US Politics: The sides have gotten… weird

[Larry of the Lawn]

21 minutes ago, Mr. Chatywin et al. said:

Hey, the person who lit themself on fire in 1965 really did a great job making sure the Vietnam War only last another decade. Results! 

I wonder who he voted for in '64.  The guy who wanted to nuke Vietnam, or the guy who reversed course on his campaign position of limiting the war and instead escalated it.

Maybe he voted for LBJ and then felt complicit in the expansion of the conflict.  

 

[Jaxom 1974]

1 hour ago, GrimTuesday said:

If the uncommitted vote stays above 10%, it's a bad sign for Biden. Those are voters who are motivated enough to go out in an uncontested primary just to tell Joe Biden that they are unwilling to commit to the incumbent president.

Which, on its face, would be perfectly understandable in 1952, 1980, or maybe just about any other year. 

Lord knows I'm not in favor of what's happening in Gaza. It needs a solution yesterday.  But I also know that there is zero solutions forthcoming with Rwpublicans in control of the White House, let alone Trump in control. Europe and the Middle East become two different theatres of the Wild West if Trump (or any Republican) is in power, as they'll turn their backs on Bibi and Putin and Iran and it'll be game on for those bastards.

Again, you are not voting for Joe Biden in 2024. You're voting for the right to vote again in 2026, 2028, and beyond. You're voting for the right to be able to be able to have a chance to tell Joe Biden and the other leaders who have policies you disagree with.  

I understand the need, the right, to make those protests, but right now, one also has to weigh the entirety of the stakes at hand to see the chance for any hope for the Gazans, the Ukranians, and yes, the American people too. 

 

Edited February 28 by Jaxom 1974

[GrimTuesday]

7 minutes ago, Jaxom 1974 said:

Which, on its face, would be perfectly understandable in 1952, 1980, or maybe just about any other year. 

Lord knows I'm not in favor of what's happening in Gaza. It needs a solution yesterday.  But I also know that there is zero solutions forthcoming with Rwpublicans in control of the White House, let alone Trump in control. Europe and the Middle East become two different theatres of the Wild West if Trump (or any Republican) is in power, as they'll turn their backs on Bibi and Putin and Iran and it'll be game on for those bastards.

Again, you bare not voting for Joe Biden in 2024. You're voting for the right to vote again in 2026, 2028, and beyond. You're voting for the right to be able to be able to have a chance to tell Joe Biden and the other leaders who have policies you disagree with.  

I understand the need, the right, to make those protests, but right now, one also has to weigh the entirety of the stakes at hand to see the chance for any hope for the Gazans, the Ukranians, and yes, the American people too. 

 

Man, Biden has done next to nothing to curb Israel and is actively arming them. This isn't a matter of the US sitting idly by, the US is an active participant in running interference and defending Israel from other groups who are trying to stop what courts have found to be a potential genocide.

The fact that they are doing this while staring down the barrel of a gun in Trump, it should tell you that the Democratic party has massively fucked up. And if there is no course correction, They have no one to blame but themselves. This is not voters failing the Democratic party, this is the Democratic party failing the voters by refusing to do the will of their voters.

[The Anti-Targ]

5 hours ago, Mr. Chatywin et al. said:

@Kalbear,

Idk what you're on, but I clearly said you can't bitch and moan if you don't vote, but it's perfectly fine to complain about having to vote for someone you don't like. I strongly dislike Hillary, but I still voted for, however that didn't stop me from ripping her. 

That is such a lame and demonstrably illegitimate generalised statement. Consciously not voting is in itself a massive complaint that there is no one worth voting for and / or the system is so hopelessly broken and corrupt that even voting for someone that appears decent will be of minimal/negligible benefit to the issues you care about.

I don't vote* anymore because no one is really dealing with the root causes of the big issues facing my country or the world, and in my view the current system actively prevents people from trying to deal with the root causes. But I assert the right to complain the hell out of those massive flaws and the things that are paralysing meaningful action, and no one is going to tell me my complaints aren't valid because I chose not to choose. People who don't vote because it's too much effort (even when it's very easy to vote like it is here), yes I do see more of an argument that they don't have much claim to be listened to when they complain.

 

*I actually did vote last year but I scribbled all over my ballot basically invalidating it, but it went into the ballot box and thus it was a +1 to the number of people who voted. My vote is recorded in the official stats as an "informal vote". Last year 0.57% of voters cast informal votes. Essentially it's a vote of no confidence. But if you consciously choose not to vote from a no confidence perspective then it's the same as putting a spoiled ballot in the box.

The next time I'm likely to vote with a non-spoiled ballot is the first time any candidate expressly adopts MMT as their economic framework. But even then the "decent people incapable of making meaningful change" aspect comes into play.

[Spockydog]

56 minutes ago, Mr. Chatywin et al. said:

If you don't buy the food, don't prep it, don't cook it, don't serve it and then complain about it you're an asshole. Same goes with politics. We're talking about the bare minimum here. Not voting means you can go sit at the kids' table and have shitty chicken nuggets. 

What if the only choice is a diarrhoea sandwich or fried earlobes with chips?

 

 

[Spockydog]

3 hours ago, Kalbear said:

But that's not at all what you said. You said that "I still say anyone who commits suicide is not in their right mind at the time".

Indeed. Gorman and Vasquez would like a motherfucking word.

Sorry for the flippancy, but this discussion is just turning into another one of those topics where everybody is entrenched and nobody is going to change their minds, no matter how many times the same point is repeated.

Edited February 28 by Spockydog

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

44 minutes ago, Larry of the Lawn said:

I wonder who he voted for in '64.  The guy who wanted to nuke Vietnam, or the guy who reversed course on his campaign position of limiting the war and instead escalated it.

Maybe he voted for LBJ and then felt complicit in the expansion of the conflict.  

 

The point is it didn't matter. 

22 minutes ago, The Anti-Targ said:

That is such a lame and demonstrably illegitimate generalised statement. Consciously not voting is in itself a massive complaint that there is no one worth voting for and / or the system is so hopelessly broken and corrupt that even voting for someone that appears decent will be of minimal/negligible benefit to the issues you care about.

 

19 minutes ago, Spockydog said:

What if the only choice is a diarrhoea sandwich or fried earlobes with chips?

Hence why I said "none" should always be an option and if it wins you do it over again with new candidates. Maybe let the person who got the most votes be able to run again. But there is no excuse to not vote if that's an option. 

That said in this cycle if you don't vote to keep Trump out, whatever you feel about Biden, just shows how clueless you are being. 

[Kalbear]

1 hour ago, Fragile Bird said:

We are going to disagree. As far as I can see you are a fanboy of this guy and you think he died for noble and altruistic reasons, with a clear mind.

Okay, let me be clear. I think he definitely was trying to be altruistic, I think he was certainly not altered or otherwise in a degraded mental capacity, I think he took a premeditated action - not a spur of the moment decision - and I think it's horrible the level of despair he had for the situation.

I don't think he's particularly noble. I don't want more people to do this. That doesn't mean I need to make up definitions of words or assume he has a mental illness. 

1 hour ago, Fragile Bird said:

I, on the other hand, believe someone who does what he did had a serious problem. Neither of us are likely to ever know the truth.

Conversely, i think you believe that you can be incredibly flippant about mental illness, use it as a way to dismiss any actual concerns of someone or the cause they care about and don't understand sacrifice or altruism at a fundamental level. 

You're right, I won't understand your point of view nor will I convince you that you're wrong. I can, however, not allow it to be unchallenged.

[Kalbear]

15 minutes ago, Mr. Chatywin et al. said:

The point is it didn't matter. 

It is taught in history books. She has a memorial in Berlin for her sacrifice. It inspired significant more protests and activism. 

Did it end the war right away? No, it didn't. If that is your metric I think you'll find a whole lot of actions you recommended don't matter either. 

 

 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

9 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

It is taught in history books. She has a memorial in Berlin for her sacrifice. It inspired significant more protests and activism. 

Did it end the war right away? No, it didn't. If that is your metric I think you'll find a whole lot of actions you recommended don't matter either. 

It should be taught on the day dumb shit is. There's actually a lot of people who did this in the 60's and 70's to protest the war. It had no meaningful impact on policy. They should have run for office instead. Or started a new charity if they didn't find one they liked. Glorifying violent suicides is an odd hill to die on. 

[Jace, Extat]

All this talk of Biden losing votes over supporting Israel in their defensive war against Hamas' terroristic statelet misses that most democrats approve of his handling of the issue. Abandoning an ally who has been attacked and had their citizens hauled away by an enemy would be a great way to lose my vote, and I'm sure that of many others. 

So y'all asking for a reputation-destroying flip flop aren't making any sense. And I'm far from a fangirl of Biden's. Way I see it, he has the backing of the American people and of his broader party in supporting Israel in their defensive war against a terrorist state. He should continue to do so. The numbers are on his side.

[Martell Spy]

Republicans have an answer on IVF. It’s only raising more questions.
At the same time that they are professing support for IVF, dozens of congressional Republicans have signed onto so-called personhood legislation.

https://www.politico.com/news/2024/02/27/republicans-alabama-ivf-ruling-00143391

Quote

Alabama Republican Sen. Tommy Tuberville initially told reporters he was “all for” the decision, calling it “the right thing to do.” But when informed the ruling had effectively cut off IVF for his constituents, he said it was “unfortunate” and “hard.”

 

[karaddin]

I want to preface this post by saying I absolutely believe Trump specifically, and the modern Republican party generally,  is a genuine threat to democracy in the US. I've been saying that on this board for a lot longer than most here who hold that view, so what follows is not questioning whether that's true. From @Consigliere in the last thread:

Quote

If the bolded is actually true then the US is doomed anyway regardless of who wins this year's election - Biden winning just delays the inevitable for a measly 4 years if the bolded is true. Since the Republican party has a structural advantage with the electoral college as well as congressional maps then it's only a matter of time before there's a Republican trifecta.

I think this raises a significant electoral issue for Biden that I haven't seen much discussion of. A significant component of the push to get people, in particular left wing voters, to vote for Biden in 2020 was that Trump is an existential threat to democracy and that if they didn't vote Biden they might not get to vote again. I agree and I think the record turn out says its a message that resonated with plenty of people.

The problem arises when you need to use that same argument again. People are going to say "you said that last time, but what have you actually done to prevent this danger from future elections? Or are you just going to expect our unquestioning vote in every single election because the other side will take it away?". If the reality is the latter, then people will become apathetic to that argument sooner or later. It might still get across the line in 2024, but is it really still going to work in 2028? People will have had 8 years at that point to forget how awful Trump was. So you need to be able to point to things that you have actually done to mitigate the risk. What are they?

Its possible I just haven't paid enough attention to the news, and there are some genuine things - in which case I'd argue the campaign needs to do a better job of communicating that while insisting there's still a long way to go so you can't relax yet. The big thing that would stand out to me would be actually addressing the supreme court sized elephant in the room, but at this point I have the impression Biden is never going to do that. And voters believing that could well be an obstacle to them accepting that they need to vote for Biden again to save democracy. Especially for voters that are thinking along the lines that Kal is talking about...

7 hours ago, Kalbear said:

I have a great deal of sympathy for those who are being asked to save the US democracy from itself when that democracy helped kill a lot of their friends and loved ones.

 

[polishgenius]

 

 

I really hope this text wasn't actually him coz it doesn't do wonders for the 'it was an entirely mentally clear and noble action' argument. 'There are no civilians' is a ludicrous stance to take if you're fighting against a genocide. 

[horangi]

Wow I went out of country for a week and started catching up with the US politics threads.  I read through the second from the last one and accidentally jumped to this one not realizing there was a closed thread in between until page 2.  That middle thread left the train station and made a giant useless loop through an intellectual wasteland to arrive back where it started. 

Regarding one more recent comment about the elections in 2028 and beyond being the same awful folks in charge so the US is doomed no matter what- that assumes that the Republican Party or some successor opposition to the Democrats is irrevocably doomed to continue its current trend.  Now that is not, to say, prognosticating they will suddenly become a progressive beacon of light, but taking a step back from the brink of authoritarianism and having a rethink (and/or more morbidly a die off of some of its base and a forced shift to remain relevant) is not out of the cards.  To me, 2024 isn't about delaying the inevitable by 4 years, its about allowing time for change.  Maybe it will take more than 4, maybe its 8, or 12, or 20.  When do we stop choosing the lesser evil?  When it ceases to be the lesser evil, and in a two party system that means they have become the greater evil and its time to vote for the other team.

That said, I can understand why those folks who have direct family members involved in today's conflicts would not be able to come around. I also certainly support those like Larry who totally dislike the situation but will pull the lever anyways- protest away, make your voice heard!  If the party we have today isn't to your liking, start shaping it so its better 20 years from now, a gift to the next generation if not your own.  The harsh reality is, if you are going to vote for a leader, any leader, of a major power, you are voting for someone who will be have the blood of 10s of thousands of lives on their hands, and that's a low end assuming they are a good leader trying to do well for their country.  

[karaddin]

1 hour ago, polishgenius said:

I really hope this text wasn't actually him coz it doesn't do wonders for the 'it was an entirely mentally clear and noble action' argument. 'There are no civilians' is a ludicrous stance to take if you're fighting against a genocide. 

I don't agree with that comment but I think 'There are no civilians' is a misreading of what he's saying there.

Quote

There are no Israeli "civilians" or tourists who have no part in the oppression of Palestine.

I interpret that as saying that the civilians that do exist are still complicit in the oppression, not that they don't exist. Putting scare quotes around civilians like that does muddy the waters though so I don't think your interpretation is deliberately uncharitable.

[Hmmm]

31 minutes ago, karaddin said:

I don't agree with that comment but I think 'There are no civilians' is a misreading of what he's saying there.

I interpret that as saying that the civilians that do exist are still complicit in the oppression, not that they don't exist. Putting scare quotes around civilians like that does muddy the waters though so I don't think your interpretation is deliberately uncharitable.

Muddy the waters? 

[Larry of the Lawn]

5 hours ago, Mr. Chatywin et al. said:

The point is it didn't matter. 

 

 

It didn't matter to you.

[Ran]

3 hours ago, polishgenius said:

I really hope this text wasn't actually him coz it doesn't do wonders for the 'it was an entirely mentally clear and noble action' argument. 'There are no civilians' is a ludicrous stance to take if you're fighting against a genocide. 

He also celebrated the death of three American servicemen in Jordan, associating their deaths with "ACAB" (i.e. the US military acts as the world's cops, and ACAB, so deaths of his fellow servicemen was a good thing.)

He fell down the left-wing rabbit hole and came out with a deeply warped sense of reality. We should be thankful he didn't get a gun and try to take other people with him, at least.

 

[karaddin]

2 hours ago, Hmmm said:

Muddy the waters? 

I'm terrible at definitions so just going to copy an actual one
 

Quote

1. make an issue or situation more confused or complicated.

   "the conflation of two distinct hypotheses has merely served to muddy the waters"

 

1 hour ago, Ran said:

He fell down the left-wing rabbit hole and came out with a deeply warped sense of reality. We should be thankful he didn't get a gun and try to take other people with him, at least.

This is both drawing a very long bow given the left-wing rabbit hole isn't particularly associated with people doing mass shootings as a form of suicide and pretty gross.