“We elected him once and our boat isn’t flying!1! Why isn’t he doing anything?!?” (/s)
This would more realistic if Dems were just watching the boat sink. They wouldn’t be helping at all. They are perfectly fine with state violence on college protesters, why would they try to save anyone on a boat lol? They would just say you’ll be drowning faster if you pick the other guy.
There’s nothing worse than a leftist.
I can understand being unwilling to vote for Biden because he’s supporting genocide. That, taken by itself, is perfectly reasonable.
Why aren’t those otherwise intelligent, thoughtful people looking at the bigger picture, though?
Don’t they understand that under Trump, things will be much worse? What’s their moral rationale for allowing fascism to take over America, and empowering untold numbers of reprehensible people? I’m trying to understand, but I just don’t get it.
If you want to understand, I can explain fairly simply.
Consider this thought experiment. We are getting $100 to split, but only if they can agree on how to split it: I get to make an offer, then you choose whether to accept. If you announce that you’ll accept whatever deal so long as accepting is better than the alternative - that is, that you’ll act “rationally” - then the rational thing for me to do is to offer you only $1, while I get $99. Researchers have actually tested this game in real life, however, and it generally doesn’t play out that way. Why? Because the numbers don’t tell the whole story of what you’re giving up by accepting a bad deal. Once you’ve demonstrated that you’ll accept a deal like that, then you’re communicating something about your behavior for all future deals. It may be rational in the context of a closed experiment, but for the general case, our minds know better than what may appear “rational” at first glance. If you tell me, “I will refuse anything less than $30,” then you are openly declaring that you intend to behave “irrationally” and trying to convince me that you will - and it would most likely produce better results than behaving “rationally.”
The moment that you say, “My only condition for voting for the democrats is that they be better than the republicans, who are unimaginably horrible,” you have sacrificed every ounce of bargaining power that you could’ve wielded. So the real calculation is not “Who’s better between Trump and Biden,” but rather, is the difference between Trump and Biden worth sacrificing all my bargaining power?" And for me, the fact that Biden is supporting genocide makes that decision very easy and straightforward. I’d rather at least try to leverage what power I have against genocide altogether, rather than supporting the “lesser genocide.” If I cannot set even something like genocide as a red line, then I am very clearly communicating to politicians that they can count on my vote no matter what they do, and they have no reason to ever consider my political priorities.
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This is a false equivalence though: In the thought experiment, you denying to split ensures that none of you get anything. In this real-world scenario, you refusing to make a choice between more or less genocide increases the chances of “more genocide” winning. By not making a choice, you aren’t punishing the person proposing the deal, you’re just allowing someone else to make the choice for you.
There are elections in which it makes sense to vote against a candidate like Biden: In every election where there is a better choice on the table. That includes primaries, it includes backing candidates opposed to him in local elections, and elections for the house and senate. That is when you make your stand.
By not voting, in any specific election, you are simply giving up your right to have an impact on the outcome. That means that if the outcome is an increase in people killed, you are responsible, because you had the option to save lives, and chose not to take it.
By voting for the lesser of two evils, you are not signalling that you accept the lesser evil, but simply that you believe it is the best possible choice of those given. You can signal that you dislike the lesser evil by voting against it when an even lesser evil is on the table (or, preferably, something actually good).
Also, it’s not like “the democrats” tactically choose a candidate that they think the voters will reluctantly accept. The candidate is specifically the person that got the most votes in the primaries. The candidates in the primaries are typically people who got enough votes to be either governor or senator or something previously. By consistently voting for the better candidate in all those elections, you can actually have an impact on the presidential nominee, and signal your beliefs to the political party, without running the risk of having a wannabe dictator become president.
It’s not a false equivalence because I never claimed it was equivalent. The purpose of the hypothetical is to explain a concept, not to draw a direct comparison.
Not voting for Biden is punishing Biden because it’s denying him something that he wants. I’m not allowing other people to make the decision for me, it’s not as if my vote passes to the next person in line or something.
Primaries are not legitimate elections. There is no oversight and no legal requirement that they be conducted fairly, or even that they be conducted at all. The democratic establishment has the ability to influence the outcome or cancel them altogether, which it exercises regularly. What should I do if the democrats said, “We’re not doing primaries at all any more, we’re going back to the old days where party elites select candidates in smoke-filled rooms?” Should I just give them my full compliance?
I reject lesser evilism for reasons I already explained.
I am not responsible if withholding my vote leads to an increase in people being killed. That’s not how responsibility works. The responsibility is on the people doing the killing, the people ordering them to, and the people supplying them with the means to do so. It’s like if a serial killer tried to plead “not guilty” on the basis that one of his hostages refused to cooperate and that caused him to fly into a rage and kill more people so it’s really the hostage who should be tried for murder. It’s an absurdity, and frankly it betrays a refusal, in your psyche, to hold politicians accountable for their failures and misdeeds, instead trying to shift the blame onto ordinary people.
Ahem The Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994.
“Biden did something I don’t like 30 years ago. Vote Trump!!1!”
-You
The Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994.
Nah, he’s done nonsensical things starting 30 years ago and every day since.
Like these for example:
* Lowest unemployment numbers since 1969, economy seeing strong growth in GTP, wages, stock market returns, household net worth * Expanded overtime guarantees for millions * Established the Office of Gun Violence Prevention awarding $286 million towards student mental health * Made transition to green electricity a priority and accelerating approval of renewable energy projects * Sealed nationwide Infrastructure deal for $1.2 trillion for roads, waterlines, broadband networks, airports, et c * Opened for over-the-counter birth control pill (in stores in 2024) * Issued a sweeping crackdown on junk fees and overdraft charges from banks * Effected anti-redlining frameworks preventing discriminatory mortgage lending * Forced Chinese companies to open their books * Issued the Inflation Reduction Act, authorizing funds to jump-start the transition of American agriculture toward less carbon-intensive practices * Helped broker a deal to save the Colorado River * Signed an executive order directing agencies across the government to promote competition and take on monopolies * Loosened federal restrictions on cannabis * Instituted penalties for college programs that trap students in debt * Enacted the CHIPS and Science Act, offering more than $50 billion to subsidize construction of new microchip facilities in the U.S * Aligned U.S trade policy with antitrust actions against big tech firms * Brokered a deal to halt conflict between Rwanda and Congo to stall impending Cobalt crisis * Released a new national cyber strategy, strengthening international cyber diplomacy, securing emerging critical technologies and taking more aggressive steps to disrupt hacking groups * Countering China with a new alliance between Japan and South Korea * Reinvigorating cancer research to lower death rates * Making medication more accessible through telemedicine initiative * Installed union-friendly allies on the NLRB board who have adopted positions that boost workers in confrontations with businesses * Issued a national radio frequency spectrum strategy to fix 5G chaos * Empowered federal agencies to monitor AI * Strengthening military ties to Asian allies * Creating a new agency to investigate cyberattacks * Forcing airlines to pay up when flights are delayed or canceled * Expansion of Benefits and Services for Toxic Exposed Veterans * Stood up against Russian aggression by direct support for Ukraine * Protected marriage rights for LGBTQ couples * Historic student debt relief for middle-, working-class families * Implemented aggressive climate and environmental justice agenda * ...Sources: https://www.vox.com/politics/24094752/biden-trump-strong-economy-2024-inflation https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2024/02/02/joe-biden-30-policy-things-you-might-have-missed-00139046 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_policy_of_the_Joe_Biden_administration#:~:text=His Inflation Reduction Act was enacted in August 2022.&text=Biden’s first year in office,the pandemic recession of 2020. https://www.whitehouse.gov/therecord/ https://edition.cnn.com/interactive/2021/politics/biden-executive-orders/
You sound like you’re spewing desperate media talking points. Kinda pathetic actually.
pathetic
That sounds like projection to me.
You’re projecting while saying I am. Fuck off weirdo.
i’m never voting for joe biden again and if youre reading this, you don’t have to either.
consider voting for the party for socialism and liberation.
Dems provided the drill to the republicans
