1039
A reminder to all you far left and far right nutjobs that think Joe Biden has done nothing significant in office
(lemmy.world)
this post was submitted on 18 Jan 2024
1039 points (83.2% liked)
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Criticise Biden all you want. Just recognize despite your criticism, he is a better option than Trump in every way (and no, there is no third option).
If these are the only two options in our current system
1.) god help us
2.) let's tear down the system
Unless class conciousness forms in America tearing the system down would result in a mad max hell scape and probably the end of of the human race because of the acceleration to climate change.
If anything climate change would decelerate from the collapse of the system though. I mean, you saw that air quality, pollution indexes, etc have all improved during the lockdowns right? There's a reason pollution is used to measure how the economy is doing in countries that aren't honest about it (where usually less emissions = worse economy)
They don't care. The Great Satan would be dead. That's all that matters to them.
Don't need to throw out the whole system. Even just ranked choice voting and getting rid of the electoral college would massively improve the quality of our representation.
It's the only two options in the system because the American people are not as left-wing as your average fucking Lemmy user.
Even as someone far more right than the average lemmy user, an 80 year old and an almost 80 year old being the only two options is absurd.
You don't have to like it. It's the reality right now though.
Absurd, yes, but an absurdity that is endorsed, unfortunately, by the voters.
Not really.
Yes, really. Fuck's sake. What, you think Trump is using his entire net worth of negative 500 million to bribe a massive group of actors sworn to secrecy and change all the GOP primary outcomes in his favor?
No. I wasn't even referring to primaries.
But it's not a system propped up by the voters when the system is specifically designed to favor two options and make voting a third option hard or undesirable despite said third option being better representative of your values.
I hardly doubt a majority of people would like eother Biden or Trump, they just vote the one who they don't want to lose to the other.
What third option is better representative of the majority or even a plurality of the views of the American people?
Having more than 2 parties in itself is more representative.
Believe it or not in healthy democracies no party represents more than half the population and governments are formed via coalitions, that's because people are very diverse in opinions and beliefs and you can't group them all in one or two parties.
Okay, that doesn't really address the issue of a presidential election, which generally come down to two candidates even in non-two-party systems. Who has wider support than Biden and Trump at this moment in time? Who do the voters wish they could flock to?
Ever heard of STV? Or the fact the president isn't omnipotent? Or the possibility that the president could be elected by the elected Parliament instead?
Having more than 2 parties means that even if the president is from one of the big parties it still has to rely on other parties to stay in his position and therefore more people are actually represented compared to when someone votes someone simply because they like the other options a bit less.
Also I'd take a guess and say Bernie would probably have a good shot. And in a healthy democracy you'd have more than two mere options to consider. It's a viciois cycke that of the two party system, Biden and Trump's chances at winning aren't just higher because they're liked it's moreso because you only really hear about them and they're presented like the only options available.
STVs require multi-member districts. Election of the president is of a single office (effectively).
Okay, again, none of that actually addresses the issue of presidential elections generally coming down to two people, and that Biden and Trump are pretty unambiguously the two largest players by preference of American voters?
Would... would you regard that as preferable ?
No STVs are pretty simple: I vote my preferred candidate, it doesn't win? My vote goes to my 2nd preferred candidate, and so on. Ensuring that my preferred candidate gets a shot and if he doesn't win I can still choose the one I hate less among the eventual big 2 old farts. They can apply to any amount of offices.
It does address it. The president can't do shit without a parliamentary majority so even if it comes down to 2 people they still have to coalition (and therefore give concessions) to other parties if they want to achieve anything. Therefore people are still represented.
In a functioning parliamentary (which is where the parliament holds most of the power rather than the president) multiparty system yes it absolutely is preferable as it generally leads to a president that isn't necessarily from a single party but rather someone either more technical, skilled and representative. Even in unhealthy systems like Italy for example the president is elected indirectly and, Mattarella, just so happens to be the most popular politician among the public as a result too, after all there's a reason neofascists are trying to remove him and instead give more power to a president that would be directly elected and which they know would give them more power.
Do you mean IRV?
Okay, currently, the president can't do shit without a congressional majority, and unlike in parliamentary systems, voting outside of party lines is extremely common and won't get you kicked out of the party, so what is the effective difference in representation?
I'm gonna have to disagree here. Parliamentary election of the executive leads to situations like Netanyahu in Israel. Or Berlusconi in Italy, back when that asshole was alive. It's not a more meritocratic or technocratic way to elect the executive - it's just a smaller, and thus easier to bribe, coerce, strongarm, threaten, or flatter, electorate.
No I mean Single Transferable Vote
The difference is that unlike the people voting outside party lines you actually chose and voted the 3rd party and you can generally assume it's going to vote the way you expect it to, and since you don't need the party to necessarily be as big tent as possible you can also ensure more party discipline.
Berlusconi wasn't the president, he was the prime minister and the ways the two positions are elected are different. Obviously it isn't an infallable or the best system, it's better than your current system tho. It is also important that the power is never concentrated on a single person regardless of whether it is elected directly or indirectly. The president shouldn't be the main focus of an election.
God help us
Yeah. God help us. But tearing down the system, while temporarily satisfying as millions die, will not be the solution we want it to be. What emerges will have the exact same problem as long as it is democratic and the American electorate is not changed.
Burn down the MIC
There is no other way
Exhibit A
this like saying eating shit is a better option than starving. One is just slower, but it's still going to kill you.
Are you right that biden is better than trump? yes. Are you wrong in that, that is an argument for Biden? absolutely fucking wrong. that is an argument for-not-trump... of which there are hundreds of millions of people in the US that are both not-trump and eligible to president. there are at least "50 other democrats", per Your-Dear-Leader-Himself that can absolutely beat trump.
the question isn't if Biden is better than trump- we're still in the primaries. The question is, is Biden the best possible democrat candidate. to which that's an emphatic "Lol, no."
I seriously hope you've got better and more persuasive arguments than insults.
because, you know. I take insults to mean you don't. Also, calling people stupid is... literally right out of Trump's playbook.
I mean so who's better than biden at this stage? I wish there was but I can't think of anyone
We could have had Bernie but the dems didn't want some one too progressive as president.
then that is a failure of your imagination.
There are numerous options, any one of which- with Biden's support- prove to be a far more popular and viable candidate. or did you think "Blue no matter who" only applies to centrists? Warren, Klobechar, AOC, Buttigieg, Even bernie, Phillips. Newsom. Probably, any candidate more progressive than a stick in the mud would have a better chance than Biden winning.
Is he the Democrat candidate with the best chance of beating Trump, is the important question.
Regarding the importance of name recognition and the low-information status of most of the electorate, that is a 'sadly, yes' moment.
He's one of the very few people on the national stage and in such a possible position that are as unpopular as Trump or even worse, so… probably no(?)
Regarding how many of the Democratic base have said "We'd like somebody else"... that is actually quite dubious a statement. Polls have consistently ranged between 66-85% saying they want somebody other than Biden. And his popularity is only shrinking. at best, any election with biden and trump as the two candidates are going to be nail biters, with DNC peeps having to work two, three times as hard to get the vote out than virtually any other candidate they could pick.
And yet when specifics come up, there is no consensus candidate other than Biden.
It's how he won the last primary. He was the second-choice of a larger and more divided pool of other candidates - we've always wanted someone other than Biden. The issue is that we can't agree on who that would be.
I really think you're underestimating the advantages of name recognition and incumbency.
if Biden were to support and go to bat for any other candidate his name recognition and incumbency could be made to work for them.
That he doesn't do that... is a matter of his own ego.
Incumbency and name recognition don't work like that, as a great many outgoing politicians who endorse and campaign for their picked protégé find out.
Influenced by his ego, sure, but not simply a matter of ego. I would have loved for Biden to step down as a one-term president, but I also understand that there is a matter of political calculation in this.
If they can’t solve the problem in the last seven years, what makes you think they’ll solve it in the next five?
This is a bed of the DNC’s own making and just further evidence that they’re too out of touch to actually effectively govern.
How is that relevant to the argument we were having? We were discussing Biden's electability and whether incumbency and name recognition are linked to his running for president, not whether the DNC can govern, or what problem(?) wasn't solved in the past 7 years.
the problem of not having groomed new talent.
They haven't had new talent in more than 7 years. that's why they went with the "compromise" candidate, while promising to groom that talent so that it won't happen again.
yet another of Biden's broken campaign promises. like "restricting superpacks" and bringing "transparency if campaign financing"... because he really needs those AIPAC donations, right? and speaking of AIPAC donations, what about that promise to end the wars in the middle east? Dropping bombs on Houthi's because you gotta back up the genocidial maniac (see superpac funding).
Again, that's not what we were discussing.
Dropping bombs on Houthis because they're attacking civilian ships in one of the most used commercial routes in the world.
Because his best friend is going all genocidal. Biden is actively escalating tensions with a slapped on veneer of legitimacy
And do you think if the US wasn't in support of Israel, the Houthis would just... what, stop?
I think everyone who has the power to stop the madness wants this war.
Hamas and the Houthis included. Though they’re bottom feeders being used by Iran and maybe Russia in a proxy war. Israel and US are included in that. Unless you think Israelis would be so openly brazen if the US wasn’t simping so hard?
I honestly think the Israelis would be just as brazen. Which is why it's all the more important that we withdraw aid. There's no positive influence we can wield in this, no heroic moment where the US saves the day. We need to just... stop. Rejoin the rest of the international community and try to minimize the damage of the genocide as a collective.