• Depress_Mode@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Last time was literally a choice between Biden and Trump. You’re saying by voting in the guy who wasn’t Trump, we gave Trump the presidency? So, we should have simply allowed him to win with his highly mobilized and motivated supporters? That’s a brilliant strategy, I wonder how that would have played out. Surely, an awesome third option would have magically appeared at the last second and won it all, right? Like, what do you even want from people? You don’t like Trump, but you also don’t like when people vote against him. If people hadn’t voted Biden in, though, we’d already be in another Trump presidency right now.

    It sounds like what you’re advocating is that we had a better front-runner than Biden in the first place, one so amazing that they’d obviously blow Trump right out of the water. I also want that, but we didn’t/don’t and we as voters have no control over who runs, that’s just wishful thinking. Yes, we should have better candidates. Where are they? In the meantime, we have no choice but to take the reality that we have, even if it means biting our tongues and voting for Biden again. It will once again come down to Biden vs Trump and to let Trump run away with this one would be a big mistake.

    • goldenlocks@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      You’re saying by voting in the guy who wasn’t Trump, we gave Trump the presidency?

      Nope. You’re always keeping Republicans in contention by allowing Democrats to take advantage of you. Dems will change once they have to, until then you’ll get more Biden like candidates. You really want Buttigieg next? That’s what you’ll get unless you vote for someone else.

      • Depress_Mode@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        And yet, for everyone to sit back and not vote for Biden would be to allow Trump to win, a much bigger deal than possibly being taken advantage of in some vague and nebulous way. Are you so upset at the DNC that you’d accept fascism as an alternative? As awful as Trump is, the GOP is largely united behind him and rabidly loyal to him. You aren’t going to beat them by splitting the vote and bringing in relative unknowns. I’m registered Green myself, but Stein got 1.1% of the vote in 2016 and less than half that in 2020. They’ve never won a single national election, never even a single seat in Congress. As great as it would be, there is just no way the Green Party will be able to pull something like that off.

        In the face of an intolerable and catastrophic alternative such as Trump, Biden not being amazingly popular unfortunately means we actually have to act more decisively in support of him instead of less. I’m not saying you have to like him, but this is perhaps one of the most important elections of our lifetimes and worse yet, the outcome is far from certain. If Trump wins, being able to say, “Well, at least I didn’t vote for Biden!” would be a very hollow victory.

        • goldenlocks@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Are you so upset at the DNC that you’d accept fascism as an alternative?

          Heard this same old story every 4 years my entire life. It’s starting to not work anymore, just look at Biden’s polling. People are realizing its a scam.

          • Depress_Mode@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            As long as Trump is running, that’s the reality, though. Trump is nothing like any GOP candidate that’s ever run in anyone’s life. If anything, he seems worse now than he did in 2016. The 2025 plan is an open document from the Trump team about how the right can seize power forever. In just a few short years, he’s completely transformed the GOP into something utterly unrecognizable. If you can’t see that, you’re just being willfully ignorant. To treat him as an ordinary republican is to legitimize him. Hopefully he loses this time and drops dead before the next election, but it’s far too close to say that he won’t win this time.

            It’s that polling I’m talking about. It’s a critically close race and even as unpopular as Biden is, I’d still take him over Trump any day and there isn’t a single other viable candidate. He’ll still need people to vote for him, though. For everything that people don’t like about Biden, Trump is even worse and people seem to have forgotten that. With less than a year to go and everyone who isn’t Trump or Biden getting little support, our choices are already laid out for us. As nice as it would be to have a “neither” vote option, we don’t have that luxury. This is could easily shape up to be a repeat of the 2016 election and the only way to fight it is to vote against Trump, whoever that may be. It sucks, but that’s the system we exist in. Every potential voter who abstains only makes a Trump victory more likely, given how strong Trump’s position is. We’re given the choice between the lesser of two evils and to say “I don’t care” doesn’t actually teach anyone a lesson. You might not care, but there are many people whose lives would be made measurably worse if Trump were to succeed.

            • goldenlocks@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              Can’t wait for 28 when you libs call the Republican candidate a uniquely dire threat to democracy, that argument is dead, get over it. I’m voting Jill Stein because she represents the platform that you and all Democrats when polled overwhelmingly agree with because that’s how voting works.

              • Depress_Mode@lemmy.world
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                1 year ago

                I can’t wait until 28 when we don’t even have to have an election because Trump has removed term limits and installed himself as President for Life, which he’s literally expressed interest in doing multiple times throughout his presidency and since. You’re being obtuse if you think Trump is anything like Romney, or McCain, or Bush, or anyone else. This ain’t the GOP of your childhood. Pretty ironic to complain about Biden’s popularity and then say that everyone should vote for someone who won’t even get 1% of the vote. Telling people to vote for someone like Stein is just telling people to throw away their vote because you know Stein would never be elected for a wide variety of reasons. Have fun watching your utopianism come crashing down around you as you realize it’s not that simple, though. Every practical leftist has already had that experience. I’m just shocked people are still going with this obvious loser of a strategy.

                • goldenlocks@lemmy.world
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                  1 year ago

                  I can’t wait until 28 when we don’t even have to have an election because Trump has removed term limits and installed himself as President for Life,

                  Deranged take. We both know Trump isn’t capable of that, and no it is the exact same GOP and exact same Dems using the exact same arguments that thankfully are starting to fail.

                  Every practical leftist has already had that experience. I’m just shocked people are still going with this obvious loser of a strategy.

                  Oh the irony. Your strategy has failed for decades we can go look back at them as evidence. Dems are making a fool out of you.

                  • Depress_Mode@lemmy.world
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                    1 year ago

                    Have you thought about it for even 2 seconds? The guy who attempted a coup when he failed the election, the guy currently facing a litany of felony charges, the guy able to get republicans to attack their own capitol against democracy is just like any other GOP prez? Get real, dude, this shit is completely unprecedented. The 2025 Plan lays out exactly how the right plans to seize power forever by further packing courts, changing rules, limiting access to voters, and much more. I highly recommend you read it. It’s as close to a path to actual fascism as anything the US has ever seen. Name a single comparable document in all of US history. You can just keep your head in the sand if you want, though.

                    The real deranged take is to say that people like Biden will get Trump elected, when Biden is literally the only contender to prevent such a thing. Your solution? Vote for a non-contender who won’t even break a million votes. Yes, you’ve clearly thought this through. If you’re willing to take this gamble, you better stay out Vegas or I’d worry you might lose your house. The other team is taking the ball and instead of doing the best bet to maybe stop them, you stand on the sidelines and protest the game itself instead. That’s sure to prevent them from scoring, right? Someone else would be great, but we don’t have one who comes even close to being able to win with less than a year out, now. That’s just the reality. There is a 0% chance that the president won’t be either Trump or Biden, so gun to your head, which would you prefer?

                    Sure, go ahead and lay out the evidence and the strategies for me.