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When you compare Biden to Trump vs. the effects on the Palestinians, were Trump president again, he would not just help the Israelis exterminate the Palestinians, but encourage them to do so quickly- as he's already told Bibi to "finish it". So your dichotomy is more than a bit disingenuous .
If our only standard is not a Republican, then everytime Republicans lower their standards, they lower the only other option's standards too.
It's not fucking sustainable.
You know I hear people say this and and yet the Democratic Party is further to the left than it was under Bill Clinton. So how does it follow? I mean I hear people say stuff like we keep moving further to the right and the Republicans certainly are, but I see a Democratic party that's for gay rights and that didn't use to exist. I see a Democratic Party that's that's talking about higher taxes on the wealthy and trade regulations and consumer protection Acts. None of that was true in the '90s. In the 90s the Democrats said the era of big government is over. Now Democrats are supporting good government policies. We can certainly support better government policies, and I personally would like to see them go much further , but I can't see a scenario in which the Democratic party isn't further left than they were.
The democratic party didn't even universally support abortion rights not that long ago.
This. This all day long.
Voting the lesser evil still leads to evil in the long run.
You got a practical alternative you'd like to share with the class?
Vote in your local elections, and support (or directly work to pass) election reform laws, particularly related to ditching the electoral college.
Not necessarily saying it's the alternative, but it's a start and local elections have larger personal impact most of the time.
I agree with all of this, but it's not an alternative, it's just an additional vector of action. My question is about alternatives to Biden for president in this election.
Well, that's up to the DNC. They could put almost any other prominent dem and they'd probably beat Trump. The DNC also has the ability to change the candidate after the election but before the electoral ballots are cast, at least as far as I understand their rules.
Trust, I understand your point. The primaries are over, and that's where the different candidate should have been chosen. But unfortunately, the whole not knowing any viable alternatives line of thinking is what got the DNC into this mess in the first place.
Yeah, I think any other Dem candidate is a gamble: you lose out on the significant incumbent boost, you only have 4 months to campaign if you start now, and you risk losing momentum on the moderate vote. This isn't an election I want to gamble with, especially with the recent SCOTUS ruling. Everything said and done, I don't think the benefits outweigh the risks.
November 6th is when we should start pushing for significant changes. 11th hour fuckery isn't going to help this cycle.
Except Biden has a 37% approval rating...
That's Jimmy Carter level...
Do you know what happened with Jimmy Carter's second term?
An incumbency only translates to a boost, when being the incumbent is a positive thing.
2/3s of voters don't think Biden is a good president. 56% think he is a bad one.
We can't afford to hope enough people hold their nose for him.
This is bigger than any one person, even Joe Biden
Who then, hmm?
That the DNC would let run?
Whitmere.
That would get the most votes?
AOC
Neither one polls better than Biden.
Not in Data for Progress' poll...
They used to be good, but after Biden won 2020 and they started working with the DNC, things went downhill quickly.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_for_Progress
Did you catch that?
He also bragged in the past about being able to come up with polls that would be likely to result in increased donations to the candidate paying for the poll...
Which worked here too. Because I've seen articles bragging about how much Biden has raised recently
Even before that, they were "quick and dirty" polling.
But that's a whole big can of worms to get into.
The important part is that these candidates are polling similar to Biden against Trump already.
And Biden has the full weight of the DNC behind him (at least up till last week) and an active campaign.
Obviously anyone that became the candidate and started campaign would see a jump.in their numbers unless it was someone like Hillary
Which poll shows either Whitmer or AOC bearing Trump in the general?
What?
You're just ignoring everything I say and asking different questions, even though I've already talked about it:
Ignoring your unfounded claims? Yes, I will continue to do that, because you haven't offered any proof for
other than just claiming it. And now that I'm asking for that proof, you're pretending I'm changing the subject.
I'll ask again: show me actual data which suggests Whitmer or AOC outperforms Biden against Trump in the general.
Mate...
You quoted a poll, I asked if it was the one I'm thinking of (because you didn't link it) and now you're demanding I link you the poll you brought up?
But fine, here's a poll that shows Whitmere polling competitively to Biden
https://www.cnn.com/2024/07/02/politics/cnn-poll-post-debate/index.html
And I never claimed her or AOC are polling better than Biden...
Like, I think you need to take a deep breath, maybe go get a glass of water, and read thru this thread again.
I say one thing, you say I said something else, and then insist on me defending the position you made up.
I'm willing to give you the benefit of the doubt because peoples emotions (rightfully) are elevated this election. But I'm pretty close to just blocking at this point because there's no way this ever becomes productive if you continue like this.
I didn't quote a poll, I said there were no polls supporting your conclusion. You assumed I was talking about a specific poll, and then attacked that poll.
Ipsos shows everyone but Harris and Michelle Obama well behind Biden.
But all the people whining about gEnOciDe jOe are only upset because its and election year. They disappear after November and don’t show up again until 4 years later.
Trump used Palestinian as a slur & they are laughing with him. Not sure how serious anyone is supposed to take them.
Well, they’re serious about urging people to not vote against MAGA, so…. There’s that.
socialism
I'm all for socialism long term solution. I'm confused as to how that is an alternative to voting against the present greatest threat to socialism that can be voted against. What is the material implementation of "socialism" which provides a timely alternative to that action?
op commenter was talking about a long term solution.
socialism begins with the organization of the working class. this organization can be used to press your boss and the government in an effective way in the short term.
this 'pressure' can look like a strike, but its not limited to it.
Again, actions I support. These actions, however, are not mutually exclusive to voting in elections for the lesser evil. In fact, these actions are more substantially suppressed under the greater evil. The rational action then is to use all avenues available to oneself, including but not limited to voting for whichever of the two dominant parties is less detrimental to action on other avenues.
One of the two dominant parties is objectively worse for the organization of the working class. Vote for the less worse party, while you organize and pressure the powers that be.
I agree with that. This case though, presents two very evil options. You guys have been legalizing child labour again, building a theocracy and doing an ethnic cleansing in the middle east under the supposed lesser evil. They are accelerating fascism regardless of who wins, vote if you will but other avenues must be pursued if you are to keep your thin veil of civility.
Who is "you guys"? What point are you trying to make with this both-sides stuff? Child labor and theocracy are exclusively being pushed by the Republicans, no Democrats are doing that. Even in the middle east, Democrats are tiptoeing through a nasty web of geopolitics, while it's the Republicans who want to glass Palestine. Neo-Libs have a lot of problems, but it's simply deranged to imply they're anywhere near as evil as MAGA.
geopolitics is no excuse for the things being perpetrated inside but especially outside the us, currently by democrats. if the us made a bad judgment and found itself losing the situation, financing a literal genocide to avoid losing is not a justifiable thing to do here.
It seems like you're deliberately diverting away from my point: both sides are bad, but one is orders of magnitude worse than the other. Quashing voter turnout with this doomer rhetoric helps the worse one win. Democrats having problems doesn't stop Republican problems from being an existential threat to the future of our democracy, and any chance of leftward progress. You do realize this, right?
the paragraph you are responding to is basically me saying "not orders of magnitude, here is a real world scenario to illustrate"
the tiny minority of us socialists are not capable of swaying public opinion the way you say we do.
if we were at all we would be doing much bigger countrywide striking, not still at convincing other people of anything.
Yes, orders of magnitude. The only real world scenario that's relevant (because again, child labor and theocracy are purely Republican initiatives) is Palestine. Biden is trying to reign in Netanyahu within the latitude afforded him by existing, congressionally determined defense agreements and the complex geopolitical landscape of the middle east. Trump loves Netanyahu and thinks he should hurry up with the genocide already. That is orders of magnitude worse.
The tiny minority of socialists aren't capable of rallying large swaths of the population into countrywide action, this is true. But they can sway a slim minority of non-conservatives to sit out on an already dangerously close race. All they have to do is shave off a percent or two here or there to seal our fate.
democrats are literally doing all these things, right now. and you really do think geopolitics justifies financing a big fascist for a genocide? cmon man. there isnt good justification to sit at the nazi table.
people dont want to vote to biden because peoples actual lives are still slowly getting worse, and all they can do is pretend not to be commiting war crimes. most countries with mandatory polling suffer from the same problem.
if anyone wants more from socialism they can quit being on the side of the actual politicians doing heinous shit and participate instead. real grassroots needs people.
This is pointless. You're making things up. Show me which Democrats are pushing child labor and theocracy.
I'd rather my life slowly get worse than rapidly get worse, which is the alternative. Slowly getting worse buys time for grassroots. Trump will come down on grassroots. This is very simple logic, under no circumstance is Biden worse for socialists than Trump. This is ridiculous and you're being willfully obtuse.
what do you mean. democrats are commiting genocide in the middle east, torturing mexicans at the border, sending ukranians as cannon fodder.
and moving no muscle to stop and even contributing to any advance of the aforementioned fascism despite having the power to stop it.
Republicans would accelerate genocide in the middle east, torture more Mexicans at the border, and genocide Ukrainians.
They are the ones actively advancing the aforementioned fascism. Like I said, the choice is between things slowly getting worse, and quickly getting worse. Slowly getting worse gives us more time to do something about it. Democrats losing is objectively worse for all your talking points, worse for Americans, worse for the world, and particularly worse for leftists.
I don't know who's side you think you're on, but I certainly know what side your actions support. Either you're deliberately trying to hurt the left, or you've unwittingly fallen for talking points that serve to hurt the left. I'm not interested in talking to propagandists or their feckless stooges.
When the choice is between the lesser evil, and losing our democracy, having our LGBTQ+ friends and family lose their rights to exist and feel good in their own skin, our sisters, mothers, and daughters losing their body autonomy…
I’ll take the lesser evil- ANY FUCKING DAY YOU ASK.
But NOW we'll start organizing... more than we had been previously! I swear we won't declare victory and do basically nothing political at all for the next 4 years.
And the short run.
This does not logically follow.
It really does though..
Overton window
This is a proposed political idea. It doesn't make it true and doesn't make the statement that are options are reduced unless we all allow it to be true.
If the Republican decide to burn all gay people, one cannot claim to be a democrat because they simply want to gas them all.
We decide where the line is drawn. Ignore the propaganda that tells us we have no control over the process. That apathy is how the window shifts, not because the republicans shift.
The Overton window is a way of framing change in the baseline ideology of a population. It is hardly a “law” or dogma of any kind. On its own it’s meaningless, you can’t just couch an argument in “…because of the Overton window.” It’s also got its valid detractors like broken window theory and such.
Lol, I wasn't making an argument that anything is "because of the Overton window", the OP of this thread is literally describing how the Overton window works. You, and that other person not liking or understanding it, doesn't change that, nor the fact that what op described is demonstrably happening in politics right in front of your fucking eyes, and only "doesn't follow logic" if you're aggressively wilfully ignorant.
Yikes I think you’re a little too riled up for this conversation. Have a good one dude.
Not in terms of pure logic but definitely in practical terms. You don't get far in humanities if you only follow pure logic.
So is societal which means it's not a person or group but all of us. It isn't just this one thing everyone on the left likes to point out as if that absolves them from having any personal responsibility in the matter.
The concept causes itself to exist by acceptance that it is inevitable.