So you can be the president if you’re a felon but felons can’t vote?
Yup. Authoritarians often criminalize their opponents to prevent them from running, like Putin did to Navalny. Even if banning felons from office could have positive effects, it’s also a dangerous flaw that bad actors in power could exploit to maintain their power.
As to the first part, yes. If the founders had blocked federal office due to a felony conviction, just imagine the clusterfuck. 200+ years of anyone and everyone trying to get a conviction, of any kind, on their opponents.
Same thing goes for the second part. It’s a roundabout way to block federal representation of certain groups of people. This is why automatically being blocked to vote because of a conviction shouldn’t be a thing. As you say that would (and does) lead to a clusterfuck.
The basic idea being people wouldn’t elect a felon.
Hold America’s collective beers.
It’s already started over in Twitter. MAGA Cultists are already thinking that America has ‘died’ lol.
They’re calling for Civil War lol
And of course, they’ll all be treated by the FBI with kid gloves, while leftists pointing out the impending need for self defense from their treasonous aggression will be persecuted as terrorists.
while leftists pointing out the impending need for self defense from their treasonous aggression will be
Called NRA shills?
The SRA exists; actual leftists know and understand that the second amendment is not limited to maga hogs
I’m aware, try spreading the gospel of self-defense here on lemmy and see how receptive the audience is.
You think the audience isn’t receptive, so you try to prove it by joining them with your worthless previous comment?
Brother I know the audience here isn’t receptive to “arm yourselves and learn how to use them.”
I’ve been called an NRA shill multiple times by braindead internet leftists right here on lemmy.
I’d expect people on lemmy to know better; anywhere else though, yeah, fair
I’d expect people on lemmy to know better
This has not been my experience here while advocating for the left arming and preparing.
It would certainly speed things up at least.
American a died a long time ago.
Maybe the education system.
American a died a long time ago.
This is such a stupidly lazy thing to say
No it has not don’t be stupid
In the sense of what it supposedly represented, and in the sense of it’s land and people, it most certainly is. What we call America today is nothing more than a machine, a meat grinder that has superseded what came before it in all but name.
America has been a meat grinder the whole time and never really represented any of the things we claim it did. All men were created equal but slavery and genocide were fine? If anything we’re closer to that ideal now than we ever have been
What came before was a slave state created so that tea smugglers wouldn’t have to pay taxes.
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Some 10% to 27% of Americans, depending on whom you ask, want the full Trump program: mass executions of liberals, bans on contraception and homosexuality, Christian nationalism, the whole Unified Reich thing, and plenty of opportunities to denounce annoying neighbours/coworkers/acquaintances as “woke” and have then taken away. Another 10-20% are low-information voters who “aren’t political”, but know, from news headlines, that things are in some way not going well, and based on vibes, believe it’s time for a change of administration. Being nonpolitical, they don’t care who replaces Biden, as long as it’s someone else, and of course, don’t understand Duverger’s Law and the Electoral College and thus don’t see why it couldn’t be literally anyone else.
You’re forgetting a decent subset. Ones who are informed but would rather vote 3rd party, which due to not having Teddy Roosevelt won’t do shit, rather than vote for either of these guys
Ones who are informed but would rather vote 3rd party
Or not at all. The Biden first term has been deeply depressing and demotivating. At some point, people have to live their lives and can’t be entirely subsumed in politics.
If they’re struggling to make rent, if they can’t get health care after picking up the Long COVID or caring for a relative to did, if they’re still crippled by student debts that never got relieved, if they’ve got loved ones abroad or in border detention centers who are being brutalized by US foreign policy, if they can’t afford a new car because Biden just slapped a giant tariff in cheap new imports, or who are simply too overworked and underpaid to afford the luxury of a political fixation, I can see people tuning out this election cycle as another media circus.
If Biden’s truly changing the lives of millions of people with his public policy, maybe none of that will matter. Maybe there will be legions of staunch Biden-heads bellying up to the polls in support of their savior. But I see a step gulf between what Democrats say is happening and what people sick of this administration are experiencing. I suspect that gulf will be what sinks him in November.
I suspect that gulf will be what sinks him in November.
i suspect abortion is the life line that will give biden the victory he wants
I completely agree that’s what I meant by the 3rd party. Those who will refuse to vote for either and I tend to find that more common from those who would’ve voted Democrat compared to the ones that would’ve voted Republican
You find lots of defectors in homogenous states. Texas is flush with libertarian conservatives who believe they aren’t served by the GOP. California has it’s fill of socialists disgusted with corporate shills in the “liberal” party.
Swing states have to play friendlier with these types of voters, producing lots of oddball candidates like Dennis Kucinich and Ilhan Omar. One reason Dem Senators are running so far ahead of Biden is due to their moderate appeal in their states relative to his extremist views.
duverger’s “law” is a useless tautology.
Don’t mistake this, he will now do anything and everything to win the election. It’s his only chance of avoiding prison. Cornered rat and all that – it’s more important than ever to get out the vote.
Joe Biden only won by like 43,000 votes across swing states in the electoral college. This journey is not over
It’s wild to think he’s willing to potentially lose to a literal felon just to protect a genocidal right-wing zealot.
It would be the most final indictment of neoliberalism one could imagine.
i think he’s betting on the pro-isreal-no-matter-what people who vote more reliably for the establishment than the left-leaning young who usually don’t vote for the establishment.
the later is a is chicken and egg problem because there’s not much reason for a progressive to vote for a centrist, so the centrist doesn’t try to reach out to the progressives; cementing a lack of votes from progressives for a centrist.
Do not underestimate how badly bigots want Trump to get rid of gays, transgenders and stoners.
Dem turnout is depressed and fascists are a hill of kicked ants. Its 2002 all over again.
Get all your not voting and apethetic friends to vote. Have a ballot party if your state does mail-in still.
I’m not voting for President for a very simple reason: I don’t live in a swing state, so it’s objectively a waste of time for me, lol.
This is true for the majority of US citizens. As long as we have an Electoral College system, it will remain true.
Ranked choice voting would be nice, too, to keep third parties from being anything other than spoilers.
The presidential election will not be the only thing on your ballot. Please vote for local offices, school boards, initiatives, etc. It’s important even in solidly blue states.
There is a reason I explicitly said “voting for President”, and not ‘voting that day’ or ‘going to the polls that day’.
Simple-minds without reading comprehension skills behind my downvotes once again, it seems, lol.
And make sure any dead relatives get their mail-in votes!
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They try, and most of them get caught. Because our election systems are some of the best in the world, despite what MAGA wants people to believe.
If the Biden campaign thought that hish payment felonies were going to cost Trump the election, then they haven’t been paying attention for the last 10 years
Maybe if Biden wasn’t a piece of shit he could get more voters?
A lot of people voted for Biden because they were horrified by what Trump was doing, things like the border prisons. Nothing fundamentally changed, they were just rebranded.
Brandon definitely has his game hat on. Doesn’t matter what the distractions say or do. Get tf out and vote.
Or you know, maybe people staying home because they can’t support a genocide, the death of the nation or the comedy option of a dude who cheated on his wife so hard, while on heroin, as worms died in his brain of mercury poisoning…
By not voting they support all of it.
You have to recognize how absurdly fucked this logic is, right? “You have to vote for the guy currently in office who is actively supporting and supplying genocide or else you support genocide.”
I’m not saying don’t vote, but I am saying that if you want to convince anyone who doesn’t already agree with you then you need to find a different tactic.
This. I cannot morally support any of them, I’m left without a choice but to be berated by the “lesser evil” crowd. I can’t support evil anymore, I have no love for this broken shithole country and would leave in an instant were I not trapped here.
So your options are work to make it better or give up. You’ve chosen give up.
Yes
Then stop bothering the rest of us who are trying to make things better. Your whining from the peanut gallery is annoying. You aren’t going to get any sympathy for your bitching here.
I mean, I already have, this isn’t the echo chamber you think it is, and it makes me feel better so if my whining is causing you pains, feel free to ignore or block me.
My assumption is that you are white, middle class and cishet male. Because you can apparently afford to give up.
my sincere apologies for what I am causing you.
Do you want the best possible outcome for gazans? Then vote for Biden. It really is that simple.
You can simultaneously acknowledge that having Biden in the white house is the best outcome for gazans amongst possible alternatives, and that you find Biden’s position unconsciable.
If you fail to take action, the plight of gazans will be worse, amongst many other disasters as yet unknown.
You realise conservatives don’t want you to vote?
You are telling me the same things I’ve been told my entire life. Do the dead gazans at the hands of American bombs think I should vote for Biden?
I keep hearing how much worse the world will be if I don’t choke on a Biden vote, but from my perspective it’s pretty shitty already. I’ve voted for the least evil in every election, only for us to arrive here.
Do the dead gazans at the hands of American bombs think I should vote for Biden?
Of course they would, because they know trump would actively grind their surviving families to dust.
I’ve voted for the least evil in every election, only for us to arrive here.
Yes but I’m sure you realise that’s not causative. We’re not in this situation because you voted progressive in every election. We’re in this situation because too many of your countrymen became apathetic and didn’t vote because “both sides are just as bad”.
I certainly never said it’s causative, but it doesn’t make any real difference in terms of the way that this country is going.
A democracy with only two options is a dictatorship of the winner. Your political influence isn’t limited to voting though, voting is the first action in a democracy, not the last.
Completely agreed.
Maybe I should turn myself in then, there are so many crimes I don’t commit that I must be responsible for.
🙄
Shit, I can’t argue with a smiley!
🙄
You bring up a good point.
Have fun on your high horse doing nothing but making the rest of us try to pick up your slack.
This is exactly the bullshit that I’m done with.
This is the system in which you live, like it or not. You can throw a fit and pout in the corner all you want, just don’t pretend you’re doing anything other than pouting.
I don’t like it, and I would leave if I could, but I am trapped here along with so many others. And I am only commenting on the choices of presidential election, this is not to say that I am not doing other things to make shit better. But thank you for all of the assumptions.
If you can’t hold your nose and try to prevent the highest office in the nation winding back up in the hands of a now convicted felon, I call absolute bullshit that’s you’re doing anything meaningful in down ballot and local elections, organizing, gathering support, anything. It’s pretty easy to pretend on the Internet.
Ok.
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well, you’ve convinced me!
Can’t convince idiots.
My thoughts exactly.
Or you know, maybe people staying home because they can’t support a genocide, the death of the nation or the comedy option of a dude who cheated on his wife so hard, while on heroin, as worms died in his brain of mercury poisoning…
I’m glad you have such a privileged life that you can afford to make such choices. Good for you! But many of us are not in that position and are really counting on not having an authoritarian regime hell bent on erasing us.
I mean, the fact that incrementalism has once again led us to a situation where we’ve got no choice but to desperately save democracy yet again, hasn’t made you wonder…
We’re in a situation where a literal cartoon villain (see Bloom County) who’s also a 34 time convicted felon, is within a hair of becoming president. In a functional society this would be too ridiculous for even a movie plot. But instead we’ve got Joe, happily cheerleading another genocidal war, alienating his base and the future base of the Democratic Party. Why do I prefer him again?
I started this cycle in the same mindset you are in. I just can no longer give my support to any of the horror shows that we have to choose from. I don’t think things will improve under Biden, I do think they will be worse under turnip but I also believe that if we elect him, we absolutely deserve what’s coming.
Maybe I’ve been listening to RATM too much lately but I just will not lift a finger to support this evil empire.
incrementalism
I have some bad news for you. It’s called “reality”.
So while you stamp you petulantly stamp your feet waiting for that big sweeping and most importantly instantaneous change to which you feel you are entitled, whole categories of people face an existential threat. It’s not all about you.
I do think they will be worse under turnip but I also believe that if we elect him, we absolutely deserve what’s coming.
I take it you are oblivious to the contradiction here?
You are right. It’s my fault.
You are right. It’s my fault.
It is if you don’t get over yourself and vote for Biden.
:facepalm
Biden needs to refer to the turnip as his felonious opponent from here on out.
…Did they just figure this out now?
I really wouldn’t be surprised if Biden pardoned Trump after the election to “help the nation heal”, sadly.
Yes but if TFG gets elected, what happens to Biden?
They are not the same.
Oh if Trump wins, I fully expect Biden to be in cuffs or publicly executed, depending on how much power his Supreme Court hands him… either a lot or a fuckton
Fuck
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Donald Trump is now a convicted felon — but that won’t stop his “unhinged” bid for another four years in the White House, President Joe Biden’s campaign warned voters Thursday night.
In a statement issued not long after a New York City jury convicted Trump on 34 counts of falsifying business records, Biden campaign communications director Michael Tyler said the verdict against the felonious ex-president vindicated the American system of justice.
Tyler added that Trump has never been a greater threat to American democracy, citing his “increasingly unhinged campaign of revenge and retribution,” his pledge to be a dictator on the first day of his term if elected, and his calls to “terminate” the US constitution as a way for him to “regain and keep power”.
A spokesperson for the White House Counsel’s Office, Ian Sams, issued a statement stating the following: “We respect the rule of law, and have no additional comment.”
But the strong statement from Biden’s campaign is an indicator that he and his surrogates will not shy away from describing Trump as a convicted felon, even as he runs to regain his former position as president.
The case against Trump, which was based on his falsification of business records to conceal a hush money scheme meant to cover up a sexual affair from voters in order to win the 2016 election, was considered the least serious of the four cases against him, which include two sets of federal charges stemming from his alleged unlawful retention of national defense information and his alleged effort to illegally remain in office despite losing the 2020 election.
The original article contains 551 words, the summary contains 267 words. Saved 52%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
