Who should Biden worry about more? Getting the left wing of his party to nominate him, or getting the general electorate to the polls in November? It’s a no brainer calculation.
There’s a couple of levels to this. On one level, I think conservatives do - in fact - deliver some promises. If you like twelve lane highways and ranch style suburban homes and ground beef that’s cheaper by the pound than broccoli? Good news. When Republicans take office, you can consistently bank on getting a couple hundred dollars worth of tax cuts, as part of their multi-billion dollar tax cut package. If you’re in a religious organization the party favors, you can expect all sorts of kickbacks via Faith Based Initiatives and Parochial Charter School Vouchers. If you’re a bigot, your governor will inflict all sorts of misery on minorities and the LGBT community. Police will parade through the streets in giant military convoys, showing off all their latest gear paid for with inflated budgets.
On another level, I think they get a certain amount of psychic agony inflicted on them while Democrats are in office. Right-wing news functionally terrorizes their own viewers until their guys win, and this creates a kind of pavlovian response. If you don’t want to see wave after wave of disturbing images on the TV, elect Republicans.
I think Democrats are mastering the latter, while neglecting the former. And that’s why you’ve got folks on Lemmy shitting themselves in horror over a future Trump administration, without really having anything tangible to look forward to under a second Biden term.
Democrats deliver plenty but messaging is awful. Biden has canceled $138 billion in student loan debt. Billion. That’s with him using whatever executive resources he can after Supreme Court obstruction. Where’s the news articles on that? You see people on this very site saying he promised to forgive student loans and then abandoned that promise (while gleefully laughing and twirling his moustache, because he just loves being evil).
Democrats deliver a lot more than Republicans. Republicans scuttled their own border security deal because they didn’t want to give Dems a win.
Biden has canceled $138 billion in student loan debt.
Biden is administering a policy going back to the Reagan Era of 20-year sunsets on student loan debts. The new debts he’s cancelled are in the billions, not the hundreds-of-billions. And this, in a pool of over $1.6T. I know a few people carrying student debts. None of them are applauding Biden right now. None of them are seeing their debts cancelled.
Democrats deliver a lot more than Republicans.
Democrats will tell you they delivered $800B in Medicare spending in 2023, when they just signed bills to cut physician pay by 2%/year. They publish walls of tiny-text claiming credit for everything from the Civil Rights Act to the latest private uptick in new clean energy infrastructure and get angry when you notice how the former has been gutted and the latter has nothing to do with their latest round of legislative/executive policies.
Trump put his fucking name on the stimulus checks he sent out in 2020.
Biden put his name on sunsets to the Child Tax Credit three years later, with some campaign promises to renew them (if Dems can retake the House AND the Senate AND Joe Manchin/Kristen Sinema don’t block anything) maybe some time in 2025.
See, this is where a republican would go “fake news” and just continue crowing about how awesome his party is.
A low info leftist will take what you say at face value and hate Biden.
A normal liberal will say I’m sure that’s incorrect or misleading, because I know your agenda and you fucks always lie, but I have a real job so I can’t get bogged down in it right now.
A Biden stan will say nothing, because they don’t exist because Democrats don’t work like that.
That’s not the reason democrats are barely leftist in 2024- lobbyists funding both wings of the government are. Socialist policies take away power from the corpocracy, so companies put tons of money into making sure that’s only a remote possibility -i’d argue there’s even been a consistent effort across the aisle to keep discussion as limited as possible to two specific issues: gun control and abortion. Look into the ratchet effect it perfectly describes the situation as I see it.
It’s a confluence of several issues. Lobbyists are only one of them. Fickleness, purity testing, apathy, all play a part too, and those are completely within your control.
Plus Leftists just aren’t the majority. Most people are moderates. Y’all refuse to believe that.
So leftists are just suppose to omit they’re own political philosophies and fall in line because moderates are the majority?
Fickleness, purity testing, apathy, all play a part too, and those are completely within your control.
No thats the DNC’s fault. You don’t get to complain about voter turn out because ppl don’t want to vote for a war criminal or that they have no faith in a system that actively fucks them and their way of life
Don’t you see the democracy is already doomed? Being forced to vote for a candidate is not a voluntary choice. Your voice is mute - it’s not a democracy.
The left actually demands politicians earn their vote. Politics isn’t supposed to be a team sport in the US. The entire reason we have elections so often is to make sure the voters approve of their representatives. That means voting out of team loyalty is a subversion of the system. And the charge of being fickle and lazy is undemocratic propaganda.
Why is the compromise always to be a good little voter and vote for us regardless of the heinous shit we’re up to cuz the other option is Hitler wins? That isn’t a compromise. A compromise is when both sides give up something they want. What have the dems given up? Said that Israel has maybe gone a little bit too far? Whoopty-fucking-do.
I’m tired of compromising with people who won’t compromise. We just lurch to the right over and over whenever there’s a fight. They never worry about compromising with me ever.
No, the left just calls bullshit and holds people accountable.
The Left holds left-leaning moderates more “accountable” than they do the literal fascists and nazis on the Right. The Left has their priorities all fucked up.
It would be nice if the right wing policed themselves, instead of having to depend on the adults on the left. Thus creating a self fulfilling prophecy of the evil bad left “persecuting” the poor victims of the right.
Your point is wrong, though. Leftists voting for dems will only encourage more liberal policy, not leftist policy. You’re advocating for leftists voting third party and spoiling their vote.
the left is simply not large enough to win a primary
Quite a bit of what left-leaning voters advocate for is initially very popular. Medicare-for-All has a broad base of support. Rent control is very popular. Increasing Social Security payouts is an untapped political goldmine. The anti-war movement remains a large and largely neglected constituency.
What left-leaning candidates traditionally lack isn’t popularity, but money. What made Sanders such a powerful primary opponent in 2016 and 2020 was his prodigious fundraising abilities. He wasn’t wildly out of line with Mike Gravel or Ralph Nader on the issues, but he commanded 100x their war chests thanks to the outpouring of social media coordinated campaign funding.
Compared to guys like Steve Forbes or Ron Paul or Michael Bloomberg - who also brought enormous volumes of cash to the table - Sanders was able to offer a platform constituents in his own party were quick and eager to rally around.
Our system is one of coalition building.
A coalition requires seats at the table. Which leftists are getting a seat at the Biden table? Not Rashida Talib. Not Cori Bush. Not even Elizabeth fucking Warren.
Coalitions imply equity. What Democrats are demanding isn’t a coalition, its a coronation. Biden wants his voters to bend the knee. (Trump, too). And the folks who buck his commandments aren’t enticed back into the fold with concessions. They’re treated as pariahs and scapegoats and fifth columnists, to explain his plummeting poll numbers.
It’s a proven strategy for the Democrats. That’s how they got Trump, and that got them tons of funding and dropped the bar all the way to the floor. Why would they give up now?
This is the disconnect between the DNC and normal Democrats. Everyone who’s not in party leadership can see how absolutely idiotic this approach is, and the DNC is so far up their own asses they are incapable of recognizing it.
Who should Biden worry about more? Getting the left wing of his party to nominate him, or getting the general electorate to the polls in November? It’s a no brainer calculation.
I mean, the Democrats have been screwing the actually Left for decades now so…
If y’all actually voted, Democrats would care about you more. The Left is fickle and the DNC knows it.
Didn’t Bernie Sanders win the California primary in 2020? Seems like he’d need a lot of leftist voters to pull that off.
Once bitten, twice shy
Meanwhile, on the Right: “once bitten, BITE HARDER”. So they win elections while you run away.
There’s a couple of levels to this. On one level, I think conservatives do - in fact - deliver some promises. If you like twelve lane highways and ranch style suburban homes and ground beef that’s cheaper by the pound than broccoli? Good news. When Republicans take office, you can consistently bank on getting a couple hundred dollars worth of tax cuts, as part of their multi-billion dollar tax cut package. If you’re in a religious organization the party favors, you can expect all sorts of kickbacks via Faith Based Initiatives and
ParochialCharter School Vouchers. If you’re a bigot, your governor will inflict all sorts of misery on minorities and the LGBT community. Police will parade through the streets in giant military convoys, showing off all their latest gear paid for with inflated budgets.On another level, I think they get a certain amount of psychic agony inflicted on them while Democrats are in office. Right-wing news functionally terrorizes their own viewers until their guys win, and this creates a kind of pavlovian response. If you don’t want to see wave after wave of disturbing images on the TV, elect Republicans.
I think Democrats are mastering the latter, while neglecting the former. And that’s why you’ve got folks on Lemmy shitting themselves in horror over a future Trump administration, without really having anything tangible to look forward to under a second Biden term.
Democrats deliver plenty but messaging is awful. Biden has canceled $138 billion in student loan debt. Billion. That’s with him using whatever executive resources he can after Supreme Court obstruction. Where’s the news articles on that? You see people on this very site saying he promised to forgive student loans and then abandoned that promise (while gleefully laughing and twirling his moustache, because he just loves being evil).
Democrats deliver a lot more than Republicans. Republicans scuttled their own border security deal because they didn’t want to give Dems a win.
Biden is administering a policy going back to the Reagan Era of 20-year sunsets on student loan debts. The new debts he’s cancelled are in the billions, not the hundreds-of-billions. And this, in a pool of over $1.6T. I know a few people carrying student debts. None of them are applauding Biden right now. None of them are seeing their debts cancelled.
Democrats will tell you they delivered $800B in Medicare spending in 2023, when they just signed bills to cut physician pay by 2%/year. They publish walls of tiny-text claiming credit for everything from the Civil Rights Act to the latest private uptick in new clean energy infrastructure and get angry when you notice how the former has been gutted and the latter has nothing to do with their latest round of legislative/executive policies.
Trump put his fucking name on the stimulus checks he sent out in 2020.
Biden put his name on sunsets to the Child Tax Credit three years later, with some campaign promises to renew them (if Dems can retake the House AND the Senate AND Joe Manchin/Kristen Sinema don’t block anything) maybe some time in 2025.
See, this is where a republican would go “fake news” and just continue crowing about how awesome his party is.
A low info leftist will take what you say at face value and hate Biden.
A normal liberal will say I’m sure that’s incorrect or misleading, because I know your agenda and you fucks always lie, but I have a real job so I can’t get bogged down in it right now.
A Biden stan will say nothing, because they don’t exist because Democrats don’t work like that.
That’s not the reason democrats are barely leftist in 2024- lobbyists funding both wings of the government are. Socialist policies take away power from the corpocracy, so companies put tons of money into making sure that’s only a remote possibility -i’d argue there’s even been a consistent effort across the aisle to keep discussion as limited as possible to two specific issues: gun control and abortion. Look into the ratchet effect it perfectly describes the situation as I see it.
It’s a confluence of several issues. Lobbyists are only one of them. Fickleness, purity testing, apathy, all play a part too, and those are completely within your control.
Plus Leftists just aren’t the majority. Most people are moderates. Y’all refuse to believe that.
So leftists are just suppose to omit they’re own political philosophies and fall in line because moderates are the majority?
No thats the DNC’s fault. You don’t get to complain about voter turn out because ppl don’t want to vote for a war criminal or that they have no faith in a system that actively fucks them and their way of life
I’m complaining right now, so I think I do.
You’re all a bunch of spoiled children. It would be sad if it weren’t for the fact that it’s dooming our democracy.
Don’t you see the democracy is already doomed? Being forced to vote for a candidate is not a voluntary choice. Your voice is mute - it’s not a democracy.
All you “democracy bad” fucks should go back to Russia. Fuck you. We don’t want you in our countries.
The left actually demands politicians earn their vote. Politics isn’t supposed to be a team sport in the US. The entire reason we have elections so often is to make sure the voters approve of their representatives. That means voting out of team loyalty is a subversion of the system. And the charge of being fickle and lazy is undemocratic propaganda.
Democracy is about compromise. By refusing to compromise you’re ceding power to the worst option.
Why is the compromise always to be a good little voter and vote for us regardless of the heinous shit we’re up to cuz the other option is Hitler wins? That isn’t a compromise. A compromise is when both sides give up something they want. What have the dems given up? Said that Israel has maybe gone a little bit too far? Whoopty-fucking-do.
I mean you laid it out right there
Compromise requires both sides. And supplying a genocide isn’t compromise.
“Not genocide” is not an option.
It is. Biden can stop providing arms to Israel.
And how are you gonna make him do that?
Not with that attitude it’s not. It is possible. There is a world in which Biden proves he can still be pressured into doing the right thing.
Explain how that works.
I’m tired of compromising with people who won’t compromise. We just lurch to the right over and over whenever there’s a fight. They never worry about compromising with me ever.
That’s democracy. When a large portion of voters want fascism, you have to compromise with fascists.
No, the left just calls bullshit and holds people accountable.
If you want blind obedience that votes regardless of how fuckawful you are, then go Republican.
The Left holds left-leaning moderates more “accountable” than they do the literal fascists and nazis on the Right. The Left has their priorities all fucked up.
Yeah, its all the leftists fault, and not for the fact that the fascist nazi supporters help protect them against the leftist.
big bad leftists, responsible for everything from the nazis to stubbed toes.
I’m just saying it would be nice if you guys went after the actual Nazis instead of your closest allies every now and then.
It would be nice if the right wing policed themselves, instead of having to depend on the adults on the left. Thus creating a self fulfilling prophecy of the evil bad left “persecuting” the poor victims of the right.
If they could do that, they wouldn’t be right wing.
That’s bullshit. Leftists vote, the problem is that liberals aren’t leftists and only care about serving Capital.
So there’s more liberals than leftists. That’s democracy.
Your point is wrong, though. Leftists voting for dems will only encourage more liberal policy, not leftist policy. You’re advocating for leftists voting third party and spoiling their vote.
I’m advocating for leftists voting for the most left Dem they can get in any given race. Not for splitting the vote.
Liberal is better than fascist, correct?
The most “left” dem is right wing and wants to implement right wing solutions. The dems are not left.
Dems are more left than the literal nazis on the right wing.
The issue is the left is simply not large enough to win a primary. The reason Bernie wasn’t nominated is simple: not enough votes.
Our system is one of coalition building. You either join the least bad coalition for your interests or you have no influence at all.
Quite a bit of what left-leaning voters advocate for is initially very popular. Medicare-for-All has a broad base of support. Rent control is very popular. Increasing Social Security payouts is an untapped political goldmine. The anti-war movement remains a large and largely neglected constituency.
What left-leaning candidates traditionally lack isn’t popularity, but money. What made Sanders such a powerful primary opponent in 2016 and 2020 was his prodigious fundraising abilities. He wasn’t wildly out of line with Mike Gravel or Ralph Nader on the issues, but he commanded 100x their war chests thanks to the outpouring of social media coordinated campaign funding.
Compared to guys like Steve Forbes or Ron Paul or Michael Bloomberg - who also brought enormous volumes of cash to the table - Sanders was able to offer a platform constituents in his own party were quick and eager to rally around.
A coalition requires seats at the table. Which leftists are getting a seat at the Biden table? Not Rashida Talib. Not Cori Bush. Not even Elizabeth fucking Warren.
Coalitions imply equity. What Democrats are demanding isn’t a coalition, its a coronation. Biden wants his voters to bend the knee. (Trump, too). And the folks who buck his commandments aren’t enticed back into the fold with concessions. They’re treated as pariahs and scapegoats and fifth columnists, to explain his plummeting poll numbers.
A 100k means Michigan goes red. He’s playing chicken with the country at this point.
It’s a proven strategy for the Democrats. That’s how they got Trump, and that got them tons of funding and dropped the bar all the way to the floor. Why would they give up now?
Because we aren’t cultists. We aren’t going to worship a golden bust of Biden and swallow whatever bullshit they feed us.
This is the disconnect between the DNC and normal Democrats. Everyone who’s not in party leadership can see how absolutely idiotic this approach is, and the DNC is so far up their own asses they are incapable of recognizing it.
I think those 726k Trump voters are still winnable if Biden can just move a liiiiittle bit farther to the right.
Please no. The Overton window has already shifted so far right