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Biden didn't weaponize the DoJ. At no point did he use it to attack opponents who hadn't committed crimes as decided by grand juries.

That was my point. The only thing Biden can do is fire the attorney general and threaten to replace them with an attorney general that will do his bidding. That is the only way Biden could control or be “in charge” of the DOJ.

During Trump's trials he was, at least publicly, hands off and let the AG do his thing.

Trump wasn’t “hands off” in any way: Six Takeaways From Trump’s Threats Against Rod Rosenstein

If Biden were to use his position as president to control the DOJ by threatening the attorney general, he would be normalizing Trumps actions of weaponizing the DOJ.

Don't confuse Biden giving his son a pardon after conviction with Nixon firing multiple AGs until he got to one that was fine with him being a literal criminal and Trump trying to find one (and succeeding) that wouldn't release a report on how Trump is corrupt.

Not sure why you’re saying this. The person I responded to before you responded to me claimed Biden is in charge of the DOJ. I pointed out that he wasn’t because as we’ve both pointed out, the only way Biden can have any control over the DOJ is by replacing the Attorney General with someone that will do what he says. The same way Nixon and Trump did.

Why? Is your belief that progressives don't show up based on anything but establishment talking points? But sure, I'll do some work for you. See this Pew study.

Nope, it’s based on the progressive talking point that democrats lost because Harris wasn’t far enough left. You’re not doing work for me. I didn’t make the claim. If you can’t be bothered to back up your own claims then they aren’t worth anything.

Progressives, this, and this.

Maybe I’m missing something but I don’t see any source for that map. How did they get the numbers? What are the numbers? It just looks like someone colored a bunch of land and put some names on it. Not to mention it’s a Reddit post.

You’re confident that you know how to reach people that won’t vote democrat because of a town hall of Bernie? I must be missing something.

Um, get votes? I thought that was pretty obvious.

I’m not going to debate based on assumptions. Use your words.

Or, maybe the political universe can't be captured in a single dimension.

Voters chose the candidate furthest to the right, it doesn’t get any more conclusive than that when it comes to whether voters want a candidate that’s further left.

Do you know where left and right come from?

The origins of left and right dont change anything. Just to be clear, I’d vote for a more progressive candidate. But they wouldn’t win in my red state. Moderates have won before though because they get a mix of voters that is larger than just right or left. And if our democracy is on the line then it isn’t time to let perfection be the enemy of progress.

If progressives keep sowing apathy for the Democratic Party then less people will vote democrat and the GOP will keep growing in power. That is, if we get to vote again, considering Trumps rhetoric.

Supporting Democrats and supporting the Democratic Establishment are two different things. I don't give a shit about red vs blue, but I know that one party is more assailable than the other, so that's where I look to make change for a better world.

Same here. But I don’t sow apathy for the better option because that gives voters a reason to not vote for that option and it doesn’t take a lot of voters staying home to lose an election.

It didn’t work because republicans convinced voters to “stop socialism” by voting for Trump. Because Joe Biden’s “radical leftist” policies were responsible for inflation.

If voters wanted someone more progressive then they would’ve chosen the most progressive candidate. But they didn’t.

They worked with never Trumpers to get more republicans to vote democrats instead. To pretend you don’t understand that is a bad faith argument.

So you’re saying the republicans won because their platform isn’t shitty?

The more left a voter gets, the more engaged they are, and the more likely they are to show up and vote for Democrats. That has been shown in multiple studies and is well understood even by establishment bobbleheads.

Care to share those studies?

It's the vast sea of disengaged and ideologically confused working class Americans that sometimes show up and sometimes don't.

What’s your source for this claim?

We know how to reach these people, and the Democratic establishment just isn't that interested.

Who’s “we” and what makes you so confident that you know how to reach “these people”?

Their process is to message to these folks just enough to get 51% in swing states.

What’s your source for this claim?

In order to do better, Democrats have to be willing to anger their patrons.

Better in what way?

The unreliable voters turned out, but they turned out for Republicans.

Which indicates that these voters wanted someone furthest right. Meanwhile progressives claim the opposite is true: that democrats need to go further left.

That's obviously an insane disaster, and it's pathetic that anyone is still defending the Democratic establishment.

To not support democrats is to support republicans.

Not just Nixon, if I remember right Trump tried to do something similar to stop the Mueller investigation. So why would Biden want to normalize weaponizing the DOJ like that?

The only people who consider Biden “in charge” of the DOJ are people that want to normalize Nixon’s and Trump’s behavior.

The Democratic Party has been moving further left ever since Bernie started working with them. Even with that small movement to the left voters turned out for republicans to “stop socialism”. And many progressives didn’t show up to vote because Harris wasnt far enough left.

The majority of people fear change. If the progressives aren’t willing to vote for the lesser of two evils then the larger of two evils will keep winning.

Apathy caused democrats to lose voters in the 2024 election. Sowing more apathy won’t improve voter turnout.

Agreed. They are cutting off their nose to spite their face.

We are already fucked. Fascism already won. We had to chose between democrats and fascism and people like yourself shit on democrats enough to convince enough voters to either stay home or vote Trump or 3rd party. Letting perfection be the enemy of progress. There’s no going back now.