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Honestly.....How are we supposed to defeat the cult of Trump when people want to sit out the election in November?
- Thread starter TheGhost
- Start date
maybe people should understand that their vote has importance beyond their personal level of excitement
I think the question is how many people Trump can convince that the country is at war with COVID-19 and how having him as a stable genius leader will help them win that war. I think there are way more people who can be coerced into voting Trump due to fear than there are disgruntled Bernie fans staying at home.
Before we continue on with the doom train, do keep in mind that November is still seven and a half-ish months away. A lot can happen, epecially with a pandemic going on.
IMO, Congress will just cancel the general election if things with COVID-19 gets even more dire than they are right now. They're not going to risk a lot of citizens lives just for Trump's selfish benefit.
Not to mention that doing that means that either Nancy Pelosi or Chuck Grassley will be in as temporary president.
Trump's not that popular within the majority of this country, nor is he exactly a strong candidate. He only won in 2016 due to luck, & didn't exactly win in a landslide like Obama did in 2008.
Not to mention that doing that means that either Nancy Pelosi or Chuck Grassley will be in as temporary president.
Trump's not that popular within the majority of this country, nor is he exactly a strong candidate. He only won in 2016 due to luck, & didn't exactly win in a landslide like Obama did in 2008.
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It's not like Bernie was motivating a huge groundswell of people to vote for him. He's doing worse than he did last time.
Biden, as much as he sucks, IS motivating people to vote.
You do it by giving people something to vote for instead of against. Beating Trump just isn't enough of a motivating factor for many people , at least I don't personally think it was in 2016 or even 2020 before Covid (I'm not sure how that's changed since Covid since my interest in politics and news severely tanked after Super Tuesday beyond the basic headline).
Im going to vote this election because even though I freaking hate Biden I fuckin hate Trump but I think we're going to have a real problem with comes after Biden in terms of turnout, enthusiasm, and people's perspectiv on government. I know personally I will never be as involved. We got to Trump because we followed a bad path for years and years, going back to that path will only take us to the same place in the end. I don't think the US as it stands could survive a Trump with a brain, a Trump 2.0 in a few election cycles not to mention under Joe Biden or Trumps climate plans we'd all be dead sooner rather then later anyway.
Im going to vote this election because even though I freaking hate Biden I fuckin hate Trump but I think we're going to have a real problem with comes after Biden in terms of turnout, enthusiasm, and people's perspectiv on government. I know personally I will never be as involved. We got to Trump because we followed a bad path for years and years, going back to that path will only take us to the same place in the end. I don't think the US as it stands could survive a Trump with a brain, a Trump 2.0 in a few election cycles not to mention under Joe Biden or Trumps climate plans we'd all be dead sooner rather then later anyway.
It says their moral purity is worth more than the very real difference that one party can provide.
-worth more than getting kids out of cages
-worth more than defending Roe v. Wade
-worth more than defending coverage for pre-existing conditions and expanding public health care.
It also spits on the very hard work done by millions supporting the effort to elect Democrats and enact progressive legislation at every level.
-worth more than getting kids out of cages
-worth more than defending Roe v. Wade
-worth more than defending coverage for pre-existing conditions and expanding public health care.
It also spits on the very hard work done by millions supporting the effort to elect Democrats and enact progressive legislation at every level.
"Better than Kavanaugh" is an incredibly easy bar to clear to be. Kavanaugh is horrible but you don't need to be horrible to make decisions that ruin millions of lives.
That aside, I will admit, shamefully, that I don't actually know many judges at all, let alone black women judges. Even then, the only way to remotely counter Kavanaugh would be to choose a truly progressive judge along the lines of the Squad, which I'm not sure I trust him to. Besides, as I've said, courts have already been lost. We're dealing with a case that could overturn Roe v. Wade right now. Even a leftist judge, not just progressive liberal judge, replacing RBG would be able to stop a court vote overturning Roe v. Wade.
It's definitely important for the future, ten, twenty years from now, I shan't deny that and something I'm considering in my personal decision making. But, there's no court to be in jeopardy right now, it's just gone for now. And that's something people should accept, not to feel defeated, but so we can try to combat by, again, becoming involved in local and state politics and voting progressive and leftist down ballot this November instead of simply relying upon the federal government, which has proven time and time again to fail the marginalized compared to some beacons of local policy. Of course there's plenty of the opposite- but that means those areas need more grassroots progressivism than ever.
To be honest, I won't judge people who refuse to vote Biden. I will judge those who will actively choose to not vote when they can vote downballot without any worries of losing their job or something.
Trump's response to this has been polling more positively than his actual approval rating. I don't know how. But if he does get voted out, it won't be because of Covid. Unless of course something changes- which with this pandemic, is more than possible.
We'll see. I hope you're right, because this is absolutely not true in my anecdotal experience.
The people who will be opening rallies for him aren't though. Obama, AOC, Bernie, Beto, Warren, and Abrams can be pretty hype.
That being said, I don't think Biden is nearly as boring or as bad a candidate as many on this board do, so 🤷♂️
His favorability was 82% in 2016 among Republicans immediately after election:
Trump Favorability Up, but Trails Other Presidents-Elect
Donald Trump's favorability rating has improved from 34% to 42% after his election win and is his best since 2011.
news.gallup.com
also I question the relevance of whether a candidate is boring when the "boring" candidate consistently gets more people out to the polls than the "exciting" candidate
But I guess somehow we're supposed to pretend that suddenly Bernie Sanders would be the most popular candidate in history in the general election despite the fact that this is the second primary cycle where he has been unable to get enough people to vote for him as the nominee.
You have a chance with Biden, with Trump you are 100% to be fucked. It's as simple as that.
Fair enough. I'd still prefer not rolling the dice for everyone's sake, and there's still a chance to do that. Biden still isn't the nominee yet after all.
I want Bernie a billion times before Biden, of course I fucking do.
At the end of the day people need to vote blue and that's it.
Again, I hope you're right. That's not the world I see around me.His favorability was 82% in 2016 among Republicans immediately after election:
Trump Favorability Up, but Trails Other Presidents-Elect
Donald Trump's favorability rating has improved from 34% to 42% after his election win and is his best since 2011.
Busters are the equivalent of high school students shitting themselves in class because they don't like the janitor.
Focus more on those who can be reached.
Focus more on those who can be reached.
Folks who are willing to let their anger at primary outcomes cloud their vision of what's important.
In general Trump's favorability ratings at this time of the presidency are not that much different from Obama's (source).His favorability was 82% in 2016 among Republicans immediately after election:
Trump Favorability Up, but Trails Other Presidents-Elect
Donald Trump's favorability rating has improved from 34% to 42% after his election win and is his best since 2011.
(green is Trump)
The democratic party should start hoarding gloves and masks when they become available. Hand them out if there's still a covid crisis in Nov. to get their base to vote. No excuses unless you really want to see 4 more years of this moron and want to see the world burn.
An overwhelming majority of Bernie supporters voted for Hillary last time, what you should be worrying about is the moderates in key states that lost the election last time.
It's a case of bitcheatingcrackers.jpg.
Joe's not perfect for me, but I'm damn excited to vote for someone who has a solid shot at taking that monster out of the White House. I can nitpick the dude, but he's probably 70% for what I want rather than the maybe 5% of Trump is. It's also going to be nice having somebody experienced in charge. For the next time there's an emergency situation, you know, like a pandemic.
People need to remember that our conversations here, on Facebook, etc, filter down to lower information voters. "Biden it horrible" and "Biden is shit" posts are actively damaging to our cause, and I would highly recommend that even the most leftist voters act excited about Biden (I mean, unless you're an accelerationist or something). There's a post in this thread that starts out about how Trump is as bad as Biden, then proceeds to a wall of text I won't even dignify reading. That shit needs to stop if we want to have a shot at replacing a government that locks kids in cages.
We desperately need to pull away from far right extremists running our government. It's literally going to kill millions of people now that there's an actual emergency. Anyone slightly to the left and more competent should be welcome, and everyone on the left should be enthusiastic about that.
Yes but what if we can't get literally everything we want from a candidate? Why bother voting lol
Apparently Bernie voters are a small minority that can't win elections yet they can sure as hell lose one given the panic over Busters.
I'll vote for Biden because while I doubt his response to COVID-19 would be particularly good, I doubt it'd be as bad as Trump's. Bernie was always a compromise candidate for me, and I live in California where my vote is more or less electorally irrelevant in a general, but good luck getting people whose material conditions won't improve under a Biden presidency to vote for him. I'm sure condescending to young voters and shaming people who aren't excited about a ghoul like Biden will be productive. I think he's a terrible candidate, even worse than Hillary in many ways, but I'll suck it up. I don't blame those who can't though and feel beat down by the hellscape that is the American political system. Too bad I don't live in a swing state, so I can't act like I'm a hero for voting for Not Trump.
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha.
Fuck no.
I'll vote for Biden because while I doubt his response to COVID-19 would be particularly good, I doubt it'd be as bad as Trump's. Bernie was always a compromise candidate for me, and I live in California where my vote is more or less electorally irrelevant in a general, but good luck getting people whose material conditions won't improve under a Biden presidency to vote for him. I'm sure condescending to young voters and shaming people who aren't excited about a ghoul like Biden will be productive. I think he's a terrible candidate, even worse than Hillary in many ways, but I'll suck it up. I don't blame those who can't though and feel beat down by the hellscape that is the American political system. Too bad I don't live in a swing state, so I can't act like I'm a hero for voting for Not Trump.
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha.
Fuck no.
Maybe the Democratic frontrunner shouldn't be someone who literally has articles like this written about them.
The headline is quite literally, "Stay Alive, Joe Biden."
How cute. You think an election will be feasible by November. We're looking at a possible economic depression at the rate we're going, and the destruction of capitalism as we know it. Biden nor Trump are mentally equipped to handle any of these crises.
they got ghouls like david frum on their staff and, clearly, just cape for lame safe politics that doesn't positively impact anyone outside of the pundit & wealthy classes
it never is, though, is it?
that's the thing. when there are republicans in power, you can't stand up for "made-up" morals (which, just for the record, is not a thing - people have morals, they're values that you hold, they're not "made up") because you have to get rid of all the republicans and that's more important. when there are democrats in power, you can't stand up for your morals because then you're undermining the democrats while they have power, making them look weak, and sabotaging them while they try to do what they think are "good things". (and some of them are good things! others are not!)
this is why some people get so tired of this kind of shit:
now, not only are we on the left obliged to "vote blue no matter who" ourselves into perpetual irrelevance, we have to actively become biden boosters. we have to sing the praises of a man we think is grotesquely unfit for office, a man who has spent his entire career selling out the powerless for the sake of the powerful, a man literally once referred to as "the senator from mbna" for how deeply entrenched in wall street he is. it's never the right time, and it's never enough.
fuck it. the dude has my vote, because I live in a nominally swing state and consider it a form of harm mitigation, but I refuse to pretend he's not a useless corporatist who's going to enact nothing but half-measures and waste four (or eight) years of time that we're just about out of.
I have no clue. All of you who supported Biden over Bernie- you figure out how to convince people to vote for your guy. He has my vote because of my personal intense loathing of Donald Trump. But convincing people who don't share that...good luck.
I mean, I personally don't see it happening anyway. You cannot get a functioning society with 100 million Trump supporters in it.
Exactly. It's so incredibly selfish. Even pouty.
An asterisk next to their passion is the perfect way to word it honestly.
Pretty much. Any time someone gives me one of these speeches, I'm like-- the fuck d'you want me to do, pal? I'm probably voting for Biden, but I can't see myself doing anything better than that. Let's pretend-- let's just pretend-- that I'm of the opinion Trump is the disease and not the symptom so I'm convinced Biden putting his hand over that Bible will just cause all the cages to spring wide open. Guess what? I can't fucking persuade my other leftist pals that's the case. I can't. I've tried. Does that make them bad people? Who gives a fuck? It's not like declaring them bad people magically hands their vote over to you so you can cast it for them. You're still as fucked as you were before. Either you need them, or you don't, and if you need them either you can persuade them, or you can't. COVID is changing some of the calculus for this, but the question is still authentic on whether people should vote or not.
The "incremental change is better than accelerationism" argument is well understood and near-universally agreed with. It's a good starting point in theory, then, to make a case for Biden. The proof you have to make is that not voting for Biden is a) such a dire thing that you have to hold your nose and vote for someone you actively loathe (that Super Tuesday shit is never just gonna be water over the bridge) and b) effectively accelerationism. To do that, you have to establish that Biden produces better outcomes than Trump-- and believe it or not, even in an intersectionalist grouping of leftists that's not wholly understood to be the case. Not merely because of climate change-- and let's be clear, Biden's climate change policy is disqualifying. Not merely because of the question of what happens after Biden's single term if there's a return to the status quo-- that, let's be clear, Trump's election was a reaction to. Not merely because very few of us will get any visible improvement in our own lives because of this-- which, let's be clear, is the primary driver of enthusiasm in any electoral campaign no matter how noble the goal. Not merely because we are tacitly ceding our own voices and collapsing the enthusiasm of what meager movement we've managed to scrounge together-- that, let's be clear, many of us are convinced is the ONLY way to organize a response to the coming threat of ecofascism. But also because Biden is not trusted-- neither in terms of his integrity nor in terms of his competence. We remember how he's talked about how we need to compromise with Republicans-- and so the question is, is he even going to fight for the kids in cages that we're beat about the head over as a rhetorical cudgel by his supporters? I mean, what the fuck are you gonna do if he decides not to pursue that avenue? You gonna protest him? Are you? You gonna tell us to wait for his successor in four years who is DEFINITELY a lock instead (and conveniently, definitely NOT a leftist)? Also, are we gonna pretend, like Biden is, that 2012-2016 didn't happen? Because let's be clear, it's not an open question if Biden is gonna drive down-ticket enthusiasm with a message laser-focused on BEAT TRUMP, and if he doesn't we are fucked by simple dint of obstructionism.
Look, here's the honest truth: if you can imagine two tiny people in a trenchcoat who hold each other in unreserved and abject loathing, that's the Democratic party as a result of First Past The Post. That runs deeper than Bernie and should be clear by now for anybody with eyes to see. Party A keeps telling Party B it HAS to vote for Biden, even has to VOCALLY SUPPORT Biden, or Party B just wants Trump to win; while at the same time implying that Party B is useless and inconsequential anyways and that their ideas are unworkable. So which is it? We're being told we're actively endangering the election just by criticizing Biden, for example, giving an underwhelming speech for a couple minutes in the middle of a pandemic while being nearly unseen. This is who the candidates whose policy positions most resembled his decided to drop out to support. And yet those of us whose policy positions are nearly diametrically opposed to that are supposed to be the ones who are responsible for being the necessary support? It's implicitly understood we don't get anything in return for this-- it's our moral obligation. Do you have any idea how hard that makes it for me to sell other people on the idea of a Biden presidency?
You can't guilt people into handing you a win.
And that's without a global pandemic beating down the door and making the case that we need radical change and we need it now. That's without a stock market literally calling to be fed with the blood of workers. That's without a foreign policy position that's more precarious than it's ever been and that calls for a decidedly non-interventionist approach to foreign policy. That's without whatever else this fucked up nightmare of a year has in store for us before November! Is this conversation driving some anxiety in you, dear reader? Better hope shit doesn't get worse in this grand old year. Somehow.
this is nonsense, my dude
elections are never about just one thing. this election isn't just about "defeating trump" - especially not for sanders voters. the enthusiasm of sanders supporters wasn't just because they specifically wanted to see bernie sanders "defeat trump". it was about ideas. it was about policies. ideas and policies that joe biden emphatically does not support. why on earth would they be equally excited for someone that doesn't share their views? why would they be equally excited to elect a man that demonstrably does not even want to give them the shit they support?
if you think that all that matters right now is getting trump out, that's your prerogative. other people are not obliged to feel the same. I don't feel the same. I think it's important (and necessary), but I also think that a huge swathe of the country is being crushed under unfair policies that both trump and biden will not come anywhere close to addressing in a satisfactory manner. that matters to me. that's what gets my "passion" - people who demonstrate that they understand shit is broken, especially for the young/the poor/minorities. joe biden doesn't do that, and so I'm not going to be excited about him, and no amount of "please clap" bullshit is going to convince me otherwise.
if he wants my excitement, he should do something that excites me. if he wants my "passion", he should support policies that I am passionate about. I doubt he will. that's not why people voted for him in the primary - in fact, you could argue that many people voted for him expressly because he will not do things that excite me. that's ok. that's where the party decided to go. that also means it's on biden's passionate supporters to do passionate supporter things now. to quote some guy named "obama", elections have consequences. this is one of them. no amount of browbeating or derision will get you what you're looking for.
honestly anyone that would actually sit out the election against Trump of all people after all he's done because they don't like that Biden won or whatever is no less of a cultist than Trump's base and never gave a shit about the country to begin with
I just really hope that everyone that gets disillusioned with the process because their guy lost, maybe cause they're young or new to politics in general, realizes that that shit happens. We've all had our faves lose. That's just what democracy is, and if we lose to Donald trump then democracy itself is gone.
a Donald trump with a SECOND term and a Mitch McConnell in the senate will do more harm to you than you think. Forget climate change, forget income inequality, itis your voice they will go after.
you won't even have a chance To lose again if they win this time.
Please watch the documentaries on Mitt Romney, Beto O'Rourke, The AOC one on Netflix, and the Bill Clinton one from the 90's. They're not all losers, but it is interesting how campaigns go.
a Donald trump with a SECOND term and a Mitch McConnell in the senate will do more harm to you than you think. Forget climate change, forget income inequality, itis your voice they will go after.
you won't even have a chance To lose again if they win this time.
Please watch the documentaries on Mitt Romney, Beto O'Rourke, The AOC one on Netflix, and the Bill Clinton one from the 90's. They're not all losers, but it is interesting how campaigns go.
The point is that no one gives a shit what excites you. A Trump re-election will make your life measurably worse than a Biden election. Many other people's lives too. Possibly for decades to come due to potential Supreme Court appointments. It's your goddamn duty to do your part to stop that from happening.
no?
the point that's been made in this thread is explicitly that people do give a shit what excites me, and they think that it's somehow petulant or sabotaging to not be excited for joe biden. and that's my point - fuck all of that. I've said that I'm voting for him in the general election, begrudgingly. that's all he's entitled to. he's not entitled to my emotions, he's not entitled to my excitement, and I have no obligation to somehow become "passionate" for someone that I deeply dislike just because other people want him to be the democratic nominee. my emotions are my own, and I'm allowed to feel however I want.
joe biden sucks ass.
donald trump sucks more ass, and so I'm voting against him, but the latter doesn't change the former.
Yeah. I'm ready for a return to normalcy, decency, morality & integrity. I miss having a REAL president. A real, true leader.
- A real, true leader who cares about the country & the American people & puts them first before himself & before profits.
- A real, true leader who can speak & form complete, coherent sentences as well as having real, presidential speeches.
- A real, true leader who doesn't ridicule the media whenever they don't praise him or calls him out on his bullshit.
- A real, true leader who isn't racist, sexist, or instigates violence towards minorities (such as myself) & women (or speaks negatively about strong women who stands up to him).
- A real, true leader who doesn't leech off of taxpayers (including charging the secret service!), & treats the presidency like his own personal piggy bank.
- A real, true leader who doesn't sell out his own country to a foreign leader & takes orders from him (Vladimir Putin).
- A real, true leader who works closely with allies from other countries, & doesn't alienate them entirely by sabotaging relationships with them or disrespects them.
- A real, true leader who takes action against very serious threats, such as the Coronavirus.
- A real, true leader who doesn't constantly tweet & says dumb shit on Twitter or on National TV on a daily basis or neglects his duties to help this country.
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A while back, I was in the OP's position, arguing with someone who didn't want to vote for Hillary because they said something along the lines of "being forced to choose the lesser evil when the lesser evil is still holding a gun to your head." At the time, I didn't get it. I do now, though.
Put diplomatically, Democratic moderates implicitly understand that many of those to the left of them have to vote for self-preservation. Their votes are taken for granted because they know those to the left and/or those they care about stand to lose more, and any of their desire to improve their condition must necessarily play second fiddle to party financiers and "independent" voters who are all too willing to throw vulnerable populations under the bus because the status quo either benefits them or fails to hurt them at all.
And in a just world, we'd save our tongue lashing for these financiers and independent voters because it's plainly established that they're okay with climate change or children in cages if their taxes aren't raised, or even the party establishment for pushing a candidate that doesn't get enough people excited, but this thread is evidence enough that no lessons were learned in these past four years.
Put diplomatically, Democratic moderates implicitly understand that many of those to the left of them have to vote for self-preservation. Their votes are taken for granted because they know those to the left and/or those they care about stand to lose more, and any of their desire to improve their condition must necessarily play second fiddle to party financiers and "independent" voters who are all too willing to throw vulnerable populations under the bus because the status quo either benefits them or fails to hurt them at all.
And in a just world, we'd save our tongue lashing for these financiers and independent voters because it's plainly established that they're okay with climate change or children in cages if their taxes aren't raised, or even the party establishment for pushing a candidate that doesn't get enough people excited, but this thread is evidence enough that no lessons were learned in these past four years.