Some people will be miserable no matter who is running

  • Catoblepas@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    3 months ago

    We’re electing a president, not a monarch. Nobody is above criticism, and there’s a weird segment of people who act like criticism from the left exists only to help the right.

    Like, I actually saw someone say we shouldn’t do it because it’s too nuanced for the average voter, and sorry but I don’t do paternalism like that. If reading criticism of how a candidate isn’t far enough left makes you vote further right, that’s a basic political literacy problem.

    • Zachariah@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      I mean, we could focus on defeating the GOP and the day after the election results come in start using social pressure to guide our elected officials. If the criticism risks the GOP seizing even more power, it might be counterproductive to your goals even if the criticism is valid.

      • Catoblepas@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        3 months ago

        Any good faith criticism of the Dem candidate should be obvious in its criticisms that R policies are inherently worse. For example, Harris’ record as DA is worth criticizing, but any bad decisions related to imprisoning people are going to be a million times worse under Trump, as Project 2025 shows.

        • ᗪᗩᗰᑎ@lemmy.ml
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          3 months ago

          Any good faith criticism of the Dem candidate should be obvious in its criticisms that R policies are inherently worse.

          Your argument would be great if we didn’t live in the reality presented below. There are too many people sitting on the fence who legitimately cannot discern between a mediocre candidate and a career conman, criminal rapist. Where you see nuance, others see “she’s no better than Trump”.

          Source: https://web.archive.org/web/20240721200927/https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/us/elections/polls-president.html

          I like Harris as much as I like Biden, which is not at all, but the alternative is the very real possibility of the end of America.

          • Catoblepas@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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            3 months ago

            For my money those charts will look very different after the next debate.

            There’s also not a combination of words that’s going to convince me leftists criticizing Dems are going to kill America. Even if Trump gets elected, you are missing every potential lesson if what you take away is “leftists too mean.”

        • Rentlar@lemmy.ca
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          3 months ago

          Exactly this. On this platform and elsewhere, there is a lot of well-meaning criticism but there are many agents of chaos or narrative pushers that disguise themselves as genuine criticism. I try to interact genuinely and give an opportunity to demonstrate that they are looking for a constructive path forward for the party.

      • Queue@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        3 months ago

        Well, last time we pushed Biden left it was called too soon after election, give them time to form a plan. Form a cabinet, figure out policies.

        Then it was midterms. Questioning the policies for misterm gives Republicans a win. They have to keep these conservative polices set by the last Republican to win over Republican voters.

        Then it’s 2024. Questioning policies is a win for Republicans. They need to win this election, and then we can push them left.

        I’m hoping it ends with a younger nominee.

        • Keanu@lemmynsfw.com
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          3 months ago

          Biden enacted the most left-wing policies of any president in US history. If that’s not enough for you, you won’t be satisfied with anyone who will get elected in the US.

          Vote anyway.

      • Katana314@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        It’s a lot easier to criticize the Democratic Party if the GOP is first discarded as useless trash and gets no votes in an election. Then we can decide who among our progressive candidates actually has the best approach forward.

        Yet I keep seeing this thought assumed, that a 100% blue vote would “give them too much unchecked power”. This is the difference: We have a party while the GOP has a person. A bullet 2 inches to the right would have destroyed their whole movement.

    • Socsa@sh.itjust.works
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      3 months ago

      Because when all those people do is criticize Democrats, sabotage outreach efforts, and don’t put any time or effort into defeating fascists, then it is very obvious where they stand.

      Like I get it - huffing farts from time to time is great. But you gotta take a break and mix some productive advocacy and outreach if you actually care about Democracy instead of just smelling farts.

      • iknowitwheniseeit@lemmynsfw.com
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        3 months ago

        Just to point out… many people don’t care about the Democrats, except as a bulwark against the even more right-leaning Republicans. It’s not an institution that they respect and admire, but one they grudgingly tolerate.

        I only joined the party so I could vote for Bernie in the 2016 primaries! 😉

        • Croquette@sh.itjust.works
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          3 months ago

          If people want a shift to the left, they have to make sure that the Democrats crush the Repulicans for a few election cycles so that the Overton window can stop moving right and go left instead.

          Unfortunately, the Repulicans are voting in a united front every election, no matter what.

          The Democrats are notably terrible voters. They don’t show up like the Republicans do.

    • brucethemoose@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      Maybe I’m super cynical, but does that really matter on Lemmy and the platforms connected to it?

      Like, who’s reading this comment section that’s actually on the fence about going out and voting for a Harris ticket? It has to be a miniscule fraction.

  • Cagi@lemmy.ca
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    3 months ago

    Some people think criticizing is the same thing as not supporting.

    If you want things to get better, you have to honestly and critically examine your leaders, not blindly support them and pretend they are flawless. Shutting down criticism is short-sighted nonsense and will only lead to worse candidates in the future.

    • prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      3 months ago

      Right. The problem with the current political atmosphere in America is that only one of the two parties is actually self-critical. The other is a cult of personality that can do no wrong. They set the reality from the top, and everyone below falls in line.

      Only one side of the political aisle in the US will ever actually admit they were wrong about something instead of doubling down on it. Only one side will, at this point, admit defeat even.

      In a Real Politik sense, this is a weakness.

      • Katana314@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        Even Fox was calling out the tone after Trump was shot. They acknowledged Trump himself has used language akin to encouraging violence on many occasions, while the worst the left has done is label him a fascist - a mostly accurate term. Yet, people had been praising those violent remarks while calling out democrats, even after discovering the shooter was a devout Republican.

        There is no introspection among them.

        • Schadrach@lemmy.sdf.org
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          3 months ago

          even after discovering the shooter was a devout Republican.

          Was he? He’d voted in what, one election as a registered Republican and made one tiny donation to ActBlue. I doubt he was a terribly devout anything politically. I suspect once more about him becomes public it’s going to be about fame seeking.rather than a political message. After all his name is going to be in the history books, and would have been there more prominently if he’d landed the shot.

          • Katana314@lemmy.world
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            3 months ago

            They interviewed his colleagues at school and they were adamant that he was very much on the conservative side.

            • Schadrach@lemmy.sdf.org
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              3 months ago

              Then why target Trump? Surely he wrote some kind of something about his goal there? I doubt he thought killing Trump would trigger the meteoric rise of a “true” conservative leader who would mobilize the right under Trump’s martyrdom and that no one would notice his political affiliation in the process.

              • Katana314@lemmy.world
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                3 months ago

                You can ask him, if you’d like…

                The working theory is that he was part of Project 2025, and felt betrayed (as all of Trump’s former supporters have been) when he disavowed himself of involvement in it (as he pretty much had to since it was terrorism).

                It’s a stupid pattern. Trump claims he supports X with no plan to support X, then when talking to X’s opponents, says he opposes X; then does nothing either way unless it benefits him. Millions of people are only slowly figuring this out.

                • Schadrach@lemmy.sdf.org
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                  3 months ago

                  You can ask him, if you’d like…

                  Let me just pull out my Ouija board, though I’ve never been the best with it…

                  The working theory is that he was part of Project 2025, and felt betrayed (as all of Trump’s former supporters have been) when he disavowed himself of involvement in it (as he pretty much had to since it was terrorism).

                  A 20 year old community college student was “part of” Project 2025? In what context do you mean here?

                  Like I said, I suspect the 20 year old community college student that had voted as a Republican in exactly one election and made exactly one small donation to a Democrat PAC was probably not stewed into a murderous rage against the presidential candidate that is the de facto cult leader of the party he was registered as for political reasons.

                  Supposedly his final social media post was a message on Steam reading: “July 13th will be my debut, watch how it goes” That feels much more like chasing notoriety than a political manifesto.

              • prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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                3 months ago

                Go ask a psychologist, there are a billion fucking reasons for a human to snap and do irrational shit.

                People don’t even need to snap to be consistently irrational.

    • Qwazpoi@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      Exactly. Those in the highest positions of power should damn well have criticism. The argument otherwise seems to imply that accountability and transparency have no place in American politics

      • Aceticon@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        It’s funny how the tribalism of those demanding unwavering support of The Chief is very much a walk back from the spirit of Democracy (“they represent us”) and into Monarchy (“we owe fealty to them”).

        The less Democratic a country is - and hence the less representative its leaders are - the worse this shit is.

    • jj4211@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      The reality of the situation is the time for that is November 6th and later (or during the primaries or the last 4 years).

      For the months between the primary concluding and the general election concluding, if you support the candidate, then criticism is a distraction that undermines the goal of getting them elected.

      So you are free to criticize of course, but it’s a practical concern to be aware of that you are convincing others to not vote at all or vote against the candidate.

  • Blackmist@feddit.uk
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    3 months ago

    Probably, but misogyny and racism is easier to call out than defending an old man who shouldn’t be behind the wheel of a car, let alone a country.

    And Trump is still too damn old, even ignoring the fact that he’s a repugnant human being to boot.

    • zik@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      Trump’s very obviously much less mentally competent than Biden. Biden rambled a couple of times. Trump rarely forms a coherent sentence at all.

      • jj4211@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        I’ll say that Biden sounds less competent at a glance. Like if you watch and go through his mental process, you understand how the mistake he made happened but you know the substance of what he was trying to say.

        Usually Trump says stuff that, on the surface, sounds like maybe something but if you try to think about it it makes no sense.

  • Socsa@sh.itjust.works
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    3 months ago

    I’m sure the Russians already have their list of alliterative agitprop ready to test on .ml before pushing the best ones to prod on Reddit and Facebook.

  • blazera@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    I was a major biden naysayer. Id always love more but this was a huge ask that was answered. Lets kick republican ass

  • Aceticon@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    The positive take would be to start with the “Trump is too old for 4 more years as a President” memes.

    Instead we have these “those who don’t instantly bend the knee are against us” memes that, frankly, have quite the wiff of the typical Far-Right/Foreign Propaganda Op purposefully sowing division on the Left.

    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      🤖 posting the “Anti-Harris Memes are an Op by the Far Right” 🤝 🤖 posting “Anyone complaining about Anti-Harris memes is an Op by the Far Right”

      • Aceticon@lemmy.world
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        Good point: good old Stupidity is also a valid explanation for having a knee-jerk reaction of starting fights with those whose help you need.

    • bostonbananarama@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      It’s not a narrative as much as it is a fact. Her approval numbers are pretty terrible. Not insurmountable, but not great.

        • lennybird@lemmy.world
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          Harris is my least favorite alternative and most risky but I’ll happily campaign for her if that’s who they decide.

          Trump sure is old.

      • enbyecho@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        Her approval numbers are pretty terrible.

        Well, she is an uppity woman, after all.

        /s

        • bostonbananarama@lemmy.world
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          I know you’re being sarcastic, but I worry that people take that attitude. Some not voting for her because she’s a woman, and then her supporters taking the Hillary Clinton angle that any criticism must be misogyny. All that did was ignore legitimate criticism that pointed out her low approval and failure to speak to her constituents. In the end, Dem voters didn’t turn out.

          • enbyecho@lemmy.world
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            3 months ago

            There is legitimate criticism which is substantive and specific. And then there is the “I don’t know what it is, but there’s something about her I just don’t like” which invariably and (to me at least) is quite obviously a gut reaction against strong-minded, intelligent and bold women.

            Hillary Clinton got both. I’ve yet to see any substantive criticism of Harris… it’s all been in the latter vein. Like literally “she’s just not likable”.

            • bostonbananarama@lemmy.world
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              I don’t have a criticism of her, but I do have concerns. My biggest concern are the people who won’t vote for her based on her gender or race. As you said, they’ll shroud it in ambiguous statements about just not liking her, but that’ll be the reason for some people.

              As for me, she’s not as centrist as Biden, which is nice, but not as progressive as I’d like to see. But I’ll vote for whomever the nominee is because they’re not Trump. Knowing I’d have to vote for Biden again was bothering me though, he’s given his life to public service, but his time was done, too many concerns.

              • enbyecho@lemmy.world
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                3 months ago

                My biggest concern are the people who won’t vote for her based on her gender or race.

                Agree with you broadly. Yet… this type of concern is exactly why we end up with candidates like Biden. I say at this point pedal to the metal, let’s go all in and make it stick. For me she’s progressive enough given that no electable candidate will be as progressive as I’d like.

            • Aceticon@lemmy.world
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              The fairest behaviour is one where a person’s gender and race are irrelevant and all that counts are that person’s actions.

              This is equally valid on the positive side and on the negative side: only people who are prejudiced will be celebrating of decrying her gender and/or race.

          • Aceticon@lemmy.world
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            It’s funny that the technique of bating away valid criticism on somebody by claiming said criticism is relly an “-ism” is exactly the technique Zionists are using to bat away criticism of a Genocide so horrible that they have snipers activelly shooting children on the head when they’re playing at home.

            If ethno-Fascists are using to justify child murder the very same argumentative techniques one uses to defend one’s “chief”, one might want to have a real hard think about why one feels the need to use the same discourse technique as child-murdering modern NAZIs rather than using truth and logic to defeat the criticism.

    • Angry_Autist (he/him)@lemmy.world
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      Sure would be nice if people realized they are being manipulated, but being we are a stubborn species, pointing it out just makes idiots dig in harder.

    • VoterFrog@lemmy.world
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      It’ll be interesting to see what minor controversy from her past that voters glom onto and equivocate with Trump’s blatant assault on democracy.

      • HelixDab2@lemm.ee
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        3 months ago

        She argued in court in favor of California’s death penalty, and she threatened to jail parents of truant kids while she was the DA in San Francisco. It’s more complicated than those sound bites–like, it was her job to argue the state’s position–but you’ll get the sound bite opposition.

        I don’t like Harris since I support 2A rights in addition to things like LGBTQ+ rights, and right to choose, but I like her odds of winning more than I liked Biden’s.

        • DarthBueller@lemmy.world
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          Truancy courts are not controversial. Literally holding a parent criminally liable for not sending their child to school. Maybe there’d be less Lord of the Flies gangs of tweenage criminals in every major city if truancy was better enforced.

          • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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            Truancy courts are not controversial.

            Throwing people in prison does not benefit the children of those people.

            And truancy courts don’t typically target far right homeschooler quiverfull families. They’re aimed squarely at Two Income Trap working families and poor single parents, already under the gun thanks to poor bussing policies, no statutory time off from work, and abysmal access to health care.

            Truancy laws are a tool of the School-To-Prison Pipeline. They substitute a criminal mandate for accessible education.

            Maybe there’d be less Lord of the Flies gangs of tweenage criminals in every major city if truancy was better enforced.

            More daycare, free school breakfast/dinner programs, public after school activities, and less child homelessness would go much farther towards reducing delinquent kids than arresting their parents.

            • HelixDab2@lemm.ee
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              truancy courts don’t typically target far right homeschooler quiverfull families.

              …Because they don’t have to. The homeschoolers are home schooling (or, at least claiming to do so), whereas truant kids aren’t being educated at all. If the parents that were going to truancy courts were home schooling kids, they could just say that and be done with it. (I’m no fan of home schooling; I think that it’s almost always a disservice to the kids. But it’s still a legal right.)

              IIRC, Harris had other programs that she was using/working with to reduce truancy rates, and courts were the last-ditch effort for parents that refused to even show up for anything else. If I recall correctly–and please, fact check me here–no parents received any jail time for truancy while she was a DA. It was used as a tool to get parents to take truancy seriously.

              And yes, I agree that school lunches, etc. would all help, But there’s only so many tools that a district attorney has to use. The DA can’t mandate a tax to cover daycare or after school activities; that’s the job of the city council or state legislature.

              • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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                The homeschoolers are home schooling (or, at least claiming to do so)

                Right. Which is to say they pretend to teach and we pretend to believe them.

                But these homeschool kids come out with all the same problems as their school skipping counterparts. They’re misinformed, anti-social, and often xenophobic. They have trouble holding down jobs outside of a family business or parent’s career. They’re prone to crime and drug abuse. They don’t do well in higher education. But they’re spared the indignity of seeing their parents dragged into prison or being sent their themselves, so they’ve got that going for them at least.

                And yes, I agree that school lunches, etc. would all help, But there’s only so many tools that a district attorney has to use.

                Maybe the DA shouldn’t be the one charged with fixing the problem.

                • blackstampede@sh.itjust.works
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                  I was homeschooled from kindergarten through highschool. While I don’t dispute much of what you said here (I was mis- and under- informed, I was anti-social, and I was xenophobic), I think the situation is more nuanced than you make it out to be.

                  First, I don’t think it’s the role of the school to make sure that students are not xenophobic or anti-social.

                  Second, it took me one remedial class in college (trigonometry) to get caught up.

                  By the time I reached the university level, I was extremely good at learning things on my own, and the raw information was available online. The ability to learn on my own without anyone holding my hand has proven to be very useful, and it’s a skill that is lacking in a lot of public school graduates.

                • HelixDab2@lemm.ee
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                  Right. Which is to say they pretend to teach and we pretend to believe them.

                  Yes. But that’s the way the system works. We’ve decided, as a society, that parents have the right to manage their child’s education, as long as they at least claim to be educating them. Parents of truant children aren’t making that claim at all. They’re more than welcome to do that, if that’s what they want, but they’re usually not interested in attempting home schooling either.

                  And yes, I agree that home schooling is, in almost all cases, a problem. I know some parents choose it because the schools refuse to follow IEPs for children with documented disabilities, and they simply don’t have the resources to sue the schools to force compliance. But that’s not most families that home school.

                  Maybe the DA shouldn’t be the one charged with fixing the problem.

                  The DA is charged with fixing only one part of the problem, rather than the entire problem. In an ideal world, all of the systems would be working together perfectly, but since we have some people that are determined to break the system, and since they keep throwing sabots in the machinery, that’s not happening.

          • HelixDab2@lemm.ee
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            They shouldn’t be. But I recall the way that they were framed at the time made them sound really bad. When you looked into it, and realized that no one had even gotten past the threatened with arrest part, it started to make a lot more sense.

        • Thrashy@lemmy.world
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          This was something I struggled with during the early years of the Obama presidency. At least initially, while the avenues of attack that right wing demagogues deployed against him were unique in their racist overtones, the volume and intensity wasn’t all that much different from what was directed against Clinton or Gore.

          Then, as the years went on, they went progressively more insane and vitriolic. It turns out, I think, that it’s a lot easier to get a casual racist on your side if you can use the upending of the racial status quo to activate them.

          • Aceticon@lemmy.world
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            I’m undecided on that because that increasing racism by Republicans towards Obama coincided with the period when both Democracts and Republicans moved more and more of their political propaganda into the domain of Identitarian Wars: whilst before there was still a lot of talk about Economics, later the loud shouting was all about people’s race, country of birth, religion, gender and sexual orientation.

            It’s unclear if the increase of the racism from the Republicans towards Obama was directly due to Obama’s being a black POTUS or if it was a reflection of a wider trend: it’s just as logical an explanation that with the 2008 Crash and both parties being unified in shoving money to Financial Institutions and saving large Asset Owners at a significant cost (i.e. Austerity) for the rest of Society, they had to switch their discourse from Economics (were their actions in the post-2008 Crash had made painfully clear there was no significant difference between both) and into the Moral space, which from the side of the Republicans means amongst other things turning up the racist speech, with Obama being the most visible minority-member recipient of it.

        • VoterFrog@lemmy.world
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          There’s a double standard for Democrats, even if you’re an old white man. There’s also a double standard for women. And there’s a double standard for minorities. And it’s not just Republicans who hold them but voters all around. Harris is about to be on the receiving end of all of it.

    • Letstakealook@lemm.ee
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      This idea that any criticism of her is invalid and just misogyny/racism is bullshit. She is a very flawed candidate, ESPECIALLY for people of color.

        • Letstakealook@lemm.ee
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          Her activity as a prosecutor. A particular standout for me was prosecuting lower income parents of color for school absenteeism. While I firmly believe children should be educated, I don’t think throwing overworked low income parents in jail is going to help keep those children in school, well supervised, and ultimately safe.

    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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      She could have dodged all this criticism by running as a Republican (and then getting ignored by all the old white guys at the RNC).

  • kromem@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    I don’t know.

    I really dislike Harris. She’s probably the bottom of my pick list for the nominee and a Dem President.

    But it’s not like a gaping sore of a liability the way Biden was.

    I’m excited the conversation can finally shift to “Trump fell asleep during his own convention? Doesn’t he seem tired in his speech?”

    I think it being a woman nominee is an interesting newsworthy discussion point at a time when the other party is actively working to harm women - even if she’s the last of the many other qualified women I’d rather see in the position.

    I don’t like her, I don’t like listening to her nonsensical off the cuff statements, I thought she did very poorly in the 2020 campaign, I am anxious about a law enforcement politician as President in a system with too much Presidential power over the Justice department.

    But in spite of all that, I just don’t care enough to push back strongly on her.

    She’s boring in the neoliberal way we’ve gotten used to, but she’s not addled and she’s not a neo-Nazi, and with an interesting VP pick she’s a ticket I could potentially even be excited about four months from now instead of watching her be put into a nursing home as the October surprise.

    I’d love to see an actual competitive open convention, but barring that I’m just going to accept a turd sandwich that’s palatable, as even that seemed like a stretch a week ago, and I’ll take what I can get.

    • abracaDavid@lemmy.today
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      3 months ago

      I don’t like Harris at all. She’s just more status quo. We need big changes. Climate crisis is looming.

      The more salient point though, is that I don’t think she is the candidate to beat Trump. She just isn’t very likable. She’s not inspiring anyone.

      We need someone with some juice to beat Trump. We need a candidate that gets people excited.

      • kromem@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        She doesn’t need to be inspiring. She just needs to not be half dead.

        I think people are underestimating just how weak of a candidate Trump has become.

        It just wasn’t really able to be capitalized on because we were doing a whole “the emperor has clothes” thing on the left so the left media couldn’t point out Trump running around naked.

        He’s old and tired. And there’s now 4 months to show him as not only a fascist, but a half dead one that’s meandering and weak.

        He was only able to cosplay as a strongman when his opponent was literally presenting with Parkinson’s. Against a younger person the narrative immediately becomes “old man yells at clouds” and his BS can be rebranded as ‘confused.’

      • Wrench@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        I agree. But there’s not enough time to get momentum on any of the other front runners. She has the biggest name without a lot of negativity from Right propaganda (Newsom).

        She’s our candidate. Any kind of run off is going to waste time and probably fragment the party. I’ll vote for Harris. Not as happily as I would even the old and faltering Biden that dropped out. But I’ll fall in line and vote for her, and promote her to others.

        Because it’s our best chance.

      • BallsandBayonets@lemmings.world
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        3 months ago

        I’m firmly of the opinion that no positive change will happen in time unless it’s at the point of a sword.

        And I’m still backing Harris. The Democratics would never permit a progressive to run, but at least this way we have a chance at 8 years before fascism wins. With Biden, we would have been lucky to get 4.

        And who knows, maybe she’ll pick a progressive VP to maintain the appearance of being for the working class!

    • AnarchoSnowPlow@midwest.social
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      3 months ago

      If you’d like something to be excited about consider how much psychological damage losing an election to a woman of color will do to not just trump, but Bannon and miller.

      I’d love for them to feel their ideology so rejected that they give up and finish drinking themselves to death.

      • Schadrach@lemmy.sdf.org
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        3 months ago

        If you’d like something to be excited about consider how much psychological damage losing an election to a woman of color will do to not just trump, but Bannon and miller.

        Hell, there’s a part of my cold, cold heart that will be warmed to know that Hillary Clinton might live to see a woman become POTUS, and that woman will not be a Clinton.

    • hatedbad@lemmy.sdf.org
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      3 months ago

      from your own link, that’s only because she’s the least bipartisan dem in the senate.

      govtrack’s “left-right ideology” ranking is flawed, it doesn’t look at the content of the bills at all. in govtrack’s own words the ideology ranking “may be measuring something else, perhaps something more closely related to partisan-ness”.

  • Prunebutt@slrpnk.net
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    3 months ago

    Almost as if the US democrats where assholes through and through (still better that the Republicans, before you accuse me of supporting Trump).

    • Habahnow@sh.itjust.works
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      3 months ago

      Lol nah, just Russian bots acting like Americans. “Biden is too old, we need anybody else in order to beat Trump!”, “Kamala is too black/isn’t manly enough/isn’t black enough/is too womanly to beat Trump!”

      Or maybe they’ll push the angle that “<candidate> was pushed down our throats by the political elite so vote third party/Trump to teach them a lesson!”

        • Socsa@sh.itjust.works
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          3 months ago

          Sure, some of them are just galaxy brain cynics whose only political participation is actively sabotaging democratic outreach efforts because they like the way their farts smell.

          There is a difference between being critical when it is warranted, and doing literally nothing besides that.

          • Prunebutt@slrpnk.net
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            3 months ago

            What’s better? Smelling you own farts, or drinking the Kool-aid that the US has a functioning democracy?

            Any propaganda in favor of the DMC which tries to sell them as anything but the lesser evil is just insulting your intelligence.

            • Angry_Autist (he/him)@lemmy.world
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              3 months ago

              If the only alternative is a fascist president and the election is a popularity contest, then we need to win the popularity contest and we can squabble afterward. THis is something repugnicans do so much better than us, rally behind, and we really need to do that right now. En masse

        • x4740N@lemm.ee
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          3 months ago

          We can’t verify anyone’s identity online to see if they are russian trolls due to the anonymising nature of the Internet so we instead have a look at their content and user history and make a decision based on that

          Usually trolls act like trolls

          • Socsa@sh.itjust.works
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            3 months ago

            Right, and the important distinction is that’s all they do. They go into political communities and agitate. They don’t talk about dogs or games or ways they are opposing Trump. Pretty much all they do is attack Democrats.

  • Cowbee [he/him]@lemmy.ml
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    3 months ago

    I mean, there are valid reasons to be anti-Harris, she’s still a right-winger. Leftists aren’t going to be happy voting for any right-winger by default.

    Harris could take a firm anti-genocide stance, or promise something big and popular like Medicare for All, which would see increased voter turnout from the Left. However, given her track record, I doubt she would pivot in this direction, instead focusing on being a younger and healthier Joe Biden, essentially. That should make liberals more likely to turn out, so still a net-gain for the Dems.

    It’s really too early to tell.

      • Cowbee [he/him]@lemmy.ml
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        3 months ago

        Yes, then dropped out before the Primaries. This was during a time when there were other candidates like Bernie and Warren pushing hard for it. We will see if she takes this back up, or tries to maintain a “younger Biden” approach.

    • Kit@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      3 months ago

      Harris called for a ceasefire in Gaza in March. She co-sponsored Bernie’s Medicare for All bill. She spent most of her VP term focusing on abortion rights. She pushed for Marijuana rescheduling, which is still ongoing. She checks all the boxes for me.

      • Cowbee [he/him]@lemmy.ml
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        3 months ago

        We will have to see where she moves her campaign. America in 2024 is not America in 2020, where progressive policies were salient. Now, the bar has been lowered to “no genocide,” yet genocide is still a popular DNC position, despite the wishes of the electorate.

        Kamala may try to run her campaign on big hope and promises, ie progressive policies and toning down the warhawkish Biden foreign policy, but given the right-wing trajectory of the DNC she may try to focus on garnering establishment support now that she has essentially been handed the nomination.

        Only time will tell.

  • null@slrpnk.net
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    3 months ago

    Now that “Genocide Joe” is out, the Lemmy-Leftists LARPing as communists have gone mask-off and are just proudly pushing accelerationism.

    It was always a front.

  • Veneroso@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    What will the tankies use to justify not voting now?

    Probably her prosecution of Marijuana possession.

        • WanderingVentra@lemm.ee
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          3 months ago

          I doubt Biden wasn’t going to stop Israel from annexing Palestine, either. Remember his “red line” they blew past? They’re basically equal on genocide, except for some words by Biden. With Kamala, I’m not sure yet, so she’s got that going for her.

          • Veneroso@lemmy.world
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            3 months ago

            She came out early in favor of a ceasefire. As VP, she is complicit, but she’s ultimately powerless to change it. As a result I don’t hold her responsible. I doubt that there will be much publically said, as Biden will be president until January 20th at Noon, but given her being a former prosecutor, she clearly respects the law. And I am going to assume international law, she’s a strong woman, and I feel that she’s not going to cowtow to Israel, in my opinion.

            Trump’s son in law, Jared Kushner has openly called for the opening of the Palestinian beaches and then a construction of a Trump Tower. You can call that equal if you want. Biden has been at least slowing offensive aid packages, Netanyahu is very upset and has been openly condemning it as Biden being pro Hamas. Imagine Biden, famed Zionist, being pro Hamas.

            https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/security-aviation/2024-06-27/ty-article/a-dizzying-pace-then-a-drop-how-u-s-arms-shipments-to-israel-slowed-down/00000190-59b6-dc65-abff-79bff9b10000

          • Veneroso@lemmy.world
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            3 months ago

            Additionally, we know Trump’s position of the illegal settlements during Trump’s last administration.

            Look into Pompeo Doctrine. It’s the throwing out of the long-standing position that settlements are inconsistent with international law.

            If you are seriously still considering Biden and Trump equal on this after I have given you verification and the actual truth, then you aren’t worthy of further discussion and you aren’t arguing in good faith, either you are a Tankie or a Russian Troll or a bot.

            https://www.axios.com/2024/02/23/israel-settlements-blinken-pompeo-trump-illegal

            ссыкло

            • WanderingVentra@lemm.ee
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              3 months ago

              Biden doesn’t care about the illegal settlements either. He says he does, but he hasn’t done anything to change the fact that they’re increasing, nor the facts on the ground in terms of settler violence. He put out a few sanctions on like 4 guys, ignoring all the others, and sanctioned one military unit, which is still getting money because of the billions of dollars we give the rest of their government. They need to sanction the whole government like they do Russia for Ukraine, or at least high up government officials or business leaders. Otherwise, it’s just for show, like shouting ACAB while arresting one bad cop, and then giving the rest of the corrupt department money, military vehicles, and promotions.

              Rhetorically, they say different things, sure, but in terms of how things affect Palestinians, they’re basically the same. Biden just wrings his hands and shakes his head more before giving Israel the weapons and money, while Trump high fives them. Either way the genocide progresses at the same rate. They can’t bomb them any faster without ruining the rest of the international cover they have, or ruining the land they want to take with nuclear radiation.