Biden won the Michigan primary decisively — but not by enough to calm Democratic angst
Biden won the Michigan primary decisively — but not by enough to calm Democratic angst
Imagine getting 80% of the vote in an unopposed election, in a massively important state, and completely ignoring the explicit reason why. If Biden loses Michigan it will 100% be his fault.
Worth noting that Michigan lets people vote on either the democratic or republican ballot, regardless of how they are registered. Lot's of people like myself chose to vote on the republican ballot against Trump because we felt confident in Biden winning. That probably put him closer to 80%.
Lot's of people like myself chose to vote on the republican ballot against Trump
Yup. Me too. Had to hold my nose to do it though.
Imagine Obama in Michigan in 2012.
Based on religion? What, the Church of Anti-Genocide?
I hear you, but I don't think it has much to do with religion at all. The people who voted uncommitted have families and friends who are being indiscriminately murdered day in and day out, and one of the people asking for their vote to stay in power has done just about everything he can to help the ones doing the murdering. Expecting them (as I used to) to just drop their feelings and vote for him anyway, just isn't tenable when your family is being slaughtered.
Go ahead and vote against Biden in the November election then too. When Trump's Nazi Regime is rounding up Muslims to put in camps, at least you will have stuck it to Biden.
I fully don't get why people are reacting so much to this. Why the fuck shouldn't I vote against Biden in the primary? He's going to be the nominee regardless, this is exactly the time for Democrats to get out those protest votes.
I fully don't get why people are reacting so much to this.
Biden will win the popular vote by a record-breaking amount, 100%; there is no question about that. However, the United States does not elect a president in accordance with the popular vote.
Biden can lose the electoral college at the fringe, which is literally every other metric. If you care about the presidency, care about the fringe; and do everything possible to shore it up.
No but see voters serve politicians. /s
oh God I got banned from subs in lemmy.ml for saying this. It really made people angry.
there is a huge portion of the population who think like toddlers and just say "NO!", cross their arms, and fall to the floor.
In 2020 38% of the vote was from Dems, 38% from republicans...
What wins/loses Michigan is independent voters, and Biden doesn't do well with them, because they want more than "I'm not the other guy! Even tho we agree on lots of stuff, we're still different"
Hell. biden isn't even doing well with Dem voters in an unopposed primary.
That should make everyone very concerned, but there's a vocal minority of Biden supporters who demand 100% loyalty and 0% questions.
More like we're tired of people like you not offering any solutions, just shitting on the only non fascist with a chance.
Could just be that you can only run so many campaigns in a row with "If you don't vote for us, it's going to be the end of the world as we know it. And at least I'm not as bad as the other guy." With the exception of Obama's first run against McCain, that's been the pitch for every single election I've ever been able to vote in, as well as a few before it. It gets old real quick, makes them come off as insincere, and doesn't motivate anyone when we're still largely dealing with the same BS issues that we were 20 years ago.
Trying to browbeat people into voting with the same old song and dance has diminishing returns, especially when your candidate is increasingly out of step with many of the voters they should be courting on major issues.
The reason Biden got such a big uncommitted vote is the current ongoing genocide in Israel. The solution is him doing more than simply calling Netanyahu an asshole then turning around and saying "I'm a Zionist".
IDK, it could also be that Biden is continuing the trump era "lock kids in cages" border policies and has signalled he wants to be even more cruel at the border. So he could stop that as well.
The time has passed, but he could have also not ran this time around. However, his ego got in the way. He has had dismissal approval numbers and he still chose to run which has put us in this position.
The solution is for Biden to listen to the voters before November and to change tact on critical issues. Before he loses a chunk of voters that simply don't vote because the choice between two genocidal candidates violates their moral compass.
I say all this as someone that will vote Biden. He's out of touch and running a terrible campaign. For fucks sake, he should be saying "abortion" at every rally, but he won't because he's a devout Catholic that has a hard time hitting so hard on a clearly winning issue.
His campaign can be summed up as "I'm not trump" which is exactly what fucking got trump into power the last time.
"I'm not the other guy" is actually a very strong case when you look at the other guy.
The other guy wanted a "Muslim ban".
The other guy has a subdivision in Israel named after him. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TrumpHeights
Biden supports Israel due to long term alliances/treaties.
Trump supports Israel because they're killing undesirables.
They are not the same.
Biden supports Israel due to long term alliances/treaties.
That's not what Biden says...
He said that when he was a small child and Israel was formed (Biden is literally older than Israel) his dad told him that Israel were the good guys, and had Biden promise to always support them.
That is why Biden calls himself a Zionist and will always support Israel.
A promise a toddler made to his farther almost a century ago.
But hey, that's just going off what Biden has been saying for decades, and unfortunately we can't just believe what Biden says. He could be lying or just confused, it's a coin flip.
and because the evilgelical christian nationalists who worship the ground trump walks on supports israel (but they support israel because it's necessary for the rapture and the return of their god in their death cult, but trump doesn't know or care about that).
Begrudgingly voting for Biden probably isn't enough. It's too close, and Biden doesn't excite voters enough.
You need to get others to do it too. And the fact is, that's really hard to do if you're trying to convince voters directly.
What's easier and has a chance of working is being outspoken now before the general has even started, and pray that someone on his campaign team realizes Biden is going to have to move left to beat trump.
Or you could tell people to shut up and hope Bidens campaign team realizes on their own before it's too late while getting zero feedback from voters.
Pick inaction all you like, I just don't like it's chances.
Tens of thousands of Michiganders on Tuesday cast their ballots for “uncommitted,” putting them on track to garner more than 10 percent of the vote statewide. That figure seemed likely to exceed past levels of “uncommitted” votes in Michigan Democratic primaries, though fall short of sparking a political earthquake.
I would say that as a Biden supporter, I do have some jitters, but "angst" isn't the right word. The current fraction of "uncommitted" votes is 13.3%, which isn't much higher than Obama's 10.7% in 2012. The difference could be random noise, but if it does represent approximately 2.6% of voters voting in protest then it should be something that the Biden campaign takes into account to some extent.
The weird thing to me is how many people showed up to vote - a little over 760,000 as opposed to 195,000 in 2012. I'm not familiar with Michigan politics enough to explain this, but I assume it wasn't caused by the presidential part of the election and it might have altered the average demographics of the voters relative to 2012.
It's because we can vote by mail now. Biden was the only one on the ballot in my city, no down ballot positions at all. I voted since I just had to drop it in the mail, but I wouldn't make a trip out in February to vote for someone running pretty much unopposed.
760,000 as opposed to 195,000 in 2012
Probably because Michigan had a caucus in 2012, not a primary.
In 2016, Trump beat Hillary in Michigan by less than 11,000 votes
Yesterday, 101,436 Democrats voted uncommitted in a noncompetitive primary against an incumbent president after just 3 weeks of statewide organizing to advocate for an "uncommitted" vote selection
The Democrats should be extremely worried. They would need to win Wisconsin, Arizona, Nevada, and Pennsylvania to get 271 electoral votes without Michigan. Do we feel so confident in that result to entrust the future of American democracy to it?
Worried? Why? Did you not see Trump lost 35% of his own primary as a former president. There are WAY more warning signs for Trump in the general. 40% of Haley voter are never Trumper republicans. Pair that with him not being able to clear 65% as a former president and he’s toast.
I think it's a mistake to count all 100,000 uncommitted votes as results of that protest. (But it was clever for Tlaib to pick something that surprisingly many people would have done anyway - it was impossible for her to lose in the court of public opinion even if literally no one actually supported her.) The 1/5 or so of the uncommitted votes that were (by my estimate) protesting are important but they're not essential. Their votes have to be balanced against appealing to other voters elsewhere and against what Biden considers to be prudent policy.
If the extra 3 points of uncommitted don't vote Biden in the general, Trump wins Michigan. His victory margin last election was less than 200k votes.
Not necessarily, Trump has also lost a lot of voters since 2020.
Cute how people are still in denial that everyone in Michigan will accept Biden supporting Genocide.
These people are not as spineless as you.
I too like to get all my political knowledge from YouTube university of political science. Seems super legit and accredited.
Good thing you have mainstream propaganda outlets for fake rape stories
In his statement late Tuesday evening, Biden thanked “every Michigander who made their voice heard today,” noting that “exercising the right to vote and participating in our democracy is what makes America great.”
thanks to laws and policies Biden helped craft throughout his political career not able to vote as are some others but Biden has the arrogance to say things like this
He discussed abortion, union jobs, prescription drugs, and the need to protect fertility treatments. There was no mention of Gaza or Israel or the cease-fire demands that sparked the “uncommitted” protest vote campaign.
you have to actually do something to inspire people to vote for you not just ask for funds and votes to hopefully maybe do something
Roe v. Wade happened on your watch as did the rail worker protests and we still have $7.25 as a national minimum wage despite you promising to try and help with that and defend workers rights too on your last presidential election campaign
And on the last election you promised national health care but have you even mentioned that since the last election or was that just another ploy to try and grab more votes
Another election promise was police reform on a national level but here we have cop city cropping up to endanger our democracy again on his watch with his prosecutor as a vice president saying nothing
Roe v. Wade happened on your watch as did the rail worker protests and we still have $7.25 as a national minimum wage despite you promising to try and help with that and defend workers rights too on your last presidential election campaign
If you're blaming what the GOP-elected SCOTUS did during Biden's tenure, you don't understand the separation of powers. If you're arguing that the court needs to be unpacked or otherwise de-fuckified and he's at fault for not doing so, then we'll have something to talk about.
If you’re arguing that the court needs to be unpacked or otherwise de-fuckified and he’s at fault for not doing so, then we’ll have something to talk about.
We still don't have something to talk about in that case. Biden couldn't do that unilaterally. He'd need the house (possibly doable but very uphill) and the Senate (not a chance in hell) to sign off on it. Which 10+ senate republicans are going to vote to tank the majority Mitch spent his life working to stuff the court with?
Most of your criticisms aren't his fault and there was little he could do about them.
costs on families are higher than ever
not sure if more people are working but with a minimum wage of $7.25 what is the point of working and most places such as Wally's Hell lowered the start pay since covid lower than $15 sometimes only paying $12 an hour if not lower
what is made here because hardly any of just the essential everyday items depend on are made here maybe assembled here or just a small amount of parts are made here but bulk of assembled parts are not US made
when was the economy rescued because we missed the announcement and could not tell by driving around town
when did he rebuild infrastructure? the main artery i40 that connects east coast to west coast has a bridge that was so badly in need of repair but the state that part was in would not pay for the repairs and neither did Biden - taxes from Arkansas had to and part of those taxes came from medical cannabis sales which Biden refuses to legalize
Biden helping veterans? my grandfather who served had to wait over twelve hours in a hospital recently nearly dying because the VA Hospital was too far away and they said to go to the nearest ER - VA was hour and half but given the wait the ER gave still though
Meaningful gun violence reduction legislation? is there not news out everyday about someone being shot or groups of people being shot? not to mention a cop recently was the one to mishandle a gun by firing on a kid
Do not feel like my child or their friends are protected in this day in age while they are out in public anywhere without constantly worrying about something happening when they are not home and especially do not feel like Biden is our LGBTQI+ savior - there was just someone murdered in Oklahoma
When did he give an executive order to restore abortion rights? oh yeah he just less than quartered assed it and is now looking for credit for doing 100% of the work that was needed and is asking for payment mean donations
Wife still has this student debt and the school she went to is a technical college that leeches tax money from our county from property taxes and the like and know she is not the only person still with this problem so this one is just words on a webpage as well
when did he and prosecutor Harris end the failed approach to cannabis? it is legal in all fifty states and all cannabis users have been released and or pardoned? must have missed this entirely or are you not living in the same United States on the Planet Earth as we are or?
when did those two ever advocate or do anything to advance equity and racial justice including historic criminal justice reforms? What about cop city? What about the campaign promises for police reform which might have helped with making this statement a reality
what environmental reforms did he help with exactly? again have you been outside lately
not sure about the numbers on how many people are insured but the quality and amount of medical staff are very poor and not adequately staffed
You can never calm Democratic angst. Clutching pearls is inbred.
The Democratic party is made up of every group that isn't okay with fascism, which means it's diverse and not uniform. There will always be factions that are upset. The problem is when those people torch their own side and inadvertently help the people they're fighting against.
Getting Democrats organized is like herding cats.