• Upgrade2754@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    I’m interested in understanding why so many have picked Joe Biden. According to several top posts, Lemmy is supposedly left wing, yet the vast majority are voting for a conservative democrat over the progressive.

    Does anyone here actually care about pushing against dark money, treating climate change like an existential threat, and fighting for universal health care? What’s drawing you to voting for him? Looking forward to respectful debate

    • TokenBoomer@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      My vote changes daily based on my mood. When the condom meets the road, Biden really is the only choice. I’ll probably go Marianne in the Primary, but Fascism is more important than my misgivings about corporate Dems. Republicans will rally around DeSantis when Trump’s trial tanks him. And you do not want that fucker anyway near military power.

      • AquaTofana@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Yeah, if I had it my way, I’d be voting for someone more in line with AOC or Bernie Sanders, but until a candidate like that takes the Primary, I’m left with Biden. Just because Biden isn’t perfect by any stretch of the imagination, doesn’t mean it’s worth it to take a vote from the Dems and by proxy give one to the Republicunts.

        That being said, fuck the DNC is fucking terrible at marketing. I just found out like 3 days ago that rail workers have indeed been getting the sick days that they were asking for due to regular followup from the Biden Administration during negotiations. The strike and him being a Union buster was a huge (rightfully so) story, and a bad look all around, but fucking tell the public about your wins too, jfc. It’s not that hard.

        Also, his move to keep the Space Command in CO was pretty meaningful to a portion of the population (women and LGBTQ+ in the USSF), and it actively fucks over Tommy Tuberville in AL (who hates women and LGBTQ+ people).

        Should we demand better? Yes. Do we deserve better? Also yes. But let’s not pretend he’s the worst candidate up there. Let’s keep pushing for more actually Progressive politicians, but in the meantime, don’t let perfection be the enemy of progress.

        • Meldroc@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Yes. For all the problems Dems have with marketing themselves, Biden is getting a lot of stuff done. People rag on his age, but with age comes experience - he’s been doing Washington politics for a half-century.

      • Upgrade2754@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        100%, but until I’m in that ballot box I’m gonna move the needle one day at a time ya know? Now’s not the time to settle and too many seem to forget that

    • Spyral@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      The primary is the time to push for candidates that must align with your personal political identity. The general is the time to choose the best out of what’s available. I hope more people get involved in the primary voting.

      • Upgrade2754@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Exactly. Now is the time to change hearts and minds to demand more. By the time I’m in the ballot box I’ll do what I need to but why not wear your heart on your sleeve until then? It makes no sense to not leave it all out on the field

        • Upgrade2754@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          I’m going to assume you’re acting in good faith, but I hope you realize how ridiculous that argument is. The only reason this is so is because the DNC is systematically shutting down the primary process and so elected politicians would be harming their negotiations by supporting challengers.

          They for sure align more with Marianne WIlliamson whose policy page is the most detailed and progressive I’ve ever seen in my lifetime. Meanwhile, Biden is running on “finishing the job” and saying the economy is fine.

          • YoBuckStopsHere@lemmy.worldOP
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            1 year ago

            Marianne WIlliamson loses a few people when she breaks out the crystals and starts talking about people’s auras.

            • poopknife@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              more importantly: the time she compared the Avatar film to the Israel-Palestine conflict, in a room with peacemakers from both sides, talking to them about “the great mother in the film not taking sides” and then proudly telling it to Cameron with cringe-meter-breaking confidence and smug head tilts sprinkled twice with “and do you know what they said” (meanwhile Cameron is just literally speechless at what’s going on). Then she proudly acts out the reaction she got from the peacemakers which was… “slow nodding” (I’m not exaggerating) It’s like a Tina Fey sketch.

              She is beyond being “too California” (as some outlets try to downplay it as). It’s just so randomly tone-deaf, not knowing how to contribute in a very serious setting, verbally shitposting out of awkwardness(?), then incorrectly evaluating people’s politeness as a profound moment of unanimity that she fostered. So she proceeds to boast about it to Cameron.

              Her campaign promises and positions does seem picture-perfect and social-progressive, but these instances does make one question what goes on between her synapses. It’s not hard to copy paste what the youth and the progressives (like me) want into a list to score tiktok points. No wonder why brilliant intellectuals with legit academic backgrounds like AOC and Warren and Sanders back Biden instead of her; an esoteric dropout self-help author with loose-cannon potential in interviews. There is no need for dems to unfairly discredit or disadvantage her. She is one goop away from paltrowing.

              Her self-help background and esotericism in pre-covid times, I could’ve squeezed myself into tolerating for the sake of her policies, but what is beyond infuriating and discerning about this particular fuckup is: People in that room that she was invited to in Israel have given their life trying their best to collectively come up with a peace deal to end an extremely long, historical and ongoing conflict that costs lives and communities. And her reaction is “you know in Avatar…” Like, is she high? Clinically daft? Mocking? What the actual fuck.

            • Upgrade2754@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              Can you find for me a single instance between either of her campaigns or in any of her books where she’s talked about crystals or auras?

              I find it appalling that a moderator would say such a thing.

              I’l even steel man your argument for a second. What’s worse: talking about auras or having the ability to reduce the price of all drugs and choosing not to do so, having the ability to fix so many broken families by descheduling marijuana but choosing not to do so, or having the biggest microphone in the world to say how unconscionable it is that we do not have a universal healthcare system and choosing not to do so?

          • Meldroc@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            There’s checking the boxes on policy positions, and then there’s actually getting them implemented - that’s the hard part. Marianne Williamson hasn’t yet succeeded in even getting elected to any public office - not POTUS, not to Congress, not even to a school board.

            Her campaign is just a vanity campaign that helps her sell books.

            And RFK Jr’s campaign is a right wing ratfuck.

          • chatokun@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            While we agree Biden has issues, seeing only RKJR and someone who without looking her up again just triggered “crazy!” In my head, I simply wondered why there wasn’t any progressive candidates listed at all. Marianne has some rep issues to work on. This is from someone who has been out of touch for a bit with politics as in people running, bu5 definitely with leftwing viewpoints. I wouldn’t make a final decision this early, I’d research more before actually voting. But faced with a sudden poll, I don’t like a single person I recognize, and I don’t recognize far more.

      • Upgrade2754@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Only one candidate has committed to:

        • medicare for all
        • free college tuition
        • legalizing marajuanna
        • eliminating the social security cap

        It’s all laid out in a policy page that’s more detailed than even Bernie’s ever was.

        Meanwhile Biden’s website just says ‘lets finish the job’??

        • halferect@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          She’s also is a crazy person who thinks crystals heal you and essential oils are medicine so I think I’ll pass on that type of candidate

        • Smokeydope@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          These are all nice ideals to work towards, but any single one of them would take the full 4 year term to flesh out in any capacity. Its nice to have a list of things you want, its an entirely different beast getting enough bipartisan support to make them reality. I do not see most of these things ever having a real chance of happening except maybe the legalize marijuana one.

    • NukaRaider20@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      Well Biden is the incumbent so no one’s really running against him and I believe right now he’s the Dem with the best chance to win in the general. Won’t really get to have a choice on the Dem side until 2024

    • APassenger@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      There isn’t a place for spoiler DeSantis vote. Or some similar unelectable but viable in a primary person.

    • quindraco@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      Which candidate between the vaccine denier and the rock worshiper are you suggesting is more likely to be a competent POTUS than the avatar of senility?

      • quindraco@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        It’s not about being correct, it’s about how the mathematics of voting works. American Presidential elections are fundamentally designed to force you into a binary choice. This is fixable ans so of course Congress refuses to fix it, but the problem is real, not a delusion.

      • Upgrade2754@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        “Vote Blue No Matter Who” has to be the most self-deprecating slogan of American politics I’ve ever heard of