• givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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    9 days ago

    I’ll never understand why anyone thought the guy to clean up after Trump’s first term was an over 80 year old moderate who’s views on presidential powers boils down to:

    I believe the president should be powerless, which apparently means as president I can’t limit the next presidents power

    We need someone to fight fascism and we got a geriatric pacifist who spent his whole campaign lying about what he was prepared to do…

    And then when he dropped out last minute we ran his VP who kept saying she agreed with him 100% and wouldnt have changed anything over the last four years, despite most of what he “tried” never making it I to the planning stages or getting struck down before implementation.

    Biden failed and Kamala told voters she was fine with that and then acted shocked when that’s not what voters wanted.

    Voters want someone who will fight for them, not “aww shucks, vote for me again and we’ll try the same shit”.

      • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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        9 days ago

        Always have and always will.

        It’s common sense that voters want someone who they think can and will help them.

        Republicans lie about it and win elections. Dem politicians try to convince us populism is bad because it’s not what their donors want.

        A little bit of me dies everytime a “moderate” conflates populism with evil.

        Populism is a range of political stances that emphasize the idea of the common people and often position this group in opposition to a perceived elite group.

        https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Populism

        They hate populism because they’re the political elite. They’re the ones already not helping the common American and instead helping the other wealthy people.

        If the Dem party pivots to populism, it means replacing both the elected and non elected leaders of the Dem party. And they’re not going to do what’s best for the country but worst for them personally voluntarily, or they’d be populists already.

        We need to either force them out or start a new party, and four years isn’t as much time as it seems.

        • rumba@lemmy.zip
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          9 days ago

          A little bit of me dies everytime a “moderate” conflates populism with evil.

          conflate sure, but they’re not mutually exclusive.

          • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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            9 days ago

            Obviously not.

            But populists fucking win elections.

            No one is saying the Dems need to run an evil populist. Or someone that lies about being a populist, like trump.

            • rumba@lemmy.zip
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              9 days ago

              I’m more concerned that a populist Dem is a unicorn. The closest I’ve ever seen is Sanders or AOC and they’re hardly mass appeal popular.

              Anyone with a solid conscience and mass appeal that we actually know wouldn’t want the job.

              • grue@lemmy.world
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                9 days ago

                they’re hardly mass appeal popular.

                100% propaganda pushed by the capitalist (and therefore anti-populist) mass media.

              • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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                9 days ago

                . The closest I’ve ever seen is Sanders or AOC and they’re hardly mass appeal popular.

                What?

                Bernie could actually get republican voters and people who think the current Dem party is too far right.

                Withe division along party lines being so deep, progressives are probably the most popular politicians in America right now, everyone else just most of their own party likes them. They’re capped at 1/3 approval because of that

                People continuingly act like 1/3 of the country just doesn’t vote.

                We saw in 08 with Obama they’ll show up for a Dem running a populist campaign, and for whatever reason that’s the last time we’ve tried it in 16 years.

                Neoliberalism isn’t popular enough to win elections. And all it’s ever accomplished was driving Republicans to ever increasing extremes.

                • rumba@lemmy.zip
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                  9 days ago

                  Bernie could actually get republican voters

                  nah, not buying that one. Never seen ANY inclination for them to call him anything but a dirty socialist.

                  People continuingly act like 1/3 of the country just doesn’t vote.

                  do you have any data that suggests overwise?

                  We saw in 08 with Obama they’ll show up for a Dem running a populist campaign,

                  63.6% turnout. Less white votes, more minority votes than 2000 or even 2004

                  Neoliberalism isn’t popular enough to win elections

                  This we can ardently agree on.

                  edit: spaces for formatting

                  • work is slow@lemmy.world
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                    9 days ago

                    They call all Democrats dirty socialists already. If you start running somebody with popular policies it’ll be harder to boogie man them away.

          • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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            9 days ago

            Semantics…

            But no.

            We can’t tie it to a person, and Bernie is far to old to be the candidate.

            Tying it to a person is what happened with Obama in 08, so when he left in 2016 there was a vacuum in the party. Hillary and the neoliberal rank and file filled that vacuum, and they were rooting for trump because they needed the worst possible opponent for Hilary to have a chance.

            Bernie has been saying for decades he’s not the answer, the answer is a movement. Not loyalty to a single person who can never last a decade in office.

            As much as I love Bernie, he shouldn’t even run for his own Senate seat again. He doesn’t have to retire, there’s a lot of good work he could do growing the movement. But he’s too old for office and has been for a while.

      • riverSpirit@thelemmy.club
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        9 days ago

        And they always should.

        We are meant to be a democracy, a populist is literally a person who puts citizens issues ahead of others.

        Bernie is a populist, populists are great.

        • grue@lemmy.world
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          9 days ago

          And for those who are still confused: Bernie and Trump are both populists, but Trump is also a demagogue and that’s what’s a bad thing.

      • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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        9 days ago

        I would, he’s an extreme pacifist to the point where figuratively if he saw a grown man beating a six year old to death in an alley he wouldn’t lift a finger to stop it.

        He’d admonish it, tell them to stop, maybe even call them corncob.

        But he wouldn’t use violence to save that childs life.

        And obviously in this analogy Gaza is the child that can’t defend itself.

        • jonne@infosec.pub
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          9 days ago

          He’s literally sending weapons to the man beating the child and telling him where to hit him where it hurts most

          • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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            9 days ago

            What about supplying weapons or even directly aiding a war effort negates pacifism?

            You’re talking about the most extreme as far as determination not commitment, absolutionist pacifists is what they’re called.

            They would have a problem with that.

            But treating every member of a group like they’re the same as the most extreme…

            I’m hesitant to ask but whatever groups do you apply that logic to? It’s rarely (if ever) a good idea.

    • catloaf@lemm.ee
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      9 days ago

      Bernie would have been that person. I’m still upset about that.

      I can’t think of anyone aggressive enough for the future. AOC maybe?

      • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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        9 days ago

        AOC is the best bet.

        But whoever it is, the focus needs to be on increasing turnout from the left and not attempting to steal Republican voters by moving the whole party right.

        Republican voters will always say if Dems agree with them they’ll vote D, but it’s always a lie and they’ll always vote R.

        Just this way they still get what they want if they lose and they know it’ll help the Republican win.

        Either the people running the DNC are so stupid they still haven’t noticed, or they’re in on the grift. Considering the same billionaires/corps donate to both parties, I’m not really it out.

        But regardless of why they’re so bad at their job, we can’t afford to keep letting them run the literal only other option to fascism.

        As John Oliver just said (paraphrased, but around 10:30 of latest episode):

        If you wanted a centrist campaign that’s quiet on trans issues, tough on border, distances itself from Palestinians, talks a lot law and order and reaches out to Republicans…

        That candidate existed, and she just lost.

        She can’t have gone any further “center” and she performed horribly. Anyone saying we went to far left isn’t paying attention to reality, they’ll listening to billionaire’s talking heads on the TV.

      • Billiam@lemmy.world
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        9 days ago

        It’s his whole schtick. Apparently trying and failing to hold Trump accountable is more immoral than supporting him and shielding him from him the consequences of his crimes. 🤷

      • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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        9 days ago

        This is the new narrative. “I don’t share in the blame if people didn’t vote for Harris. All I did was constantly tell people not to vote for Harris.”

      • MiDaBa@lemmy.ml
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        9 days ago

        The democratic party is absolutely to blame for this damning historic loss. The last time the Republican won the popular vote was over 20 years ago and the fact the candidate that just pulled that off is the ultra divisive Donald Trump says more about the failure of the left than it does about the right. The majority of Americans don’t believe the Democrats can or will fight for them anymore and that’s a major issue. Joe Biden wasn’t able to effectively articulate his policies and the gaslighting us about his obvious mental acuity did nothing to build trust. I’m tired of hearing the Dems should pick a centrist candidate when it’s obvious they need to dump big money interests and fight for working people again. They need to run a left wing candidate that has the ability to clearly speak to and defend their well thought out policies. They need someone who we can trust to take action on office and not just give lip service our issues. Until then get ready to fail.

      • work is slow@lemmy.world
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        9 days ago

        Amazing. You read a comment about how Trump is a genuine threat that needs real opposition rather than a Democratic party that looks to compromise with that threat and you immediately decide to kiss the asses of the party that repeatedly fails to protect us.

        Edit: The Democratic Party has learned nothing from 2016, they learned the wrong lessons from 2020, and I worry they’ll learn nothing from this election. People critiquing the Democratic Party’s approach is not an endorsement of Trump. We want better opposition that actually fights for us. If all you want is to root for you team and ignore their flaws then we’re fucked.

        You should be pushing the party to improve not shutting down any discussion of improving the parties platform or strategy. Trump got elected due to Democratic failures, not because people are discussing those failures.

        • timbuck2themoon@sh.itjust.works
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          9 days ago

          Haha, if you think I have a “team”, youre fucking cooked.

          I’m calling a spade a spade. You want to avoid this? Vote for who is CLOSEST to what you want. Instead of waiting for Santa Claus.

          • work is slow@lemmy.world
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            9 days ago

            Then don’t defend the flaws of the Democratic party and call a spade a spade. We know Trump sucks. I voted and encouraged others to vote. The job of any party is to motivate turnout. Turnout did not diminish because some random person on Lemmy said they weren’t going to vote or criticized somebody.

            The Democratic party hurt their own turnout and appeal by defending the status quo and appealing to Republicans. That kills any sort of enthusiasm people have. They clearly did not win over any substantial number of Republicans and they suppressed their own turnout.

            Many people voting do not have a deep interest in politics. I can complain about how they should care more, but they either don’t have the time or they can’t be bothered. Give them something to make it worth the effort. Trump motivates turnout because even though you and I know he’s shit he says he’s going to change things. For a lot of people voting works by assessing how I’m doing right now. Right now most people aren’t feeling great. So when one party says, “things are bad and I’m going to change them,” and the other party says, “actually things are great. Look how great the economy is recovering. Stop complaining about how your cost have living hasn’t recovered,” some people are going to ignore the bigotry and bullshit and others are going to give up.

            I’m not asking for Socialist Santa Claus. I’m asking for the slightest bit of competency. I’m asking for assessing what the root causes of a loss are and how to fix it.

            • timbuck2themoon@sh.itjust.works
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              9 days ago

              Im asking for the slightest bit of effort on their part.

              But sure, keep making excuses for them and they’ll take it. Im sure they’ll wake up one day and realize it’s all their fault after everyone has continually excused them.

              • work is slow@lemmy.world
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                8 days ago

                Shaming people for not voting has never been an effective strategy for significantly increasing turnout. I feel like it’s been tried and maybe people need some good policies in tandem with your shaming to motivate them.

                I don’t like that they don’t vote. I think that they should vote. I want to think about how we can get them to vote.

                Keep being dense though. I’m glad it makes you feel better.

                  • work is slow@lemmy.world
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                    8 days ago

                    How am I making excuses?

                    I would have liked Trump to lose. When assessing what went wrong we need to look at the causes. You can say, “these lazy dumb idiots didn’t vote,” but that isn’t a fix. That’s only identifying a problem. We now need to figure out how to get lazy dumb idiots to vote.

                    My frustration is that its the job of a political party to motivate lazy dumb idiots and the democrats haven’t been doing a very good job.