Exclusive: Bernie Sanders worries young people are underestimating the threat from Trump
Sen. Bernie Sanders sounds off on the Israel-Hamas war, antisemitism, college protests, and President Joe Biden’s record while in office
Me too Bernie, me too.
The end of the day I won't blame the young people, though. I will blame the red hat fascists who want to install an orange dictator.
Edit: Young people get a pass because at least they are passionate about something. I'm over here, dead inside, praying to a computer that things don't get any worse then they already are.
I blame First Past The Post voting, for keeping the people handcuffed to two legacy political parties.
Perhaps Republicans would vote less clowns into office, but they are chained to the Republican party.
Same is true for the Democrats. We don't need to be stuck with these two parties. There can be something else.
They don't understand that Trump is just as pro-Israel as Biden, if not even more so considering he moved the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem.
That's the great part about our democracy: You don't get to vote for someone who isn't pro-Israel. Because freedom.
*electoral system
Because of FPTP and the Winner Take All Electoral College, there is a lot of political pressure to only have 2 parties. In a better system (proportional, ranked choice, etc) it wouldn't break with more than two parties. In fact just reforming the electoral college to be proportional would likely allow 3 parties to exist.
If you look at history the last time there was a viable 3rd party it possibly initiated the civil war by allowing an anti slavery viewpoint to exist (which is good, but if we'd had a better voting system it would have happened earlier and reduced a lot of suffering)
Electoral system…
Just as I have to watch half the electorate embrace the most asinine BS possible to justify selfishness and hate… it’s not that far out to see people screaming “genocide joe!” at everyone they see, as they turn off everyone and defeat themselves at every chance.
The cool part is focusing all your effort into a camp-out such that your main message is synonymous with homelessness and you self defeat your own goals… all while you call the liberal element genocidal and basically show the world your biggest effort is to sit still while cutting off the liberal nose to spite your face.
And once again, as the foreign trolls that are busy courting our youth want, not one comment in this entire thread mentions that Europe is on the brink of open modernized war should Ukraine fall to vlad "Ukraine is just a stepping stone" putin.
Gaza is a genocide, but that is not the critical geopolitical stage to be paying the most attention to. Once again it is completely ignored that the heads of hamas who attacked israel on oct 7 knowing exactly what they were about to cause are friends of putin.
The Gaza genocide was provoked precisely to pull western eyes from the Ukrainian front where russia was more than underperforming to ensure their victory in a sustained war of attrition.
You want to avoid a world war? You vote for biden whether u do it proudly or do it holding ur nose the way most of the sane will.
The Gaza genocide did not start on Oct 7, much like the Russian incursion on Unkraine did not start in Jan 2022. Both of those are tremendous blights on human rights and should be equally condemned.
Of course, voting for Biden is the only stable option as much as one may lament that it shouldn't be.
What, you mean the part of Europe with nuclear weapons? ... Sigh.
Yeah even to expand on that - they don't understand that everything they don't like about Biden, they'll like about Trump less. I mean I have real serious gripes about Biden but it is insultingly stupid to pretend that Trump would be any kind of a solution to those problems.
It seems that many of them know that Trump is worse, but think that sticking to ideals and voting for a non-viable candidate (or not voting at all) is somehow the best course of action. Republicans count on people like that to win. Fascists don't give a fuck how they get into power, as long as they do.
Or they understand that all this apolgetics for the Dems being the lesser of two evils just results in them being the same evil, just four years later. The Dems are still running internment camps at the border. They are still building Trumps wall.
By never threatening them with actual consequences to their power, you give them a blanket check to fuck everyone over for their rich donors. And that is exactly what they did and continue to do.
Congress is bipartisan pro-Israel. This isn't even a presidential issue.
Biden just happens to be the guy doing the pro-Israel stuff at the moment, so he's eating the lions share of the public ire.
"You have to support the Pro-Israel guy because the other guy is pro-Israel and both party leaders are pro-Israel and the cops are trained by Israelis and Israeli businesses have strong ties with the MIC and Big Finance needs Israel to control trade through the Suez and you're outnumbered and outgunned so quit fighting, just vote for Joe Biden" just isn't a winning message among progressive voters this year.
Maybe try it again in 2026.
The thing is: Biden is pro-Israel but also pro-Palestinians. He's providing aid to Gazans and pressuring Israel to minimize civilian casualties. It's not great, or even good, I agree - but it's a whole lot better than Trump who would be pro-Israel and anti-Palestinians. You'd see humanitarian aid end and the US support total war instead of the (slightly) restrained version we're seeing now.
The GOP openly courts antisemites while also supporting Israel. They make sure to have all the awful bases covered.
He absolutely is more so. Also, young people have more power to influence Biden because they are part of his coalition. Of course, using this power is tricky because you need to pressure and criticize Biden without actually making him lose. So far I support the pressure campaign but I hope as the election gets closer people will start to realize what an epic disaster Trump term two would be.
Are young people really a part of Bidens coalition? Bidens policies and rhetoric have consistantly pushed young people away. The ridiculous speech he gave just a few minutes ago maligning student protestors is emblematic of this.
And it seems like young people have got the message. The last poll I saw had 18-24yr olds voting for Trump at +8%
"because you need to pressure and criticize Biden without actually making him lose"
"We need to be toothless about our criticism of Biden" FTFY
The threat of making your candidate lose is the only power you have to shift them.
Next time you're negotiating for a car, see how much the seller budges after you preceed negotiations with "Now, I am fully committed and happy paying sticker price, but how much can you lower the price?"
Edit: at least have the intellectual honesty to say out loud that Biden could do anything, and you'd still vote for him
I fucking hate, and from the bottom of my heart, how Biden is funding the genocide in Palestine, but I'm still going to vote for him this time, because we just can't have a person like Trump in the white house, period. I still can't figure out how he got in the first time. I'd never let my 10 year old lead a country, yet we let Trump do it for four fucking years. I, too, am sick of this "the lesser of two evils" bullshit, but this time I'm giving it a pass because of Trump. We already have a crumbling country and can't afford another four years of this dude.
I think Joe Biden is maybe the best president of my lifetime, and I'm going to vote for him with my head held high even though I live in a red state where it doesn't matter at all. I wish things were simpler in the Levant, but I appreciate that Joe Biden is between a rock and a hard place with Israel. It's not like he can just take Bibi out. He's not Boeing. That said, even if I laid the entire genocide at Biden's feet (which, while he's not blameless, is absolutely not appropriate), he would still be head and shoulders an improvement over Donald Trump.
For that matter, I'd absolutely let my 12 year old run this country before I'd let Trump have a second term. My kid is brilliant, and more importantly, unlike Trump he listens to advice, can take no for an answer, and gives a shit about having a functional democracy four years from now.
A second Trump term is an existential threat to the nation. Hold your nose, hold your neighbor's nose if you have to, but every able-bodied patriot owes it to their descendants and their patriotic ancestors to prevent a second Trump term.
I don’t understand why people point out that Biden is “funding the genocide in Palestine” and completely ignore and fail to mention that trump would do the exact same thing.
He has all but said he would cut Israel loose to do whatever they needed to finish the job.
The use of Israeli aggression is not a point of comparison when viewing the differences between trump and Biden.
Edit: and I apologize for the late edit - FWIW Biden has become critical of Israeli actions and offered some aid to Palestinians (Yeah, I absolutely agree it isn’t enough) while trump would prefer to wash his hands of the whole Palestine thing. That is a notable difference.
I don’t understand why people point out that Biden is “funding the genocide in Palestine” and completely ignore and fail to mention that trump would do the exact same thing.
And hence why I won't vote for Trump either. It's not that hard to understand.
"I still can't figure out how he got in the first time"
Easy. He was propped up by democrats, namely Hillary Clinton.
If we reach a point 40 years from now when your choice is between a dem supporting 5 genocides and a republican supporting 10 genocides, are you still going to be militantly democrat and lash out at leftists who are sick of the whole thing?
woohoo. 10 genocides but such a moral victory.
Nope. I've stated this in multiple posts on other platforms, this is my last time going with this "lesser of two evils" bullshit. Because at some point, we HAVE to believe that it is intentional. I mean, what happened to "fool me once........"?
Your ten-year-old is more mature than Trump.
Not a joke.
I’m 100% sure trump would have taken charge over there because it was taking too long.
Genocide? Hold my beer.
I still can’t figure out how he got in the first time.
Electoral College, should not exist.
Biden is not funding Israel. The United States government is. Even if he wanted to stop the aid (he doesn't), he doesn't have the power to just ignore laws passed by Congress. Trump did that with Ukraine and got impeached for it.
Certain important people need to keep selling spyware, drugs, guns and war to keep themselves and their associates employed. As for whether the funds or the actual work (conflict) available is sustainable is for everyone including the accountants to consider.
The other problem is that war doesn't really die, we just displace where we choose to fight, and how, if we imagine physical and cyber world peace for a moment, for the USA or China to reduce its military capacity by one third, or one tenth, we would see absolute chaos, thousands unemployed, the losses in maintenance and equipment, military supplies, medical, etc, nobody would win.
Any complex society where financial and other systems operate needs a minimum degree of social enforcement to maintain. Whether that can change like a function or is something that depends on a country's GDP is another issue.
Just consider that humanity would either need lots of free time, energy and money or it would literally need to feel incredibly threatened by something on earth, which we all could not fight to control in order to actually fund going to space or even the moon, and I doubt a triple whammy of pandemic, food shortage or severe draught and floods could do it, it happened in the Bible and people literally just found more dumb reasons to do more dumb things, and no lowering mens testosterone or telling guys to shave more often wouldn't do shit either. If people don't find reasons to explore or learn, they find reasons to fight/play fight, it's pretty normal, and if anyone remembers their childhood, usually it's pretty much the same across generations.
I still can't figure out how he got in the first time.
I'd point out that the first step in changing somebody's mind on a topic is always to figure out why they believe and behave as they do.
When I was young my parents introduced me to some old school Communists; folks who'd fought in the Spanish Civil War and been blacklisted in the 1950s.
One of the stories they told was that back in 1968 the oldtimers were warning people to vote for Hubert Humphrey because they knew how bad Nixon would be, Too many young folks then thought 'both sides are the same.'
I don't know much about him, but reading that he lost the young people vote for supporting the Vietnam War is such a good parallel for today.
The communist party of America consistently votes democrat and doesn’t run a candidate. Same with the American Nazi party and republicans.
My attitude is simple, deal with the problems you can impact. The 2024 elections will not result in a loss of support for Israel. A fascist wants to run a coup in America. That’s on the table, he’s running for president. That’s a problem we can deal with.
There's a line from the last season of 'The West Wing' that I always think of.
It's election Day and the GOP and Dem campaign managers run into each other in the hotel bar. One turns to the other and tells this story.
"Got into the cab at the airport and started chatting with the cab driver. He's a really smart guy and we're having a great chat. Just before I get out I ask him who he's voting for today.
"He shakes his head. Damn, he tells me, I forgot it was election Day.'
We watched Donald do worse than Watergate on live news broadcasts.
Hmm, what to do? Better throw my ballot in the trash, because I am against genocide. If anything gets worse under this openly racist putsch planner screeching about dictatorship and absolute immunity, well, there was no way to have seen that coming, right?
I mean I dunno maybe they shouldn't have ran a guy named hubert humphrey, sounds like the name you'd give to a fictional whale in a children's novel hoo lee
Hi. I’m not American. But we all understand Trump’s threats. Or the inherent threat he poses. I think I speak for the world.
I’m more worried about a system that let someone like that get this far!
I swear I remember my social studies teacher saying one reason for the electoral college is to prevent someone like Trump. The founding fathers didn't want to trust the popular vote in case the masses got duped. With the polarization of the parties there's little chance of voting for the other person happening. There are some state laws that force them to vote for their candidate but I'm not sure how many states have the faithless electors clause.
Of course we got Trump because of the electoral college he lost the popular vote.
Yeah I have no doubt that was the original idea. But now it just filters out all but 2 candidates that are paid for by big business and other outside investors. All of them foaming at the mouth to get whatever law makes them another billion eradicated or passed.
I have serious concerns about the electoral college. With this upcoming election being the way it is... it's really hard to say which they'll vote. It's really demoralizing to know that even if Biden wins the popular vote they can just elect trump anyway.
It always amazes me that, in more than just America, so many people are convinced by people like Trump.
There might not be the one perfect system but it should be allowed to modernize some flaws to prevent exactly this and allow more parties to exist.
Definitely a lot of biases but I’ve never met anyone outside the US that even remotely likes Trump. I think the world really sees your presidency as a total joke. But I mean Bush Jr… twice.
Speaking as an American: Our system lets people take the office despite not winning the popular vote. That's just straight-up systemic corruption.
I've always said Trump's not the hero we need but the villain we deserve. We did this to ourselves, with citizens united, 24 hr "news", straight up stupidity, and a just really strange sort of egotrip. Conversely my boy Bernie is the hero we needed, for the same reasons.
As to that egotrip. I don't think losing the Soviet Union was good for us. We need someone to lean into. Those goat spooning terrorist assholes just didn't cut it adversary wise. China is too foreign to make a truly good enemy. Now we're just vs. ourselves with predictable outcomes. If only there were a better way.
But but but I won't vote in protest!1 That will definitely make them listen! (/s)
PSA: Not voting means you have the relevance of an old man yelling at a cloud.
You move the Overton window by voting. You want policy #857? You have to vote for policy #1 first. You have to walk before you can run.
I just want one of the "You can't vote for Biden!" people to outline what I should do instead. What's the play here? Dismantle the government? Sure, outline your plan and let's see if it has any merit. Protest? Great, tell me when and where but it doesn't preclude the need to vote.
They talk big, but if their entire plan begins with "don't vote" and ends with "bitch about it online" then it's not a great plan.
I just got a deranged one https://reddthat.com/comment/10184028
I almost wish Jimmy Carter would run for a second term. 99? 82? Age is just a number now apparently anyway lol
Soon we'll be governed by heads in jars, as Futurama has foretold
Man is literally in hospice, leave his neoliberal ass alone
That feeling when RFK jr may actually be the best individual of the field...
Anti vaxxers are never the best.
Not even close.
He’s a hardcore Zionist dude
Haha, you funny.
Personally, i'm worried that the biden administration is underestimating the electoral importance of his decision to continue supporting Israel's genocide against Palestinians.
If you are worried about the Palestinians, do you expect Trump to be more lenient in that regard? I think it would be even worse with Trump. He'd not be mildly criticizing Netanyahu, but would rather asking Netanyahu why he isn't going further
there is an understandable wave of nihilism manifesting in the younger generations that will probably persist for as long as they live. i don't imagine the united states will stop producing nihilists for a long time as the circumstances are not projected to change
I hope it won't turn into "weaponized doomerism" like in Eastern European countries like Hungary and Russia.
In Hungary, a lot of people just gave up altogether, and stopped voting. It's also often being used to get people to become Fidesz supporters.
If they fuck around they're going to find out real fast. Look how long it's taken to get weed semi legal. Like we've already lived in a kinda super wealthy oligarchy. I don't think we need to fight, unless the fascists win. They don't make up nearly the majority though so we could see what happened in Brazil here, horrible but they did get a more socially minded president. But Trump never conceded and still doesn't. He's caused basically a weird cult.
That sound... As if millions of "muh corrupt DNC" trolls cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced...
Doesn't change any of the entirely valid complaints about the DNC. They've been running on "vote for us because the GOP should scare you shitless" for a good long while now.
They don't have to do any better than not being as horrible/scary as the other guy and they know it. And the GOP usually gives them an awfully low bar.
It's this shitty attitude of the DNC that allowed the "genocidal maniac vs genocidal maniac" meme to fester. If you don't figure out how to take the party away from their hands, you'll keep running into situations where the DNC and its politicians will keep betraying your expectations with truly horrendous shit, rather than trying to represent their actual voters. Unfortunately far too many Americans have too much Stockholm Syndrome to dare move a finger if they don't have literally Bernie Sanders running on primaries, which he isn't going to do anymore due to age.
Serious question for any leftists here who are voting third party - which candidate do you recommend?
PSL or Green
Cornell West and Jill Stein are proponents of helping the Palestinians, so I imagine one of them.
All the other, mainstream, candidates are vocally pro-Israel. Trump and RFK are more pro-Israel than Biden.
My ultimate hope is that Biden grows a spine on this topic, and draws some rules of engagement for Israel if they wish to receive further aid; however, they seem to have the US govt by the balls somehow.
Quite the opposite. Nobody learned anything from that article. No voting stances changed.
You should probably actually watch Bernie's speech. This snippet grossly misrepresents it.
The Unconcerned: "Orange man bad"
Me: YES! Orange man VERY bad, glad we were able to dumb it down for you in a way you can understand it.
I think it would be helpful if people tranformed their concerns from meaningless doomposting to active political effort.
Cause the first is almost as bad as not worrying at all.
The problem is there's a lot to doom post about.
I get it that Biden has some possibly underreported accomplishments, but like Trump tried to overthrow the government and is still walking around like nothing happened.
I think the current climate of digging up anything someone has ever done or said that is against the current accepted morality and punishing them for it severely makes a lot of people not want to stick out their neck. This probably isn’t an accident.
I'm not worried. I'm just utterly disappointed in the younger generation. Not in the whole typical way you'd expect older generations to be towards the younger ones.
It's more along the sense of "put down your fucking memes and jokes for abit and realize the reality that's around you" deal. Because we're now seeing the Onion practiced in our daily lives, we can't make the shit up that is actively happening in real time. And it doesn't affect just me, it affects you too.
We can't be putting off this shit forever and sit there going "aww, I just hope it gets better" naturally.
Because let's put it this way, say you don't vote this general election and Biden wins. Okay, cool, we've dodged Trump. But know that in the next 4 years, Biden is not eligible to be re-elected so good on you to no longer see him on the ballot, but you'll never know who could be next after him and there isn't a lot of strong favorability for his VP either. Trump for all we know, is likely going to run until he dies, so he's going to be trying again and again so long as he's living and so long as his voter base is there to back him.
But even when he dies, god knows what the Republicans will try propping up. We've got a bit of a glimpse of that when known fascists like DeSantis tried running for presidency. The only reason him and other candidates has lost is because they can't touch Trump. But when Trump does die, you know they'll be back again.
My point is we need to keep Republican interests the fuck away. They're nothing but destruction. How much evidence do you need before you see that? It's all fun and games to you with your jokes and memes until you're on the internet bitching and griping for why you think shit hits the fan or why you're struggling to make a living.
The second Trump starts losing favor with his voters or ability to fundraise the party will drop him super hard and fast.
If he loses again, AND the Republicans get mopped down the ballot, you'll start seeing people drop him or hang him out to dry like rats fleeing a sinking ship
Very unlikely. That's what we all thought in 2020.
But that's not what happened.
The Billionaires funding the culture war are the only ones who can stop this
And why would they? What's in it for them, in their eyes?
But know that in the next 4 years, Biden is not eligible to be re-elected so good on you to no longer see him on the ballot
I have full faith in the ability for moderates and liberals to shove an equally terrible candidate through the 2028 primaries. It will likely be HRC. Again.
So you're a Bernie Sanders supporter huh? Hmmm... Tell you what, let's see Bernie and Biden have a meet up and discuss a roadmap for if either candidate wins so neither gets thrown into the flaming pits of hell and we might see the common folk progress reports hahaha
as a black person i'm worried that donald trump's batting average isn't showing the potential it should be this season. he should spend more time in the cages.
Its called apathy.
Make everyones vote count (mandatory voting) and all of a sudden it matters
Brasil has compulsory voting and they had Bolsonaro (and apathy). I dont think thats a solution for this specific problem.
Yeah making all the people who have no clue about politics or politicians vote for basically whoever has the most advertising or the most well-known name certainly is not a good system. It's already pretty bad now, we don't need to make it worse with even more uneducated people voting.
We’re not. Biden is.
If he actually was worried he’d look at the polls and call for a ceasefire.
I think most people who are disappointed with Biden over Gaza realize that the alternative is Donald Trump and Donald Trump would be way worse for Gaza.
Also, Biden is walking a tightrope. Most Jewish people vote for Democrats. If he loses some pro-Gaza voters, he'll win some pro-Israel voters. And the other way around. At the end of the day, there are no winners in this conflict.
Also, Biden is walking a tightrope. Most Jewish people vote for Democrats. If he loses some pro-Gaza voters, he’ll win some pro-Israel voters. And the other way around.
You are knowingly or not trying to manufacture consent for a reality that does not exist,
https://news.gallup.com/poll/642695/majority-disapprove-israeli-action-gaza.aspx
Western media and politicians want to keep pretending like the genocide going on that we are complicit in hasn’t resulted in the deaths of at least 30,000 innocent Palestinians, and that death count is old I wouldn’t be surprised if it was ~80,000 at this point with famine conditions being present for this long.
Most of the rest of the world including voters in the US DO NOT agree with Biden directly enabling genocide, it simply isn’t supported by the facts though you can hear it on any US news station Republican leaning or Democrat leaning.
At the end of the day, there are no winners in this conflict.
You are so very tragically wrong, the reason this conflict is still happening is because there are very important winners. Netanyahu knows that the minute the existential threat of Hamas goes away and he stops handing territory to his rightwing settler supporters (Israel’s flavor of MAGA idiots but even worse) he is going to lose legitimacy as a non-democratic leader (seriously this guy isn’t some supporter of democracy people) so maintaining this conflict is LITERALLY existential for Netanyahu. This is common knowledge globally across most political spectrums at this point.
And yeah, the settlers win, the rightwing hateful bigots who are erasing Palestinians from their homes and from this earth at a terrifying rate, win. Russia wins from this conflict drawing attention away and giving no moral grounds to establish effective international pressure to reel them in.
Somewhat maddeningly the US directly loses as we have now permanently lost legitimacy in the eyes of any countries that aren’t direct allies who will automatically tow whatever narrative line they are told to. Israel loses too because they made themselves a pariah state in the world’s eyes. The Palestinians lose, perhaps most of their culture and community, certainly the lives of their loved ones and kids.
There are winners though and it is incredibly disingenuous to pretend there isn’t.
It is also just a completely baseless narrative that Biden has to keep supporting this genocide by providing unlimited weapons and diplomatic cover because it is what US citizens want.
It isn’t and Biden’s refusal to budge on this issue even when his staffers are basically panicking about it destroying his otherwise sound presidential re-election campaign (those that haven’t resigned because of it) could very well cost him the election. If Biden loses it will UNDOUBTEDLY be because he refused to evolve on this issue even when voters from his party literally staged protests and voted undecided to beg him to change his policy on this mass project of cruelty while being extremely careful not to feed energy to Trump or a third party candidate.
Genocide is a redline.
Period.
Those are US made bombs being delivered by US made guidance systems by IDF crews that train regularly with US fighter pilots and Close Air Support military assets.
Don’t come at me with “oh but it is complicated and we can’t do anything about it”. If Biden truly wanted to stop this he could pick up the phone and do it in probably 10 seconds flat (and everybody in his staff knows it).
Israel cannot politically function without US support especially now that Israel has made its self into a pariah state, yet we firehouse incredible amounts of arms to Israel and simultaneously give them free reign to do whatever the hell they want to while flicking us off like the most murderous version possible of a rebellious teen and dysfunctional parent that sort of likes the violence.
Netanyahu ultimately has very little power to dictate the terms of the power relationship given this reality. Biden is utterly complicit.
"The solution is to mobilize the American people, working-class people, Black, white, Latino, Native American, whatever they may be, to come together, to fight for a government, which represents all of us, and not just the few."
So the kids who are on college campuses getting shot with rubber bullets and beaten by armed thugs aren't fighting?
No one said that, you've drawn a conclusion not based on the actual words written here.
Recently came across project 2025, which is a plan to upend the government for trump to run it like a dictatorship. It's actually frightening to even entertain the possibility. And I'm guessing it's derived from how putin got to his dictatorship position, because trump really likes putin and met with him too often.
If you aren't averse to Reddit, there's a subreddit devoted to Project 2025. Lots of info there. https://www.reddit.com/r/Defeat_Project_2025/
I've come to the conclusion from this thread and others that liberals either don't believe or can't comprehend that leftists consider Palestinians to be actual human beings whose lives are inherently valuable. The way they see it, we're whiny children throwing a fit because we were refused a puppy. I keep seeing people talk about opposition to genocide as "an individual want" or "being upset that you got bread instead of a cake," and so on, characterizing us as selfishly prioritizing our individual preferences, because in their minds it's just about us feeling bad when we see dying Palestinians, and not about the Palestinians themselves.
Opposition to genocide is a hard red line and a fundamental moral principle. It's not a want, it's not a preference, it is a demand which is absolutely non-negotiable.
I'm never going to be convinced to vote for Biden, but if you actually care about convincing leftists, then you're shooting yourself in the foot by trivializing the issue. Of course, the most effective way to convince an opponent of genocide to support a politician would be to get the politician to stop supporting genocide, but if you choose to focus you efforts on getting leftists to stop opposing genocide instead, I can't stop you.
trivializing the issue.
How about we flip this around and talk about trivializing the issue of having a Trump-led slide into fascism and any attempt at leftist organising getting you thrown into a camp... while Palestinians are still getting bombed because Israel certainly doesn't need the US's help to produce arms. Mabye that's an evil enough evil to convince you that the lesser evil is, indeed, the lesser one.
Nobody is trivializing Trump. The fact is that the Democrats are getting worse and worse, and will commit more and more atrocities and crimes if nobody holds them accountable. Ask yourself why they'd rather have Trump become a president instead of stopping to aid in a fucking genocide? Also the Dems were happy to continue most of Trumps policies, like internment camps at the borders and building that infamous wall. By supporting the Dems no matter what all you get is the Dems in 4 years to be where the Reps are now.
A protest vote won't save Gaza. It will allow the war in russia to expand and get more innocents killed though. I do wish people wouldn't trivialize the second Ukrainian genocide they're risking.
In two years of the Russian invasion the UN gives a confirmed minimum of 10.700 killed Civilians and 20.000 wounded by the End of February 2024. Ukraine reports another 11.000 missing and 28.000 captive by Nov/Dec 2023.
So even extrapolating that till may, for a two year period we are nowhere near close to the killing of Civilians by Israel in Gaza within just 7 months. Russias invasion of Ukraine is illegal, it is appalling and it is a grave injustice with Millions of people suffering. But in terms of murder of Civilians it is hardly comparable. Especially when considering that Ukraine has a population of about 34 Million whereas Gaza has a population of about 2 Million.
What exactly is the game plan for Ukraine anyway? It seems to be headed for a stalemate along their current borders. If that happens, how long will the US need to keep funding them? 10 years? 20?
The war in Ukraine is tragic but it doesn't fit the classification a genocide, and regardless, I'm not going to vote for one genocide to stop another. As I said, genocide is a hard red line that I will never support, even if you put a gun to my head.
You’re the one shooting yourself in the foot, you just don’t want to be cognizant of it, so you rationalize it away.
There is no version of the trolley problem that absolves you of guilt for sabotaging leftist causes if you don’t vote for Biden.
You’re a child throwing a tantrum.
Exhibit A.
Balance:
a) damage done by another Trump presidency
vs
b) damage done by demonstrating to the ruling class that you'll give them whatever they want so long as you genuinely fear one of the candidates
Tough call. I wish each and every one of you who has a say in this clairvoyance beyond mine.
The fact you phrase it as though that's an actual question is terrifying. You're comparing someone who wants to LITERALLY be a dictator and never have an election again, to someone who isn't willing to fully embrace every last left-wing policy you demand.
The "ruling class" didn't dictate Bernie not getting the Democratic nomination, people voting in primaries did. Do you know which group of people overwhelmingly don't vote in primaries? The same 20-somethings bitching about Biden being the "only other option". Get the fuck out of here with your "demonstrating to the ruling class" - you had your opportunity to show up and overwhelm the primaries and chose not to. The "ruling class" don't have the numbers to determine a primary, and if you choose to watch their commercials and buy into it, that's on you. But hey, if a bunch of people think like you'll they'll find out what actually living in a dictatorship is like. And no, Canada isn't just going to welcome you with open arms when the world starts burning down around you so I hope you've got an exit strategy.
What primaries are you talking about? The ones 4 years ago?
What choice were Democrats given for primaries this election cycle?
It ain’t just young people. I’ve got a lot of lefty friends and family who have been lost and are willing to gamble on turnip because they think there is no way to handle things worse than we are now.
You would think that millions of global COVID deaths that he (and Xi - but nobody is allowed to vote that idiot out of office) is primarily responsible for would finally keep people from voting for the "it can't get any worse" guy.
COVID-19 killed almost three times as many Americans as died during WW2 due to both inaction and deliberate malicious actions. This alone should have resulted in a prison sentence for Trump and his inner circle.
goldfish.
We have a lot of serious problems in the US to say the least, but to assert it cannot get any worse seems like such a naive privileged thing to say.
We have to keep working to improve things, but there are so many ways things could go way, way worse then they are now.
you won't get any argument from me. these folks are the same ones telling me that I'm pro-war (generally in not such nice terms) because I want to avoid the abject horrors of a dictatorship; but apparently I'm just paranoid and overreacting.
Bullllllllshit
I'll say, the guy is taking abortion rights away.
I wish less people were so jaded about voting...
Well, there is a very simple solution to this. The Democrats could actually be a progressive party that recognizes and protects human rights, international law, and basic humanity of its American people.
But they don't. They continue to aid a genocide. They continue to obstruct justice on an international level. They continue the racist policies of Trumps like interment camps at the southern borders and building "the wall". They continue to protect the interest of rich elites against the American people like denying universal healthcare and basic social security for all.
The Democrats would rather have Trump win, than have the US not be a violent rogue nation internationally and a far-right economics hellhole internally.
Now they decided to crack down on free speech together with the Republicans, instead of taking the young peoples protests seriously. They are fine with Trump. For them Trump is better than universal healthcare or upholding international laws, like not committing mass murder.
In addition, Democrats do everything possible to make sure nobody left of center wins the Democratic nomination: when there was a real challenge to the corporate Democrats (Bernie in 2016 and 2020), they did everything they could to rig the primary process in order to keep out any leftward movement. Similarly for 2024, instead of holding debates to convince Democrats that Joe Biden was still up to the task, they held no debates and even canceled the primaries in several states. In 2020, polling showed that Bernie would have a much more comfortable path to victory than Biden, but Democrats were more comfortable with Trump than Bernie.
We need more choice. That means the end of fptp.
Because of the electoral college, my vote doesn't mean much of anything in a presidential election because I live in a very blue state, not a swing state. I still vote, though.
Maybe if my vote had had literally any effect on my life whatsoever I would care, but it hasn't. Democrats win, Republicans win, I continue to get fucked over while everyone argues over bullshit that effects only a handful of the population and shoul have been settled decades ago.
Young people? How about Democrat party leadership? If you need certain people to vote for you, then you have to earn their votes! How is this so hard to understand?
Because the side that benefits from voter apathy is relying on that exact ‘wall of noise’ media coverage to disenfranchise enough voters to get their preferred candidate in.
The amount of damage that Trump was able to inflict upon the United States in his term (3 Supreme Court picks, countless lower court picks); he will deliver a killing blow if given the opportunity.
As hyperbolic as it sounds, this could very well be the least legitimate Presidential election should he succeed.
“Both Sides Bad” is a 4Chan-level talking point concocted by the right, to obfuscate all the good that has been implemented over the past four years - even without all the roadblocks the GOP keeps putting in the way.
Is the system so weak that one president can break it? If so then it is already broken. If Trump is able to leverage presidential power to such effect, then why isn't Biden able to do the same? I think the word apathy obscures how a lot of non-voters feel. Give people some credit for their political motivations, even if they may present as lack of motivation.
Trumps not president. Biden is.
Amazing insight. When the article talks about the "threat from Trump," is it implying Trump is currently President?
That could change in a few months.
And yet he still holds autocratic control over the entire Republican party and an illegitimate Supreme Court.
Man, I'd been ignoring the dread and focussing on the cool parts of the future that are coming, but this thread mamaged to break through my shield and fill me with a decent amount of WW3 dread
Which parts of the future are cool? I'm actually not joking. I can't think of anything that's cool except maybe self driving vehicles. But I fear that day is still quite a ways, decades, off.
If you look past the fear mongering and how capitalists are using it, AI tech is already cool. Crispr and the fact that we are roughly at genetic modification now where we were with Computers in the 80's with a human trial for a gene modification therapy for a genetic disease already happening this year, VR and AR has some really nifty gaming uses already, and we're starting another manned mission to the moon. All of that is immediately cool, but boring you dont think of cool is how powerful our cellphones are, most of us now have a tiny black obelisk connected to NOTHING that allows us to talk to someone across the planet who doesnt speak the same language us with a delay of less than a few seconds, and still have them understand us. Our world has already changed SO MUCH in the last 30 years technology wise, and there isnt really anything hinting that that rate of advancement is going to slow to a significant degree, so while the political and environmental instability the world is currently facing is indeed scary, if we are in the position to survive the next 30 years, we're likely to see even more tech that would seem like magic even in todays eyes
edit: On top of all that, because of the internet, the rich have only been able to delay any of this cool tech getting into our hands, not fully stop it, so as much as they've been trying to lock down the internet, as long as they havent, we'll still eventually get access to these awesome new advancements
This election already has a few commonalities with '80.
Potential or real stagflation. A President that's seen as ineffective (despite some pretty okay policies). And a morally corrupt Republican.
On the other hand, Carter didn't help genocide or cover for it.
We're not underestimating a damn thing, we're ignoring it because the feds have proven that nothing we do will change anything.
okay real question for the omega libs here: where do you see people that are like. worth taking seriously, right, that are worth engaging with (maybe that's the major filter that I'm blocking out here since most people seem incapable of choosing who they actually want to engage with), who are the people that are worth engaging with that aren't going to vote for the old zionist rapist guy? I mean, the democractic one? I'm pulling your chain there but like for real, where do you see the opposition that's actually real?
Most of the shit that I've seen, still, is like, people rightfully saying "oh, biden sucks, here's why", and then people bringing up "trump's worse". Like okay, just because I hate pancakes doesn't mean I suddenly love waffles, you know? Food analogy I know I know, but really, like, where's the real opposition coming from? I'm discounting the super pro-biden turbolibs also, because they annoy me with their smugness. So far as I can tell, the people who are fervently anti-biden to the point of like, idiocy, right, weren't going to vote for him basically in any context, regardless of you know like damage control strategies, or the fact that voting didn't take that much effort in totality compared to other activism they might do, or like, oh, could they vote as a protest in a non-swing state that's basically guaranteed commitment to biden already as a kind of protest vote with questionable utility, that sort of thing. Most of the "opposition" I've seen hasn't been actually calculated about any of that, because none of that stuff is really very controversial, or, it shouldn't be. Most of them have just been like, not worth bothering with. Probably not russian bots or trolls like everyone would constantly say, because that's also fucking idiotic, but probably, they're just stupid people who aren't worth wasting your time on.
Basically why the fuck is everyone wasting their time on this like, stupid bullshit? How come every election, in equal measure, I see "vote blue no matter who" imbeciles trotted out in lock step, to shout down at "I will never vote for anyone because I'm a posadist accelerationist" terminally online idiots? There's no nuance or real depth to the conversation, or strategy, it's just like. Both sides can construct a strawman, and then basically get away with it because, on the vastness of the internet, said strawman is guaranteed to exist, especially if I make it kind of a vague ghost that I'm punching at. And then because of that, nobody ever has to actually like, work out any of their arguments in depth, because they're too busy kind of churning forth the cycle of idiocy.
I dunno, maybe digg 3.0 is just not conducive to good political discourse.
I've been round and round with the same folks who your post is directed at, and the conclusion I've drawn is "our government sucks, this is the best we can do, get used to it."
American history is littered with horrible actions. It's not unreasonable to expect us to keep doing it. Our government was written to be undemocratic at the request of slaveholders. Even if we had a card-carrying capital-C Communist™ as president, there are massive mechanisms that would prevent them from achieving fundamental change.
Joe Biden is literally the best we can do. This craphole of a country that shoots children protesting the killing of other children is literally the best we can do.
It's a lot less stressful to just accept this.
It’s a lot less stressful to just accept this.
I wonder if that's why suicide rates are at all time highs.
yeah I dunno if I can though. I think probably if this is the best we can do then we're headed down both a full-throated fascist reality of constant genocide, poverty, oppression, not only here but globally as america serves those ends globally, and basically a dystopian climate apocalypse on top of that.
If I accept that, then I become a little bit suicidal, which is not allowed.
Or maybe people are overestimating his survivability in the hardest job in the planet. My prediction is no matter the victor, by January of 2029, the outgoing president will neither be Trump or Biden.
Brave
This mf spittin
Threat to what? He was already president and I didn't feel threatened, what has happened that makes him so scary? Actual honest question
It's almost like other people exist, and almost like they're affected in a different way than you are by who is in charge of the government. Seriously though, I thought "it doesn't affect me, so it must not be a problem" wasn't supposed to be an actual argument.
To name one example, he deregulated the inspection of train safety, despite internal whistleblowers (who were ofc subsequently fired) claiming that the industry was not regulating itself in anything remotely resembling a "safe" manner. Keep in mind, this was before all those famous train derailments happened. Multiple people especially train engineers predicted they would happen, they went to a large amount of trouble - and were fired as a result - of warning that they would happen, but Trump ignored all of that and deregulated the industry to help make it more profitable... and then the derailments happened, whereupon we all paid the price. Socialization of costs, privatization of profits, it is the exact opposite of both socialism and of capitalism both - it was sheer foolishness, period.
And ofc there was his handling of the pandemic - note the initial cause of the pandemic was not his fault, but his poor handling of it is on him. First, at minimum, if nothing else "the buck stops here". But above & beyond the latter, as the audio recording with Bob Woodsworth revealed, Trump knew that the virus was airborne - he told his friend that much - and yet even knowing that, afterwards he lied and told people that it explicitly was not airborne (again, to aid "the economy", at the expense of the workers who died as a result). When others, e.g. Bill Clinton, have lied previously, conservatives got angry and tried to impeach them - and rightfully so - so why ignore it when it happens on the other side? Also this lie, measured in the form of "excess deaths", contributed to the deaths of more Americans than all of our wars combined. That seems like "harm" to me.
Then too there is how he inserted himself between a Congressional decision and the intended recipient of funding, with his attempt to blackmail the Ukrainian government to "just do me a favor though". By some definitions of the word that might even have constituted "treason" - I am no lawyer though, so be skeptical ofc, especially extreme claims require more extreme evidence, which the first impeachment trial was meant to bring forth except it was halted by Republicans in Congress.
The list really can go on and on... whatever you think of conservative vs. liberal philosophies, or of Republican vs. Democrat politics, he really was quite a dangerous President. Yes, most of us are still alive after his Presidency, but again... many of us are not now, with a good number of those deaths directly traceable to his decisions. Biden may not be "good", but extremely few Presidents in all of American history come close to how dangerous Trump was, by many objective metrics. History will reveal that, but right now it can be difficult to distinguish b/t the lying liberal media and the lying conservative media sources both lie, for the sake of their own profits. In all of that muddiness of facts, it can be super difficult to find out what is really going on. But the fate of people in and maybe the fate of our actual nation is on the line, so it is worth the effort for those of us who would consider ourselves "leaders" aka citizens, whose votes will determine the course ahead for us all.
What are the three worst things he caused during his years in the White House, according to you?
Old fuckers shouldn't have put us in this situation.
Yes because of all people it's Bernie that's the problem
This is a strawman. We all know Bernie’s been one of us commie socialists forever. Your comment is dum.
We may be well and truly fucked.
Someone ask the old fella to do a press release or a road map presentation to convince us all
I worry Bernie Sanders doesn't know he's irrelevant.
First of all, how dare you.
Ha!
Young people have lost their minds and are acting irrationally.
Young people see America's glaring hypocrisy and are reacting to it. That is rational. Denying the hypocrisy is irrrational.
Learn the difference.
The only thing their eyes are seeing is enemy propaganda, and they're taking the bait hook line and sinker.
Easy to say when you know you're gonna die of old age before the water wars start.
hint: they've already started in third world nations and in Western nations where Nestle accesses 1,000,000 litres of public water for the grand total of $3.50 (or thereabouts).
Part of me wants to vote in Trump. Let shit come to a head sooner rather than later.
You are effectively saying parts of you wants to be the worst parts of humanity. You want to hurt people you just can’t admit it.
I remember this sentiment being floated around a lot leading up to 2016. If 2020 should have taught us anything, it's that things can get worse in ways we won't expect.
A lot of people knew a global pandemic was on the horizon. That much was expected.
Trump knew. He knew and threw out the established response plan his first year. We did not expect him to be able to do that much harm.
pictured: the literal reason bernie said these things.
piss off with your accelerationist bullshit. people are going to die and you are flaunting your privilege by admitting you don’t care when it comes.
