#not trying to convince you biden is great

[hello-there-world]

I don't normally make posts like this. I'm aware. But I'm sick of people saying that it's a good idea to either not vote or vote third party in our current political climate.

As a note before we start: to anyone asking about this "so you care about your own life more than the lives of Palestinian people?" Self preservation, or caring about your own life over the lives of others, is hardwired into the human brain. Everyone does it. So yes. Because it's instinctual and I am not so stupid as to think that I can simply remove it. (If you take this out of context I will be very upset. I am explaining human instinct here.)

So, why is it a bad idea to not vote at all? Simple. You're not really "showing [candidate] you think they need to change". You're removing yourself from the pool, and therefore basically useless. It's not quite a vote for the guy you hate and who is worse, but it might as well be because you're removing any opposition to them.

And why is it a bad idea to vote third party? There is no way we can get a third party candidate elected in our current political climate. It's just not going to happen. So once again, might as well be voting for the guy you hate.

Do you want to know some actual voting-related protest strategies you can do? Blank-ballot voting on the primaries only. And only the primaries. DO NOT DO THIS DURING THE ACTUAL ELECTION. It says you don't want any of them and should be taken into consideration and maybe they'll change. Maybe isn't great, but that's what all protest strategies are going off of anyways, so this isn't much different.

Why am I making this post? Honestly, I'm scared. I can very vividly remember the first Trump presidency, and the thing I remember the best is the nigh-constant threat of "oh shit, any moment he could go off the deep end and we'd have nuclear war". The doomsday clock was the closest to midnight it had been in my lifetime.

I know he'll be worse if he's re-elected.

Maybe this isn't self-preservation. Maybe it's very reasonable fear for the whole of humanity. Cause if the worst happens, that's what's going to be affected. All of us.

Just, please, vote. If not for others, then for yourself. If not for yourself, then for everyone.

I really don't want to know if Trump would be willing to do nuclear war... he's seemed very willing to do so before.

[83-for-truth]

i don’t know if this is a common experience, but the way people talk about palestine makes me feel like i’m crazy. because i don’t understand. like the other day i was talking to a coworker and we were discussing biden’s recent speech where he apologized to indigenous people for the forced boarding school policy. she brought up how audience members interrupted his speech by bringing up the genocide in palestine. and. she just causally says. “i’m so sick of hearing about gaza.” and kind of went on about how she’s seen too much and how she doesn’t think biden could do anything anyway. and this is just after we are talking about the systemized genocide of native americans. she’s a progressive person. it’s beyond her to put the two genocides next to each other and say that both are wrong and that americans are complicit in both. like i wake up everyday knowing that there’s blood on my hands because i benefit from the violence in and exploitation of the global south. but she looked at me like i was crazy when i said that. and it’s been over a year, she had a whole year to educate herself. but i’m the crazy one for caring.

[bimboficationblues]

I think that the “vote blue no matter who” disposition that has spread through American social liberals is honestly a fascinating psychological crisis and another instance of magical thinking at work. Trying to convince people to vote is one thing and at least makes some sense. Though given the frequent inarticulate, condescending approach I see so often, I think there’s a psychological urge to do this so that when they lose because their pitch is unappealing, inadequate, and anti-political, they can remain on moral high ground.

But the invocation often goes beyond that - any public critique of the Dems is considered counterproductive to the election, or at least requires a disclaimer that’s like “make sure you vote for them though!” (No concept of leverage at work here - promising your vote and demanding something in exchange for it are incompatible tactics.) And then, when Biden loses, it won’t be because of *the things that he did* which repelled people - it will be because not enough people listened to us, they willed failure into existence by talking about the problems.

“Vote blue no matter who” is not going to persuade Arab Americans whose family members are being murdered with US-funded munitions or disabled people left out to dry by an inadequate COVID response - this isn’t just a problem of Congressional deadlock, even in areas where Biden has meaningful power he has not used it well or in ways that will be lasting if, at any point, a Democrat is not elected President (which, uh, I think is a reasonable likelihood at some point). Getting the nickname “Genocide” is kind of not great for any political career - but confronting that reality would mean having to think up a new plan for making good things happen politically.

What the public performance of unflinching loyalty to the Democrats does do is absolve the speaker from having to confront that uncomfortable reality. It parallels the cultic or corporate invocation of “FUD” in order to tamp down internal dissent or flight; “actually, you can trust us, you should buy in, ignore your skepticism or critical thought - and if you don’t any consequences are your fault, not ours.” In a weird way, despite the catastrophic predictions, it’s a kind of toxic positivity: even if you vote you should otherwise remain silent on your criticisms or demands because those might convince someone else not to vote.

And I mean, this is all ignoring how utterly fucking repugnant it is to refocus conversations and activism around a US-financed ethnic cleansing back to the presidential election.

[mama-qwerty]

Okay, I'm gonna get political here.

I've been seeing some alarming posts going around, in which people seem to think that Biden is somehow as bad as, or worse than, Trump. And a lot of the reasoning seems to come down to how he's dealing with Israel. He's not doing enough to stop Israel and is actively supporting them. Which, he has to, because the US is Israel's ally.

Is it ideal? Is it great? NO. It absolutely sucks, and we really should not be involved, and be doing more to stop them.

But that seems to be the single issue most people mention when talking about not voting for him. And my question to them is, do you seriously think Trump will handle it any better??

And let's put Palestine aside right now. I know it's terrible, I know it's my privilege to look away for a moment, but I implore you, I fucking BEG you to remember that the US president affects laws and policies here, which affects each and every American who lives here.

This post lists, in a convenient little checkbox format, what each candidate is for and against. As you can see, Trump will support Israel, too. Moreso than Biden. But he will also remove rights and destroy protections for countless other groups.

Both candidates are absolutely NOT THE SAME. Biden, while not perfect, has done a lot of good for the country, it's just not reported because negative things get more views than positive. He had A LOT of cleanup to do after Trump finally dragged his ass out of the White House. And he's done what he could.

I get that Biden isn't ideal. He's not who I would want, either. But he's the Democratic candidate, and we absolutely cannot afford to "send Washington a lesson" by abstaining or voting third party. We are a two party system, and with Trump on the ballot, we cannot, CAN FUCKING NOT afford to split our forces.

Every Republican will be out in droves, casting their vote for Trump. One vote for a third party candidate, is a vote for Trump. If you do not vote for Biden, you are essentially handing Trump the victory.

This country will not survive another Trump presidency.

I sincerely believe that. The damage he did the first time around was bad enough, when he didn't know what he was doing. But now? Now he's had 4 years to scheme and plot and work behind the scenes with his cronies so that when/if he gets back into office, he can go all in on gutting the government, stacking the Supreme Court, enacting whatever laws he likes, and simply declaring himself dictator and never leaving office again.

And the Republicans will help him.

Every one of those spineless bootlickers will be trailing behind him, nodding like a fucking bobblehead, agreeing with whatever asinine idea tumbles out of his third grade brain.

"For the good of the country," they'll cry, as they gut support for the poor.

"For the helpless little babies," they'll weep, eliminating health care services for women and removing any help for families.

"Make America Great Again," they'll chant as they send the military to drag children away from parents and lock them in cages because they dared come to the US--a country that was founded on the backs of immigrants--for a better life.

Republicans only care about keeping themselves rich and in power. They don't care about the poor. They don't care about women or minorities or LGBTQ+ rights. They don't care about YOU. They only care about themselves. They've proven it time and time again, yet they always try to convince their base that it's really the Democrats and radical Left who are the bad guys. Because they constantly want to *checks notes* make sure people are safe, healthy, and cared for.

And that's not the America the Republicans want.

I am begging all US voters to look past Palestine, for just a moment, and realize that choosing the wrong man in November will have very, very, VERY long lasting repercussions for this country. We can't afford to "send a message". We can't afford to simply not vote. We can't afford to throw out the old "they're all the same" line.

THEY'RE NOT.

Please, please, please. Think about the people who will be hurt under another Trump administration. Think of those who will lose their support, lose their aid, lose their protections. Think of those who can't protect themselves.

The only message we need to send to Washington this November is NOT TRUMP. NEVER TRUMP.

[redtail-lol]

"Harris supports a ceasefire, what more do you want?" I want her to fucking do something about it.

I want her to withhold ALL weapons shipments to Israel. I want her to force Netanyahu's hand to work on a ceasefire deal and hostage deal, and not only accept a deal that greatly favors Israel and disadvantages Palestinians. Being in favor of a ceasefire isn't enough. She has to do something to make that shit happen. She's supposedly working with Biden "around the clock" to get a deal made but you have the fucking power over Israel!! You can say "do what we want or no more fucking weapons" AND THEY WON'T HAVE A CHOICE!! The work they're doing ain't enough because they won't fucking use their power to make Israel do what they want. I want Harris to have a clear plan about what she's going to do to end the genocide in Gaza, not 3 shitty sentences and unclear words. She knows this is THE issue that's splitting the vote, it should be her ONLY campaign focus honestly! She doesn't need anything else - no one is a swinger! You either want Trump elected, or you don't, and the only people who don't want Trump elected that say they won't vote for her? Are the Palestine advocates. There's no one else she has to convince. It's great she has plans for a lot of stuff, but the decisive issue between people voting for her and people voting for Sherman or not voting at all is Palestine, and she's clearly too scared to upset the people that want to see Palestine free. I want more than her sentimental bullshittery about how the Palestinian people deserve freedom and liberty but yet she's gonna still give Israel bombs to blow up Palestinian children. She's just gonna say "please don't use these to blow up Palestinian children like you did with all of our other bombs"

I want Harris to actually make something happen in Palestine. I don't expect her to dismantle Israel but I expect her to do SOMETHING to stop the death and suffering. Because her "support" for a ceasefire doesn't mean anything if she isn't willing to take away the weapons Israel is using to kill civilians. Because looking up her stances on Palestine are disappointing. She's trying to appeal to the pro Palestinian camp but she has no fucking plan of action and clearly is not on our side.

Vote Sherman and Blubear unless Harris actually decides to make a ceasefire happen by ending weapons shipments. Unless Harris decides she's going to punish Israel for every day it doesn't give Hamas a fair deal to get its hostages back and stop killing civilians

[minwilder]

i try not to get political online for a variety of reasons but i’m about to. so:

if you are lucky enough not to be subjected to hours of fox news every single night, let me tell you guys something: they’ve got nothing. they’ve got nothing. they’re panicking so much and they have so little to work with. they never have anything new or interesting to say. all they have are the same four horrible comments about trans people and immigrants that they repeat for hours every single night. there’s an entire show that’s just an insufferable woman making snide comments that sound like the obnoxious kid in your fifth-grade class trying to ruin recess for everyone wrote them. the republicans are pouring endless amounts of money into ads and sponsored hashtags about kamala harris being “dangerously liberal.” that’s all they’ll say. she’s dangerous. she’ll DESTROY the country. it’ll be the END of america.

in short, they have fucking nothing to work with, so they’re throwing a giant temper tantrum about biden stepping down, because it’s just not fair. (boo hoo.)

the downside to this is that the people who watch fox news all the time are isolated. you hear something enough times, you believe it. they’ve convinced you that all other media is untrustworthy. they’ve convinced you that democrats are a cult and they’re all conspiring against you. and once they’ve got you believing that, they can couch the world’s dumbest correlations between unrelated statistics and make up whatever the fuck they want. and they’ll have a ridiculous number of people nodding along and going oh, yeah, that makes sense, young liberal women are mentally ill because men don’t have enough testosterone anymore. (i’m not even making that up, i heard them say that last night.)

this got really long-winded. but i need you guys not to underestimate what you’re up against. i can’t vote. a lot of people who want to vote can’t vote. please for the love of god vote. we’re on a great track, but this isn’t even close to in the bag.

[is-the-owl-video-cute]

Saw someone insisting that you need to vote green to make a difference and tbh I love the idea but it currently seems like a great way to help Trump win again.

I wish death and torment on Biden but man our political system is so fucked up and stupid that I feel like Trump is almost guaranteed a win at this point. Biden is such an idiot this could have been avoided if he hadn’t decided to be a frothing genocidal maniac

it should have been the easiest re-election in history but no Biden decided to go mask off racist genocidal lunatic. It isn’t shocking that he supports Israel, but he’s an idiot for not even pretending to not be a moron in an election year. Anyone with common sense would have pulled back support for Israel this year at least to try to convince people they cared.

Voting green sounds like a great plan and all until you remember trump is going to get a minimum of 50% of the votes regardless. No amount of lobbying this year will get enough support for the Green Party or any third party frankly. Trump has too much of a cult, Biden is going to split the vote against himself terribly regardless and I’m going to be realistic we are going to get stuck with trump again because of this.

No matter the result of this election, we are going to see a lot more bloodshed because the only two options with any chance at winning revel in genocide and xenophobia.

[footemoji]

I’m having a hard time understanding a lot about this conflict. Today, in the USA (Chicago Illinois, San Francisco California, and in New York) Pro-Palestinian activists decided to block the bridges to prevent people from entering or leaving. As a result, people waited for a minimum of 5 hours before the bridge was completely opened for them to cross. I’ve been reading stories of people who were transporting stem cells, sick people, etc who weren’t able to make it out.

According to the protestors, their goal was to cause an “economic blockade” by causing everyone to not be able to go anywhere

Shockingly a lot of Palestinians were supporting this saying that inconveniencing Americans is a good way to bring light to the situation happening in Gaza. I’ve even had some say that the few lives that were lost because of this were “fine” because it’s for the cause. I don’t want to believe that everyone is this cruel, so I will give my thought generally speaking.

I’m not an expert on these things, I don’t know much so im just using logic. Joe Biden is not the supreme authority over Israel. So let’s say that the USA stops sending aid to Israel completely. Let’s say they cut ties. Where will the protesting end up then? Will it move to another country who may support Israel? The way I see it is, Israeli government is going to do what it wants to do whether America sends it money or not.

Secondly, why is it that Americans have to suffer for what we cannot control? Blocking the bridge did nothing for the people in control. They were comfortably in their homes, meanwhile working mothers and fathers lost job time because of this. People have children to feed. How is what’s happening in Gaza somehow the fault of innocent civilians?

This act today was just cruel and my heart hurt because of it. I in no way am turning a blind eye to the suffering of those in Israel, whether that be Israeli or Palestinian. But at some point we really have to think about where our actions will take us. I’m curious to know if anyone is sharing the same thoughts as I am. Again, I am not educated on the conflict to where I can speak confidently about it 100%, im just looking at this from a logical standpoint.

hi!! i’d love to try and explain but im not an expert i just can see whats right and whats wrong easily.

so protests are supposed to be seen so im assuming they did such an extreme act was to be noticed and to show the government the lengths they’re willing to go for this cause.

and the genocide in palestine is a HUGE cause. over 13,000 children have died. and 33000+ people in total. and the usa is funding the people committing the genocide, these protesters are trying to convince the government to stop funding israel’s mass killing.

it really goes to show that a couple people dying unjustly in america causes a bigger outrage than all the unjust deaths in gaza.

i dont get what you say that if the US stops funding israel nothing will change. A LOT WILL CHANGE!! the usa not funding israel will give them less power which is great!

Also, that last part i’d like to say. israel is not real. its stolen land from palestine. so don’t say “the suffering of those in israel” its the suffering of those in palestine.

[theculturedmarxist]

"Biden is leading Democrats toward their worst case scenario" is utterly revisionist history. The Democrats did everything possible to put themselves into this unwinnable position, expending who knows how much real and political capital in order to get Biden's bony ass into the chair in the first place. Then there was the constant orchestra of propaganda pumped out to try to convince people that, no, your eyes are deceiving you: he's not senile, he's not decrepit, he's not a fucking reactionary. No! He's a great president! The greatest we've had since FDR! Anyone inside or out of the party that would suggest otherwise, or worse, that another candidate should run in 2024, they're not just wrong, they're agents of Trump, or paid by Putin.

Biden deserves to be eaten alive by fire ants from the inside out, but even with the fact that he's refusing to step down, the responsibility for this mess isn't on him.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Spirit warned investors that merging with Jetblue would be illegal

++++

Jetblue is trying to buy Spirit Airlines. It’s a terrible idea. Consolidation in the US aviation industry has resulted in higher fares, less reliable planes, spiraling junk-fees, and brutal conditions for flight- and ground-crews. The four remaining US major airlines, who gobbled their rivals, are three times more profitable than their European counterparts:

https://www.economist.com/leaders/2017/04/22/a-lack-of-competition-explains-the-flaws-in-american-aviation

If you’d like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here’s a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/03/12/they-put-it-in-writing/#that-was-then

That’s great news if you’re an airline shareholder. It’s terrible news if you’re hunting for your lost bags, or if you’re a flight attendant or pilot being squeezed, or if you’re being hit for billions in covid bailouts — or if you’re one of one million Americans who were stranded during Christmas week by the failure of Southwest Airlines’ IT systems, which use duct-tape and wishful thinking to hold together the IT systems of all the airlines SWA bought:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/16/for-petes-sake/#unfair-and-deceptive

The collapse of competition in the US airline industry is the result of a deliberate policy, the “consumer welfare” theory of antitrust, which says that monopolies are “efficient” and good for the public. It’s a theory that took root under Reagan, and was reaffirmed and expanded by every president, R or D, since.

Until now. For the first time in two generations, the Biden administration has taken up the neglected, noble art of trustbusting, blocking mergers and promising to break up the mergers we’ve already seen, through enforcers like Jonathan Kanter at the DoJ Antitrust Division and Lina Khan at the FTC:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/08/party-its-1979-og-antitrust-back-baby

Which is bad news for the proposed Jetblue/Spirit merger. Last week, the DoJ filed suit to block the merger, joined by the AGs from NY, MA and DC.

https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.mad.254267/gov.uscourts.mad.254267.1.0.pdf

Notably, Pete Buttigieg — who has been historically shy of using his prodigious powers as the boss of a large agency — will also block the merger:

https://www.transportation.gov/briefing-room/usdot-statement-justice-departments-lawsuit-block-proposed-jetblue-spirit-merger

Spirit’s shares are in the toilet. Writing in his BIG newsletter, Matt Stoller explains why shareholders are bolting for the doors: the case against the Jetblue/Spirit merger is incredibly strong. A slam-dunk, even:

https://mattstoller.substack.com/p/an-end-to-airline-consolidation

Spirit, after all, is America’s most famous budget airline. That means that it attracts fliers by undercutting the Big Four. That puts downward pressure on the Big Four, who are faced with the choice of taking lower profits to retain fliers’ business, or losing all the profit when those fliers take Spirit. Remove Spirit from play and that downward pressure on fares disappears. You don’t need newfangled “neo-Brandeisian” antitrust to see why this is bad — even under “consumer welfare” antitrust, anything that will obviously make prices go up is prohibited (indeed, this is the only thing consumer welfare antitrust cares about).

How do we know that a Jetblue/Spirit merger is a price-increasing, illegal antitrust violation? Spirit says so.

[Image ID: A slide prepared for Spirit Airlines’ board, titled ‘Shareholders should think about the conversation with regulators,’ and laying out the case that a Jetblue/Spirit merger is illegal.]

This is truly delicious! You see, last year, there was a bidding war for Spirit and Jetblue was the outside bidder. Spirit’s board wanted to convince their shareholders to reject Jetblue’s bid, so they commissioned some aviation economists to do a study on the matter, which Spirit then circulated to its investors.

That report is unequivocal: it estimates that a Jetblue/Spirit merger will be a disaster. Spirit’s participation in a route lowers fares by 17%. When Spirit stops competing on a route, fares go up by 30%. Spirit CEO Ted Christie called the proposed merger “unlawful” and “unethical”:

https://simpleflying.com/spirit-ceo-shareholder-rejection-jetblue-cynical-disruptive-offer/

Spirit is a major competitor to Jetblue. As Stoller notes, they compete on hundreds of routes, and are adding more all the time. Jetblue clearly understands that removing Spirit as a competitor would let it raise fares. As one Jetblue manager — quoted by the DoJ — explained: “I don’t think we should be selling the [Spirit] fare if [Spirit] is not serving the market.” Jetblue’s internal memos on the merger include an executive stating that the merger will allow the airline to realize “efficiencies” by reducing service and increasing fares. This isn’t the kind of “efficiency” we want.

Stoller notes that even with this damning evidence, there are still some spoilers. Florida governor Ron DeSantis has cut a deal to back the merger, even though Florida stands to suffer the most of any state from this merger due to the number of Spirit flights taking off from its airports. And, Stoller notes, the judge presiding over the case is an 82 year old Reagan appointee — a ideology-addled dotard named William Young.

But, Stoller notes, with Buttigieg and the DOT on the case, it’s hard to see how this merger can go through — the DOT has very broad powers to block mergers that reduce routes and don’t have to meet the same evidentiary standards as the DoJ would in court.

Stoller thinks Buttigieg has had a “moment of truth” — that outside pressure from activists and critics convinced the secretary that his future political fortunes would be better served, on balance, by boldly using his powers (and pleasing the public), rather than sitting on his hands (and pleasing future industry donors):

https://mattstoller.substack.com/p/pete-buttigiegs-moment-of-truth

If that’s so, it’s welcome news. While I would prefer that our political leaders acted boldly in the public interest out of a sense of duty, I will happily settle for bold action motivated by fear of the voters’ wrath.

[Image ID: A crashed WWI biplane, redecorated in Spirit airlines livery. The scene is decorated with text-snippets cut out of a Spirit Airlines internal investor presentation slide advising that merging with Jetblue is ill-advised and possibly illegal.]

[arsenic-magpie]

idk who needs to hear this but do Not harass Palestinian people, Muslim people, or Arab people about voting for Biden. You can do that with other Americans but it's absolutely inappropriate and insensitive to be pulling that with people who's families and community are going through a genocide.

Also, I feel like this should be common sense, but harassing people about voting while their human rights have continued to decline is not going to convince them to vote more.

Let me be clear, I'm not saying you shouldn't vote. I'm saying, you are alienating more people by trying to guilt tripping them into voting. Stop telling people that the other guy is worse. People aren't going to listen to that. People are thinking about what their personal financial and social conditions were under Biden. And tbh for a lot of people, it was just as bad or even worse than under Tr*mp.

Again, because I feel like people are going to read this and lose their damn minds in the comments, I'm not saying, don't vote or don't tell people to vote. I'm saying, read the room. The strategy you're currently employing is alienating more people. I know it feels great to be on a moral high ground, but that's not going to get people to the polls. You need to change your strategy.

If you didn't read any of the post, please just read this. Stop harassing Palestinian-Americans, Muslims, and Arab people about voting. It's not helping, and you look like an insensitive jerk.

[meret118]

When I am emailed or otherwise speak with people who tell me that they are principled liberals, progressives or “good lefties”, which in their minds means they cannot in good conscience support President Biden, I have a standard reply. I tell them to make a list of all the issues they purport to care about so much. Look very carefully at the list. There is not one real issue on that list that Donald Trump, his MAGA people and the Republican Party will address in a way that you would like. Moreover, they will make all those things far worse in ways you likely cannot even imagine. Thus, to convince oneself that not voting for Biden is a type of great strategic move and the long game where the Democrats will be forced to adapt after they are defeated in the 2024 election is silly talk to the extreme. Donald Trump will be America’s first dictator; he and his successors will not leave power; burning down the proverbial village in order to save it does not work.

So please listen to Hillary Clinton and the other alarm-sounders this time. They are trying to save the American people and American democracy. But in the end the American people will have to exercise the agency, intelligence, reason, and be responsible enough to save themselves.

[centrally-unplanned]

Something I do think is important to note is that 2016 shredded the influence of those party insiders around primaries. Not fully, like people still respected the 'no running against incumbent presidents' norm this year for example. But the combo of Bernie's strong campaign against 'the insiders' and Hilary's defeat at the hands of a cartoon villian convinced the party to give up the ghost and stop trying to anoint a successor, and potential candidates that they dont need to listen if they try.

Which i think might be the right call, *given* how primaries work now. The entire edifice is not a great idea, and will deliver subpar candidates and dilute party agendas. But if you arent gonna ditch it then yeah letting it run its course is probably for the best.

And I think it does show the limitations of elite party nom systems. Amoung the reasons why the party coalesced around Hilary in 2016 was essentially "honouring the deal" of 2008 she made with Obama, but voters don't care about such deals. Allowing such deals to happen at all is in fact a risk of central systems like that, because they *can* make them they *will*. And the other, more awkward factor is that the dems really wanted a female president, they thought it was 'due', and so tried to force it. Voters again dont care about that. And in 2020 the dem party repeated that same mistake *again* in the VP nom, which is a centralized choice, saddling the current admin with the unpopular Kamala Harris in a time when VP really matters (which was predictable, since time tends to pass quite reliably).

So while I definitely can envision a better system, I tend to be in that, surprise suprise, Shor/Yglesias camp that an open convention today would quite likely produce a worse candidate than Biden. The party isn't built for this kind of choice right now.

[mightypurplethunder]

Please look into Claudia De la Cruz! She's a 2024 USA presidential candidate with the Party for Socialism and Liberation and she is actively trying to help Palestine. If you like her, please help spread her name!

Thanks for the information! I am not a US citizen and I don't have many followers so there's little that I can actively do, but I do think a socialist president for the US is in the whole world's interest at this point, and certainly a way better option than biden and the other piece of shit. I got into her website and read a bit of her campaign program and it does look very interesting

so interesting that I doubt usamericans would have the balls to vote for her instead of their precious two party candidates, but well, nothing will be accomplished if yall don't try.

Here's the link to Claudia de La Cruz's website for anyone interested:

As the citizen of one of the many countries that have been personally victimized by Regina George the United States and it's savage imperialist politics, it is my opinion that yall really need a radical change in the way you do and practice politics. Promoting this candidate seems like a great way to get on the right track. I wish you all braveness and wisdom in this process because it is not going to be easy to convince people to believe in something other than the goddamn donkey and elephant, but I'm glad to see you all starting to want to change things. Godspeed on this endeavour to you all.

[pieheda]

In case you haven’t heard of Project 2025, watch this:

…or this:

Or read the Wikipedia entry, which is chilling:

This is authoritarianism. This is Nazis all over again.

Trump has already started quoting project 2025 points in rallies. He’s already started using dehumanizing terms for those he perceives as enemies.

This is a path to genocide. This is genuinely threatening.

I’m not going to try to convince you that Biden is a great choice. He is not. But he also isn’t an authoritarian.

Voting doesn’t fix the country, the past 8 years have made that damned clear. I’m certainly not saying that political action should start or stop at the polls.

But I also can’t personally say that conservatives are on the wrong side of history while allowing project 2025 to go forward by not voting due to some “both sides” bullshit. That puts me on the wrong side of history too. There are no “both sides” arguments to be made when one side wants a dictator. I don’t like Biden but I think he is actually a politician, meaning he can be pressured into change by the people.

The other side is only interested in power for the sake of crushing anyone they despise.

[silvaurum]

i am going to hold my nose and vote as much as the next person but if youre gonna make a post about the good things dems have done or the ways they are materially better than the gop, you can't go 'and if you dont want to vote you're a bot or a shill or a psyop' come on. there are very good reasons to hate the dems. there are very good reasons to doubt that voting blue accomplishes anything. obama expanded drone strikes and ICE massively, biden is funding genocide. the dems are also making strides in domestic policy while the republicans are either embracing fascism with great enthusiasm or cowing to fascism even as they sadly shake their heads about it. the democrats in many places are also cowing to fascism even as they sadly shake their heads about it. but not all of them - vote down the ballot, that's way more helpful than shilling for any one candidate - and keep in mind, a vote is not a full 100% approving endorsement. you don't vote for someone you think is perfect. it's not a marriage contract. you are choosing an adversary. you are choosing who you think can be more easily swayed or intimidated into not being AS big of a shithead. ok. so if you're trying to convince people to vote stop dismissing their VERY legitimate concerns with their "options" and stop pretending those lists of good things dems have done negate any of the bad shit in american empire. or that the voting system is basically fine actually, because at least we have a choice between evil 2.0 and evil classic lite. this is a yes and situation. yes the options are fucking bad AND, there are other ways to work on this. if voting is easy For You, do that, AND, raise awareness of how fucked it is overall. AND work outside the system. AND work on changing the system. any comfort or safety or communion we can bring to each other is worth it.