this post was submitted on 31 Jan 2024
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It is because they aren’t. Biden is a “not Trump” candidate. That’s it. We are voting against Trump, not for Biden.
maybe try voting for something? Let's not be feckless.
I would LOVE to vote FOR something. It’s been many years since that has been an option.
What, pray tell, would you suggest that we vote for then?
There are some fantastic primary contenders on the dem side, but Biden and the DNC have been working overtime to remove them from state primary ballots or cancel state primary elections altogether. Similar kind of brazen corruption we saw from the DNC in both ‘16 and ‘20 to steal the nom from Bernie, now they won’t even risk a challenger getting the primary votes to begin with.
So, you could start by contacting your state DNC committee and ask why they think primaries aren’t necessary, despite Biden’s historic unpopularity going into an election year.
There was no Democratic incumbent president in 2016 or 2020.
Unless your president is wildly unpopular…like, tried and convicted of child molestation unpopular…it’s generally considered very unsafe to primary them.
Thats generally speaking. Given the state of the GOP and their no-holds-barred disregard of law and tradition, the DNC has to play it as safe as possible. Primarying an incumbent who is comparably not very unpopular within your party is not playing it safe.
Especially when the RNC front runner is Trump. He’s incredibly unpopular among the left. And Democrats aren’t going to pull any votes away from him no matter how hard they try.
They know that the only people they might be able to pull votes from are the near edges of the Trump camp. Moderates who don’t hate Trump, but don’t exactly like him either. To them, Biden is the lesser of two evils. They may not feel the same of an unknown, especially one that’s far to the left of Biden.
The real thing to be concerned about in the general is the far left. Any spoiler candidates that’ll appeal to them. My biggest fear is that 2024 will be lost because of some well-intentioned people voting for far-left third parties because of a distaste for Biden.
In other words, I think it’d be far easier to get the far-left to fall in around Biden, then it would be to get the slight-rights to move away from Trump, and certainly to get the party to coalesce around someone new and progressive at this current time.
I’m bitter about Bernie too. But I’m more bitter about Gore, and the hundreds of Nader voters in Florida that cost 2000. Bush 43 won FL by a margin of 537 votes. Nader had 97,488 in FL.
To be a fly on the wall in that alternate timeline. I bet the weather is nice.
Isn’t playing it safe literally what got us into this mess?! I say no, the time for sincere, meaningful, and drastic change is NOW. We’re on the titanic cruising towards that iceberg, and we need to change course quickly or our democracy will be lost. We have to root out the corruption in DC before it’s too late.
Biden claims that democracy is on the line in this election. So why is he working so hard behind the scenes to ensure there isn’t even a primary debate, or primary elections held? If he is so deserving of a second term, wouldn’t he naturally come out ahead in those? And if not, wouldn’t the platform for the emerging candidates give them the national boost they need to clinch the win? He doesn’t care as much about democracy as the non-MAGA 2/3 of us like to think. The truth is Biden’s ego is telling him he deserves a second term, and not his record, which is an incredibly dangerous game for this absolute dinosaur to be playing with our democracy.
I hear you on Gore, the world would be so different. We could be leaders in renewable tech and have ushered in a new age of prosperity free from the fossil fuels which are wrecking our ecosystem. But let’s be clear - Nader voters did not cost Gore the win. After several recounts, it was proven that Gore did in fact win FL. The Supreme Court at the time decided to give the win to W Bush, because the corporate news media had already called the elections, and they didn’t think it was worth causing too much of a ruckus. A court which Biden has left incredibly biased at a time where they’re stripping away women’s bodily autonomy - he should be pushing to resize it, remove corrupt justices, etc and he’s done none of that.
Biden’s only promise he truly delivered on was to his donors - “nothing will fundamentally change.” I’m telling you, that’s not good enough to “save democracy”. Not by a long shot.
You call him out on something that he has absolutely no control over, aside from solutions which would set dangerous precedent.
There is a mechanism for recalling corrupt judges. It requires a non-corrupt Congress. The founders never suspected that we’d be dumb enough to vote for half of Congress to be equally corrupt, but here we are.
The alternative of a president unilaterally removing seated judges, sets an absolutely disastrous precedent. And expanding the court would just be met with the courts growing in size every time control of the executive branch changes.
Better would be to reform how judges are seated and for how long. That would take a constitutional amendment. But at least we’d have a maximum end-date for some of the insanity, as long as we’d be smart about how. My opinion is that SCOTUS seats should be a 36-year appointment, with one judge nominated per presidential term. Special nominations (due to death/illness/treason/early retirement) would be for the remainder of that seats term only. The most tenured seat get replaced at the start of the next presidential term after ratification. Judges should be a long term - the intent of SCOTUS is to be outside of the sphere of political, industrial, or social influence as much as possible so they can focus directly on the intent of the law as written… and that’s difficult to do on a short term.
Playing it safe is the only option. Picking a candidate that sits any further left of Biden (which itself is not difficult) would only move more moderate voters towards Trump, and his base would be even more enraged. Picking someone more moderate than Biden would upset the far-left more and possibly keep them home on Election Day, with even more substantial damage done down-ballot as a result.
The game has to be played knowing that the other side is a way better cheater. They start out with votes that are more valuable and then make sure they carve out their voting districts to suppress any dissenting voice.
In New Hampshire Biden wasn’t even on the ballot and won handily by write in against his primary opponents. I’ve only heard that there are 3 states in which Biden is the only candidate - and that’s because other candidates didn’t qualify.
Also, I’ve not seen any fantastic primary contenders step forward anyway. What makes you think Biden is “historically unpopular” enough to be the incumbent and be voted out in the primary?
Well, when the DNC pulled delegates making the primary pointless and Biden simultaneously pulled his name from the ballot, it would keep and have been a waste of money for a primary challenger to keep campaigning there...
Meanwhile Biden spent campaign funds to drive a "write in" campaign for a literally meaningless election so people would think it was a sign a non progressive could actually still win in NH to make them feel more confident in Biden's chances.
Like seriously, you didn't get that?
Biden is polling in the low 30s, as an incumbent. Nobody in the history of US federal elections has ever come back to win with such a disastrous approval rating going into election year. Not once, ever.
Biden is not that guy. He’s not going to make history here, and the DNC foisting him upon us is the establishment handing the presidency to Trump.
Keep in mind that most of the people in this instance of Lemmy that are going to reply to you are actively hoping for Biden (and for that matter, America) to lose.
While it’s absolutely your right to research and find a candidate that aligns with your beliefs, I hope you take most of the replies here with a grain of salt.
Oh absolutely. I always pay attention to who I’m voting for and what I’m voting for.