John Fetterman says he'll 'never understand' progressives who refuse to support Joe Biden
John Fetterman says he'll 'never understand' progressives who refuse to support Joe Biden
The Pennsylvania Democrat recalled his time serving as a Hillary Clinton surrogate in 2016, even after he supported Bernie Sanders in the primary.
"Support Joe Biden" - Yes.
"Support particular policies of Joe Biden" - No.
Democrats are not a cult of personality. We can disagree with particular things the president does without wanting to see him defeated.
I think he's talking about the people who would rather let Trump win than support anyone right of Bernie.
We need ranked choice voting.
He specifically said "get behind the policies of Joe Biden". If it's just voting I'm with Fetterman, but you don't need to recalibrate your policy supports because anything less than full agreement is treason.
I feel like this is the new boogie man for the DNC. My close circle of friends all don't like Joe Biden, all voted for Bernie in the primary against Hilary. Still showed up to vote for both her and Biden.
There's plenty of people who didn't show up for Biden and Hilary that have similar views and I don't think it's as much malicious as it is apathetic. They don't do enough to give them a reason to show up. They don't "energize the base" well enough. The Democrats need to get people excited for their policies somehow.
I would say "Then why would they be considered progressive?" but then I remember Tankies exist.
It's not that I don't support him, it's that I do not support anyone over the age of 65 being in any position of any power anywhere.
Yeah, but you're still going to vote for him, just like I'm going to have to...
We don't really have a choice.
But it's not enough for moderates to count on progressives voting for them in the general, that's not "supporting" to them anymore.
They want our unwavering support and complete refusal to criticize them before, during, and after assuming office.
They've been slowly creeping right for so long chasing conservative votes that they've got the same expectations of their voters that Republicans get.
I think more than a few of the party leadership truly wish Dem voters were more like Republican voters.
We don’t really have a choice.
This is the real problem. Not Biden's age or his actual policy goals and achievements. It's that we know what we're getting and we know we won't be enthusiastic about it.
But ya gotta do what ya gotta do, and unlike last time I'm in a swing state and can't cheekily write in my favorite candidate without ending the world.
You have plenty of choices. First of all you can vote for someone that isn't red or blue, second you can take action yourself and do politics on your own
He's got dozens of aides and advisors. No one man's got all that power.
Yes, we all want someone with little experience work the most important job in the world.
Brother, that's what the 35 cutoff is for... A lot of people start losing facultiee 65+, so it is you who ends up supporting rule by toddlers in reality.
Not to say Joe Biden would be worse than Trump by any means. Pointing out one flaw in a candidate is in no way an endorsement of their opponent.
I want someone in touch with the modern world, understands technology and climate change, and who will be around to feel the effects of the policies they’re enacting. Being old doesn’t rule out most of those qualifiers but a 70+ year old won’t be around to feel the effects of many policies enacted today, so they may be more willing to enact policies with short term benefits but long term detriments.
If a 70 yr old wants to work on climate change regulation and tech regulation, they need to understand at least the basics of both, and the majority of legislators cannot use technology and refuse to begin to understand how computers or the internet in general work, despite the internet existing for 30 years and being everywhere for 20. And computers have in workplaces as commonplace for 40 years
His only redeeming quality is not being Donald Trump. He’s otherwise too fucking old and out of touch with the vast majority of the country like most of our government is.
It's almost midnight. You just got out of your job, a restaurant in a somewhat seedy location in old downtown. You leave through the backdoor into an alley and suddenly notice you're not alone. The metal door just closed shut behind you.
You look to your right. There's a guy with a knife. He's looking at you and smiling in a weird manner. He starts walking towards you menacingly.
You look to your left. There's a well known old drunk there. He smells bad and likes to hug people who are passing by. If you go that way, you will be hugged by him.
What do you do?
If you go right, you'll get stabbed and killed. If you do nothing and stay put, you'll get stabbed and killed. If you go left, you will be hugged by the stinky guy. It's disgusting and not ideal, but you'll not be stabbed and survive.
What do you choose?
I see people all the time with the dumbest arguments to not vote. "He's not progressive enough", or "he's part of the system", or even "he didn't do enough for X" (insert your favorite minority here).
It's all true. But the universe is not a perfect or ideal place. Not voting for the imperfect guy gets us a true horrible alternative. It's a choice between bad and awful.
Please vote bad and keep the awful away.
Gotta move the Overton Window from the far right back towards the center right before you can start moving it to the left.
There's a well known old drunk there. He smells bad and likes to hug people who are passing by. If you go that way, you will be hugged by him.
Lol did you do this on purpose?
I choose neither. Instead, I jump, grab the bars of the fire escape overhead and climb up. Stinky hugs stabby, gets stabbed and dies. Then I jump down from the fire escape onto Stabby, knock him down and stab him with his own knife.
Ah, the false dichotomy, neat.
Abstaining is always an option. You can always just ignore either shady individual - you aren't required to pick one.
Your analogy does not work, as the situation presented requires you to either go to the left or to the right.
In real life, there are many options and gray areas. One of those options is to refuse support to anyone who works against the populace, regardless of their political affiliation.
The world would be much better off watching the US turn far-right and implode than it would be maintaining the status quo.
I would rather watch the US die as a Nazi state than support the lesser of two evils. Remove them as a global superpower. Move out of the way and allow other states to bring better systems of government forward. Maybe something salvageable can be found in the wreckage.
That's the part Fetterman fails to realize as well: Right now is not okay. Continuing the status quo is not okay.
Your analogy also equates the death of the nation with the death of the self, which is not even remotely true either.
Everyone knows not to negotiate with terrorists, until election season.
Yeah, I can think of a parallel. The Soviets and the West allied to defeat Hitler but neither wanted to live under the other's rules.
"Not GOP" is the best choice, but I'd like to see a different "not GOP" than the current one. Or even better, a system that doesn't boil it down to two choices and an all or nothing vote.
You're 100% right. I pretty much hate Joe Biden. But I voted for him and will again, because there's no better way to move towards what I want unfortunately.
Stop downvoting the exact sentiment this article and thread are espousing.
Wtf? So what they hate Biden? Mf voted for him!!
Is it already the time of year to bash progressives in case democrats lose so that they can be blamed for it? The extent of support Joe Biden will get is a vote against the republican party. As a candidate himself, he sucks as does the "democratic" party in general.
So nodbody is actually supporting the Dems, they're just voting against the other wing of the party? Can you give an example of the "progress"?
In the primaries, I supported progressive candidates like Sanders and Warren because I think their policy prescriptions would make for a better America. In the general, I voted for Biden. That was a harm-reduction vote.
What I don't like to hear, in the primary, is the 'you have to vote for the candidate who can win' line of argument, which begs the question it pretends to answer- if everyone who says "I'd vote for x but x can't possibly win" just voted for x, x would actually win. This gives whoever tells you that "x can't possibly win" the power to get you to give up on voting for what you want, which seems to wag the dog.
In the general, between dem and gop control, it's not a close contest for me; it's between a party afraid to do progressive things the voters want and a party that will do whatever the fuck it wants no matter that nobody wants that.
Yes, our electoral system of first-past-the-post demands that we hedge our bets and compromise in order to avoid the calamity of electing a fascist in this election cycle, but it's hard to support with evidence the idea that what makes a progressive candidate "risky" isn't just a self-fulfilling misperception that causes the party to spend (or not-spend) money to prevent progressives from becoming party nominees. After all, research consistently shows that politicians of both parties routinely overestimate the conservatism of the voters.
I'm glad to see the Biden admin embracing the progressive changes it has been able to get to, but I'm also sooo tired of being told 'we can't nominate a progressive, they'll be called a communist' when no matter who we nominate they'll be called a communist and decades of voting a harm-reduction ticket has rolled back much of the New Deal
if everyone who says “I’d vote for x but x can’t possibly win” just voted for x, x would actually win.
Not really. It means that person does not have the votes to win. Even if every supporter of X exclusively voted for X, plus a few supporters of Y, X would not win against Z. However, if every supporter of Y voted for Y, plus a few supporter of X, he would win against Z. So we should shift our support to Y because he has more supporters and is more likely to win against Z.
I think what you're trying to say is that if every Biden voter just voted for Bernie, Bernie would have won. Which...sure, but you could say that about anyone.
It's a difference between core voters ("I'm only excited about X") vs swayable voters ("I like X but I think Y has a better chance of winning against Z").
The point is that Biden has more core supporters than Bernie. Biden has a bigger, more reliable group of people who want to vote for him and only him.
It means that person does not have the votes to win.
It means that people who want to vote a certain way are being pressured to vote a different way.
This in turn means the way the votes went is not a measure of what people want, but rather of what they can be pressured into doing. These are different things, even if it's convenient to dismiss it as a distinction without a difference.
Fetterman is 100% right.
He's basically calling out progressives for essentially not wanting power. Those progressives rather sit on the sidelines and complain about everything than ever gaining even a morsel of political power to where they could actually do something.
Falling in-line is what has led conservatives to gain enough control of the government to throw out what most considered a done deal. RvW is gone (as well as any hope for reasonable gun restrictions, as well as a host of other no nonsense laws) because Republicans know about playing the long game and know that collectively they can accomplish far more things.
It's funny that progressives love to push the idea of collective bargaining when it comes to labor relations and yet they can't figure out that collectively if they fell behind the leader of the Democrats, their voices would be much better heard.
After falling in line, we are always ignored when they get into power
When you bring with you almost no votes or support, then what do you expect?
So the groups that vote reliably for the Dems should get no attention, but the Left should get to dictate policy when it can't bring up any support?
That's the most liberal thinking I've ever heard..... waaaaa, give me attention, even though I won't lift a finger to support you!
the idea of collective bargaining when it comes to labor relations and yet they can’t figure out that collectively if they fell behind the leader of the Democrats, their voices would be much better heard.
Laughs in railroad workers
The railroad workers that got what they were demanding in the end?
As a Californian and with regards to Pelosi that blame is on us--the voters. Incumbents with mediocre records can still win reelection on name recognition alone. Getting progressive challengers in California isn't hard. But getting progressives that can build their brand and base to a competitive size to match incumbents, while surviving the mudslide of bad press from establishment outlets? That's hard.
Hell, my home town despised the previous mayor. Still won his reelection in 2016 by nearly 2/3rds despite a progressive challenger who has been active in city politics and community outreach for over a decade. Had to wait until he termed out in 2020 before we could get the current progressive mayor in office.
Pelosi has been phenomenal for Democrats and Progressives both. You just hate her because she's old and you're probably in the "it's not a phase, mom!" age range.
Ah yes everything is progressives fault and not establishment dinosaurs pandering to their corporate donors .
Y'all are so focused on who sticks their what where that is going to cost you an election... again.
The progressive ideology is dangerous left unchecked.
someone needs to lay off the coolaid. OH NO public healthcare, education, and worker rights are DANGEROUS!
Oh yeah, those darn progressives are always telling people what is OK to stick where and into whom, and freaking out about bathrooms and sports teams. I find their desire for genital checks especially gross.
It’s the conservatives who value individual freedom, privacy, and give each person the liberty to live how they want to, with whoever they want to. Just accepting people as they are without prejudice.
Or maybe I’m completely fucking backwards on that…
I don't get it, either. Unless and until we have something like ranked choice voting, purity ponies that lodge "protest votes" only help the fascists. And these purity ponies seem to revel in creating more division within the left (and create more Republicans in the process), wanting to excommunicate each other over ivory tower orthodoxy, with the Oppression Olympics being one of the more egregious versions of that...
Even with ranked choice voting we will not support your war monger capitalist owned dinosaurs. A 3rd party vote is not the protest vote, voting against something like Democrats voting against Republicans is the protest vote. The act of voting for something like a 3rd party candidate is how democracy is supposed to work.
If you say so. What will result is putting more Republicans into office.
The act of voting for something like a 3rd party candidate is how democracy is supposed to work.
Which is exactly why we need ranked choice voting because otherwise your not expressing your choices accurately. You should be allowed to vote for your candidate of choice and also pick your poison.
Don't fight against the one thing that will help third party candidates the most.
voting against something like Democrats voting against Republicans is the protest vote
And most of the "vote Dem or your fascist" people think political action is about voting rather than being the bare minimum. Democrat PACs fund fascist Republican candidate's primary campaigns too so...
The conditions that allow someone like Trump to come to power are manifested by the neoliberal policies extolled by the Democrat and Republican establishment, alike. Your party leaders are Reaganites/Thatcherites. The biggest policy win for Democrats in recent history was a Heritage Foundation plan that acts as a de facto subsidy to private health insurance.
And most people do not live in swing states so most "protest votes" do nothing to tip the scales.
creating more division within the left
Liberalism isn't the left.
create more Republicans in the process
Create more leftists, actually.
ivory tower orthodoxy
It's the Democratic establishment that abhors populism and typically walks in ivory tower circles. Liberalism and neoliberalism are the dominant ideologies in the Ivy League schools, not socialism.
Ok tankie
Joe Biden is still objectively awful, no lack of alternatives is going to change that.
For its victims outside the USA there is no difference which party is in power. Some argue that the Dems have been the most destructive and murderous.
People argue alot of things. Like giving Ukraine to Russia being a good idea. It doesn't make them right.
I've heard Chomsky utterly excoriate both Democrats and Republicans (and rightly so, IMHO), especially on matters of foreign policy, however, even he does not take the maximalist position like this.
The key to getting progression policies passed is voting for Congress. Having a democratic President, whether it's Biden or someone else, doesn't matter if we only have a razor-thin majority. We just get held hostage by people like Manchin. We need solid majorities in both House and Senate to achieve anything.
Not even needed to be honest. Blue states need to swing their dick around and demand shit, but blue state politicians aren't doing anything. I know this isn't the most palatable comparison, but slave states, leading up to the Civil War, swung their dick around and got concession after concession from free state politicians even if they didn't have nearly enough votes to get legislation they wanted and could have been shut out by simple majorities. Blue states and blue state politicians really need to get some fucking cojones or the US is heading down a path it's never going to come back from.
I know this isn't the most palatable comparison, but slave states, leading up to the Civil War, swung their dick around and got concession after concession from free state politicians even if they didn't have nearly enough votes to get legislation they wanted and could have been shut out by simple majorities
This is literally what MAGA politicians are doing right now. I've said it before, but it's humiliating watching the Democratic Party losing "the game" by insisting on playing by the rules when the opposing team is openly bragging about cheating.
Only when you have a razor thin majority, which is the exclusive type of majority we've given Democrats in Congress for the past few decades.
Except for a few months during Obama's term.
Which got us the greatest expansion of Medicare in our history and has saved thousands of lives and millions of dollars.
The ONE example we have of voting in a true Democratic supermajority was a massive success.
the key to getting progressive policies passed is direct pressure. widespread strikes and organizing.
California has a bullet proof super majority and they can't provide a livable wage, affordable housing, universal healthcare which includes dental and mental healthcare, or address homelessness other than hiding them from view. If a state like that can't provide, why should be trust it to happen at the federal level? Dems could hold everything but 1% of Congress and they would blame that 1% for everything they didn't do
I live in CA. Our homeless people have Medi-Cal, which includes dental, vision, and mental care. We have a zoning issue that the NIMBYs aren't budging on, though I think I have found a workaround involving right of first refusal. Once we fix the zoning issue, our housing costs will come down dramatically.
Also, remember we only "own" about 1/3 of the land out here. Most of the state is Federal land operated by the BLM
Dude, compare California to a non Democratic majority state, not to the perfect utopia you want.
Of course California has problems. If they solved those problems, there would be other problems.
But California has massively fewer problems due to the untouchable Democratic supermajority in the state.
Parts of California even have ranked choice voting.
The major difference between the federal government and state governments is the fact that the federal government is the source of all money. They can spend it into existence. California cannot.
Proof positive of failed democratic policy. Do you need more examples in other states?
dems had a majority when obama was elected and did nothing with it
Cause he's a fuckin mummy John. We are tired of electing boomers that don't understand fuckin computers.
Selling us a tube TV in the year of flat screens.
Look, I get the Dems are our only vehicle for Progressive policies becoming reality because I know we're never going to move away from FPTP voting any time soon. I just don't like having to go along with the same corporate greed. It feels very two steps forward, one step back.
It feels very two steps forward, one step back.
And it is. But that still equates to a step forward. Voting red is a legit step (or three) backwards.
Voting red is getting your legs broken so you can never step again. The fact that they tried a fucking coup thst every one of those motherfuckers would have gone with if successful should not be forgotten.
Primaries are for ideas and ideals. General elections are for harm reduction.
Oh, because i support progressive people, not union busters
This president made an empty promise about continuing to work for paid sick leave after preventing a strike by railworkers at the end of 2022. Except, that it actually worked. Almost every union did get paid sick leave for its members within six months aided by continued pressure from the White House.
He's a pretty lousy union buster.
Those paid sick days still count against the attendance records of the railroad employees via the actually insane "points" system, a system that the rail unions were fighting against. It's strange how all of the neoliberal papers that are sucking Biden off over this "win" neglect to mention that.
"You can't strike, but I will try to talk to your boss to get you some of what you desire" is still union busting. The union doesn't have the power anymore.
Telling workers they can't fight for their own rights, and have to wait for politicians to do it for them us not progressive, and its not pro-labor. It's on a long list of swiftly festering bandages that only stave off death for a little while. If we don't empower our workers, we stifle them. Even if we bribe them candy when they demand steak.
I dont really blame you, theyve done quite the PR on this. There's an electrical worker union, with a branch dealing with railroad electricians. They supported the pre-strike deal the railroad companies offered, they likely already had things like sick leave. If youve seen reports on reactions of rail workers to the post-strike-busting situation, you very likely only saw quotes from this union. Of electrical workers.
Rave Acts of the 90's. Joe is only swimming because his opponents are literal Neanderthals.
CHIP, IRA, ARPA, ending the Afghanistan war
Biden is bringing the economic stimulus that we've been begging for since 2008
Then he's not listening
Progressives that said "Joe Biden was a pile of shit" before he was elected have been like "he's shit, but maybe not as shit as I thought"
Before the circular firing squad starts up its probably good to recognize that Joe Biden is shit and the electoral college is shit and this bullshit will continue until we get real election reforms.
They are prioritizing principles over practicality. Which is a great way to hand power to the greater evil.
ITT: people who defend Manchin every single time he votes against his party expecting perfect lockstep from those he keeps betraying.
Edit: I summoned one.
Look, another person intentionally misrepresenting this opinion.
One more time: People aren't defending Manchin, they're pointing out that he's not passing this shit on his own. That there are 50 other senators that are pushing this shit, yet people blame the Democratic party and completely ignore the existence of those other people.
Because the Democrstic Party did just about everything it could to try and have it be Senator Conor Lamb. Or by effect, a Senator Oz.
For me Biden represents much of that faction of the Democratic Party. Hence I have trouble assuring Biden my vote even before the primary.
It's about getting 50%+1 in a democracy, right (or at least it should be)? So at some point the choices should come down to a binary to guarantee a 50%+1 outcome. However, the right candidate in a representative democracy and building of that 50%+1 should be done either with rank choiced voting or 2 round elections (either with a primary as we do it now or with multiple parties in the first round, that winnows everything down to 2 candidates). And an important role of the primaries is to get the resulting candidate to negotiate and build a coalition unifying the the 50%+1 coalition. So that deal that Biden and Sanders struck after Biden won the primary was huge. In the case of the left, the primary helps move the winning candidate left of where they might otherwise be. It's why I was ecstatic to have Bernie run in 2016 and 2020 (It puled Hilary Clinton and Joe Biden to the left). And I think it's bullshit that the Democratic party puts its thumb on the scale.
So if you have a left-right linear spectrum constituting 100% of the electorate, there are obviously different 50%+1 coalitions that can be made. Joe Manchin or Conor Lamb wants to be at the center of that 50%+1 coalition. Progressives obviously have an anathema to that and want that 50%+1 coalition to include everyone from the left end of the spectrum to the right of that up to 50%+1. Unfortunately, with institutions like the Senate and electoral college and whatnot, getting that 50%+1 coalition requires building it with Joe Manchin or Conor Lamb. Otherwise, there is no majority.
So while we fixate on Biden and whatnot, Biden and us need to focus on local elections, local referendums, and creating a Manchin-Sinema-Conor Lamb (or his equivalent) proof majority in the House and Senate. It's obvious to me with several of Biden's moves, he's highly responsive to popular will and the votes available, regardless of what his own or his donors' proclivities are. So if we want paid family leave and assistance with early child care and a pathway to medicare for all and expanded child tax credit, we need to be focused on winning all of these more local elections. Yes, having a popular candidate at the top of the ballot would help, but if you look at Biden's polling, it's the left end of the spectrum that's keeping him from being closer to 50% popularity. Instead of getting angry that we didn't get all this stuff when Manchin scuttled everything, we should be focused on building majorities that don't need him.
If John Fetterman hadn't had the stroke and the resulting depression, I'd be ecstatic about having him run for the presidency. Hopefully, he'll recover by and be in good shape by 2028. We need a blue collar - union friendly presidential candidate to unify and build that 50%+1 coalition. I was hoping it was Sherrod Brown in Ohio in 2016 and 2020, but he voted against the Rail Worker strike and I think it's taking its toll on his Senate election chances in Ohio.
Paying attention to those crucial local elections: Biden and the Democratic Party leadership continually campaigned against progressive candidates in their primaries and publicly and intentionally insist on how important it is to them for the Republican Party to be strong.
So for many who don't support Biden it is about the Democratic Party effort to preserve the conservative coalition with the Manchin-Sinema corporate landscape.
For some it appears Biden and the Democratic Party's core leadership would sooner lose to Republicans than support, let alone champion, the progressive movement. And so they don't feel the need or compulsion to support Biden as a result.
And going further back in time some remember Obama's supermajority and trifecta amounting to very little progressive action whatsoever. So the idea of voting harder i hope of a better majority often rings hollow.
These are factors I would say are being weighed when judging whether Biden deserves support even before a primary.
I'm still soured by how the primary shook out in 2020. Before any votes were cast, all everyone said about all the candidates were that anyone could beat Trump. Bernie won the first 3 races, and the Democratic establishment fought anyway they could to kill the movement, including pressuring flailing campaigns to back out. Biden finally won and the only message is for the left wing of the party to get in line. Kind of a hard pill to swallow when the Democrats claimed to be the party of the youth, but the youth voted 80%+ for Bernie in the primary. Ended up voting Green in 2020. Will I do so again in '24? Who knows, but at this point it isn't looking good. I don't like that the right wing of the Democrats (center-right overall) expects the left to follow along no matter what they do.
I'm not sure I buy this whole "third party votes are wasted votes" or "third party votes are a vote for the opposition". The US system heavily heavily biases towards having a two party system, but third parties exist, and just because Democrats and Republicans are the two major parties right now, doesn't mean they will be in the future. The Whigs were one of the two major parties for 25 years of US history, even winning the Presidency a few times, but now they're not. It took people not willing to accept the party line and jumping ship to change that, which again the system biases against, but it still happened. Democrats aren't the end-all-be-all of lefty politics. The next left wing party won't be the end-all-be-all either. Democrats have no incentive to change the current system. By continuing to vote for them, whether you believe it or not, you're approving and perpetuating the behavior. It isn't a useful method of change to say "I don't agree with anything the Democrats say, but that's the world we're in". That's how you end up in a situation where 70% of the country supports universal healthcare, but only 5-6 members of Congress do. Voting for a further left party than the Democrats will cause the Democrats to wise up to what their traditional base wants.
Politics in Democracy is not a passive system. Passivity leads to what we have now, two parties that write the rules for the states and the governments that represent the interests of almost no one, but have convinced us that they're the only and best options. There are agents of the Democrats currently in jail for breaking election law in their efforts to keep the Greens off the ballot. I'm sure the same is true for Republicans. Don't tell them its okay by giving them your vote. Don't give in to the political version of the Paradox of Thrift.
Whether you buy it or not, at least for the presidency, the US is realistically a two party system. A vote for 3rd party is a wasted vote, because you certainly must have a preference in which of the two real options you'd rather have.
Voting 3rd party is selfish. You're willing to let the worse option win because you want to make a "statement"
And your statement translates to "we can easily manipulate these 3rd party voters away from our rival by back channel funding our oppositions redheaded step child"
And this is definitely why we haven't needed any parties but the federalists and the anti-federalists.
Even more than that, if you don't vote the way your state is going, you're wasting your vote. For example, if I'm a Dem in a Red state, I have to vote Red, otherwise, you know, I'm wasting my vote! You may think you're making a "statement", but it's just a failure to accept reality.
Voting for a further left party than the Democrats will cause the Democrats to wise up to what their traditional base wants.
Maybe after like a decade, after losing a few presidencies in a row.
But we don't have time for that. The Republicans plan to effectively end democracy if they win the House.
First Past the Post is the unfortunate reality, and yes it's fucking us hard.
The Green Party received a quarter of 1 percent of total votes in 2020. The third best showing they’ve ever had. Four years prior Jill Stein received an entire 1% higher than that against probably the two least liked candidates of all time. They ain’t it.
That's not true. The numbers show otherwise. When it came to primaries there just wasn't the turnout Bernie supporters needed to get his name on the ticket. You can't have it both ways.
Very well said. And this method of strategically protesting the status quo has awarded better outcomes in NYC and got NY, Minnesota, Alaska and some othera to have ranked choice. But we can't just do that from nothing on the federal scale. We're gonna get ranked choice voting federally by leveraging third party State reps. And Senators to change the constitution.
LOL all that and you're still voting Green party? You know, the ones that got us trump in 2016 and are Russian schills ? Get lost bro
Bernie won the first 3 races,
Oh no, don't you remember? They fucked the Iowa caucus to make sure he didn't win, handing a victory to the nobody Buttigieg instead.
Is it just me or does this thumbnail make Joe look super super old?
It's not you or the thumb nail
Lmao
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Sen. John Fetterman has a message for the progressive wing of the Democratic Party: get in line behind President Joe Biden.
He continues to recover from an auditory processing disorder caused by a stroke that happened during the 2022 campaign.
Both Sanders and Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York have also endorsed the incumbent president, despite their occasional criticisms from the left.
"At the end of the day, like, do you think Donald Trump is going to be talking about issues and, you know, his white papers?"
Fetterman also recalled a conversation with Independent Sen. Kyrsten Sinema in which he said he would remain "neutral on all of that," despite his previous suggestion that he would support Gallego, along with the fact that his top political strategist is now working for the Arizona congressman.
Last week, during a similar briefing with reporters, Fetterman referred to the potential impeachment of President Biden as a "big circlejerk on the fringe right."
The original article contains 434 words, the summary contains 159 words. Saved 63%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
The fact that we can't endorse him without comparing him to the dumpster fire on the opposite side is why we don't like him. If "better than Trump" is all you've got going for you, we might as well vote for a pile of wet socks.
He promised not to upset the capitalist apple cart, and he hasn't. He's not a progressive.
Strong disagree. I've found Biden to far, far exceed my expectations for him. I've been very happy with his presidency, above and beyond the fact that he's not Trump.
That said, I'm curious which specific policies of his you disagree with. I have several, but I'd like to see yours.
Is there a single Republican candidate that progressives would support over Biden?
I look at it as Biden will pass any progressive legislation given to him; he isn't the problem. Instead, I would look at the tons of legislator positions and ask them what they are doing to be progressive at the state and local levels. Lock those people in so on the next election, Democratic presidential candidates will need progressive support.
And prep the House and Senate so progressive legislation can get passed. Biden has only vetoed 6 bills in office; I don't see him being the logjam for progressive legislation.
If people are always afraid of the other guy and vote for the lesser of two evils we get our horrible two party system.
Nothing to do with being contrarian. If the candidate can't win on their merits and need the other guy to be demonized that's a problem.
I'm personally tired of voting out of fear instead of hope.
I see Reddit's r/Politics hard liberal cast has migrated wholesale and now drowns out lemmy's leftists.
Duhh
I'll vote for whatever candidate aligns with my views, I'm not playing the numbers game, that's not for me to play. I can and will vote for whoever I want and no one is going to convince me that I'm "throwing my vote away" by voting third party.
You know you are being closed minded and irrational when you say "no one is going to convince me of ____".
Way to keep yourself from growing as a person and learning new things!
How about instead of trying to scare or guilt people into voting for middle of the road, we allow rank choice and let people vote for who they want.
Vote greens.
I live in Delaware I don't have to vote for Joe biden I can vote for anyone else
They're easy to understand: they are privileged and insulated enough from potential Republican fuckery that if Democrats lose elections, they are mostly going to be ok. They're mostly middle class or higher with secure employment or other economic support (parents, spouse), straight (or closeted), their religious status isn't contentious, mostly they're male.
The other group I'd expect would be extremely low information voters who believe all politicians are the same and it's a Coke or Pepsi kind of thing. That's not going to be super common with anyone identifying as "progressive" due to the very politicized nature of that term, though.
I already lost Roe v Wade cause "progressives" cutting off their nose in spite.
Even if Hilary lost, that was no excuse to let Republicans take over the senate or elsewhere. Which they did.
Even back in my more "libertarian" days I still voted for Hilary cause what I knew could happen. And it did happen.
Edit: Turns out Bernie/Progressive voters really did come out a lot for Hilary, which lead to the popular vote wins. I was wrong. Sorry.
Yeah, except Bernie's supporters voted for Hillary at higher rates than Hillary folks voted for Obama, so maybe Hillary, her dumb fucking insecure email server, her lack of personality, and the DNC who helped her cheat her way through primary debates are the real ones to blame, not the progressives. She was a terrible candidate who the right hated and independents didn't like much better and she proved she was a terrible candidate by losing to the worst Republican candidate in the last hundred years. She had all the help she should've needed from progressives.
Im in rural mississippi
Simple. They are still liberal. They never drank the progressive kool aid that lead to Trump.
What's True
The 2008 photograph shows Biden with Robert Byrd, a West Virginia senator who was during the 1940s a member and organizer for the Ku Klux Klan.
What's False
However, Byrd was never "Grand Wizard" of the Ku Klux Klan, and he later renounced his past white supremacist views and said his membership of the KKK was the "biggest mistake" he had ever made, years before he was photographed campaigning with Biden.
I make this comment not for you, because if you don't fact check the things you post then you're prob not going to react positively to any fact checking, but for others curious about the context of this pic
Progressives don't like anyone who is older than 26.
The type of terminally online children you see on Lemmy, sure
I don't like Joe Biden, but this isn't a presidential approval poll, it's an election, and he's clearly better than any of the alternatives. And when it comes down to it, he's been better than I expected. We could have just had an exclusively centrist presidency, and while there's been plenty of centrism, he has been persuadable to progressive action.
And frankly even if you can't bring yourself to express support Biden for some reason, it should be pretty easy to want anyone who willingly associates with Republicans to lose and lose badly, because they're way beyond stealth-mode fascism now. Even the most jaded "they're all neolibs" voter from earlier elections can't possibly ignore that the Republicans are just fash now. There's a real danger if they win that cities end up with federally tasked jackboots kidnapping protesters like Portland.
When the vote is between someone (and a party) who says "climate change is more worrying than nuclear war" and "climate change is a hoax" the choice should be clear for any reasonable person. All the treason stuff aside (though very important, everyone should already be decided on that), climate change is the biggest issue for everyone I know. Probably for any average person under 50 if I had to guess.
I've seen people saying Hexbear users have been brigading politics communities of other instances. Not sure if it's true, but it would explain the massive influx of idiotic far right morons with a 6th grade writing level making bad faith arguments.
Nope. Voting for Cornel West. I think Marianne Williamson is also a significantly better candidate.
So you like Trump for 2024, then? Noted.
Marianne Williamson is a nutjob. Trump would destroy her in an election.
He's clearly not, first because he fell for the
People'sGrifter's Party and second because he's not even trying to win. Jumping into a presidential race as a third party is just an exercise in self-promotion and maybe a little political grifting along the way. He sure as shit isn't trying to engage with the political system to induce positive political change because no outcome of his candidacy believably accomplishes that.I think Marianne Williamson is an excellent candidate. But voting is literally a rigged game and there's only one answer where we don't all lose our democracy.