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[-] givesomefucks@lemmy.world 164 points 4 months ago

Heaven forbid we try running charismatic candidates like Obama and Bill...

Like, it's insane to me that everyone seems to be aware of what wins elections, but the people running the Dem party just keep insisting we need to shut up and vote for someone very few people actually want.

Like, we can't do this without the voters, they're the irreplaceable part.

We can get different people to run the party, or just coalesce around another.

[-] Clent@lemmy.world 89 points 4 months ago

Democrats need to fall in love. Republicans just need to fall in line.

It's like you read the meme and went yep, totally their fault. I'm ok with my life gets shittier until I fall in love with a politician. It's not my fault. I am owed this.

Is there a term for the political version of an incel?

[-] someguy3@lemmy.world 35 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

It's not just the president, you need to vote for house of reps and Senate. Obama only had control for 2/8 years. In that time he got the ACA. The remaining 6 years of Obama the GOP were more than happy to block everything. They even shut down the government. If you need charisma to feed your emotions every 4 years, yeesh.

*Oh I caught on, it's the thiny veiled Biden bad, hinting he has no charisma and nobody wants to vote for him. "They just have to run someone else nudge nudge. Someone else to run the party wink wink." Nuts to that, Biden is doing great.

[-] lennybird@lemmy.world 21 points 4 months ago

I get people want to fall in line at this point and I have and will vote for Biden, but your head is deep in the sand if you believe Biden's senility and lack of charisma isn't hurting him here. The only thing we're lucky on is that Donald is running again who is for all intents just as senile and far more deranged and far less compassionate.

But Biden doesn't hold a candle to Obama.

[-] someguy3@lemmy.world 13 points 4 months ago

There it is again "senility". Everyone working with him says he's sharp, but you just gotta get it in. Would I prefer younger? Sure. But he's not senile JFC. Lack of charisma? The guy presents absolutely fine and does great work. How much does one need to appeal to emotions.

[-] FuglyDuck@lemmy.world 12 points 4 months ago

How much does one need to appeal to emotions.

you haven't been paying attention, have you? the entire republican platform is an appeal to their emotions. It's why it's successful. appeals to emotion are vastly more successful than appeals to logic or reason, even if they're wrong. Our brains are literally hardwired to consider emotion before reason, to react on emotion before logic; and triggering the emotional response to manipulate people is an entire field of science in neuropsychology. (and probably one of the best funded areas of research...)

[-] someguy3@lemmy.world 9 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

This "we need someone charismatic and then we'll vote" is the emotion for the supposed logical, informed, left wing voter, who votes based on policy (or lack of policy when they protest no vote).

[-] FuglyDuck@lemmy.world 7 points 4 months ago

So you just like to scream at people while ignoring human nature,

Okay, good to know. I’m sure it’ll work out fine if you just continue screaming at people…

[-] someguy3@lemmy.world 7 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

Funny because I think it's the other way around, people screaming "but but but charisma! But but but old!"

I thought maybe it was someone else I just told but no it's you. These are the supposed logical people waiting for the supposed logical platform. But no, they want emotions. Notice that doesn't add up?

And you're still trying to sneak it in. Biden is just fine charismatically.

[-] FuglyDuck@lemmy.world 8 points 4 months ago

I never once criticized Biden for being old. So no, that was not me.

And I’m trying to side step charisma; you can be uncharismaric and win- but you can’t just appeal to logic and reason- even to logical and reasonable people- and expect to win against a campaign that’s all about emotion.

You have to get people excited. That’s how you win. Not by browbeating your voters, not by ignoring them, and sitting around expecting people to vote because you’re a democrat and that other guy is awful.

You have to get people excited and motivated. You have to persuade them to vote, and no, Biden is not entitled to anyone’s vote.

There are a fair amount of things Biden has done, that are good. You want to get votes for Biden, talk about that, talk about things he’s trying to do right now.

Attacking and antagonizing doesn’t motivate people to vote- at best it does the opposite, at worst it motivates them to vote for Trump.

TL/DR? Even if it’s not your intention, you’re making it worse.

P.S. telling people how to vote is kind of… a thing fascists do…

[-] lennybird@lemmy.world 5 points 4 months ago

Well said. Both Hillary and Biden had very lower voter-enthusiasm when people were surveyed... Even for dyed-in-the-wool Democrats. People like Obama or Bernie had high voter enthusiasm. If only institutions followed suit...

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[-] lennybird@lemmy.world 7 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

Not the guy you're discussing with, but on this rare occasion I'll toot my own horn for once: If only the average American were as intelligent — or at least informed — as me. Unfortunately one must get on their level, sometimes. Besides, having a logical platform and having the charismatic youthful platform are not mutually-exclusive things.

Welcome to America, where everything from high school to your career prospects is basically a popularity contest as opposed to a formal job interview based on legitimate experience and qualifications.

They who can thread the needle between populism and substantive policy win.

I'm just happy Donald is the nominee again because I don't think Biden could've beat anyone else.

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[-] lennybird@lemmy.world 11 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

Okay, dude — Just humor me for a second:

  • A whopping 66-77% of Americans polled again and again view Biden as too old to be President. So in this respect, I'm just reflecting a widespread concern of what millions upon millions of people see and feel.
  • His staff, who must literally kiss ass to maintain the privilege of working a job in the White House and like warfare will give no quarter to any argument the GOP makes no matter how true it is - is NOT a good counter-argument to make. It's as outlandish as the Republican senators coming out of the meeting yesterday saying Trump is sharp as ever.
  • Even the likes of The Daily Show to SNL mocks this aspect of Biden for good reason.
  • Blaming for the stutter works only insofar as you're old enough to remember Biden as VP under Obama in 2008.

NOW, here's the thing: less time needs to be spent trying to shore up the bullshit argument that Biden is "sharp as ever," and more about pivoting to Trump's incoherent rambles and his own age. Acknowledging Biden's age is actually a great one-two punch to use for anyone on the fence because it gives you a point where both can agree: "Yeah, I agree Biden is showing his age clearly. No differently than McConnell... No differently than Donald (give examples), but I think Biden is at least a more compassionate person... And say, while we're at it, can we agree we should have an age limit if we already have an age-minimum on the Presidency?"

[-] someguy3@lemmy.world 7 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

This wasn't about him being old, this was about you saying "senility" and whoever didn't believe that had was "head is deep in the sand". But when I call that out, you have to pivot that to old.

Ok I should have said people that meet him say he's sharp. They are not beholden to him. One guy met him said he remember meeting his mom like a decade prior and remembered her and all the details. Fuck that's better than I do. Now in case you say "but that's not work", but yes also the people that work with him say he's sharp too. Seems to me you just want to get the 'senile' bit out any way you can.

Wow and now you're trying to ignore that he does in fact have a stutter? Ok that's about it, you've shown you're dead set on vilification no matter what. Stutters come and go, how prepared you are for a speech, etc. It's not consistent that never changes one bit.

Thanks for showing the world that your mission is to bad mouth Biden. You sneak in "senile" then pivot when called out. You say everything good must be bootlickers. And you preemptively try to ignore that he has a stutter. I'm probably not going to reply anymore.

[-] lennybird@lemmy.world 6 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

Geriatric, old, senile — same thing for all intents of this discussion. Yes, they are head-deep in the sand.

Hell just watch the clips from this Daily Show skit of Biden.. I can tell you three things: (1) Obama never did this, (2) Biden never did this during Obama's first term in office, and (3) this is clearly a sign of senility no different than McConnell just freezing during a press conference.

Wow and now you’re trying to ignore that he does in fact have a stutter?

Not what I said. Work on reading-comprehension, please. Try again and stop putting words in my mouth.

Also I didn't "sneak" senile in anywhere — I said it quite in the open, really.

[-] someguy3@lemmy.world 6 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

senile /sē′nīl″, sĕn′īl″/ adjective

Relating to or having diminished cognitive function, as when memory is impaired, because of old age.

Being a disease or condition whose cause is primarily advanced age. "senile cataracts."

No not the same thing.

And attacks. Ciao.

[-] lennybird@lemmy.world 5 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

Yes, that's the correct use here.

I'll repeat the deflected:

Hell just watch the clips from this Daily Show skit of Biden.. I can tell you three things: (1) Obama never did this, (2) Biden never did this during Obama's first term in office, and (3) this is clearly a sign of senility no different than McConnell just freezing during a press conference.

You already attacked, hypocrite. Auf wiedersehen.

[-] FuglyDuck@lemmy.world 33 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

Like. lets talk about what happened.

it's reasonable to claim that Gore actually won in 2000. There were sixty one thousand votes that had not been machine-counted because of rampant, clearly partisan, bullshit reasons (among them "hanging chad",). the Florida Supreme Court ordered a manual count of those ballots with SCOTUS, lead by Scalia, decided to stay because the recount would give Bush a veneer of "illegitimacy". (gee. wonder why, ya fucking partisan hack.) To be perfectly clear, Gore lost Florida (and the electoral college) by 570 votes. The decision in Bush V. Gore to stay the manual recount basically handed Bush the win. (and, I might add, cast doubt on the legitimacy of bush's win. it was handed by a court that had no business ordering that stay. But did anyway, because they're partisan hacks. I'm not angry, honest.)

Kerry flip-flopped more than a fish out of water, making it hard for independents and centrists to know what his positions actually were. 2 years prior to the election he was, for example, staunchly against gay marriage (and lets be honest, the US was very hostile to gay marriage then. There's been a massive sea change in that, but it hadn't happened yet.), but in 2004 signed a letter urging Massachusetts to not outlaw gay marriage. Further, he had the personality of a cold fish. and his running mate was an empty suit with nothing to back it up- who couldn't even deliver his home State of North Carolina.... In short, you had a couple warm bodies running. At the time, Bush was still riding high off 9/11 and the Iraq war and americans were still angry at that; the war wasn't unpopular yet. Katrina hadn't happened yet, and Bush was still reasonably popular. So, of fucking course Kerry lost.

Hillary. Where do we begin? her emails? lets start there.

Sure, "HeR EmAiLs" and "LoCk HeR uP" is an idiotic rallying cry of MAGA morons everywhere. But, even so, she conducted official Sec of State business on a personal email routinely. It's such a great rallying cry because it actually has some teeth. it should be scandalous. Even if she was perfectly not-at-all-corrupt, it looks that way. I- and most everyone else- would be legitimately fired for conducting that level of business off a personal email. it should be 100% unacceptable. Not saying she should have been locked up or grilled the way she was. But seriously. It looked bad. and it played in the news.

Then we got Benghazi. an American ambassador died in a terrorist attack. There's some things that hindsight says they could have done differently. Republicans latched onto it for political theater, with 10 different investigations and multiple sessions of grilling Clinton, who even then was the presumptive nominee to replace Obama. there was some funding that her office denied, she might not even have been aware that "she" denied it. Hindsight's a bitch. Anyhow... the republican shenanigans played well in the media.

Oh. "Super Criminals". Hillary was very unpopular with minority voters- particularly Black and Latinos. sound clips calling for law-and-order tough-on-crime calling black people "super criminals" didn't help. there was a lot there, especially with her attitude, but in the end they simply didn't show up for her. Even if you look at women voters, she under-performed compared to Obamma. (i mean, he looks mighty fine in a tan suit... sorry, sorry. couldn't resist.) Like, how unpopular do you have to be as a woman, to lose women voters from Obama's election, when you're running against Donald- "grab them by the pussy", "When you're that rich they let you do it", "Octopus-Arms" -Trump.

Lets also talk about how she boosted trump specifically because he was "a clown" or whatever. She gave us trump and then proceededly arrogantly not campaign in key states.

oh, and there's more that I just don't have time to get into... but we got Whitewater, Travelgate, filegate; and shit rolls down hill so lets toss in Paula Jones and Monika Lewinsky scandals. Like there's a lot of smoke there, and there might be a couple fires, or maybe they're just really not that corrupt as people and it's all a big missunderstanding. but again, that plays in the media, and it looks bad. Hilary was the definition of The Establishment™️ running against an anti-establismhent candidate. Of fucking course she's gonna lose, and she really didn't help matters by fucking around with not campaigning in key swing states because, "naw, it's fucking trump".

Yup. so aside from Gore, there's really rather good reasons to have not liked them, and the DNC idiots thought they new better and ran them anyhow... and we got fucked because of it. blaming voters for your own stupid blunders seems to be a DNC favorite. And they're doing it again.

[-] ryathal@sh.itjust.works 11 points 4 months ago

You missed basket of deplorables which is likely the exact moment she really lost.

[-] troybot@midwest.social 12 points 4 months ago

Pokemon Go to the polls. That campaign had a death by 1000 paper cuts. Yet she still won the popular vote.

[-] Facebones@reddthat.com 7 points 4 months ago

Hell, she's STILL out here working to tank democrats in the name of status quo corporatism,

"What do you say to voters who are upset that those are the two choices? Get over yourself."

Democrats need the boogeyman of Trump but they will 1000% take Trump before they give an inch to the left, but they'll be happy to blame leftists for their loss after 4 years of telling em to eat a dick.

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[-] lennybird@lemmy.world 27 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

Right!?

Young and charismatic. That's all that is necessary for Dems to sweep elections. Proven time and time again. With a hearty message of progress and love.

It's that fucking simple.

(signed someone who ultimately voted for Hillary and Biden but they were far from my 1st preference in the primaries).

Edit: Typo.

[-] psvrh@lemmy.ca 23 points 4 months ago

Young and charismatic might mean higher taxes for the rich and more progressive policies.

The Democratic leadership doesn’t want that. They really like the neoliberal consensus, they like having funding parity with the Republicans. They like being seen as “very serious people “ and they’re deathly afraid of being called socialists.

The problem is that their apparatchiks all came of age, politically, in the 1990s under that same neoliberal golden age. That’s not the world they’re in anymore. They aren’t running against Bush the Elder, and cutting taxes while playing jazz isn’t going to cut it when they’re losing working class votes to fascists.

We saw this play out horribly in the UK: where Labour’s party leaders would rather sabotage their own leader because he was too progressive then risk him winning and give socialism credibility.

The political left really liked the 1990s, but it’s a bygo era and it isn’t coming back.

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[-] mjhelto@lemm.ee 5 points 4 months ago

The last time the Democrats ran a progressive candidate allowed Nixon to sweep every state except a few in that election. I mean, just look at this shit!

So yeah, if anyone is wondering why the Democrats don't run progressive candidates, this is why! They've only moved further to the right since then. Expecting Democrats to run a progressive would likely sweep the whole nation blue, but if you thought tRump was bad, a progressive would be just as bad for monied interests, which have only grown more emboldened and enriched the last 40-45 years.

It will take a lot of time, I'm afraid, to undo the damage Republicans have have done with their shitty ideals and politics, starting largely with Reagan's racist, homophobic, anti-union, and regulation gutting bullshit!

[-] lennybird@lemmy.world 6 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

In fairness I emphasized young and charismatic — was McGovern charismatic? I don't know about that.

Still, I think this is the exception as opposed to the norm, considering we can point to FDR, JFK, Carter, Clinton, and Obama. RFK was setting up to be another obvious front-runner.

It's a race to the bottom to put forward someone who will water their rhetoric down and cater to ignorance; but of course, some of the country isn't educated enough to understand why progressive policies must be better — hence why you run someone young and charismatic — hence why Obama swept traditionally red counties that neither Hillary nor Biden picked up.

[-] PhlubbaDubba@lemm.ee 24 points 4 months ago

When the other side are fascists openly running on a platform of doing fascists, needing to feel excited to fall in line and vote against them just makes you a fascist who thinks they can get bribes out of it.

[-] givesomefucks@lemmy.world 31 points 4 months ago

Who cares?

What works is running charismatic candidates.

So why not run charismatic candidates and beat the fascists?

[-] Saint_La_Croix_Crosse@midwest.social 15 points 4 months ago

"It's not our job to campaign or do politics, the Democrats cannot fail, only be failed" - Democrats, totally caring about fascism.

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[-] crusa187@lemmy.ml 6 points 4 months ago

No!…it’s the voters who are wrong. Better blame theme some more, as that will surely boost our historically abysmal national voter turnout come November.

/s

[-] jaybone@lemmy.world 5 points 4 months ago

I’m starting to think that the corporations (who own both parties, but prefer republicans) are sabotaging the democrats. That’s why they ran Hillary. And now we have an absolute joke of a Supreme Court that will suck every single nanoliter of jizz from the corporate dick any time day or night.

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this post was submitted on 14 Jun 2024
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