#if that man gets in again just because biden is so unpopular is a fucking nightmare

[beautifulpaxiel]

L'CHAIM!!

[mythica-ithaca]

the fact that I see some of y'all posting more about how important it is to vote for Biden than you ever have about Palestine just shows that you fucking "vote blue no matter who" people genuinely don't give a fuck about anyone but yourselves.

you only choose to speak up when YOUR hypothetical rights are threatened. you love to fear monger about how much hypothetically worse it would be under trump than acknowledge the actual atrocities that Biden is committing and condoning every single day. how exactly is he the "lesser" of two evils for?

do any of you actually look at the images coming out of gaza, or are you too fucking ~triggered~ to fully acknowledge other peoples suffering rather than your own. have you seen the video that came out recently of the little boy whose brain is exposed, about to be laid next to his dead family members, only to twitch and seize in his fathers arms as he screams and runs in horror to find a doctor, because his son is alive. his brain is literally falling out of his skull but he is still alive. that is one brief example of the most horrific shit you've ever seen in your life coming out daily for almost a year. how on this earth can you watch that and possibly claim that Biden is in any way shape or form "less" evil.

instead of demanding that the dnc force a different candidate, you're trying to guilt trip people who have actually seen the mutilated bodies of children on their timelines every single day and watched the press briefings of bidens administration denying genocide and defending Israel at the expense of literally everything else for the last 8 months, into voting for a man who supports it 100% and has not and will not be convinced otherwise.

this is where allowing them to push widely unpopular and centrist candidates has gotten us. it didn't work with Hillary in 2016. it BARELY worked in 2020. and hate to break it to you, but its probably not going to work again. so congrats. your "vote blue no matter who" rhetoric has got them thinking that they can push the most right leaning liberals on us and think that we'll vote for them just because they're in a blue tie instead of a red one.

if you care about democracy like you say you do, then the Democrats should be fucking TERRIFIED that you won't vote for them if they don't deliver. not constantly reassured that they can commit literal fucking genocide and still get your votes if they dangle abortion rights over your heads. you realize they see those posts too right? the ones that say "Yes! protest vote in the primary but make sure to actually vote for the guy in the general!!" like. you are literally telling them how performative your activism is.

if every election at this point is the one where democracy is on the line then we are already fucked. if they don't get it through their heads now that we will not support this shit, then every election to come will be between a fascist and a fascist who cares slightly less about whether gay people get married or not. but that's all you care about right? as long as your domestic policy is in your favor then the rest of the world can suffer at your tax dollars.

this isn't about morality voting. this is about recognizing that there is not actually a "lesser" of two evils in this situation, just because you think that the causes that you personally care about will be less affected one way or the other. because what if it was abortion rights? what catholic Joe Biden was firmly against abortion and was threatening to ban it completely and throw anyone getting or giving one in prison for murder. what if it was videos of lgbt people being slaughtered coming out every single day for a year. genuinely fucking ask yourself if you'd still be saying "vote blue no matter who" and that he's the "lesser" of two evils.

vote for whoever the fuck you want. and I do genuinely urge you to vote for the most progressive candidate you can for the house and senate and your local elections. but for the love of god, stop trying to convince people that there is, in any sense of the word, a "Lesser" evil in this situation. stop trying to absolve yourselves of the fact that you are CHOOSING evil. it's genuinely sick.

[qqueenofhades]

The thing is, I think the republicans DID have a plan for if Biden dropped out. They just didn't have a plan for if Harris could instantly unite the party, which is why they're still feebly trying to pretend like Biden might try to take back the nomination or someone else will challenge her and the DNC will be a mess, and trying to insist that no one likes Kamala when she's putting up these huge rallies. If the stupid contested mini primary idea had gone through I'm sure the GOP would have been ready with knives out and I would have descended halfway into alcoholism by now. Fortunately we live in the Good Timeline where Biden endorsed her immediately and everyone rallied around her and none of the GOP's weaksauce attacks have stuck. Same with the veepstakes- they banked on Harris picking Shapiro on the advice of the dem consultants and hoped that would open up some weaknesses for her, and when she picked the guy better suited for this moment have tried and failed to make it a scandal that she picked a guy endorsed by everyone from AOC to Manchin.

In full fairness to the GOP strategists, the dems having their shit together and united on messaging is a new and shocking development that I still can't quite believe myself. The complete collapse of the GOP messaging in response though? Delicious.

Well, yeah. Of course the Republicans had a plan if the plan was "do nothing, sit back, and let the Democrats descend into self-inflicted chaos," because that required zero effort or initiative from them other than to continue their usual petty fascist manipulative bad-faith bullshit. And yes, the fact of the Democrats being in disconcerting levels of array and not doing the self-sabotaging thing yet again came as a complete shock to everyone everywhere, so this wasn't the worst gamble, but it also exposes the GOP's complete and utter lack of any other ideas or constructive strategies if that did NOT happen. Their only plan was "wait for the opposition to crumble and do the worst thing imaginable like we always do!" and like. At some point, you aren't going to get away with that anymore. Especially when your candidates are Donald Fucking Trump and the guy who's somehow managing to be even more unpopular than Donald Fucking Trump. I mean, Trump's cultists like Trump. They don't even like Vance. Ouch.

The simple fact that the Republicans had no strategy whatsoever except OOOH OOOH SCARY BROWN WOMAN if the Democrats did pull together and support Kamala, and OOH OOH GARBLE ANTISEMITISM GARBLE (from the literal Neo-Nazi Party who was gearing up to go Full Speed Ahead Antisemitic if she had chosen Shapiro) if she picked Walz, demonstrates that they're completely bankrupt, at the end of the end of the rope. They have nothing new to offer. It's the same litany of garbage grievance culture-war fear and hate that they've run on for 8+ years, and as I have said before, eventually people get tired of that. It doesn't work anymore, especially when a genuinely exciting and dynamic alternative is offered. And now Trump is having an absolutely gobsmacking meltdown of a press conference at the critical battleground state of Mar-a-Lago, which kind of sums up where this whole thing is:

Man, I almost feel bad for him.

(No, no, I don't.)

[whilomm]

hey listen guys I know its hard to hear but you dont have to say Trump Cheated to point out the problems w this election

Yeah theres tons of votes being thrown out, but that doesnt mean the trump campaign was doing shady backroom deals or anything, it means that this country has places where its set up so that its way too easy to throw votes out for tiny reasons, and its been set up like that for a while. this isnt a new issue Caused By Trump Personally this is existing problem. yes, if you voted by mail or anything, make sure your vote went through and cure it if needed cause those could have massive effects downballot, but dont conspiracize about it, its just your average everyday voter suppression in this bitch of a country.

ideally they would give voters more time to cure ballots for legit issues (like signature mismatch, which yeah if u wanna prevent vote theft on mail ins It Is Important) and notify them better (especially in an age where No One Answers Their Phone) but they make the windows tiny because This Country Sucks. the conspiracy is that "wow, america sucks". very surprising, i know.

meanwhile the bomb threats. suspicious as hell, yes. needs to be investigated, yes. but also they could have come from some random ass maga cunt. I don't know how to tell yall this but some right wing fuckers do in fact love doing a terrorism independently on occasion, no conspiracy needed. now, if it comes out the threats can be directly connected to the campaign somehow? yeah, THEN its direct election interference, and we have to have a whole nother conversation, but realize it could just as easily be some random asshole doing it.

also "the dems lost 15 million votes" theyre still counting. they probably lost votes still, yeah, but you have to wait for them to finish counting to see how many. some of the states still counting like california lean heavy dem so like, the gaps gonna lower at least a bit probs. looking now its more like 10 mil gap. dunno how much thatll change, but neither do you yet. shut up with the numbers til you actually Have The Numbers. the full postmortem cant come til you actually have the body all here to dissect.

unfortunately yall i think half of american voters are just fucking stupid ass cunts who are easily swayed by shit like "egg prices" and "gas prices", and the dems massively failed every step of the way on that front (biden didnt do enough to combat price gouging when it happened, biden still decided to run knowing how fucking unpopular he was with everyone from rightwingers to checked the fuck out normies to leftists and despite barely being able to string a sentence together and then waiting until so fucking late in the race to finally drop out, the dems usual noncommital ass messaging and refusal to take strong stances on shit bit them in the ass once again...)

no, chances are from how its looking right now, trump won, no conspiracy needed. Some of its the rabid maga crowd yeah, but also some of its probs the normie ass checked out average levels of misogyny people who dont even realize their "feelings" about how trump just seems like a "stronger leader" are 100% "he is man therefore strong", some of its people who genuinely fucking vote based on shit like name recognition and had to google "did joe biden drop out". the average american is unfortunately oftentimes a fucking idiot who doesnt pay attention to goddamn anything beyond how their personal finances were these past 4 years, and dems didnt do enough to energize the voting base of people who actually do pay some attention to get them over that gap.

They couldnt get the checked out normies, they didnt even bother with the people who pay attention, and they massively goddamn fucked up.

Theres no one single thing to blame here, the whole thing is a massive messy shit stew. a million things that could have been done, including shit that should have been done over a decade ago by the dems when they really had power, but this country fucking sucks so.

[zarekthelordofthefries]

I want to say my peace on this just to get it out of my head. Political stuff, talking about the American election and everything.

I am probably going to vote for Joe Biden. I don't feel good about it. It makes me sick to my stomach. The man is awful. Trump has the conviction to make things far worse than Biden, so if forced to pick between the two unfortunately Biden is the better choice.

I also don't think Biden is going to win. He is woefully unpopular with the right and the left both. He has demolished every single ounce of goodwill he ever earned. His greatest saving grace was being better than Trump the first time, and since then he has so thoroughly botched his own PR that it has become increasingly difficult for people to say that genuinely.

Again, I say this as someone who is probably going to vote for him. But I legitimately can't imagine being mad at someone who doesn't. I mean, mad at someone who votes for Trump, of course, fuck those people. But someone who just wants to abstain? Someone who will go to the polls and vote on everything but the presidency? How can I blame someone for that?

At this point I don't think it's unfair to say Biden is a monster. He technically doesn't support Netanyahu, but he quite obviously supports Israel. He clearly has no compunctions with supporting the occupation, displacement, and genocide of Palestinians -- he shakes his fist impotently at Netanyahu because his actions make Israel look bad, not for any ideological reasons.

He's better than Trump. Getting shot in the foot is better than getting shot in the chest. I can't blame people for not being eager to get shot in the foot.

I just think it's important to maintain perspective here. If/when Biden loses, there are people we can blame. The people to blame aren't Palestinian-Americans who can't bring themselves to vote for someone who provides the bombs killing their families. The people to blame are the Republican party (for shaping themselves into a constant looming sword of Damocles hanging over all human rights) and the Biden administration itself (for being so dedicated to violent oppression they can't even realize that everyone looks at them like the insincere supervillains they are).

We go online and we fight and we argue and we yell and what is it for? We all recognize how fucked the system is, no one even disagrees on that anymore, we're all just yelling at each other over whether taking part in the system is complicity or resistance, and the fact is it's BOTH. Harm reduction is real, but so is this America-centric egotism that looks at the election between two genocidal old men as the most important decider in this conflict.

This isn't me making a call to action. I don't care whether or not anyone votes. I'm too goddamn tired to care. Because what does it matter? What does any of our petty internet squabbling matter when people are dying? When hundreds of children have been murdered?

I am tired and I am sad and I just don't care about presidents now. I might never again. Just...be kind to each other. Think about the things you say, your priorities. Whether you tick a box on a piece of paper or not matters far less than how you actually try to help people and spread awareness, okay? Please remember that.

[nokingsonlyfooles]

Wow. Jesus.

I remember when I could just watch the Daily Show and chuckle. Are you old enough to remember consuming political media uncritically? (You hypothetical people who will never see this or interact meaningfully with it because that's not how this place works?) Given a few basic boundaries that went uncrossed, I could assume I was laughing and clapping for basically decent people who meant well and made some human mistakes.

I can't do that anymore.

Even with Jon Stewart's stellar delivery, I can't follow a team of writers who ask me to buy "the justice system determines the truth..." (even the first part of that thesis is: Wha? Buh?) "...better than the media." I WILL GRANT YOU THE MEDIA ARE TERRIBLE AT DETERMINING THE TRUTH! But the Daily Show isn't exempt from that because it's funny. Look! Donald Trump finally got convicted for a thing! We found the truth! It works!

OK, did we find the truth all those other times he got off with his money and lawyers and media friends? Oh, we didn't, huh? Are we secure that Bill Clinton is a free man because he's never done anything worth putting him away for, not even on the Lolita Express? How 'bout that time he "didn't inhale"? That's enough to put a poor minority away, but not a rich, white politician.

It works? Sometimes it works. Like the media. Ya know what people do with a source that coughs up the truth only sometimes? They don't fuckin trust it. And they don't suggest other untrustworthy sources could be improved by coughing up the truth only sometimes - but in a different way!

You remember having battery-operated toys that didn't charge up? You needed to change the batteries, remember that? They'd stop working, and sometimes you could turn them off and on again, and get a little twitch and a chirp. That twitch-and-chirp didn't mean the batteries were OK now. It didn't mean the toy was gonna work next time, or ever again. The US system of justice isn't working just because you got one verdict you like. That's a fuckin insult to everyone we've incarcerated or killed based on lies.

If the premise is flawed and contrary to reality, people should be laughing at that. I can get behind Colbert Report style, straight-faced delivery of absurd lines, but that's not what's going on here. "The media should get at the truth like the courts" is an occasion for "Woo! Yeah!"

But that's not very significant. The media isn't going to litigate the truth with lawyers and judges and fines for violators. It would be a lateral move it if did. What's a little more pressing to me is REPUDIATING A COWARD'S ASYLUM BAN THAT RELIES ON UNATTAINABLE STANDARDS FOR AN EXCUSE TO VIOLATE INTERNATIONAL LAW.

Hence, the second segment, wherein the punchline is NOT the idea that if I'm not willing to let that slide, I need a "reality check." I don't even think I'm supposed to find "immigrants need to come here the right way" from the mouth of an immigrant (who would've once been subjected to the goddamn Chinese Exclusion Act) as particularly funny, hence the gags about being smuggled into the country and passing as Jackie Chan. I see immigrants trying to pull up the ladder all the damn time, folks. That's not absurd enough on its own. I need better delivery of the line if I'm supposed to read it as satire. So does everyone else, 'cause they ain't laughin much.

The idea that we need to let Biden violate (keep violating, if we're being fair) international law because an "insecure border" is unpopular isn't getting a lot of yuks either. The audience and the writers are sharing a brain worm, or willing to pretend for the cameras, and that premise zips by without protest. Even the fucking centrist apologist AP figured out this is a blatant political manoeuvre that ain't gonna "secure" shit. Nor will it convince conservatives that Biden is a tough, white nationalist daddy who deserves their votes. You could've made some darkly hilarious jokes about that.

I fled up here because my country of origin started stealing children. I helped elect Biden because I bought that he'd cut that shit out. He didn't. It's slower and subtler, but he didn't stop. And here's some more shit.

There is no excuse for genocide, that, alone, is enough. The silence, complicity, and willingness to stampede rightwards if the Democrats say that's the only way to win is just a cherry on top. But I don't like that either. It's not like the genocide is so distracting I no longer notice the original issues that caused me to GTFO. If the only way to "save Democracy" is to keep Democrats in power no matter what they do, that's not democracy. If they can't lose elections, there are no longer any nonviolent consequences for the voters to apply. If you're gonna Vote Blue No Matter What, start filling up Molotovs now. Otherwise, define a line and decide what crosses it, and stick to that. I've hit my limit. If it goes on like this, you will eventually hit yours too.

[fiercynn]

“Maybe it's just me, but [your post] came off very, 'You're afraid of Trump as President? Look at Biden. We need to not vote and let Trump back in as a punishment to Biden'.”

seeing this sentiment from multiple people and man, it sucks that you’ve decided anyone who’s anti-biden is automatically pro-trump. where have i said a single positive thing about trump in my entire post? why did you read this entire post about and come out with that conclusion? do you not realize that it is possible to hate them both?

that’s a rhetorical question; i know these kinds of reactions aren’t people misreading or misunderstanding for the most part. they are choosing to support the narrative that democrats and republicans alike are selling, that voting is the most important thing in the world and that you should never criticize anyone - even the most powerful fucking man in the world, who is responsible for the deaths of SO MANY PEOPLE - because that means you will be responsible for trump’s election.

notice how i didn’t even tell anyone how to vote or how not to vote in my original post. literally what i said was how ghoulish it was to respond people saying they don’t want to vote for biden with “but trump would be worse”, and that by doing so, you’re allowing biden to act with impunity, because you’re actively telling people that biden doesn’t have to change to get your vote.

and, if your reaction to people talking about the pain they’re facing from biden’s actions is to lecture them on voting, there’s no way you’re truly showing up in solidarity with them  when it comes to other actions either. you are making all your advocacy about voting instead of supporting change in any other meaningful way, and you proving to marginalized people that you will only see them as valuable when they vote for who you want (if at all).

and yes, i understand that we’re in a first-past-the-post system with a super fucked up electoral college. but why isn't it the responsibility of the people in power to deal with that rather than marginalized people who are suffering? biden's been unpopular his entire term, and polls over the past couple years have consistently shown that more than 2/3s of democrats didn't want him to run again. why couldn't his donors and advisors and democratic party elite have responded to that?

if the democrats lose the next presidential election, it will be on them for not giving us a candidate good enough to vote for, and of course on the people who actively voted for trump. it won’t be on the people who voted “uncommitted” or for a third party candidate or who chose not to vote because they couldn’t stomach voting for either of this evil men.

okay, if you have ever made or reblogged a “hold your nose and vote for biden” post, this is for you.

here’s the fucking thing about these kinds of posts. i've been seeing them since i first returned to tumblr in, I think, late 2022? they've certainly increased in frequency since october 7, but they were there before too, ready to counter any kind of opposition to biden that has cropped up. many of them are not just trying to educate people about what positive things biden has done, which, like, at least I can understand the motivation behind those ones? but so many of them are directly in response to people criticizing biden, and their only real point is “sure you’re upset at this thing biden did, but have you considered the election?” starting YEARS before the next presidential election, mind you.

and october 7 only made that clearer. i don’t think it had been a week before i saw these posts cropping up. can you not see how fucking ghoulish that is? to look at the rightful pain and anger of those whose relatives and communities are being slaughtered with active american support, to respond to one of the few pieces of agency most americans have in influencing what their governments do – their vote – by saying “yes but trump would be worse.” as if the primary people you’re lecturing – palestinians, muslims, arabs, black people, indigenous people, disabled people, other marginalized people – don’t remember exactly how bad it was under trump!

and even if you think not voting is an empty gesture – something i, who studied political science at a mainstream american lib college, who has worked as a field organizer on a previous democratic presidential campaign and for several policy campaigns, who currently works in public policy in america, used to believe, but have absolutely changed my mind on – what is in no way an empty gesture is saying publicly that you will not vote for someone. the arguments people usually have about why simply not voting is bad are that you can’t tell why someone is not voting, so it is as likely to be apathy or disenfranchisement as it is a political statement. but saying publicly that you will not vote for someone, and why you will not vote for them, absolutely is a political statement, and potentially a powerful one! but you choose to negate and/or ignore that by trotting out the “lesser of two evils” bullshit.

and then there’s the whole “yes but people will DIE under trump”. PEOPLE ARE DYING NOW. even if you’re fucking racist and have decided that palestinian lives don’t count, have you forgotten biden’s ongoing covid minimalism and dismantling of the CDC’s covid research and prevention infrastructure? have you forgotten his increase in spending for law enforcement scant years after the murder of george floyd and his administration's surveillance of protesters, including cop city protesters? have you forgotten his recent ramp-up in deportations of undocumented immigrants, including the active continuation of many trump-era policies?

maybe you have forgotten all those things and do purport to care about palestinians, but you just think that biden is doing his best to influence netanyahu and is getting nowhere! but then you must have forgotten all of the things that biden and his administration themselves have done to further this fucking genocide, including:

continuing to send arms to israel

putting together a military task force within days of yemen’s red sea blockade and attacking yemeni ships

bombing yemen

bombing syria

bombing iraq

vetoing three ceasefire resolutions at the united nations

testifying to defend israel and its genocide and occupation at the international court of justice

refusing to rescue palestinian-americans stuck in gaza

halting funding to the united nations relief and works agency for palestinian refugees (UNRWA) based on israeli claims that 12 of UNRWA’s over 30,000 staff were hamas agents, even though u.s. intelligence has not been able to independently verify this

lying that he’s personally seen photos of babies beheaded by hamas when he hadn’t because they didn’t exist (and even when his own staff cautioned him that reports of beheaded babies may not be credible)

questioning the number of palestinian deaths reported by the gaza ministry of health (when even israel has not questioned them, since they are in fact proud of those numbers)

perpetuating lies about hamas having committed the attack on al-aqsa hospital

questioning united nations reports of adults and children raped by israeli soldiers while claiming to have proof (that no one else has seen) of hamas doing the same

honestly so many more things that i can’t remember them all but others feel free to add

or maybe you haven’t forgotten any of that, and think that you’re still justified in lecturing people about why they should vote for biden, because you genuinely believe trump would still be worse. if that is the case, you have still failed to see that by saying you will vote for biden no matter what, you are part of the problem of biden continuing to act like this. because biden is counting on fear of trump to win him this next election no matter what else he does. despite his appalling polling numbers, despite the knowledge that he is losing the palestinian-american vote, the arab-american vote, the muslim-american vote, the black american vote, the youth vote – despite all of that, he is secure in the idea that he will still win because he is better than trump. can you not see how that allows him to act without impunity? how it becomes increasingly impossible for his base to influence what he’s doing if he thinks that they will be with him no matter what? this is how you make yourself complicit to biden’s actions, by not affording anyone even the slightest power to hold him accountable for anything.

and in most cases, the “hold your nose and vote for biden” thing is the response of people who aren’t even being instructed by others not to vote for biden. it is their response to people saying they themselves are choosing not to vote for biden. fucking ghoulish.

[somethingusefulfromflorida]

13 Keys to the White House: 2024 prediction (as of August 15, 2021)

Midterm gains: false, the Republicans are going to sweep the House

No primary challenge: probably true, no Democrat with a future would dare to challenge Biden or Harris

Incumbent seeking re-election: probably true, Biden has indicated he's going to run again even though he'll be 82 at the time

No third party: too soon to tell, we won't know how the Libertarians/Greens fare until 2023 at the earliest

Strong short-term economy: too soon to tell, who knows if we'll be in recession in 2024?

Strong long/term economy: probably false, inflation is rising and Republicans are threatening to let us default on our national debt, so things are looking bad going forward

Major policy change: false, Biden hasn't done shit, and if he doesn't do shit NOW he won't be able to do shit after the Republican dominated midterms

No social unrest: too soon to tell, it will depend on how bad things get between now and 2024

No scandal: too soon to tell, all eyes are on Biden, but there's no telling what he'll do

No foreign/military failure: FALSE, Afghanistan is going down in flames, tens or hundreds of thousands of civilians are going to die when the Taliban takes over, it'll be the worst humanitarian crisis in the planet

Foreign/military success: probably false, withdrawing from Afghanistan was supposed to be a huge success, but the last 20 years have been pointless.

Charismatic incumbent: false, Biden wasn't charismatic in 2020, he's not gonna magically gain 20 or 30 percent more approval going into 2024

Uncharismatic challenger: true, none of the Republican challengers resonate with anyone outside their base, Trump or DeSantis or Cruz or Cotton or anyone else

Democrats need 8 true to hold power

Republicans need 6 false to retake power

1 is definitely true

2 are probably true

4 are too soon to tell

2 are probably false

4 are definitely false

Republicans are almost certainly going to win in 2024 unless Biden pulls a rabbit out of his ass and magically reverses course in the next 15 months; things are in flux now, but come November 2022 they will be set in stone.

Key 1 is a lost cause because of partisan gerrymandering; the Republicans will take the House by force, though they'll likely lose the nationwide popular vote

Key 2 is probably safe because it would require a challenger to get 33% of the vote, and I just don't see that happening against a sitting president

Key 3 is true as of right now, but could easily flip false for any number of reasons. Biden ran on the unspoken promise that he was a transitional president and would step down in 2024, but Kamala Harris isn't more popular than he is (in fact, she's less popular), so the Democrats have painted themselves into a corner; either it's an old old old man or Hillary Clinton 2.0

Key 4 is beyond Biden's control; over the last century, third party candidates have gained traction about every 10 years, once every 2 or 3 election cycles. They did well in 1968, 1980, 1992, 1996, 2000, and 2016, so 2024 is up in the air.

Key 5 could go either way, I don't know enough about economics to make any informed predictions

Key 6 is more nuanced; the creator of the 13 Keys defines it as "real per capita economic growth during the term equals or exceeds mean growth during the previous two terms." The economy grew under Obama's second term, and tanked under Trump's first, so the average of the last two terms is either zero net growth or very slight shrinkage. If Biden can grow the economy at all, even a little, this key could flip in his favor. If he continues to do nothing, he's as good as gone.

Key 7 is a nonstarter; W turned the US into a police state, Obama slightly improved healthcare, Trump changed taxes from the ground up (and dismantled liberal democracy through a rigged judiciary and disintegration of federal authority over the states), but Biden and the Democrats have pretty much wasted the last 8 months, accomplishing zero of their campaign promises. They passed a neutered stimulus package, and might pass a neutered infrastructure deal, both of which gave major concessions to the Republicans even though they supported neither. Biden is Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, and George H.W. Bush rolled into one.

Key 8 could very well lead us into another 2020 situation; not only have zero communities defunded the police, many of them have actually INCREASED funding. Republicans continue to dismantle our democracy by passing voter suppression laws, and are going to gerrymander their House into an unbreakable conservative majority despite only making up about 40-45% of the population. I expect to see major protests against Republican legislatures across the country, which will be quelled by both state and federal forces because Democrats never support active protests, only passive peaceful ones (ones that fail, but look polite on TV)

Key 9 could be real or invented; no matter what Biden does, whether he's squeaky clean or rotten to the core, the Republicans are going to impeach him in 2023. Hell, they'll almost certainly run in 2022 on the platform of "we will impeach Biden if we win." He'll be acquitted of course, but Republicans will control the narrative and gain popular support going into 2024. They might wait to impeach him until the election starts, or impeach him and hold a long protracted trial throughout the primaries and well past the national conventions. If they win the House, they'll almost certainly win the Senate too, which means they have all the power, even if they can't remove him.

Key 10 is a lost cause; there's no coming back from this, Afghanistan is an absolute failure, full stop.

Key 11 is very closely tied to key 10, so I don't see it flipping true because Biden doesn't really have any other major foreign policy objectives within his grasp.

Key 12 is a doubly lost cause because both Biden and his chosen successor are terrible candidates. Biden was picked by the establishment as a milquetoast "civility" candidate in opposition to Trump's extremism, and Harris is so unpopular she dropped out of the presidential race due to lack of enthusiasm before a single vote was cast. Biden was the lesser of two evils, and Harris is a lying centrist cop pretending to be a progressive. As I said in Key 3, the Democrats painted themselves into a corner; Biden/Harris is Carter/Mondale all over again.

Key 13 is safe now and forever because no candidate will ever have national appeal again. The creator of the 13 Keys gave examples like Lincoln, the Roosevelts, and Kennedy, as well as controversial picks like Reagan and Obama in 2008 (though not in 2012). Love them or hate them, these candidates resonated with the entire country in their day, but America has become too polarized for a member of one party to gain support from the other.

This is a disaster waiting to happen. It's unfolding before our eyes in slow motion, and we're unable to stop it. I feel trapped all the time, trapped in the world, trapped in the system, no agency,m, no control, no hope. I don't know what to do, because the powers that be are FUCKING EVERYTHING UP ROYALLY! This party is a laughingstock, and the alternatives are either pure evil or insignificant; I'd be a Green if they stood a snowball's chance in hell, but they don't, not even in a single district, neither federal nor state.

The system has to collapse in my lifetime, it's not tenable as is.

[theliterateape]

Election 2020: Swimming in Sewage Toward a Different Kind of More Hopeful Cesspool

by Don Hall

8:00 a.m.

I wake up a few hours ago. Slept like the dead. I read through the same bullshit with poll numbers and predictions with the same combination of hope, certainty, uncertainty, and boredom as I did yesterday and the day before. Yeah. Trump is a full-blown dickhead. Biden is a truly nice guy. Will Texas go blue? Do I even know anyone from Texas anymore?

My wife wakes up. She’s helping friends move to North Carolina by helping them drive their shit for the next week as if today is not anything big. She gives me a blowjob and gets a bagel.

I’m not worried about the results of today. I truly am confident that the nation will tip back into some semblance of rationality and dump Trump. I’m more interested to see how it all unfolds and if the deposed Mad King will take a shit on the desk in the Oval as a parting gesture in three months.

I have this image of he and his whole skeleton crew, fully repudiated by a massive and historic blue wave, sitting in the White House like squatters, selling off pieces of our national history on Ebay and hiding from His Majesty as he stomps through the hallways screaming at portraits of presidents past about the unfairness of it all.

In tandem is the image of the cultural left sharpening their knives to go in full attack once Biden is sworn in to remake the country into some bizarre Maoist Shangri-La doing what the Left always does — cannibalize it’s own — while the defeated Republicans pretend they were never in league with Trump but held hostage by him like the rest of us.

Fuck me. This is going to be a long day, isn’t it?

10:00 a.m.

I’m not terribly worried that Trump & Co. will steal the election.

I remember years ago a prominent Chicago poet who dressed and spoke like a rap star telling me “It ain’t the n****rs who talk about shit you have to worry about. They’re all bark and no bite. It’s the quiet ones you need to keep an eye on.”

Trump has been barking about stealing the election for months now and I’m pretty certain a man so overwhelmingly incompetent as the one who completely blew both his debate appearances and fucked up a national response to an epic pandemic so horribly that a retarded child could’ve done better is not going to suddenly reveal that he is an evil genius capable of stealing one of the most televised elections in history.

I’m likewise less concerned about the rabid, angry Trumpers wreaking havoc on the country. They were never in this for a long campaign. They couldn’t even take COVID seriously enough to wear masks. They’ll make some noise, get into some melees for a few days and then slink home and grouse just like their hero.

I wonder what the Antifa crowd will do once Trump is deposed? Start an emo band? Go back to working at Starbucks and REI? I hope they decide to occupy Kentucky and reign terror on Mitch McConnell. It’s a terrible thing to say but the party I’ll throw in my semi-quarantined apartment when Trump loses tonight (this week? Next month?) will be nothing when compared to the full-on Mardi Gras parade I’ll throw when the Evil Senator from Kentucky dies. I’m known to say that I can’t hate someone unless I’ve met them but I fucking hate Mitch.

I read a weird op-ed online that essentially thanks Trump for giving us four years reprieve from the cultural warriors of the Far Left. I wish I read it in a paper so I could wipe my ass with it because an iPad makes for an uncomfortable symbolic gesture.

I shower and get dressed. I’m on shift tonight at the casino so I’ll be dealing with the regular crowd while history unfolds like a soiled sheet and you can’t quite tell if that’s a bloodstain or merely ketchup. 

For our sixth anniversary, Dana got me my eleventh tattoo. She came up with a cool design concept: a Chicago tattoo for my right back shoulder that included the baby in the clamshell from the City of Chicago flag, a light blue background and three of the red six-point stars of Chicago, each representing one of my three decades there. She booked an artist in a very chic studio who happened to be a great trace artist but not so much with the original design thing.

As it stands, it’s a fine tattoo with some elements that look like a child drew them with a Sharpie. Not great but growing on me. But the odd thing is that it being being on back, I don’t see it so I forget it’s there. Reminds me that as Americans we tend to dwell on history but not what is directly behind us. We’ll send Trump packing and immediately forget how embarrassing he was and set into attacking the new administration because it isn’t as brazenly Marxist as we fought for (I use ‘we’ although I actually voted for Biden’s moderation).

12:00 p.m.

Dropped Dana off for her trip. Ran some stuff home. I’m now actively avoiding anything news related. I receive an email that our division of casinos is not putting the election coverage on the screens in our Sportsbooks and I’m relieved.

2:00 p.m.

At the casino now. It’s pretty empty and I’m unsurprised. I’m informed that the larger properties and on the Strip there are special task force groups of LVMPD set up at every location to stem any bad partisan behavior in the casinos. For our property, I’m the task force.

I recall clearly the night four years ago when so many of us were so certain Hillary had it in the bag only to be gut-punched around 9:00 p.m. with the news that Trump had won the thing. Unlike so many, I accepted the result regardless of fact that she won the popular vote. Until we sack up and remove the Electoral College, that’s a legitimate win.

5:25 p.m.

I checked. I couldn’t help myself. The only thing that pisses me off is that Mitch won Kentucky, that sour, putrid fuckface.

Yeah. I really want the Dems to sweep this up. The question I’m asking myself is if we repeat 2016, why? The answer so many gravitate to is that half the country is racist but I’m not buying that reductive bullshit. If I had to guess, half the country doesn’t buy into the identity politic of the Far Left.

Alright. Enough. Optimism. Fucking optimism.

7:30 p.m.

At this point I have to remind myself that Dems voted overwhelmingly early and so many of those votes are still to be counted. I’ll admit, I’m surprised that Trump is even competitive but given my disdain for the Wokesters I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. If I can’t take them someone from the rural side of Texas probably hates them as much as I hate Mitch.

I was hoping for a blow-out but it’s looking more and more like this thing will get decided in the courts over mail-in votes.

On the floor, no one is talking about the history unfolding. By now, the place is about half-full and people are far more concerned with getting their comp drinks and hitting payouts. I overhear a couple of guys at the blackjack table. They think the Dems are going down. One thinks it’s because of Kamala Harris. I walk away without saying a word.

If there’s anything we should have learned from 2000 is that, under no circumstances should the Blue concede until every last vote is counted. Every last fucking vote.

I’m finding a bit of Zen. We aren’t going to know who won tonight. In some ways this is a good thing. It means Trump will be wrapped up battling the process rather than losing and tearing shit apart out of petulance. We still have a raging pandemic and our economy is shredded.

The divide in this country is not one of race or racism. The divide is between city mice and country mice. As the picture emerges, the urban centers of almost every state skews left in statewide seas of rural red. It also demonstrates how deeply unpopular the extremes are with the opposing sides. The racial identity politics of the Far Left — you know, the folks who flatly state that all white people are racist — and the strident authoritarianism of the Far Right — you know, the ones who love the police and lotsa guns — are so toxic that equal measures of citizens will vote with little more than a passionate hatred for one or the other despite a host of rational reasons to vote the other way.

9:40 p.m.

We won’t know until later in the week. 

Votes are still uncounted in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania. We wanted a decisive repudiation of Trump and, once again, half the country (and much closer to half than four years ago) took that away.

From one angle, this is the best outcome. Uncertainty as to who won means all those businesses boarded up can breathe a sigh of relief. With no clear winner so far, there isn’t a reason to riot in the streets. A couple weeks of legal battles and ballot counting and the assholes on both sides will get bored. 

I was humbled in 2016. I thought I knew how it would go because I was so certain my worldview was so obviously right that how could anyone not see it so? I’ve been ready for this. Like so many, I felt the surge of certainty once again with the polls and how incredibly monstrous Trump became in the last days of his campaign. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

Don’t get me wrong. I still believe Biden will be our president on January 21st, 2021. I just wish it had been an easier road.

[somethingusefulfromflorida]

Political Rant: Nothing To See Here

Literally, I just need to vent for a bit, just move along.  You didn’t see anything.  Go about your business.

I can’t keep pretending that I want Joe Biden to be president.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m gonna vote for him, but only because it’s a broken 2-party system, and I would literally rather die than vote for Donald Trump.

Joe Biden is at best a moderate centrist, and at worst a mainstream conservative who acknowledges what the people in his party want without actually doing it.  The Overton Window has shifted so far right in the last few years that people are hailing him as some bastion of liberal democracy; Democrats are acting like he’s the greatest politician they’ve ever nominated, and Republicans are calling him a communist.  He’s neither of those things; he’s store brand white bread, he’s a single scoop of plain vanilla with no mix-ins, he’s room temperature with 40% humidity so as not to be explicitly uncomfortable.

He very well could win in November.  I don’t doubt his qualifications, nor his popularity relative to the Gonad Lump we have now, but he’s not going to make any substantive changes if he takes office.  He’s not going to defund police, he’s not going to shrink the executive branch, he’s not going to raise the minimum wage, he’s not going to rejoin the Iran Nuclear Deal or the Paris Climate Agreement or the WHO, and he’s certainly not going to abolish ICE and close the actual literal CONCENTRATION CAMPS. He’s going to uphold the status quo so as not to alienate the Republicans who didn’t vote for him, while driving a wedge in his own party between the old guard moderate leadership and the up-and-comers who even so much as lean to the actual political left.

Republicans are united under a common banner of cartoon supervillainy, Democrats are a party of chickens running around with their heads cut off. 

Republicans are lemmings who will follow their leader off a cliff. Democrats are turkeys that look up and drown when it rains.

There are no progressive Democrats in any real positions of power; their voices are being drowned out by the career politicians who would rather compromise with the right than fight for anything they claim to want.  Democrats will bend over backwards to reach across the aisle for the sake of bipartisanship, but Republicans would never budge an inch in our direction.  This is demonstrably true, just look at the last 50 years of presidents; Democrats controlled the House of Representatives for Ronald Reagan’s entire presidency, and he still managed to get a shit ton of legislation passed which fucks over the middle class and minorities to this day.

Bill Clinton was effectively a Republican, and they absolutely HATED him.  Newt Ging-bitch’s Republican Revolution?  And Obama, don’t even get me started on Obama.  George W. Bush was so unpopular that BOTH parties ran candidates under the platform of “I am not George W. Bush,” and it’s no surprise that between Barack Obama and John McCain voters chose the one who was the least like Bush.  Obama was a perfectly competent president who pulled us out of the worst economic recession since the 1930s, and Republicans hated him even more than Clinton!  The Tea Party rose up less than a month after he took office, before he’d even DONE anything!  I don’t agree with everything he did as president, in fact I oppose a lot of it (drones), but I know that America was a better place under his leadership than it is now.

And now the Democrats are kowtowing to the Republicans AGAIN, nominating an adequate politician, Average Joe, that Republicans wouldn’t complain about if he wore a red tie instead of a blue one, but even now they’re complaining about it!  They’re acting like he’s a far-left socialist because they want the country to think that his middle-of-the-road policies are WAY too radical; they want to make people think that normalcy lies to the right of Joe Biden, they want to keep shifting the Overton Window until they pick a candidate in 2032 or 2036 that will make Donald Trump look like Bernie fucking Sanders.  Republicans never shift to the left, they never try to appeal to Democratic voters, they never think twice about alienating liberals, they won’t compromise, they’d rather shut down the government than spare a dime for any even remotely liberal talking points.

I’m sick to death of this country.  I’m sick to death of everyone pretending like what we see is not what it is!  Joe Biden is better than Trump, but the bar is so low at this point that I’d feel ore comfortable with a flaming bag of dogshit in the Oval Office than the racist date rapist we have now.  I will swallow my pride and vote for Joe Biden, but I will not be happy about it.  This man does not stand for the people’s best interests.  He will face overwhelming opposition, cave to the pressure from the right, then lose re-election because I know for a fact that he’s too proud to admit he’s too old to run again in 2024.  People keep pretending like his VP is going to get the nomination, but there’s no way on Earth or in Heaven that this man is going to just retire!  This year was a vanity run; he wants to be president because he wants to be president, not because he wants to do anything.  He’s wanted it his whole career; he’s a dog chasing cars, he doesn’t know what to do when he catches one, and no, I don’t means he’s like the fucking Joker, I just think he’s focusing more on himself than the country.  What would it look like in 2024 if the president retired because he’s TOO OLD to keep the job?  The Democrats would be even bigger laughingstocks than they are now; there wouldd be no way for him to retire with dignity without admitting defeat and giving the Republicans a political victory.

He’s going to run for re-election in 2024, and he’s going to have his ass handed to him because by that point he’s going to be stumbling over his words even worse than Trump is now, and the Democrats aren’t going to blindly rally behind him like the Republicans do for Trump.  Republicans will vote in line with Trump whether they like him or not, they know their career depends on it, but Democrats won’t get in line behind one of their own because they want to appeal to everyone, even if that means ignoring the people they claim to represent.

If Trump wins in 2020, America will go the way of the Soviet Union.  You know what, no, that’s not true.  America will never break apart, it’s too obstinate.  What will happen is America will go the way of the British Empire; once a global superpower, now just a bunch of isolationist racists who don’t know they’ve been irrelevant for the last 80 years.  America will continue to alienate its allies while sucking up to its enemies, the wealth gap will widen, life expectancy will drop, infant mortality will rise, and we’ll peak in the 2030s or 40s before losing our position as the de facto “leaders of the free world.”  Under normal circumstances I’d say that’s a good thing because we have no right to force the rest of the world to do whatever we want, but the resulting power vacuum will almost certainly be filled by China which is even worse than we are.  If Trump wins in 2020, democracy dies.  His handlers will find a way to skirt the 22nd Amendment so he can run for a third term in 2024.  They’ll just unilaterally amend the constitution so he can do whatever he wants; every right-wing dictator does that.  Hitler did it, Pinochet did it, Putin is doing it now.  IF the Republicans want to PRETEND that laws still exist, they’ll have him “retire” at the end of his second term, but then stay on as a top advisor to his successor, who will almost certainly be his daughter he wants to fuck, at which point he will be president-by-proxy, ruling vicariously through her until his brain melts enough for him to disappear into the woodwork like Reagan did in the 90s.

If Trump wins in 2020, the Trump dynasty will hold power for decades.  This regime will be no different than the fucking Saudi Arabia or North Korea.

If Biden wins in 2020, we’re just kicking the can down the road; Trump won’t let himself become irrelevant without a fight.  Carter and Clinton and Bush and Obama don’t pretend that they’re still president, they don’t make their voices heard, but you KNOW that Trump will.  He will try to stay in the limelight forever, and the media will let him; they’ll report on every snide comment and contrarian remark he makes on Twitter and compare him to Biden every single day because he’s a demagogue, and Republicans aren’t just gonna move on after they’ve invested so much emotional capital into him over the last five years.  They’ve doubled down in support of him, he can do no wrong in their eyes, he’s their golden boy, the Fuhrer is Always Right; they’ll follow him to Hell and back (though let’s be honest, he’d never lead them out of Hell once he brings them there).  They’ll treat him like an elder statesman and a genius political strategist/advisor until he dies.  He’ll basically get to pick the nominee in 2024 because Republicans will vote for whoever he endorses.  And he’s going to pick Ivanka or maybe, MAYBE, Tom Cotton because he’s a brown-nosing right-wing toadie.

FUCK.