There are two things that will lose the election for Democrats if they don’t get them under control.
- Infighting and arguing over who the candidate should be.
- The “All is lost” attitude.
If people don’t stop fighting and trying to convince themselves that it’s not worth it to go to the polls then this is game over.
I feel as if not enough people are saying this.
Infighting is a bane. Back when I was on Reddit I got fucking downvoted into oblivion multiple times for pointing out that the Left’s biggest problem, both now and historically, is how we can never agree on anything. That whatever faults the Right has, they will come together just to shit on someone else. If us on the Left stood up in unity we would be a literal human tsunami flooding the bullshit that is the Republican habitual diatribe. Second, and louder, is apathy, as you said.
Starting to wonder if throwing League of Legends level of insults at people might get them angry enough to vote just to show me what’s what.
It’s because the Democratic party is a coalition. The Democratic party ISN’T LEFT. It’s a party made up of moderates (right wingers) and liberals.
It’s essentially two different political philosophies trying to operate within one party.
Which is why ranked choice voting allows people to better represent their candidate preferences. All the variety of political opinion can’t be represented in two parties.
First past the post got us in this mess and it sure as shit ain’t gonna get us out of it. I’ll take a straw poll over what our current system is.
Ranked Choice voting allows for the kind of direct democratic action as we just saw in France and what they finally got around to doing in the UK with the most recent elections.
However, it’s against the best interest of the current politicians in power.
How do we get Ranked Choice on ballot when the DNC won’t even use it in their primaries?
The French are also FPTP, they just convinced most of the potential spoiler candidates to fall on their swords for the good of the nation.
The politics here in the EU are just as messy, there’s simply a thin veneer of …something, class, perhaps, that trump managed to completely remove from American politics.
What happened in the UK is a genuine bright spot, though. I couldn’t stand Sunak, but at least he behaved like a fucking adult when the time came.
It very much does feel like Trump gave the right permission to be their worst selves in public. The Republicans of the 90s and 00s were perfectly happy to use racism and jingoism and white grievance to win votes, but they either used dog whistles or pretended they were speaking an “uncomfortable truth”. Now that it’s been accepted that being horrible in public can make you president, they don’t need to play that game anymore and they love it.
And all it took was that one little break. The European right is probably one successful brash racist away from being just as bad. There have been some close calls already.
You get it by coming together. The smart politicians, and the hungry ones, will back the measures if there is enough open and consistent popular support. Remember that it is about power. Political power starts and ends with numbers. Make it more valuable to some to support a change and they will become an ally.
However, this is done only through us coming together in unity, or under one or two strong leaders.
The other problem with Democrats is they have terrible fucking strategy. Then they get this bright fucking idea to take a page out of Biden’s handbook. In what conceivable world was it a good idea to run an 81-year-old who all but promised to be a bridge candidate to a younger generation?
Yeah, guys, let’s “rally” blindly around the guy for whom 75% of the fucking electorate find is not cognitively fit to run for a 2nd term. Real genius strategy. It’s like they completely forget about low-info undecided swing voters.
It’s like they ALWAYS employ the wrong strategy 2 cycles too fucking late.
Isn’t it kind of the nature of the left to bicker with itself though? At some level, conservatism seeks to preserve an existing system, or at the extreme end, bring back a system recently removed. There’s some room for infighting between the most and least extreme there, but for the most part, it’s a goal that is easy to unite for. But the left, at it’s most basic level, seeks to change things. And changing things is not a goal that inspires unity quite so well, because to change things, one needs an idea of what things should be changed to, and what you think things should be may not be what someone else thinks things should be, even if you both want change. If it so happens that what someone else wants to achieve is in your view even worse than the status quo, then you can’t afford to unite with that person, because there is the risk that your efforts will further a goal you find even less tolerable than what you get by doing nothing, even though what you both want is change.
This isn’t aimed specifically at you. I’m very likely guilty of this myself.
What you’ve said here highlights what I feel is the fundamental issue of unity for those on the left: We are all so damned certain we’re the smartest in the room, to some extent anyway. We can box up and ship our opinions largely through the use of actual vocabulary. We can do real research. Many more of us have degrees, or are otherwise interested in some more academic form of hobbies, careers, and lend our strengths towards artistic approaches. Now this isn’t universal and there are gigantic nodes of people who stand outside this generalization and yet still consider themselves not Republican, if not clearly left-leaning. There is at least a grain of truth for the majority.
It isn’t that we bicker. We are so divided that each of the groups we belong to must, in their own way, be correct, or be offended. Just look at Biden: The majority on the Left call for equality and justice for individuals with barriers/disabilities. We yap on and on about their strengths and capacity to be incredible in so many ways. Then the instant Biden verbally fucks up we wholly ignore all the immense good he has done in favor of “Old man can’t word properly!” and immediately draw lines.
What the fuck.
Yeah, that’s a radical example and somewhat incorrectly used in the context of this discussion, and yet it does highlight why we get so fucked over so often. I’ve backed up and seen the whole forest for what it is and would really appreciate it if everyone else stopped attempting to cram their oversized heads into the nearest tree, all the while yelling about how their tree is somehow both wholly different and also the best tree. We’re all in a fucking forest and Hexxus is torching the place. The problem is even those of us choosing the forest FOR the trees are at risk of being burned. All because the intelligent fools can’t hear us yelling while their heads are shoved up an Ent’s ass, blind in their false wisdom.
Gah, so angry.
The thing I’d like to see more of is people (outside of here) admitting they’re voting for Biden even tho he’s not ideal. We all know who trump is, and Biden gets a lot of flack, and I think it’s going to persuade a lot of people from going out and voting.
People need to know that it’s acceptable, encouraged even, to vote for the guy who isn’t as bad, even if you don’t like him. Just because you don’t agree with everything he says or does, you agree with him more than the other guy.
Im in some groups with some trumpers, and I’ll throw out memes making fun of trump, then they just say stupid incomprehensible things about Biden and I say “lol good one” and they don’t know what the fuck to do
Infighting and arguing over who the candidate should be.
Agreed.
I don’t care if its Biden, Harris, or anyone else you put up. But yall need to pick fucking somebody and stick with the pick.
I’m sticking with Biden and Harris in that order until someone gives me a better option. And after weeks following the last debate, no one has given me a seriously better option.
This choice is a problem. You have become a single issue voter. For, or against Trump. That’s it. The whole system is awful but the fact they won’t put anyone up who’s better than Biden is disgusting
And no blame to Republicans who elected Trump?
Its fine. I’m Republican and am pissed at my own party (voted for Nikki). Its a two party system. If you don’t like Trump the one to blame is the party who is putting Trump in power, sorry to say. Self flagellating over Biden is counter-productive.
If you don’t demonstrate loyalty to your party, then you can’t obtain political power. Its just a basic rule of politics.
Oh no, there’s blame there. But you can’t punish them for it. We can and should make it known to democratic leadership how impotent they’ve been and how badly they’ve been doing their jobs.
That’s part of the democratic process. An important one too.
In any other situation, Id understand. Maybe not agree, but understand. But right now, and so long as Project 2025 remains a threat, the stakes are simply too high. Some of us have our lives riding on this. Im trans, Ill be dead or a homeless illegal in the event we lose.
The political system right now is simply good cop and bad cop.
Bad cop(republicans): i’ll shoot you.
Good cop(Democrats): vote for me, I’m your only choice to stop him from shooting you (but it’s in my best interests to let him threaten you forever, so you’ll vote for me)
Both will forever suck. Both are fascists. We need better options
The two things are the same thing. If you hadn’t worked it out it’s a general lack of faith in the democrats ability to accomplish anything.
They’ve had a whole term to do anything and what they did was a load of nothing except political grandstanding.
Whole they did that the supreme court wiped out decades of precedent and women’s rights.
Their response was “go vote”. But we already did that and the Dems did nothing. Their whole plan so far has been “well shit, vote harder I guess”.
But there’s worse.
He’s ideologically toxic.
Biden is backing a genocide. Trump would too, we know that, but I don’t want to vote for abyone backing a genocide.
There is no anti-genocide option, and moral grandstanding will just mean ANOTHER one at home. Surely, if youre so passionate about genocide being a bad thing, youd want to mitigate if you can when thats the only option available
If the only options are large genocide and larger genocide. I’m sorry, they don’t have my vote.
Ill remember that when im sitting in conversion camp
Then remember as well that the Dems had ample opportunity to ban conversion camps and they didn’t do it either.
Fam. Im not gonna blame the KPD for the holocaust, or the Tsarists for the holodomor
Unless they can arrange a new primary to replace Biden as the candidate before the convention, then the course of future history has already been set.
They could easily find a winning candidate, but will not because the party leadership would rather see Biden lose than to lose the campaign funding provided by capitalist PACs. Therefore “all is lost” is a realistic attitude.
The time to start thinking about what you’ll do in a post-Democracy USA was almost 10 years ago when we were put on this path by a DNC who needed to ensure Hillary could have “Her Turn” at the presidency and sponsored Trump as they imagined him to be an easy opponent.
Those who are still in Denial, please proceed to Anger.
This is pure delusion. A rushed primary now does not in any way guarantee a win. The process will be chaotic and uncertain. The army of shitty oped writers will go to work asking “what do we really know about ____”. They’ll dig up innocuous shit from their past that make good headlines. After all of that the favourable a and hypothetical polls will not count for much. Acting like Biden stepping down is a sure way to win had no basis in reality.
Should he have announced he wasn’t going to run a year ago ? Yes. But we’re past that now.
This is pure delusion. A rushed primary now does not in any way guarantee a win.
Failing to run a primary doesn’t guarantee a win either. All it guarantees is that the incumbent gets less screen time before the election.
The process will be chaotic and uncertain.
I don’t pretend to foresee specific details, but the general arc of history is as apparent as it has been for the last 8 years.
The army of shitty oped writers will go to work asking “what do we really know about ____”. They’ll dig up innocuous shit from their past that make good headlines. After all of that the favourable a and hypothetical polls will not count for much.
Op-eds and headlines are bullshit. Watch the DNC chairperson to see where the party is headed: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/dnc-chair-claims-biden-put-on-a-masterclass-during-error-laden-press-conference/ar-BB1pRTxA
Acting like Biden stepping down is a sure way to win had no basis in reality.
Likewise, keeping your head in the sand and pretending that Biden could still win in November.
Should he have announced he wasn’t going to run a year ago ? Yes. But we’re past that now.
No we aren’t, the convention isn’t until September. The DNC could announce a different candidate today if they wanted, but they don’t want to.
I think the DNC does, but only if Biden steps down. A hostile takeover would be pretty damaging. There’s lots of insiders and major political players giving non-answers because they’re not idiots, they saw the debate, they see the polling, they know he’s dragging down other candidates. But under current rules, if Biden wants the nomination no one can do anything about it, so they’re hedging their bets because it’s very likely grandpa’s ego will force them to campaign for him after all.
You’re missing option: 3. Completely ignore reality and pretend Biden has a snowballs chance in hell of wining.
It should not be this hard to beat Trump. I’m so tired of sub-standard candidates.
The minority party being allowed so much influence is the problem. We need more voting laws to stop this ASAP.
Ranked choice works well in my city (San Francisco). Just wish it could realistically — given the political uphill battle — be applied to federal elections.
The monkeys paw curls. Texas has implemented more laws to stop minorities from voting
It should not be this hard to beat Trump. I’m so tired of sub-standard candidates.
I’m pretty sure reasonable people everywhere have said that about populist candidates in general. And yet you have to ask, if they are so easy to beat why would any reasonable person either vote for them or not vote at all, even if the alternative sucks. Knowing the stakes, WHY?
Voter apathy in the Democratic Party is what will kill it. There are far more liberals than there are conservatives, but about half of liberals just don’t vote. It’s ridiculous and incomprehensible.
Agree 100%
Is it apathy or acquiescence?
It’s apathy. They don’t care about politics because they imagine it doesn’t affect them.
I don’t think that’s all of it. They don’t care about politics for a lot of different reasons, part of it being how angry it makes people, how frustrating it is, and how powerless they feel when they think about it. At least those are the things that make me wish I could be free and happy like them.
It’s completely comprehensible. Since 2000, the impression has been that if you’re not in a swing state, your vote doesn’t matter. This impression, whether factual or not, has been helped along by candidates and the media. Factor in that we have two conservative parties, one that is dashing towards fascism, and the other sometimes wears a rainbow sticker while casually strolling towards fascism, and it’s completely understandable why many on the left don’t vote. It’s not a helpful mentality, but depression rarely is helpful.
I’ll say it to I’m blue in the face:
Either party can guarantee victory by running literally anyone except Biden or trump.
*Obviously not Hillary tho
If Biden steps down, trump is toast if he stays.
If trump steps down, there goes Biden’s entire campaign.
The crazies want Trump.
The pro-trump crazies aren’t the majority of the Republican party anymore.
One of them literally just shot him a couple days ago in case you haven’t heard…
The pro-trump crazies aren’t the majority of the Republican party anymore.
this is an underappreciated truth, but they quite clearly control the party. the dems need to give a reason for a solid majority of people to get off their asses and vote - apparently the threat of a literal fucking fascist takeover isnt quite enough.
“I’m not trump!” is typical dem fantasy BS at this point. the maga crazies taste blood and are about to frenzy feed.
this is an underappreciated truth, but they quite clearly control the party
Moderate Dems don’t represent the Dem party either. But they control it.
Both parties are controlled by the most rightwing factions, even tho most of the voters don’t like it.
So we end up with most people voting against someone and not for anyone.
That’s how we end up with 2/3s if the country not being happy if either of the two main parties win.
Who are they going to vote for? If Trump isn’t the Republican candidate, you think they would vote for a Democrat?
They’d vote for Trump. We both know he wouldn’t stop running. Vote splits, dems win.
Why are you so certain that people would instantly vote for a new candidate more than the incumbent president? I have only seen polls saying the exact opposite.
Regardless, time is ticking out. If a new candidate is gonna have time to build any sort of support or momentum, they need to get started yesterday and hit the ground running, the election is just getting closer.
I have only seen polls saying the exact opposite
An incumbent with what? A 34% approval rating?
Biden isn’t a normal incumbent he’s literally a historically unpopular incumbent…
And for months now polls have been showing a smaller gap between almost anyone else and trump.
Like, do you not understand this is Biden with the campaign and DNC behind him versus people who can’t even say they’re thinking about running yet?
You don’t think that would give them even a 5% boost?
I’ve seen polling that says that Michelle Obama wins by like 20 points, but I’m not stupid enough to believe that polling.
There’s so much “not Trump” feeling in this country, but running a doddering octogenarian against him decreases those people willing to vote for “not Trump”. I’m absolutely voting for the Dem candidate, but I have some very real concerns about it.
There’s four months to go, that’s a long time to campaign. We’ve gotten used to these super campaigns but countries routinely hold them inside a couple months.
While the US campaign cycle is more extended than other countries’, even then the people who are going to be the main candidate for their respective parties (party leaders for example) are usually known well in advance and have managed to build up a reputation with their constituents before they even start campaigning. In this situation, you’d have to start way further back.
I’m not saying it’s the wrong way to go, but everyone should be aware that changing candidate to someone completely new this close to the election absolutely won’t be a cakewalk.
We have plenty of party leaders. We’re not starting with unknowns. The people we’re talking about are 90 percent of the way there.
Dems: So hillary then? Gotcha.
Hillary with Joe as VP, then in 2028 they’ll say it has to be Hillary again because for some reason no one under 70 has enough experience…
I just like reminding myself that it can always be worse.
Naw, let’s really monkey paw this, Hillary/Schumer, with 3 more sham primaries. Although I’m not sure there would be a party that long if they kept going at that.
I know Michelle Obama doesn’t want to run, but like, please Michelle? Would you think about it? Things are getting pretty desperate here. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2024/07/03/michelle-obama-would-beat-trump/74289680007/
If you really don’t want to do it, you could just win handily and then resign the first day and hand it off to someone else.
I’m also surprised at how much worse some Biden alternates do in the polling given people’s reported desire for a switch, but maybe in time they’d have a higher support ceiling than Biden as people get more familiar with them.
What a lot of news doesn’t report is the Undecided/Don’t Know category grows in lockstep with the drop in existing support for these other names. Trump’s support stays locked on at ~40-44 percent. So what’s really happening is a name brand gap. Some people just don’t know these other candidates and that’s easily solvable with four months and the DNC’s entire war chest.
That could certainly be the case, I was trying to get at that with the second part of the comment. I’ll link the poll below directly for people where that can be seen easier. I wish we had some more people who already could poll better though. I was also hoping that Trump’s support might drop some with some of the other choices though, with some moving to the not sure category when a different democrat was proposed. Unfortunately it was looking like the “not sure” people are mostly coming from the previously Biden category, with Trump staying locked in at 40 like he is with Biden, or even higher for some of them. Michelle Obama was the only to get that to drop, and only to 39%.
The “wouldn’t vote category” also dropped by a percent or 2 for some of them, so a few voters at least might be pulled of the sideline with a new candidate if they can manage to keep all the Biden voters. It was pretty impressive for Michelle Obama again, lowering from 8% to 4% not voting for the poll-takers in the case of Michelle Obama. She seems to pull her extra support over Biden from the current “won’t vote” and third party voters. Some of the other potentials also peeled off a percent or two from the third party voters too into the not sure category. These are the people that really need to be convinced if we’re going to beat Trump, and some of them at least seem to at least think about it when a new democrat is proposed.
https://www.ipsos.com/en-us/only-michelle-obama-bests-trump-alternative-biden-2024
blue in the face
I’m now imagining a debate where the republican candidate is red faced screaming and the democrat candidate is turning blue due to screaming and forgetting to breathe.
Statement dreamed up by the utterly deranged.
Biden should have dropped out in ‘23 and allowed for a real primary contest. Instead he and his neoliberal ilk shouted down anyone talking sense, and now his ego will cost America everything. Congrats Joe, you’ll go down in history after all.
Assuming that is true; what’s your proposal to fix this now?
Whitmer/Bootyjudge 2024
No! Butt YES!
We broke it, and now it’s your fault for not knowing how to fix it.
The proposal is get him to step aside. Sooner the better.
And replace him with who?
Honestly. Someone with a clean record on genocides would be a good start.
Great, that sounds like a winning plan. “We’ll just find someone”. Definitely will be stronger against Trump that way.
It’s funny cause, that’s on them to find a better candidate
Meanwhile with no alternative from the dnc your efforts only serve to support trump. Your progressive paradise will never be realized. It’s been stated to death but stop letting perfect stand in the way of good.
That would be the FIRST step in the process, not the second. You get a parachute first, THEN jump out of the plane. Not the other way around.
Well, go find a candidate. Then we can take the option seriously. Till then, you’re just shouting without helping.
Any participation in the discussion helps. Otherwise we stagnate with 80 year old leadership and end up here again in 4 years.
It wouldn’t surprise me if there isn’t an election in 2028 if Trump wins.
The undecided voters who need to be won are suburban boomers who like Israel. Sorry, we live in hell, thats how it is
You don’t think some Muslim voters in Michigan are “undecided”? This naïve idea that politics is a 2D line and the only gettable votes are in the middle is a plague on modern politics.
I think they’re severely outnumbered by said boomers, and just as fucked as my trans ass in the event of a republican win
Blame the left for everything. Swing so far right that we implement project 2025 before Trump even takes office. Win over all right wing voters. Biden wins again gg no re.
I highly highly doubt Biden has another half decade of useful life left.
This will be a blight on his record like Ruth Bader Ginsbergs refusal to step down is on hers
The worst part is cognitive decline is real. We’re seeing it.
.
Trump and Biden are only 3 years apart.
.
3 years.
.
The difference is, Joe surrounds himself with competence. He picked a VP who wouldn’t make a terrible President. He also doesn’t have shitty impulses to play with big government military toys at baseline that he’s falling back on right now.
.
Can we say the same for Trump? What does his less competent more impulsive at baseline ass do in full cognitive decline?
.
And yet we’re sitting in this geriatric hole. With a China-Russia-Korea alliance looming, plus whatever the fuck is happening on the daily in the Middle East. Our neighbors are cool, thankfully, but conflict doesn’t need to be neighbor based or on the same continent these days. Yea, we have shit in our own house and it stinks, but the rest of the globe isn’t going to stop existing while we fight it out.
.
Complacency and inertia are scary. And that’s what’s been running the DNC for years.
I 100% voting for Biden now. I hate this voting system.
I feel like both parties are trying as hard as they can to lose this election.
The case may be that no news development can dramatically change the race’s trajectory because the partisan bases for the two candidates are broad and firm, and the “double haters” in the middle will continue to double their hate.
If the contours of the race remained fixed, its outcome may hinge upon the quality of their two parties’ get-out-the-vote operations
Look at the disapproval ratings. That will tell you who will win or lose.
Not really dude
The idea that “who doesn’t like Biden” is uncorrelated with “who answers the phone to random numbers”, or that who does answer the phone and answer the questions that suddenly emerge from the other side is perfectly correlated with who will show up and vote in November, both seem unproven to me
I see polls are unreliable again. Until someone says Biden should step down, then you have polling on alternate candidates that is the word of God Almighty.
Selectively believing in data that proves your point and denying data that challenges is is republican level shit, and they wonder why people are fed up with mainstream Dems.
Well problem is most of the polls are general popular opinion votes, but US presidential election is not a straight popular vote. As such the general “who majority of the nation like” doesn’t really matter. Secure states are secure, so you might as well not ask their opinion and leave them out of opinion poll. Focus even on voting district levels in states the use electors to elect the electors and so on.
Problem is such polls are really hard work… Almost no one does those and instead tries to read tea leaves out of general opinion polls. Polls which simply don’t have the granularity of data to make conclusions. You need to ask “what is mood in this swing district in this swing state”. After you have first added up the secure states, well with some looking of “are our old estimates of what are secure states for blue or red correct”. Not that opinion wise all states aren’t purple, but as far as election system results go there absolutely is blue and red states.
As I understand even in USA maybe one of two whole nation granular polls are done, with the actual amount of data to actually conclude how the actual electoral votes split. Given as said, since in some cases it isn’t “you have to go down to state by state”. Nope “we have to go district by district since this state has weirdo way of electing electors or adding up the totals.”
Arguments can be wrong in multiple ways
“The polls are not reliable, but even if they were, they don’t show what you say they show” is not two contradictory statements that invalidate one another
(There’s a whole separate issue that confounding factors make the polls bad metrics of the overall reality, but you can still look at relative difference within the same poll from week to week or candidate to candidate and it’s useful to a certain extent)
Pretty sure I have made both of those points multiple times in the last few days when talking about polling
Couple days ago, you demanded to know who would be an alternate for Biden, and announced that for any answer, you would post some of the polls you selectively find credible when they confirm your existing biases. Here’s the alternates. Provide your garbage polls that aren’t any good because polls are worthless.
Harris. Newsom. Franken. Buttigieg. Whitmer.
The chart is from this which was sent to me by one of your allies in an effort to prove that Biden was cooked.
There ya go. Polls are accurate as long as they say what you want.
Hey cool we’re back around to the very first comment you sent and the reply I made
You can go back up there on your own, and imagine that I replied with what I said last time, and then you don’t have to reply because you already said what you had to say in response. Victory! It is the end of the conversation.
Exactly. “Who doesn’t like Biden” also isn’t the same as “who won’t vote for Biden.” I think Joe is an incredibly weak candidate and wish he would step aside, but I’ll still vote for him in a heartbeat for the good of the republic.
Any source that protects Biden right?
Yes. Biden can still win.
The Easter Bunny and Santa are real too and know you’ve been good so you’ll get lots of presents.
Bwahahahahahaha! Yeah, right.
