Headlines “Politics” [read the OP before posting]

[Hipmonlee]

That assumes that when you completely overhaul your voting system, you dont overhaul that part of it.

You guys can, and should, drastically change your voting system. Even if doing so requires changing the constitution. There's lots of options. I think ranked choice for congress makes a lot of sense.

The whole office of the president seems a little ridiculous to me. It has become ridiculously powerful and you really should fix that too.

 

[Bughouse]

...are you aware of how hard it is to change the US constitution lmao? It requires an enormous supermajority that does not exist now and likely won't for a long time, if ever, due to partisanship. Any change like this will be viewed through who it helps and hurts in the immediate future and not long term fairness/equity/etc.

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-ta...toral-college-with-a-nationwide-popular-vote/

Even for the one simple question about eliminating the electoral college it's a narrow majority, despite (or perhaps because of) 2 presidents in recent history being elected without winning the popular vote. There's a reason no one is seriously trying to mount this campaign as a constitutional amendment. The level of supermajority support needed doesn't exist.

Instead, people are trying an end-run around on the electoral college through the NPVIC, which I referenced earlier in this thread and you can learn more about here:

 

[Hipmonlee]

Your country can't even pass a budget half the time. There are concentration camps on your border. You have cities without drinkable water. Accepting these things is not a reasonable political position.

You need to fix them. I dont care if its hard.

 

[Bughouse]

Thanks I'll get right on a systemic overhaul of the US constitution as soon as the 40% of this country that is in a cult has been deprogrammed. It's just really unproductive to say things like "you need to amend the constitution" or "the presidency has too much power".

Until then, I'm going to focus on things that are achievable within the current constitutional environment, which, sure, includes banal things like passing budgets as well as more important things like ending shitty policies/replacing them with good ones, though sadly all of this is also made harder by that same 40%.

We can't all be so lucky to live in New Zealand.

 

[dice]

you're so so close to understanding why liberalism is the nemesis. so close.

 

[orch]

The leftists are trying to antagonize the liberals without providing any coherent alternative. I am comfortably reassured that leftists will find themselves facing liberals' bad side of paradox of tolerance in this election. We already have leftists unironically calling for death to America and trying to disband the police system so that they can fulfill their childish bourgeois fantasy of being revolutionaries.

 

[BIG ASHLEY]

without providing any coherent alternative

unironically calling for death to America

there's your alternative bro

 

[G-Luke]

What's it like living under a fascist regime?

 

[Lrr]

my favorite neoliberal talking point is that doing next to nothing is reasonable and the best we can hope for, as if the DNC didn't go all out on sabotaging progressive candidates but when it comes to beating Trump, the best they can do is play despacito and tweet about Harris's shoes

the electoral college blows ass, but Biden is going to lose this election because he and his team are doing nothing to court any votes. Just like Clinton in 2016, Biden is completely uninspiring and the thing you hear most is that the things that actually need changing are too hard or too expensive and we just need to wait. Well shit, if change is a lost cause, why should I vote for you?

but diehard neoliberals won't accept that their perspective and priorities suck, they will just blame everyone else like Bernie and the Russians and the green party. You aren't owed a vote, you have to earn it

 

[Chou Toshio]

A bit late, but finally a convention with people I actually like:

Especially this guy:

“Yes, we need new radical parties, which is why I am here today. And in this election and from now on, we need to stand up for our values, and not surrender them. Which is why I urge you, in this election, to vote for the Green Party. I am not willing to surrender every issue I care about to become accomplice in this moral squalor, and death march to extinction. But I am also not naive enough to tell you we can win. The corporate state has built many effective mechanisms of control and oppression.

But these corporate forces have us by the throat, and they have my children by the throat. In the end, I do not fight fascists (Trump and Biden) because I can win. I fight fascists because they are fascists.”

Damn truth bombs Chris Hedges. Got me sold, voting Green.

 

[boo836]

lmao this lineup is like a list of people who helped screw the sanders campaign over out of sheer incompetence.

It's absolutely fucking wild how Americans have convinced themselves that voting for a GOP satellite party is "progressive." Even ignoring the fact that the Greens are relying entirely on GOP operatives in their efforts to gain ballot access, it is absolutely no secret that the party has had a longstanding relationship with the international far-right (its high-profile nominees seem to have a lot of Nazi friends lol). Nor has it been a secret that this "DemExit" convention is stacked with paid yes-men for regimes known for supporting far-right terrorism around the globe, namely Syria and Russia.

You cannot convince me that America has a left when its so-called American "leftists" are motivated entirely by aesthetic and the performance of radicalism. You can always count on armchair ecosocialist revolutionaries to support oil-soaked backwater oligarchal dictatorships to "pwn the libs"

also as someone who doxxes AWD, calling Biden a fascist isn't just super embarrassing, it's extremely insulting to actual antifascists. A vote for anyone but Joe Biden is collaboration with the fascist regime.

 

[boo836]

https://www.bellingcat.com/news/201...ards-bloggers-on-both-the-left-and-the-right/
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/guess-who-came-dinner-flynn-putin-n742696
https://angrywhitemen.org/2019/03/2...y-makes-common-cause-with-white-supremacists/
https://jewishworker.org/mike-gravel-antisemitic-associations/


I guess it's just a coincidence all of these Green nominees are hanging out with some of the most heinous antisemites on the planet. At some point you have to admit that you don't actually care who the fascists really are

 

[Chou Toshio]

Moral of the story: whoever Bernie's successor is as the leader of the American left, hopefully they're also Jewish so media world doesn't pull a Jeremy Corbyn on them.

 

[boo836]

I don't remember Jeremy Corbyn appearing on Nazi podcasts, or taking money from neo-Nazis to propagandise on their behalf, or chilling with AfD surrogates and Putin

 

[Lrr]

My question is: how is Biden going to improve this country over the status quo of the past 40 years?

Is he going to remove the concentration camps at the border and abolish ICE?
Is he going to push for universal/single payer healthcare?
Is he going to look into defunding/abolishing/demilitarizing the police?
Is he going to end our country's constant invasions of and interference with foreign countries?
Is he going to push for reducing our insane military budget and redistributing that to improving the well being of our country's citizens?
Is he going to legalize drugs like marijuana and take on the for profit prison system?
Is he going to close loopholes in our tax system and take on billionaires?
Is he going to raise the minimum wage to a living wage?
Is he going to try to make any meaningful change in how our government works so that there can't be another Donald Trump?

I would vote for a candidate that was running on even just one or two of these things. I would vote for Donald Fucking Trump if he gave us universal healthcare and took on the climate crisis (he won't, because then he wouldn't be Donald Trump). But Biden could, and he's in the party that's ostensibly in favor of these things! So why doesn't he? Isn't this the most important election ever, to save our country from fascism? Why isn't he trying to get as many people to vote as possible?

And obviously, Biden can't do these things on his own, and the Republicans control the Senate. But as a VP for Obama, who ran on many of these things and had control of both houses of Congress for two years, the Dems did nothing. So forgive me if I don't think Biden is really going to improve the life of me or those I care about in any meaningful way.

And look, I get it. It's too late for anyone but Biden or Trump to realistically be president now (short of one of them dying, but then I'd assume Harris or Pence just takes their place? There is no precedence to go off for this). I accepted this back in March.

But maybe you shouldn't shame other people for wanting a party that is free of corporate owners, that doesn't lie about wanting to help the poor and less fortunate. Especially when the best you can do in defense of the candidate and the party that backs him is to attack the credibility and question the motives of anyone who dares stand against him. Because even if everything you say is true, that the entire left-wing movement is just a sockpuppet for the alt-right (which I don't really buy, I don't think anyone on the left particularly gives a shit about Jill fucking Stein) and they're all useful idiots... Well, that's not a reason to vote Joe Biden. That's just a reason to not vote.

Because, well, if Biden doesn't care enough about winning to run on a policy that over half of all Americans support (with 87% support from registered Democrats!), then why should I care enough to go vote for him?

 

[Luck O' the Irish]

literally every single point u bring up is good and valid. and the only response i have is that biden wont appoint tom cotton, a man i would not be surprised to discover masturbating to footage of police brutality, to the supreme court. if you care about roe v wade i think it is necessary to vote biden here. truly, i don't think biden has much to offer in terms of improvement of life in the US other than through what he won't do (note: as you mentioned, i also have zero faith in biden to do anything about ICE) In addition to SC shit (which might not even matter by the time he would be in office lol), I'm pretty sure I know that Biden will not ensure the overturning of roe v wade and that he won't legitimize the actions of far right militias. As for what he would actually do in office, i have no idea. the only thing i can say to that is that the popularity of progressive policies has forced him more to the left on certain issues. while his environmental policies are lacking, to understate, it is by far better than the alternative. a key difference is that there is a chance that biden can be pushed by the progressive populace whereas trump would much prefer to sic the police on them. perhaps im wrong here. the bar has been set so low that when biden comes out and demonstrates even a little empathy i cant help but eat that shit up.

i totally understand wanting to sit out the vote this time. its something ive thought about a lot for like the last year or so. the democratic party, in a just world, would be shoved out of an airlock for their inability to oppose dangerous politicians and continuing to attempt to placate everyone with milquetoast neoliberals. the conclusion i have come to however, it that you have to fight for the best possible course of action and take the best one available. the democrats do not deserve to win this election in my eyes. and maybe another trump win would totally reshape the democratic party for the better or even create a new, much better party, and society would eventually become much better for it. but the issue with any kind of accelerationist mindset (note: I know you didnt imply you held this viewpoint in your post) is a. there is no guarantee that things would get better by letting things implode, and b. you do not know the cost it will require in order to set things straight. to me, this is machiavellian, and is akin to calling a pre-flop shove in poker when you don't know what your cards are and how much money the opponent is putting on the felt. so far, we know the cost of trump being is office is AT LEAST tens of thousands of preventable covid deaths due to an absolutely and malignantly biffed pandemic response. and we have no idea what will happen from 2021-2024. if i were to look at my own situation, not really pay attention to current events and say i dont rly care about what happens to other ppl I think I think it's unlikely I would notice any differences between a trump and biden adminstration over the next four years. but i believe for others, the difference between the two will be substantial. so i will be voting biden, drinking a warm busch lite to celebrate if he wins, and then fighting for the more progressive policies i care about afterwards.

 

[Tenshi]

My question is: how is Biden going to improve this country over the status quo of the past 40 years?

Is he going to remove the concentration camps at the border and abolish ICE?
Is he going to push for universal/single payer healthcare?
Is he going to look into defunding/abolishing/demilitarizing the police?
Is he going to end our country's constant invasions of and interference with foreign countries?
Is he going to push for reducing our insane military budget and redistributing that to improving the well being of our country's citizens?
Is he going to legalize drugs like marijuana and take on the for profit prison system?
Is he going to close loopholes in our tax system and take on billionaires?
Is he going to raise the minimum wage to a living wage?
Is he going to try to make any meaningful change in how our government works so that there can't be another Donald Trump?

tl;dr I doubt he will do very much here, albeit more than Trump has which is saying something at least.
also js Jorgensen is running on 5 of those(arguably 6 if you count removing taxes and instead focus on helping small businesses for job creation as part of closing loopholes which yk, is technically closing it but I'll give it since that's obviously not what you mean lol),
she's pro-immigration (not open borders though, similar to Ellis Island)
she's pro-demilitarizing the police, legalizing marijuana, and reforming the criminal justice system(pardoning non-violent victimless crimes and ending the war on drugs)
Her campaign's slogan is about her stance on foreign policy, turning America into a giant Switzerland armed and neutral. Vastly cutting our budget we spend on the military while maintaining our own safety on our soil(she also addressed the very real possibility of cyber warfare and a need to invest in security). Trump has also promised something similar but he has shown very clearly he has no intention on actually returning our troops home. Biden has taken credit for writing the Patriot Act(claiming its based on his Omnibus Counterterrorism Act) so I kinda doubt he'll have very non-interventionist anti-war attitudes for foreign policy.
Also adding she's the only one to my knowledge who has specifically expressed that she actually wants to remove qualified immunity.

Though with those positives, I will say she's against raising minimum wage, as well as a single-payer healthcare(she wants a free market healthcare system that has minimum government involvement).

Unfortunately the Green party seems to be more or less fucked out of this election since they've been taken off of ballots, so really Jorgensen is the only alternative candidate with a realistic chance to win(as she's on all 50 state ballots). Ain't it crazy how someone who isn't racist or have multiple cases of sexual assault is a more appealing candidate for me though I don't actively follow Joe "You Ain't Black" Biden so I'm not trying to say he doesn't address these (I know his website addresses legalizing marijuana and some form of criminal justice reform but honestly I question his sincerity in that considering his VP). Just that there is a candidate who has specifically addresses and campaigned off of these issues specifically.

I very strongly am against not voting because every vote helps, especially for third parties due to the 5% criteria of receiving federal funding(which would put the party in a much better position to compete). The Libertarian Party has gone from about 170 elected officials in 2017 to 230 in 2020 and I hope that'll continue to grow in the coming years(unfortunately the only federal level position, Amash's Congress seat, is going to be gone since he has stated that he isn't going to run again. Unless other Republicans follow suit and switch from Rep to Libertarian like Amash did but I kinda doubt it.)

 

[sunspider]

As for what he would actually do in office, i have no idea. the only thing i can say to that is that the popularity of progressive policies has forced him more to the left on certain issues. while his environmental policies are lacking, to understate, it is by far better than the alternative. a key difference is that there is a chance that biden can be pushed by the progressive populace whereas trump would much prefer to sic the police on them.

y'all really just forgot about Ferguson and Standing Rock huh

we can get an idea of what Biden would do in office by looking at his legislative record and the actions of the Obama administration, which he had a hand in. this includes signing off on horrific acts of police brutality on Indigenous peoples protesting pipeline construction on their land, and sending the National Guard in to help quash the Ferguson uprising (again, furthering police brutality). it's the easiest thing in the world to "give in to pressure from the left" on the platform he uses to get elected and then actually break all of those promises. we've seen it before, and he's been involved in it.

if you wanna cast a "lesser-evil vote" i won't try and stop you, but please stop claiming that a prominent member of an administration responsible for police brutality against suffering communities and a major architect of the modern prison-industrial complex is somehow gonna be better on the issue of police brutality than Donald Trump. that's historical revisionist bullshit

 

[Luck O' the Irish]

yeah my b i wasn't trying to absolve biden's responsibility in those events or his track record, most of which is bad. i guess my stance is that hoping for biden to listen to social pressure is foolish but that there's also a >0% chance biden would, as opposed to Trump. in terms of dealing with protests, biden may prove to be equally reprehensible. i might be overestimating the impact of increased awareness of social injustice in america as reason to believe biden would act differently than in the past, and i might be further clouded by my revulsion of the current administration's handling of protests that leave me desiring something, anything, instead. regardless of what happens whether biden or trump get elected, the plan remains the same.

 

[boo836]

if you wanna cast a "lesser-evil vote" i won't try and stop you, but please stop claiming that a prominent member of an administration responsible for police brutality against suffering communities and a major architect of the modern prison-industrial complex is somehow gonna be better on the issue of police brutality than Donald Trump. that's historical revisionist bullshit

Donald Trump is literally calling for executions and charging police brutality demonstrators with sedition. Historical revisionism my ass, don't use terms you don't understand. The United States is literally on the precipice of a fascist coup (complete with an ongoing genocide), and your principal complaint is that the opposition to such doesn't embody every policy minutae you support. Last I checked, Thaalman was remembered as a collaborationist for that sort of shit

But maybe you shouldn't shame other people for wanting a party that is free of corporate owners, that doesn't lie about wanting to help the poor and less fortunate. Especially when the best you can do in defense of the candidate and the party that backs him is to attack the credibility and question the motives of anyone who dares stand against him. Because even if everything you say is true, that the entire left-wing movement is just a sockpuppet for the alt-right (which I don't really buy, I don't think anyone on the left particularly gives a shit about Jill fucking Stein) and they're all useful idiots... Well, that's not a reason to vote Joe Biden. That's just a reason to not vote.

Because, well, if Biden doesn't care enough about winning to run on a policy that over half of all Americans support (with 87% support from registered Democrats!), then why should I care enough to go vote for him?

No political party is free of "corporate owners." Even the fringe communist groups in America are just fucking money laundering fronts without any coherent platform or policy goals. This is EXACTLY what I mean by the American left is performative: there is absolutely no effort to instill change beyond online performances by individuals who have no intention of acting on their stated goals. Such people can't even be bothered to research what they're talking about. They don't want a party free of "corporate ownership," they want to feel unique for supporting fringe groups, behaviour that hasn't changed despite their supposed outrage towards the fascist regime (which again, is a performance).

There couldn't be a greater disconnect between actual leftist activists on the ground and the randoms online who think listening to talk radio makes them the next Vladimir Lenin



also there's nothing more cursed than white liberals claiming Joe "Overwhelming support of black people" Biden is a racist but the OG party of racist pedophiles somehow shouldn't be held to the same standard. yall crackers are really telling on yourselves.

 

[Myzozoa]

im dying at the wild projections being thrown around in this thread

tfw not sure if tom cotton will be scotus in a month or president after biden

ppl need to realize that neolibs lay the ground for fascists by hollowing out the government and allowing malevolent private actors to capture alienated masses deprived of any social services by floundering neoliberalism. i hope you spend as much time bullying biden once hes in office as you do leftists, performative or not. dw tho, if trump wins he'll bully those leftists even better than the the neolibs can in their forum posts.

edit: btw Paul von Hindenburg. that is all.

 

[boo836]

calling people "neoliberals" simply for not towing dumbed-down talking points recycled from bourgeois podcasts is the sort of thing that makes it extremely difficult for leftists around the world to take Americans seriously. Even worse is that you're using the term completely divorced from any definition of the term. Instead, you use the label to describe anything you perceive as less "radical" than you. That sort of verbal pissing contest isn't very effective when you're talking to someone who breaks up neo-Nazi orgs in his country and doxxes people tied to Atomwaffen. Any self-proclaimed American Marxist who does not understand the precarious position of the United States right now has failed to understand history. It's made all the more embarrassing by the fact that there is a historical precedent of fascism that enables others to understand this period.

 

[Myzozoa]

calling people "neoliberals" simply for not towing dumbed-down talking points recycled from bourgeois podcasts is the sort of thing that makes it extremely difficult for leftists around the world to take Americans seriously. Even worse is that you're using the term completely divorced from any definition of the term. Instead, you use the label to describe anything you perceive as less "radical" than you. That sort of verbal pissing contest isn't very effective when you're talking to someone who breaks up neo-Nazi orgs in his country and doxxes people tied to Atomwaffen. Any self-proclaimed American Marxist who does not understand the precarious position of the United States right now has failed to understand history. It's made all the more embarrassing by the fact that there is a historical precedent of fascism that enables others to understand this period.

thats all really awesome, but what you seem to be misunderstanding is that the fascists aren't going anywhere when biden becomes president and 4 more years of neoliberalism (biden is a neoliberal this is not controversial at all) isn't going to change the radical white evangelical movement in america or the mismanagement of white supremacists by american federal agencies. It's going to perpetuate these phenomena. It's evident that masses of uneducated white people are easily manipulated by private actors that provide the things neoliberal governments won't (such as education/indoctrination, counseling, social programs). If you want to change those conditions, it can't be done by voting for neoliberals all by itself. Now it may or may not be possible to bully neoliberals into addressing these conditions, but all the more reason not to waste your time taking dumps on the leftists who might, just might, coordinate a movement to pressure neoliberals into doing something to address these conditions. The concentration camp policies you decry in your post were, not to sound like a rightwing broken record, started by obama (this is easily verified). The sense in which neoliberals pave the way for fascism could not be more literal either in the present or historically. Since in all likelihood Biden is going to narrowly win the election it is absolutely appropriate for american leftists to criticize neoliberals because the popular neoliberal notion is that 'going back to normal' is going to get us out of a cycle of authoritarianism. It won't, it will intensify these dynamics and in 4 years it'll be the handmaid's tale only brought about by an election mediated through the electoral college.

 

[boo836]

thats all really awesome, but what you seem to be misunderstanding is that the fascists aren't going anywhere when biden becomes president and 4 more years of neoliberalism (biden is a neoliberal this is not controversial at all) isn't going to change the radical white evangelical movement in america or the mismanagement of white supremacists by american federal agencies. It's going to perpetuate these phenomena. It's evident that masses of uneducated white people are easily manipulated by private actors that provide the things neoliberal governments won't (such as education/indoctrination, counseling, social programs). If you want to change those conditions, it can't be done by voting for neoliberals all by itself. Now it may or may not be possible to bully neoliberals into addressing these conditions, but all the more reason not to waste your time taking dumps on the leftists who might, just might, coordinate a movement to pressure neoliberals into doing something to address these conditions. The concentration camp policies you decry in your post were, not to sound like a rightwing broken record, started by obama (this is easily verified). The sense in which neoliberals pave the way for fascism could not be more literal either in the present or historically. Since in all likelihood Biden is going to narrowly win the election it is absolutely appropriate for american leftists to criticize neoliberals because the popular neoliberal notion is that 'going back to normal' is going to get us out of a cycle of authoritarianism. It won't, it will intensify these dynamics and in 4 years it'll be the handmaid's tale only brought about by an election mediated through the electoral college.

itt: we should not do the bare minimum because people who weren't doing anything to begin with think it won't matter

The notion "leftists" who refuse to make the most basic of efforts to undermine the legitimacy of the government are going to "coordinate a movement" is fucking laughable. The only people paving the road to fascism are the "leftists" I'm shitting on for amounting to nothing after four years, who even after the deaths of countless children in ICE concentration camps and the hundreds of deaths in the COVID genocide are making false equivalences between previous governments and the existing regime. An argument which I will add only serve to normalise the regime itself, which along with your stated belief that it is more important to explicitly target the opposition, only makes me further question whether you could even be considered a leftist in anything other than an aesthetic sense.

 

[boo836]

There was a slogan during the later years of the KPD: "After Hitler, our turn!" Which was used to justify collaboration with the Nazis as part of a Querfront against "the liberal enemy." To reuse this position knowing not only the ramifications on domestic politics but that the so-called true enemy is not in a position of power speaks volumes about the gymnastics American "leftists" undertake to justify being modern-day Good Germans.

also, it's extremely fucking insulting for American swine to tell me what leads to fascism when I'm pretty certain only one of us has actually taken concrete action against the far-right in your country.