Lurker > legendary_zell

This is the most hopeful news I've heard in a while. Maybe their incompetence will save us after all.

I hate to see all the Boomer takes on this and the lack of nuance.

Yes, social media can be very harmful, especially to kids, teens, and young adults.

Yes, social media is often full of conspiracies, disinfo, and misinfo.

Yes social media has been a bomb dropped on society without testing or awareness of the wide range of effects it would have.

Yes, it can also be an incredibly powerful tool to spread information in a way that bypasses siloes, regulation, and suppression.

Yes, TikTok Zuccs up people's info in a creepy and potentially dystopian way.

Yes, it's functionally owned by an authoritarian foreign government.

Yes, a government could hypothetically have an interest in wanting to regulate social media to reduce its most harmful effects.

Yes, the government is shamelessly ignoring the harm that domestic social media does and the spying they do, likely because they benefit from it.

Yes, the government shows little interest in reducing the harm from social media and just wants to hurt a geopolitical enemy and take the data for themselves.

Yes, this could have serious free speech implications and is partially a culture war issue to prevent young people from becoming less bigoted.

Yes, this is something that would only happen to something young people use and never to something older people use.

No, all social media is not going to be banned.

I hope he doesn't try to directly defuse the age thing himself by joking about it, I don't think that'll work. I think it'd be better to focus on the other stuff he focused on. Hopefully, I'm wrong.

But it should be fairly clear that him directly addressing it from the beginning shows that it's not a manufactured issue and shouldn't be dismissed as one. If the Dems lost an election because they decided concerns about the guy that will START his second term at 82 were fake/ginned up/a conspiracy, I'll never ever forgive or trust them again.

Basically, I think the best strategy is promising the sun, moon, and stars when it comes to popular, short and medium term wins that are even slightly realistic, and minimizing focus on the open wounds (age, Gaza, border).

asdf8562 posted...

No one here questioned why the website exists. You aren't explaining something nobody didn't know. Biased websites giving biased rating systems exist to no one's surprise.

It's existence doesn't change not everyone agrees with its rating system, including the people who want a ceasefire.

You just don't like people rejecting the website as you literally questioned how could anyone possibly have an issue with the website

You're either being intentionally disingenuous or you can't read if that's how you're interpreting my very clear posts in this topic. Either way, you're not worth responding to on this.

Anyway, all political organizations are biased by definition, accusations of bias alone are pointless then. As always, it comes down to the substance of what the organization is about and whether that makes sense or not. Let's all talk about what the proper response to the crisis in Gaza is for lawmakers rather than the vague concept of bias.

asdf8562 posted...

At this point you are playing dumb.

This isn't about being unaware of the concept you speak of. The concept is irrelevant to not everyone agrees on said concept. For reasons others in this topic have already explained.

So going around proudly displaying some website that you think has a solid rating system that others should admire and respect is only valuable to those who value andor approve said rating system. That includes as you pointed out, a website geared towards specific activists who you believe should all agree with the website..., but in actuality not even all activists for a specific cause are a monolith. Especially on something as complex as the issue between Israel and Palestine.

So when you come here questioning why everyone here isn't gushing support over that websites rating system, that is exactly what I'm talking about with your post translating to, "I value this websites rating system, you should too."

You place this website on a pedestal because for one reason or another you approve of it, and question why does anyone reject the website you approve of.

I never at any point gushed about, praised, or even displayed the website. You're going off on some alternate reality version of my posts in this topic. It's really weird.

I simply explained why it exists, what it's for, and why it focuses on Democrats. Everything else is something you made up so you could have something to say. It's impossible to have a conversation when you substitute what I actually say with some fanciful version. You think you understand my position and that it's unreasonable so you just imagine I said something unreasonable so you can avoid engaging on the substance.

asdf8562 posted...

I did. You are literally dissatisfied people aren't agreeing with a site you apparently approve of.

I never said I approved of this site. I've never even heard of it, and have based zero of my opinions on its ratings. I'm simply explaining a concept people were willfully misunderstanding. I don't even necessarily want people to agree, I just want them to stop playing dumb.

Ninjaluver posted...

Oh, I'm familiar. Being familiar with the concept does not mean taking it seriously.

And yes, I would categorically reject ratings from NARAL, EFF, and Planned Parenthood for the same reason.

Taking ratings from a biased organization is worthless.

That's fine, but your position is less common than you'd think. Many people take ratings from orgs like these as a valuable service or something to be wary of. People win and lose elections based on ratings like this. They're not targeted towards bastions of objectivity like yourself, they're targeted at activists, particularly motivated voters, and the lawmakers who are rated. They're far from worthless for those purposes.

asdf8562 posted...

"I approve of this websites rating system, you should too!"

This has nothing to do with anything I said. I'm sure you prefer I said something this basic so that you could respond with this quip, but I didn't. Respond to what I actually say or don't respond at all.

Are the people who have an issue with this site unfamiliar with the concept of political rating organizations? They're all biased by definition, because bias often comes with interest and expertise or a stake in a specific issue. I doubt you'd categorically reject a NARAL or EFF or Planned Parenthood or Center for American Progress rating.

All Republicans obviously get an F and can't be pressured. Democrats can get anything from an F to an A, which makes rating them worthwhile, and they can improve or get worse.

This stuff is obvious, you are choosing to pretend not to understand it to deflect from criticism concerning the Israel Palestine conflict.

So discriminatory, ineffective populism is good because leftists don't like it?

Doom_Art posted...

Whether it makes them morally or intellectually superior isn't relevant.

It makes them winners. It gets them power to implement their policies.

Learn a thing or two

You do understand that it's far easier to win while advocating for the status quo than it is to win while advocating for something new right? You get more resources, more backing, fewer attacks, etc, the playing field isn't level at all. Status quo ideas don't necessarily win because they're better, they win because they're the status quo. You can't learn to simply be the status quo when you're not the status quo. The things they can learn are from the people who managed to overcome the status quo.

All I want is a media cycle of him doing great. As much as I've criticized him over the last few days he MUST win.

LightningThief posted...

You are only piling onto my point here.....

Never the cluster circus of everyone not even agrees on the meaning of the slogan. We dont even need to debate what the slogan was really supposed to mean depending on who you asked. The fact that its a fucking circus to those that genuinely support fixing the police what that slogan means is exactly why its a horrible slogan. You can twist into a pretzel as much as you want to defend it. Not everyone was on the same page about your beloved slogan who genuinely supported fixing the police. Being deep with it is not helping. Having to debate or explain your deeper meaning of a slogan is counterintuitive to actually addressing the real issue which is your supposed deep meaning.

Lastly, I didn't say people didn't twist BLM. Read the post. I said twisting it made way less sense compared to Defund and abolish the police. Defund and abolish have actual definitions. They don't mean the deep meanings you want the slogan to mean. Especially during a time when crime was a hot topic. "Defund/abolish the police" while a flash theft was perceived to be a hot issue is just dumb.

We see this in such fundamentally different ways, I don't think it's worth it to continue talking about this in a topic on a different subject. I'd just urge you to read something written by someone who advocates defunding or abolition at some point in the future. It could be helpful, even if all you want to do is combat their ideas.

Back on topic, she did nothing wrong, very few people care about this, and she'll continue to be popular unless there's a campaign waged against her to brand her as not a true Democrat. That'd be a tragedy because I feel like she's the best compromise between the left and moderates that I know of in the party.

LightningThief posted...

I'd give your entire post a serious, but I know you and your history.

So my post is now to anyone who compares the "Defund the police" slogan with "BLM." The 2 slogans do not compare. One tries to be deep with the word "defund" with some even going so far to argue "abolish" the police..... to mean some deeper meaning of reforming the police. Instead of just saying that cant be twisted like "Fix the Police" or "Reform the Police." The words "defund" and "abolish" does not mean reform or fix.

That doesn't compare to BLM which is much harder to twist the literal words which is simply, "black lives matter" as police were going around killing black lives. One has to intentionally twist it to mean only black lives matter.

This is completely ahistorical. As I already explained, defund does not mean reform, it's the abandonment of reform. You are trying to equate them because the concept of defunding or abolishing the police does not compute to you. But they meant defund or abolish not "fix" and they said so.

Additionally, people did twist the hell out of both reforming police and the meaning of BLM. The pre-2020 arguments were about reform and the battlelines were already drawn. Police were already refusing to police over calls for reform. Republicans were already saying Dems hate cops and want anarchy over calls for reform.

BLM was hated and equated to a radical or hate group in huge swaths of the country, pre-2020. There were vicious arguments over whether BLM was a black supremacist group/slogan on this very board. People called BLM terrorists after every riot. People created Blue Lives Matter and All Lives Matter in response. People suggested that the slogan be changed to Black Lives Matter Too to appease racists who didn't like a focus on black people. Your take is straight up revisionist.

SunburnCostanza posted...

Biden might be right though. The solution to shit cops killing people isn't less money. It's better training, better hiring (requires better pay as well). They should probably be funded more.

See, as always, it's not actually about the wording. You have a different and fundamentally incompatible political position than them. That is and has always been the issue, it's not marketing, phrasing, or any of that. You are simply to the right of them on policing and don't want their desired policy outcomes.

Same with the BLM issue. They just didn't want those specific pro-black and anti-police policies, and didn't consider police to be a fundamentally racist institutions or think issues of policing were connected to economics.

Sandalorn posted...

In every other aspect of life, using variables and situations to help you increase your chances at winning is smart and wise. In Politics - it's rigging.

It's telling that you have to be this vague and abstract about what actually happened here. Funding your opponent to screw over your primary obstacle is well within what most people would call rigging and shady as hell in any context.

Do you seriously think the average person is okay with or likes things like that, or do you think that kind of BS is exactly the problem with politics and is why things suck?

kelemvor posted...

Exactly. This is why we can't help in Haiti as well. If we step foot there we become dirty colonialists that are only trying to improve their living conditions so we can resume raping their economy or something something whatever.

......Maybe that has something to do with that being true damn near everytime before now? That history doesn't just go away, people aren't going to just trust blindly, and open colonialism and cloak and dagger stuff has lasting consequences.

Would you say that the history of the US in the Caribbean or South America or Asia or Africa is one worthy of trust?

SunburnCostanza posted...

Yes. Literally every normal person I know thought Defund the police was stupid. They vote for the left pretty much every election. I know maybe 2 progressives that supported it and even they admitted the framing was pretty bad and could have been better.

I was talking about the issue with Porter, not defunding the police. Maybe that was unclear.

I don't dispute that most people weren't on board with defunding the police because they were essentially hearing the idea for the first time, out of context, heard it refracted through hostile sources, and were unfamiliar with all the ideological underpinnings of the idea. You'd see a similar pattern with any radical idea.

Shadow_Don posted...

As leftists stalk aoc in the streets because they don't like the way in which she's repeatedly called for ceasefires

This is a total non sequiter, it has nothing to do with anything anyone has said in this topic.

They are also not criticizing her for how she's called for a ceasefire, they're criticizing her for how she's shied away from calling a genocide a genocide and other related issues. This is an disingenuous twisting of words to avoid engaging on the actual substance of their complaint and to instead refocus on just how unreasonable they're being when she's doing what they want. She's not or they wouldn't be complaining. They're not saying anything to Tlaib or Bush, maybe reflect on why that is instead of creating alternate accounts of what they did.

uwnim posted...

Israel is doing that yes. However that does not mean that this whatever the US is doing is for the same purpose.

Agreed, and wasn't this a much simpler way to say that, if that's what he meant?

Shadow_Don posted...

Because they learned about settler colonialism and Noam chomsky 5 months ago so now everything is colonialism and occupation.

Is what's happening in Israel NOT settler colonialism and occupation? If you want to make that argument, make it, the condescension is unnecessary and immature.

Shadow_Don posted...

There is literally no cost in her having used better wording.

There was nothing wrong with her wording. Only a small clique of extremely establishment focused liberals have a problem with it. Far more people want to hear this language than are offput by it. It's one of the few things agreed upon almost across all political cleavages.

CE and Twitter just have an oddly high concentration of these types of people. It'd be far more useful for all of you to sell Schiff and Biden to undecideds, independents, young voters, and leftists than the weird sniping and word policing that's only ever targeted towards the left.

aarrgus posted...

It's possibly over the top, but if the point is to not undermine all faith in the institutions of Democracy, then maybe find a better way of saying there are problems than "RIGGED!" which has become a loaded word.

Some things need to be undermined because they aren't working well. The role of money in politics is high on that list and we've known that for decades. There will never be anything wrong with acknowledging that just because bad faith actors misuse the word in a different context.

You seem highly concerned with the cost of using that word in any context. But I strongly believe the cost of not using it when appropriate is even higher because it presents the impression that the Democrats are fine with a money soaker and corrupt system and have no intention of changing anything. That impression is death for a left leaning party trying to win over a rightfully cynical and distrustful population.

Pitbuller_26 posted...

So we're just going to ignore that a lot of voters in California just didn't like or trust her based on her own actions we've seen and heard on Capitol Hill?

This has nothing to do with what I was talking about. I was addressing what Doom Art said.

To address you now, most people are not following things anywhere near that closely, they just go with who the party signals for them to support unless the other person has really fucked up, and Schiff hadn't. He was a hero to Resistance Liberals, not an out of touch and complacent dinosaur. I think that and his being more acceptable to money and having more money accounts for the strength of his victory.

The number of people who had not already decided they wanted to vote for the more moderate candidate and then found reasons to distrust her and who instead were neutral or favorable towards her but were turned off by her actions is likely miniscule.

Your complaint is with late stage capitalism and the gig economy, not with people trying to benefit workers. You should be able to have a stable income and retire, AND people should make a living wage from working for companies that exist to bypass labor laws and unions.

Doom_Art posted...

Don't get mad at moderates for winning, get mad at progressives for being shit campaigners and not knowing how to play the game.

The game is specifically rigged against progressives and leftists and for people who are more likely to play ball with the people doing the rigging though. A post like this aggressively misses the point. The game itself is the problem because of how its structured and what its meant to do.

It's hard to be a great campaigner when you running at all is presented as anywhere from impudent to traitorous and the media and party apparatus immediately lines up behind your safe opponent. This is not to excuse progressives who genuinely do a bad job as often happens, but lets be real about what's happening here.

Let me just ask: do any of you know anyone who is bent out of shape about this who is:

1. In real life
2. Is not already a conservative
3. Is not a twitter clapback progressive hater

SunburnCostanza posted...

Let's look at if "Defund the Police" was a good idea, assuming "good" in this context was getting places to divert funding as suggested.

Was the catchphrase popular with the right wing? No, not at all, it made them hate the left even more. Fair enough I guess, we have different ideas.

Did it catch on with Liberals? Well no not then either. Obama hated it, Biden hated it. They felt it made them look really stupid and they had to clarify what it was "supposed to mean" over and over or they just tossed the idea out as fringe.

So how in any way shape or form was it a good catch phrase? Again, firing up your own little bubble does very little in terms of successful actual progress.

Large portions of the public often hate demands for justice that they're not ready for or that implicate them in potentially doing something wrong. Does that mean that the demand shouldn't have been made? Sometimes you have to put something out there and start the process of people moving to where you are. You can't make genuine progress by only stating things people are already comfortable with. There hasn't been a generation of humans yet that wasn't guilty of perpetuating some terrible system, and anyone who recognized that has always been unpopular. At the time. Until their ideas eventually become accepted.

Biden and Obama are not the arbiter of what ideas are good or acceptable. They are individuals with their own particular ideologies and their own specific visions of the party. Obama in particular described himself as a moderate Republican and they represent that specific view of society.

We know that the ideas that the actual ideas MLK Jr. had for a more just society were broadly unpopular and made elected liberals at the time very uncomfortable to be associated with. Does that mean they were wrong? Your argument seems to indicate that.

SunburnCostanza posted...

No one cares. We live in a society where 95% of society reads headlines, YouTube videos titles, and watches TikTok for info. Stop saying dumb shit like "defund the police" and "this was rigged" and getting mad when people either co opt it to use it "wrongly" or people take it at face value because they don't belong to your club or message board where you're giving out the full details.

The thing is, it's not even 95% of society interpreting it this way. It's only conservatives and whatever you are. People who want to score points against people to the left of them by willfully misunderstanding something they do in fact understand. Those two groups are the only ones who care about this.

Stop treating the other side like everything they say is willful deception. Many of them are misguided and confused and are capable of changing their minds. Acting like they are subhuman and getting mad that they will never understand our confusing catch phrases when 90% of our own side doesn't even like them is a loser strategy.

I don't even think it's necessarily willful deception. It's simply a frame of mind. There's no conflict between it not being willful deception and it not being a reason to warp our own language and thoughts. I don't think of them as subhuman, I think of human beings who temporarily or permanently are caught in a thought pattern that produces outcomes first and then finds any reason to support that outcome. A huge portion of the party enjoys language like what Porter used and its why the vote Dem and not Republican. It's a small portion of Twitter establishment crusaders that take this tack you're taking.

Again you are trying to persuade people here. Not rile up your own tiny radical gang.

I agree with the need to change some aspects of the system. This needs to be done carefully or you'll end up with a bunch of anti establishment losers like MAGA that don't believe anything is ever real out of the government. What Katie Porter did was not careful. It was emotional and reactionary and she knows better, hence the follow up explanation

The MAGA people are produced by the lack of change and the lack of a coherent alternative to a conservative worldview, not by too much change too fast or a lack of "care." Attempting to pin the existence of MAGA on accurate statements that the system is rigged is nonsense. The problem is caused by that state of affairs and the lack of a solution to it, not by acknowledging it.

Defund can have both meanings. Some people meant remove all funding and reallocate, others meant remove "excess" funding and functions and reallocate. You can tell which one people mean by talking to them or listening to what they say.

If you google what defund means, the FIRST example is legislatures defunding college programs. Does that mean completely eliminating funding? It could, but in those instances, it didn't.

Just like "end the war" could mean drop all guns, get on your planes and come home instantly, or it could mean starting the long drawn out legal process of coming up with a treaty. But if you were opposed to ending War X, you could pretend it means one or both, depending on which made your opponents look worse to whoever you were talking to.

This is how words work and some of you are pretending not to understand that because it's convenient for your attack on your political enemies. Some of you are doing the same thing with Porter and it's transparent.

SunburnCostanza posted...

It's not a fake concern. Watch any debate on Trump trying to overthrow the election in the last 4 years and the conservative rebuttal is "what about Hillary when she took more than 0.00001 seconds to concede? What about Stacy Abrams?" This is more ammo to the other side to think they have a right to overthrow democracy. Now they get to say "what about Katie Porter?" She should know better

First, those are different situations because those have to do with conduct related to actual elections, rather than talking about campaign finance and the disproportionate influence of the wealthy.

Second and more importantly, conservatives will always disingenuously say whatever they can to attack liberals and defend their attempts to institute fascism. Stop treating these people as if they're serious and are making serious arguments in response to actual realities. They're just saying the combos of words they think will have the effect they want. They want to overthrow democracy because of their fundamental disposition toward power, not because any politician correctly said our political and economic systems are rigged. If it's not this piece of "ammo" it'll be another, the belief comes first, not the ammo. That's no reason to unilaterally disarm and censor our own language.

Thirdly, no leftist or even liberal political project has any chance for long term success without acknowledging and combatting the sense that all of these systems are rigged. That's absolutely crucial and it's one of the biggest ways Dems kneecap themselves. Almost everyone across the political spectrum feels that way, because it's true. The differences come in the stories each ideology tells for why it is the way it is. It's our job to tell the truth and accurately identify the problems rather than blaming them on immigrants or minorities, or woke colleges, etc or to say it's not happening. If you even attempt that, you cede the field to Republicans to be the only ones talking about the system's flaws (that they themselves create) and the only ones providing (false) solutions.

Defund the police is largely premised on the idea that reform has utterly failed and the institution is fundamentally corrupt and its role in society needs to be wound down literally as much as possible. So fix, reform, etc is the opposite of that and is compatible with ideas like spending more of dwindling budgets on training, body cams, etc.

You simply don't understand the idea while smugly insisting that it's being conveyed badly.

Defund the Police was not a focus grouped "slogan", it was what people actually wanted to happen. It was a political demand. Many of you seem to have forgotten what's it's like to want/need specific things to happen rather than everything being a relativistic marketing game.

Just because you disagree with or can't imagine the world they're demanding doesn't mean the phrase is incoherent.

But all of this has nothing to do with the topic at hand. This is just centrist and more conservative liberals getting mad at a perceived progressive over nothing and taking a chance to tar and feather her out of a fake concern that she's "copying Trump." No evidence is needed of anyone other than the people attacking her misunderstanding what she said, some people will take any chance to scold anyone even one inch to their left.

[LFAQs-redacted-quote]



We can't just abandon language to the far right. That gives them far too much power and stops us from discussing important and real things.

She's right. People are just doing the thing where they attack anyone who acknowledges flaws in our system and doesn't just go through the motions. You don't even have to be a leftist.

divot1338 posted...

So tc thinks that Trumps not even having a platform is going to sway voters because they think Biden doesnmt have an agenda?

k

Unfortunately, right wingers attack people's lizard brains. All they need is to target people's prejudices, give them permission to be horrible bigots, spread and validate conspiracy theories, promise to preserve their social and economic privilege, and 45 percent of the voting population minimum will vote for them.

That is their platform. They don't care about platforms. They didn't have a platform last time and he got 74 million votes.

CheshireSimper posted...

It's not about conformity or silence. It's about having the slightest bit of political acumen. The US is not going to shift its policy on Israel. There is no chance this type of political action results in any meaningful policy change, because domestic policy is so low on the priority lists with this type of international clusterfuck. So really all you are doing is souring a voter base on the only possible adversary to Trump. And this is obvious to pretty much everyone except leftist activists, which is why every bad actor has hopped on the train.

I refuse to concede that the US will always and forever do evil on this issue. To concede that is to concede that we don't have a democracy. We are not the ones souring the voter base, the politicians are souring the voter base. The solution to feeling the government is doing something horribly wrong is not to pipe down so other people don't start to think that as well, it's to speak up and do what you can to influence them. And though it's not enough, there's been some shift as polls have come out showing support for a ceasefire, the administration is finally using that language after declining to do so for months.

Right wingers always disingenuously attack perceived weaknesses. They pretend to be working class heroes now as the Democratic Party has become increasingly business friendly and technocratic, does that mean people shouldn't push the party to become a genuine worker party?

Whether it's conscious or not, you're advocating silence in the face of atrocities, abandoning any hope of democracy, and being governed by the worst impulses of the right.

A primary election is different from a general, especially a primary where the winner was known from the start. I'd love to believe that Trump will greatly underperform his polls in the general as well, but I hoped that last time and he got more votes than in 2016. Why set up narratives that will make liberals let down their guards unnecessarily?

Heineken14 posted...

No, we're just supposed to ignore all of that because republicans are bad already so it totally doesn't matter.

Point me to where I said this in this topic or elsewhere. You won't be able to because I never have. What you're supposed to do is tell people why Biden is good, not just why Trump is bad. And you're supposed to urge Biden to do popular and right things. That's what I want you to do, not ignore Republican fascism. I've said it outright, so I better not see you strawmanning again.

CheshireSimper posted...

It wasn't immediately obvious to me that this topic is actually "i'm taking part in a campaign to reduce enthusiasm for the democratic candidate and i'm feeling troubled to learn this might help trump win".

This type of attitude is one of the things that scares me the most. You're trying to enforce conformity and silence by asserting that the people talking about his flaws in time to potentially address them are themselves causing him to lose. Like we all have a duty to go whistling to our graves. Well that's wrong and antidemocratic.

Furthermore, regardless of issues I have with Biden, I wouldn't be making this topic if he had the same numbers he had in 2020. He doesn't though. I wanted Bernie to win in 2020 and yet I didn't make this type of topic. I wanted Bernie to win in 2016 and yet when Hillary failed to pull away as I fully expected, I ignored my instincts and suffered a terrible shock, as many others did. We don't want to repeat that mistake so we're sounding the alarm early. To accuse me of being part of a "campaign" to cause Biden to lose because of that is disgusting.

I work for the Biden administration as a civil rights attorney. If he loses, I'll be forced to either implement fascism at work or likely be fired and permanently excluded from federal employment. I'm a black leftist immigrant. A Trump win would be catastrophic to everyone I love. I don't think the way to prevent that is to stick my head in the sand and hope for the best. I think it's to push for a fix while it's still possible to do so.

Sonic_Boom posted...

This is the reason people never trust Democrats on the ECONOMY though!!! We aren't allowed to BOAST about our accomplishments because we haven't fixed EVERYTHING, someone somewhere still has it bad, so it's "INSENSATIVE." THEN voters start to believe Republicans are better on economy than DEMOCRATS are EVEN THOUGH THE LAST THREE REPUBLICAN PRESDENTS ALL HAD RECESSIONS, and people VOTE for Republicans, and the people who need our help get even more hurt!!!

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/b/b7454c5a.jpg

THINGS ARE REALLY GOOD UNDER BIDEN, ESPECIALLY FOR THE BOTTOM 25% OF WORKERS! People are making mroe money now than BEFORE the pandemic... the wealth gap is closing... equality is increasing... people are employed... THINGS ARE GOOD, AND IT'S BECAUSE OF DEMOCRATIC POLICIES THAT THEY'RE GOOD, AND WE NEED TO SAY IT!!!! Otherwise we cant convince ppl to vote for us

This is closer to what we need to be doing IMO, but we have to be careful not to invalidate the struggles people are experiencing. We don't want to be saying that things are perfect now and that those who say otherwise are delusional or ignorant. We want to highlight the things he's done right and say there's more of that in the future to get to a better place.

Mecha_Sonic posted...

fair enough. i'll give you the benefit of the doubt, assume your intentions are honest. unlike that other Count guy.

i'm sorry if my last post was overly aggro, please accept my apology.

Thanks for apologizing, I appreciate that. I take back the early part of my most recent post.

Mecha_Sonic posted...

i don't know if you realize this, but the median voter is not pro-palestine. the median voter supports israel and is still in love with israel, even after the last six months of israel shooting white-flag-wavers in the head and blowing the legs off little children.

like you know this is a no-win situation, right. you realize there's a really tricky tightrope to be walked here.

if biden does exactly what YOU want, he's going to piss off millions of moderates, and trump's gonna win, and palestine will be fucked.
if biden is gung-ho in support of israel, he's going to piss off the base, and trump's gonna win, and palestine's STILL going to be fucked.

man, you know, it really sucks, but that IS REALITY.

yeah, but acknowledging hard truths and trade-offs like that is hard though. it's easier to pretend the world is simple, not complex. draw a line in the sand, put yourself on the "good" side, and everyone else on the "genocide" side. that plays well on social media. makes you feel good. gets you clout. that's why people looooove to do it.

Cut the condescension. I'm absolutely tired of it. I've approached this topic with good faith and yet every single post one of you comes in and approaches me like I don't understand basic things. It's not just that I've come to a different conclusion than you, it's that I'm stupid and easy to psychoanalyze.

Of course I understand that many still support Israel to the hilt. I understand that there's risk in any approach on such a charged subject. But we know based on actual polling that most people, almost regardless of social group, Dems, independents, protestants, etc think Israel has gone too far, that most people support a a permanent ceasefire. We know for a fact that his current approach is costing him votes. You can even see it in his admin's current rhetoric as now they're calling for a ceasefire.

It is likely safer to do the popular thing and hope for the best than the clearly unpopular thing and hope it has no effect. That's without even bringing in the moral dimension here. He should do what 60+ percent of Americans want, and what key constituents of his want rather than what makes his base hate him and what fewer people want him to do. And if he's going to potentially lose either way, as you acknowledge, then he might as well do the right thing.

Kradek posted...

Small wonder why when so many of their voting base/likely voters spend the majority of a year telling everybody they can that it's pointless and they're going to lose.

You're blaming people voicing concerns rather than the politicians themselves and the policies they enact or don't enact? I think the latter has a lot more to do with how people feel about politicians than what people post on Twitter. Most people are not even seeing any of that, they're coming to their own views based on what's happening in their lives and maybe the media they consume.

And what's your solution, for all of us to shut up or be reflexively positive even as bad signs mount?

Kradek posted...

You people are so fucking annoying.

Stupid topics like this were made to a nauseating degree in 2020 too and I bet TC was a big offender of it back then as well.

Man, I'm trying to post in good faith here as always. I don't understand the vitriol. I'm genuinely worried about what's going to happen to the country I live in. To my friends and family, to vulnerable people, to me. I was here in 2020 and I didn't make any such topics because Biden represented change and didn't have the same negatives at the time.

Biden was up the entire time in 2020 as well, that's kind of a crucial difference here and the point of the topic.

Mecha_Sonic posted...

from what i can tell, 9 out of 10 people on CE hate trump, but they're also really fucking mad at biden.

why, i don't fucking know. but that vibe is nationwide and it's the reason trump's winning.

if you're an anti-biden peep, you should stop and reflect on this moment. you're living through what will be considered an economic golden age. the day may well come when you look back on your life and wonder what you were so angry about in 2024, and why you threw it all away for fascism.

Because we feel he's facilitating a genocide for one. You can disagree, but that's what we believe. How would you feel about someone who you legitimately thought was doing that?

This idea that we're in an economic golden age and so we should overlook the continuing struggles of the average person in this economy....it's not a good idea. First, it's the same argument Trump made in 2020. More importantly, most people feel they're barely getting by and Trump will validate those struggles, while you're trying to convince people they're not happening. That's when he's at his most powerful, being a faux populist. That's a losing dynamic. Third, it ignores the anxieties that are increasing under late stage capitalism regarding increased costs, more precarious work, environmental decline, etc. Instead of explaining how we'll address these problems, we're ceding the field on these issues and making it so that only right wingers are talking about them. And the solutions they propose will be fascist, as always.

LightningThief posted...

I already addressed this in this topic and some of it in my last post. Including the false sense that popular means easily possible in domestic and foreign affairs. Also addressed idealistic mindset of, popular.

What is your evidence that people on the left conflate popularity with ease? I think we understand that many of these things are charged and would bring substantial controversy and that domestic changes are often difficult.

On the Gaza issue specifically though, since it's an issue of foreign affairs, the President has nearly unlimited discretion as we've already seen with the discretion Biden has used to support Israel and how historically, Presidents can unilaterally put pressure of foreign allies when they want to.

LightningThief posted...

I'd argue what he said wasn't complete strawman.
First I'd like to start with saying my post isnt saying most of the left. Just a small loud minority that can cause a lot of noise like Breanna Joy, Kyle Kelinski, TTY, and their loyal followers. So to be clear my post is absolutely not about the overwhelming majority of the left. Just the loud minority who love to agree with Republicans for their own reasons.

A portion of the left absolutely does love shooting themselves in the foot.

Just like 2016, a portion sang in chorus with Republicans.

They take waaaay too much merit in their political polls which have not been reliable in the past decade. So much that they seem to confuse political polls with US government, politics, and foreign relations.

They seem to not grasp political polls do not decide who wins the election, the actual elections decide who wins the elections. Yet they will comically keep pointing at a political poll why their pick shouldn't lose or could have won with some even going the Trump route of claiming elections were in some way rigged against their pick. Oh but don't question them about turnout for their picks they are convinced is the most popular.

They act baffled and confused why "centrist" say "something both sides" but in the same breath regurgitate rhetoric Republicans say (regardless if the reasons are different)... so no shit swing/center voters pick up. A portion of the left even regurgitate, "same thing both sides."

A portion of the left is highly idealistic on how shit can get done. For example those who still demand Biden cancel student debt. Which again, many will point at a poll as if that matters on it realistically happening. It has to pass Congress, not a beloved poll they like.

A portion of the left as a continuation of the last one, refuse to acknowledge any steps in the right direction. Again student debts. Biden doesn't have the magic authority they were so convinced he had, but has still forgiven a lot of students debt despite being blocked by the courts to forgive their specific debt. But again, "it's not enough" so it's, "nothing." These types of people would rather take 3 steps backwards than 1 step forward. Because again, "unless it's 3 steps forward, it's not enough."

Again on the idealism, they severely don't understand the 2 party system isn't going away, and elections have consequences regardless if the better option of the 2 doesn't check every box you want.

It's a strawman, not because some on the left aren't worthy of criticism but because it literally has nothing to do with any argument I've made in this topic. It's the definition of a strawman because it substituted the arguments I've made with arguments he'd prefer to have.

I wish you'd redirect the energy you used to dunk on a small faction of the left in this post and used it to urge Biden to do popular things and to refrain from doing unpopular things or to say how Biden will benefit everyone in 2026.

Humble_Novice posted...

The online left is not immune to criticism, so why should they be coddled? The fact that they prefer attacking liberals more than conservatives says a lot about them.

This is a pure strawman and essentially trolling. I never made any argument that is contained in this post. You're changing the subject from my very clear views to do exactly what I was criticizing you for, attacking leftists rather than supporting Biden.

Your approach courts defeat and disaster, period. People taking your approach pose as if they're realists who understand politics, but you don't seem to understand the basics and anything outside of the specific way you conceptualize things deserves only derision in your eyes.

Do popular things, avoid unpopular things, support your candidate. It's not hard and yet none of you can seem to do it.

ssb_yunglink2 posted...

I totally understand the condescension when it comes to people either being undecided or not voting for Biden in November as a protest. If you recognize the threat Trump winning poses, as many of these people claim to, youd understand that keeping things as they are is just objectively better than throwing america to the GOP dictatorship. Thats not to say there arent problems with Biden, such as his Israel stance.

A lukewarm candidate vs a literal fascist shouldnt take this much convincing for people claiming BOTH SIDES

This is the exact dynamic that occurred in 2016. You could copy and paste this message to March 2016 almost without a change.

I don't support anyone in a swing state protest voting in the general. Not even the Chapo Traphouse guys, DSA, the Squad, hell, the Communist Party thinks Biden wouldn't be better than Trump. But it's suicidal to continue down the current path like everything is peachy keen. Because the people who are the true issue are not necessarily even any of those people or their supporters. It's presidential year undecided voters who will be too disgusted or apathetic to pull the lever for Biden. That's what we're ultimately saying. And the response to that is condescension and repeating the same ineffective phrases louder.

SydnieStarlight posted...

If you're not talking about the people literally on this board then what do you hope to gain by saying it here? The people on this board are the only ones your post is going to reach. If you just want to complain into the void, then that's fine, I can totally understand that feeling. But it's important you understand that no one in the political sphere is going to even be aware of your opinion, much less care about it. I don't say that to be rude, it's just a simple fact that no one among democrat leadership is browsing the Current Events message board on gamefaqs.gamespot.com looking for the opinions of random posters to inform their political strategy.

I'm referencing what happens here because what happens here is mirrored on the internet at large, in the media, and in the Biden campaign. The same dismissive, condescending, and fear reliant strategy is used.

This topic is meant to vent and to point out what I think it happening. It's obviously not going to change anything. But I do think it's worth talking about to see whether other people feel the same way and to see if there's any possibility of discussing a solution.