The fact that one can win the popular vote and still lose is a yuuuuge part of what’s wrong with our fucked up voting system.

Hillary Clinton’s campaign was poorly run, but she didn’t invent Trump or get millions of people to vote for him. Trump was set up by 25+ years of extremist Republican media - people like Limbaugh, Murdoch, O’Reilly - and enabled by the “liberal” mainstream media, who wouldn’t stop talking about his stupid shit for the 2 years leading up to the campaign, and are doing the same thing this time.

I know this isn’t necessarily the point of the post, but I’m going to use this as an opportunity to bring it up anyway—

I can’t help but fear that the 2024 election is going to be an example of the DNC “reaping what they sowed.” In 2020 it felt like the DNC did whatever they could to push Biden through as a candidate despite more youthful, progressive options (and Bernie, who wasn’t youthful, but was progressive and in line with what a lot of the US left wanted). In many wants it felt like they did this because Biden was:

1. More moderate in willing to bend to the political interests of lobbyists
2. An easier option to beat Trump

In some ways I understand why it happened, but I was terrified of the situation we currently are in back then. Fast forward four years and now we’re left with a very elderly Biden versus an even more extreme Trump; and now it’s not a sure shot that Biden is going to win. Instead of uniting as a party and building up a new candidate who truly represented the people’s interests in 2020 the DNC decided to kick the can. As a result of that can kicking we may be facing the end of American democracy as we know it in 2024. It’s sickening to me.

It's a good point but there is plenty of blame to go around. The democrats have part of the responsibility, but the lions share sits with the republicans.

The democrats are also at fault for elevating Clinton. She was a poor candidate who was backed by the political establishment. The notion it was "her turn" had already played out with Obama and she lost handily. There were better candidates in the primaries.

The same problem is happening with Biden. He is a bad candidate but he is being waved through by the party out of a paralysing fear of trump.

But they're all symptoms of the extremely broken US electoral system with first past the post, gerrymandering, electoral colleges and politically appointed and elected officials including judges all entrenching the absolute power of 2 parties.

In my opinion the solution would be at the grass roots with local plebiscites on proportional representation in elections to local and state government, and other positions. That would bring more meaningful change than most of the other propositions that get put on the ballots as it'd allow a route for political opposition to organise into new parties, capture funding and power and gradually build a base to fight and win other elections.

Unfortunately the 2 main parties have convinced the electorate that the status quo is vital. For example California is a "democrat state" and anything that undermines that is dangerous because the enemy might get in. It's all bullshit. The rules are being set by the incumbents but actually the whole game needs to change.

SHOULD'VE BEEN BERNIE

Tribal thinking is a sign of lack of maturity. If you don't think being, "better than TFG." is a pathetic excuse for a party platform, you're either a child or utterly incompetent at governing, or both.

Similarly, if anyone assumes someone attacking Democrats, a center-right party, MUST be coming from the right ... they're painfully ignorant of politics in general.

Too bad this country is full of immature children that managed to reach adult age... Regardless of how bad the Dems are, they're still the only valid choice for someone making moral decisions. No, Biden is anything but perfect, but literally no one else can win that isn't outright evil ... partly because Democrats run a pathetic party and don't actually fight for democracy.

Critiquing Biden is not an endorsement of trump

Damn if lemmy.world could read, I'd put that on a shirt 🥲

Moderation around here is not prepared for this trash to seriously pick up this year.

Can't wait to hear my daily "reminders" about how everything is actually the DNC's fault for not resurrecting Bernie's campaign for a third time because he'd totally win this time.

I mean it's fine to critique the DNC as long as we don't ignore the current political climate. We had an insurrection, confidential documents were stolen, spies were killed.

That president worked with his party to get several justices who have caused a divisive climate over abortion, which has had several state upsets due to it being more unpopular than initially believed.

The President responsible for this is currently buried in court cases. He is the presumed frontrunner for his party despite everything listed. The most likely reason he wants it above his dictatorial speeches is that he wants a pardon for everything he's done up until now. That at the end of the day is the problem that nothing else can really beat out, but if we really had to add anything, it's that he hasn't even shown to be opposed to any of the things that are negatively affecting the current President.

Like I didn't think he was a great President, but it's pretty much everything he did going out the door that made it clear he shouldn't come back. For all of DNCs issues, it was absolutely the republican party at the end of the day that made the situation we have today. The DNC was just incompetent to do anything about it.

I think the general issue with a lot of anti-DNC posts lately is that they come off as "We will vote for a party that doesn't win on any level of government, just to show our opinion"

Which...seems to ignore that one party is trying to erode voting rights, which would make it hard to fix these issues long-term, and assumes that DNC would take it they lost votes to a third party....which lets be real here, if you already think they don't pay attention, they won't when you do that. It also comes off as a bit insincere, since if you truly are against the DNC...you should be trying to build the 3rd parties enough to actually win in some states, before trying to take on the presidency...I there probably aren't even enough states that know who the third parties are to possibly get them elected at this time.

So yeah, mainly my problem with a lot of anti-DNC posts isn't so much they make the democrats to be incompetent. They honestly are. It's that they seem to ignore the the domestic threats coming from the other party, and bury into some completely unrealistic goals currently.

And yes, I will just say it: We have failed as a civilization. No actions will prevent another genocide in the current political climate. It is supported bipartisan. It is literally one of the only things supported bipartisan.

I literally do blame the Democrats for Trump, and if you don’t, you weren’t paying attention.

Barack Obama had the opportunity to become the next FDR. Instead, we got a modern day Woodrow Wilson, more interested in shoring up domestic businesses and building out international military alliances than repairing the post-'08 damage to the housing economy or extending full public health benefits to a nation crippled by medical bankruptcies.

By the time he left office, he was running on... what? A Pacific Rim trade deal we didn't need. A climate change crisis he'd failed to address. A slew of new military conflicts in the Middle East introduced under his administration that he'd originally promised to end. A federal court system he'd allowed his Senate rivals to hijack.

Hillary sucked. But far too little credit is afforded to the guy who had eight years to deliver on desperately needed federal reforms and - either through incompetence or unwillingness - failed to do so.

I don't have a problem with people critiquing Democrats, I have a problem with them arguing that voting for democrats is bad.

Voters =/= DNC though

We got Trump because Clinton was largely uninspiring. She made herself this bland neolib that nobody actually wanted to vote for and then mocked Trump as a non threat.

Everything you said is true but I personally think the real reason it happened was because Clinton was a bad pitch and she would've lost to most Republicans at the time.

They should've gone with Bernie just that simple

Yes!

Next up; How I spilled my Pepsi and why I blame coke.

If we keep trump out but do nothing else, we've only delayed a fascistic movement reaching the white house, not defeated it.

Biden needs to put forward actual policies that address the conditions that are fostering the violent fascistic rhetoric, not just so that he can win in November but so that we aren't dealing with a growing nationalism problem for the next cycle.

The people who are criticizing Biden now desperately want him to succeed by these measures, but don't believe he's yet done enough. Maybe if we were having this debate a month out from election day, then we should be panicked about the electoral calculus; but he has ample (or at least some) time to address the concerns being raised here. In a non-incumbent cycle, a primary would help refine the policy agenda for the general. So far all we've gotten is "we have to keep trump out".

That is not a winning agenda (no matter how true it is). It didn't work in 2016, and it likely won't work now. Biden needs something tangible to campaign on, and right now it's not clear that he has one.

The worst part for me is I literally see the hubris playing out again with Joe Biden’s stance of only running because he is the only one who can beat Trump. Polling keeps showing he is literally the only possible candidate on Dem side that could lose against him. It seems most Dems are either hoping Trump won’t win and those who think he will are shouting any and every other name including the former first lady Michelle Obama, over Biden or even his VP Harris. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/19/us/politics/trump-biden-voters-2024-election.html https://www.nbcnews.com/meet-the-press/first-read/biden-trump-both-underperform-generic-opponents-poll-finds-rcna126098 https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-national-lead-grows-opinion-poll-republican-primary/

Critiquing Democrats is not an endorsement of Republicans

OK.
Just be aware that doing so publicly, especially around election time, increases the probability of Republicans getting elected. So ask yourself if its the right time and place - regardless of what your intentions are, what sort of effects will your actions actually cause in the world?

IMO, the best time and place to make your opinion on Democratic policy known is the Democratic primary election and who you choose to help campaign for the primaries.

The dnc should have let Bernie Sanders become the nominatee like the voters wanted, instead of rigging the primary for Hillary.

Okay. Blame them all you want, just don't stay home on Election Day. VOTE against Donald Trump as he's the more immediate problem, then we demand voting reform...

Critiquing Democrats is not endorsing Republicans but constantly saying Biden is bad over and over and making sure that's the only thing that is said is endorsing Republicans. You really think people who hate Biden also say "but remember, the Republicans are worse."

Some More News made a really good point: If we can't call out our own guy without being told we're helping the other guy, how is that... good?

I literally do blame the Democrats for Trump, and if you don’t, you weren’t paying attention.

I wasn't paying attention?

The structure of government in the US, federal and state, has always been unfairly tilted in favor of "land" over "people." The electoral college is the most glaring example, but even the concept of giving each state two Senators regardless of population, and then requiring bills to pass the Senate to become law, makes everything that happens in the federal government require the approval of people who have more political power than their number warrants. State governments are organized in the exact same way. The Three-Fifths Compromise did even more, giving slave states far more representation in the House than their free citizens warranted. The power and influence that comes with wealth tips the scales, too - again, in so many places where that wealth was extracted from human bondage and handed over to the slaveowners. Sprinkle some gerrymandering on top of that.

This was all in place well before any well-organized political parties existed in the United States.

The US has always, and by design, been arranged to benefit assholes. Trump and his supporters are just today's assholes, and nobody else in the world is responsible for that.

In this thread:

People reminding the rest of us how much they don't remember shit. Also in this thread: See how propaganda works! More at 11.