this instance.
I highly doubt anyone but Biden will win either but I’m going to toss her a vote, if even as a protest. (Only in the primaries though)
Any action or inaction that assists republicans in dividing the vote is complete idiocy
Guess I’m an idiot. And I vote.
![[US] Marianne Williamson, RFK Jr and Cornel West; let's discuss.](https://i.postimg.cc/tCmyBvT9/Screenshot-from-2023-07-29-00-45-24.png){kind=link}