The system is set up deliberately to prevent doing what the voters want.
this post was submitted on 24 Jan 2024
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And this isn’t some conspiracy theory. Read the Federalist Papers and you’ll find they didn’t want an unruly mob making decisions. Hence why senators were picked by states originally, and why there’s an electoral college instead of popular vote for president.
And it's high time all this was fixed. Just because some dudes 250 years ago thought a system of government was good, doesn't mean it's still adequate today.
Best system of government a bunch of wealthy slavers could ask for
I didn't want Biden, but he's actually been doing fine; I was very surprised. List of accomplishments here, and overview of economic performance here.
Careful, the Joe haters really don't want to listen right now with the current state of Gaza.
I mean, if it leads to the US rethinking its policy of "Israel can kill as many children as it wants and it's all good," I'll allow it.
Honestly Netanyahu is probably banking on Trump winning, because then he can really get away with doing whatever he wants.
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And the overwhelming majority of those kids have up to this point, never given two shits about what has been going on over there before this last year.
Bandwagoning political idealism is cringy as fuck not to mention dangerous.
Ya it's way better to stay ignorant to the shitty stuff your country does in the world than gain awareness of new issues. It's cool to support a genocide.
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The situation with Palestine and Israel is shit and has been shit for a long time now. Hamas are a bunch of bastards that are standing up against another bunch of bastards. They both suck and neither Hamas nor Israel should be shown any support at all. It's like when the USSR fought the Nazis in WW2, neither option there was good, and just because the Nazis were slightly worse doesn't mean the USSR deserved support.
That said while Hamas absolutely doesn't deserve any support, Palestine and the Palestinian people absolutely do, and the way they've been treated by Israel even before the current situation is terrible. The current situation is so much worse though, with Israel just going full mask off genocide now.
Even if the US isn't going to get involved in that conflict directly the least we could have done is just not support Israel, don't provide them with weapons, shut the fuck up when other countries start accusing them of war crimes and genocide. Instead we're doing the exact opposite, sending weapons to Israel and using our international clout to shield them.
Critism of US policy towards Israel has been a growing with the left for years. Now, a major change in the facts on the ground have made it a much more salient issue.
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Your mistake is thinking elections are, or ever were, about what the voters want.
In reality - the establishment decides how best to maintain their control, then create the illusion of choice (since both candidates who reach the point of running for president serve them, in very slightly different ways), then have the media bolster that illusion and get the public to fight with each other to make sure we don't stop to realise we're being played and point our justified rage and frustration where they actually belong (with the manipulators, not those they manipulate).
The media keeps reporting things that people engage with because those figures drive advertising. If people didn't engage with ragebait, then people like Trump wouldn't have a chance of being elected. The entire media strategy of any politician right now is to say or do the most wild shit possible so that they appear in the news. Come up with a 3 word slogan, and bam, instant support.
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Short answer: no proportional representation. Long answer: lack of proportional representation. If you are going to have voting, at least let people vote for the candidate they want rather than the least worst option.
At the very minimum ranked ballots.
Imagine if Americans knew what ranked choice voting was and how it would benefit them.
If you aren't aware and half a minute and a half to spare:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gq7N2hmX9FI
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Biden because no party is going to deny a sitting President the opportunity to run again. It has to be their choice to not run (Johnson, '68).
Trump because enough Republicans still believe 2020 was "stolen" from him.
"66% of caucusgoers think Biden did not legitimately win the 2020 election, and 68% of those voters are backing Trump. Just 16% of those voters are picking DeSantis while an even smaller 6% share are caucusing for Haley."
New Hampshire:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/01/23/new-hampshire-voters-trump-trials-2020-election/
"About half of those who voted in the New Hampshire Republican primary Tuesday believed the false claim that President Biden did not legitimately win the 2020 presidential election, according to preliminary exit polls, underscoring the persistence of Trump’s false claims within the GOP that the last presidential election was stolen from him.
Of those voters who believed Biden did not legitimately win the 2020 election, an overwhelming majority — nearly 9 in 10 — voted for Trump in the New Hampshire primary on Tuesday, while about 1 in 8 voted for former U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley, the only remaining major challenger to Trump for the Republican presidential nomination."
How we got here is really easy, we've arrived at the ground state of First Past The Post voting. Once you have two extremists facing off against each other it takes a massive effort to get a non-extremist into office as you can just cruise into an easy victory by running your own extremist against your opponents extremist. Each side effectively has a lock on their own party and it comes down to which extremist will be slightly less off-putting to the independents. In this case the extremist on one side has aspirations to be a dictator, while the other side is so utterly bland he makes milk look spicy. If Biden was any less progressive he'd literally be a Republican.
That's basically what Biden is banking on, that he's so utterly boring and milquetoast that more independents will vote for him over the wannabe dictator of Trump while still getting enough Democrats to hold their nose and vote for him just to deny Trump the win.
You're kind of contradicting yourself. On one hand you are saying two extremists then later about that Biden is right centre.
I agree with the later part. At this moment we have one extremist and one right center guy. The reason Biden is running is to be still appealing to Republicans and independents to dissuade them from voting for trump.
Though, so much effort was put by media to make him look like he is Karl Marx reincarnated.
It is a little bit of a contradiction and I had a hard time following the logic. But your post made me think of something else. If you have one extremist candidate by definition you have two, because from the perspective of the followers of the atypical extremist candidate (a trump like figure) status quo will be an extreme for them
Extremism needs to be judged by the standards of that party in this context. An extreme Democrat is either a radical socialist like Bernie Sanders, or utterly non-progressive like Biden. Likewise extremist for the GOP would be a fascist like Trump, or someone so far left as to almost qualify as a progressive.
I can't help but notice that you couldn't come up with leftist GOP extremist.
I think you were able to do it with Democrats was because Democrats are really everyone else who doesn't identify themselves as Republicans. With the first past the post, those different parties have no option but to work together as one.
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Democratic socialism isn’t “radical.”
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Give me milquetoast extremism or give me death!
I don't really understand your charge against Biden. Skimming headlines from afar it seemed like he was supposedly the most progressive president in a very long time. Where do you think one should read up on his record in office if we want to judge his presidency?
Biden has largely just maintained the status quo. He hasn't done anything to meaningfully progress anything. None of the problems facing the US or the world have been even remotely addressed by him. The best that could be said is he hasn't made most things any worse, although he's really giving it the college try with his support for Israel recently. The only reason Biden looks remotely progressive is because he undid all the stuff Trump fucked up. Just because the previous guy was running backwards doesn't mean you get credit for returning to where you started when you've done fuck all since then.
As for where to find his accomplishments, I've got no idea as he has very few worth mentioning. He's managed to keep the economy going so there's that I guess, and he supported Ukraine, but really that should be considered the bare minimum. Domestically he's doing nothing of particular note.
Climate change is by far the most serious problem facing the US and the IRA is a genuinely substantial step towards addressing that.
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That's an interesting perspective, thanks for sharing.
Just because the previous guy was running backwards doesn't mean you get credit for returning to where you started when you've done fuck all since then.
I disagree with this point enthusiastically. If he steered the boat ten miles up river, that's still a major achievement, especially if the previous captain had just drifted from bank to bank while he was actively putting holes in the hull. We don't know how Biden would have sailed if he'd taken charge where the previous guy did, maybe he'd have stayed in one place, gone down stream, or maybe he'd taken another ten miles the right way, we'll never know.
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By voters giving Republicans the house, and the MAGA crowd power to push Trumps agenda.
If voters hadn't given the house to republicans, Trump would not be as powerful, and Biden would not have run for a second term.
Biden is running to prevent Trump from winning, because he believes he still is the best candidate for that.
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biden is the nominee because it is historically political suicide for a party to primary their incumbent. and in this case since the other viable nominee is trump, primarying biden feels like small d democratic suicide for the country. smart people who don't like biden (for whatever reason, I include myself in that group) will get behind a biden candidacy enthusiastically just to. keep trump out.
trump is the nominee because the republican party as currently constructed is no longer a political party but a cult. a cult of white male grievances that not only seeks to opress anyone not white and male but also has adapted old testament principles where the only ones who had any status at all were males. and the thing is, trump doesn't believe in anything they do (except the racism and misogyny). he just accepts those people because they love him, he gives them permission to act as they do because he does. and the adolation from the people is the thing that drives narcissists. and the one thing those people want more than anything else is power for the sake of controlling other people. they want trump because trump wants their idolation and trump will give them everything just to be cheered. and yes I meant idolation.
if the people don't like this cycle's choices, they should have voted in their party's primaries. this year or 4 years ago.
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Too many third party candidates instead of just one or two. Bernie Sanders not being able to run also not to mention.
What drives me nuts is Bernie would win big.
He talks about things people care about and makes sense. He was a huge hit at his town-hall meeting on FOX news a few years ago.
If he and Clinton had teamed up in 2016 I think dems would have won the electoral college, not just the popular vote.
For years after his campaign, he was the most popular politician in the US. He is still more popular than any politician who's active on the national stage. Above both Biden and Trump.
Clinton more or less identified the issue with him: No one likes him, he doesn't want to work with anybody. "Anybody" meaning the money-men who are determined the wreck the country. And so, he's unacceptable.
The reason the people like him is the reason nobody in Washington likes him.
Ding ding ding
Even MAGA folks at least respect Bernie. I got that a lot in 2016. They knew I wasn’t a Republican, which made them suspicious of me until they found out I supported Bernie, at which point they’d actually say something nice about him.
My dad is a hard-right fascist who voted for Trump in 2016 and 2020, will vote for him again, and hates all Democrats with a passion.
Before it settled into Trump vs Hillary he said if it ended up Trump vs Sanders he would vote for Sanders.
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Why is it the most popular mention seems to be older than the 2 oldest presidents of all time, that people are arguing are both to old daily.
People want Trump for the same reason they hate Biden.
They are simply unwilling to admit what their candidate has done since Biden took office.
Because a whole generation of Americans found a source of information that agrees with their dated belief systems. Regardless if they're completely wrong. Thanks Meta!
The thing is, though, I think most (or at least enough) voters actually do want this. Trump is clearly the preferred Republican candidate and that's been obvious for some time. On the Democrats side, Biden is the lead candidate and likewise, it has been obvious that he was likely to be it for months. Ergo, it's a Biden-Trump rematch.
Obviously nobody is happy about this, but it's hardly surprising.
Dems don't listen to constituents. They pay us lip service. That's why I'm a Leftist. Dems are center-right (essentially what Nixon was).
…by design
Because most people do nothing but whine online about singe-issue problems and do nothing about bringing change in any real sense.
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Unfortunately the Republicans actually late listening to their voters where Democrats are not.
Granted it's because Biden is an incumbent..
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