Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has endorsed President Joe Biden’s reelection campaign, a sign of the president’s strength in uniting his party to have the backing of one of its most liberal members
Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has endorsed President Joe Biden’s reelection campaign, a sign of the president’s strength in uniting his party to have the backing of one of its most liberal members
Like I get that is what we probably are getting, and fine, he is better than whatever the republicans are putting forward, so I’ll vote for him.
But
Come on
I wish, so much, we had a better candidate
Yeah, the Democrats really fucked up by uniting against Bernie in 2020, and Warren fucked up by not getting behind him.
So we’re stuck with Biden, who aims too low on all our critical issues.
But it’s vital to understand that we ARE stuck with him. There’s no path to victory for anyone else in the party.
So it’s Biden or … A fascist takeover of the country.
Easy choice.
Painful. But easy.
You need a better voting system.
Any single-winner system is inherently flawed, which is why presidential systems are just straight-up worse than parliamentary ones. They’re by their nature going to be less representative. A system where the president is largely a figurehead is far better, along with a legislature which is elected proportionally using something like Mixed-Member Proportional, Single Transferable Vote, or party-list PR.
But failing that, the bare minimum to call your system democratic is to use Instant Runoff Voting. First Past the Post is just straight-up not democracy. It’s a farce. The idea that two candidates with similar views both being very successful actually makes it less likely that either will win is an obvious complete failure of the system. (And, fwiw, you could have IRV presidential elections for a powerful POTUS while also improving congress by making it proportional, if you want to go a step further than just making Congress & President both using IRV, but not as far as the fundamental constitutional change required to make the president a figurehead.)
A parliamentary system with fully proportional representation would be best. The US is big though, so I think an electoral threshold of 4% may be needed. That, or require parties to fulfil the below condition before being able to participate in elections.
• They need enough support through party membership from the area’s population, as a % of the latter. On counties, this would be about 4%. On a state level, that would be 1%. On a national level, 0.25% would be enough.
You might think, why lower with each level? But the larger the population size is, the smaller the membership can be while remaining representative. This also stimulates smaller parties since now they have a chance to actually grow.
Electoral districts also need to be thrown away – counties, states, and the entire country, are where the elections get held in. Because of proportional representation, it doesn’t matter however you were to divide up areas: 25% of votes on one party means 25% of seats.
Lastly, force the Democratic and Republican Party to break up into separate parties with each no more than 20% of all seats. Or tell the parties that putting through with proportional representation as an agenda point will give them more votes. The Dems can argue, “One man, one vote”, the Reps can argue “America NEEDS to keep it Great! Vote the Dems away, get Proportional!”. Both should have this as agenda point.
I also think it critical that the supreme court of the US isn’t 7 judges. It worked for a country with 2 million people, but you lot are a country of 300+ million now. You need something like 100 members, and make the supreme court appointed by the judges themselves, who are chosen by multiple random ballots themselves.
The US Congress also could be expanded. Make the House go from 435 to 500 members, and the Senate to 250. They need to be updated for a big country.
It also makes it harder to manipulate politicians, since there are far more needed to bribe.
I have a whole writeup, if anyone is interested. I think that both Dems and Reps and anyone else can find themselves in it.
What exactly has Biden done wrong? He may not be as crazy left wing as you’d prefer, but really I don’t see why so many on the left are saying he’s so bad
He ran on getting kids out of cages and there is still a giant open-air prison for refugees on the border. He busted the railroad union. Those are two pretty big issues for the left. He’s further right than Obama, and probably futher right than Nixon, if you compare their platforms. Fighting fascism by moving further right is a really bad way to fight fascism.
Although I think Biden has overall done a good job I am disappointed that they’re running someone who is 80 years old. I would also like to see a general shift to the left, but at the same time I realize that the increased political division in the US makes this unlikely in the near term.
Giving up the incumbent advantage at a time like this is short sighted at best, and destructive and dangerous at worst.
People always have some reason ready to roll out when telling you to settle for some shitty candidate you don’t really like. I’m done with it. I compromised on Joe Biden to save America from Trump. I compromised in every election for my entire adult life. Now I’m voting for people I actually like. If the US is collectively dumb enough to go back to the GOP then we deserve the consequences of that choice.
You can call that selfish if you want but I’ve been waiting 35 years for the compromise candidate to be the one from my camp and there’s always a bunch of armchair poly-sci experts coming out of the woodwork to explain why that would be irresponsible in the current political climate. Well too bad, I’m not voting for the geriatric anymore.
Must be nice to be a wealthy, single, white man who knows he won’t suffer under a Trump admin.
Fuck the rest of the country, right? And our overseas allies.
Like I said, if America is collectively dumb enough to vote Republicans into power after everything that’s happened then another 4 years of a boring Democrat isn’t going to fix that problem. If we’re headed for some sort of collapse I’d rather deal with that now rather than later. Call that what you like but it’s not my way of doing things that got us in this mess in the first place so you’ll have to forgive me if I don’t put much stock in your “keep doing the same things and hope something magically changes” approach.
I personally believe someone in the Bernie Sanders mold has a better chance of pulling in moderate voters than a Joe Biden does.
I’m sorry but the idea that Bernie Sanders brings in moderate voters is obliterated by the fact that he gets blown out in primaries because of moderate voters
I don’t think it’s correct to assume politics is a sliding scale from left to right, and failing to appeal to democratic primary voters is a certainty of failure in a general election. I would paint democratic primary voters as very in favor of the institutions and systems of this country, and I don’t think republican votes are fans of either.
Ribbit
Thanks for the pointless reply. Next time just downvote and spare people from having to read “I disagree with you” but in dumber form.
Biden has been great. The most transformative policies in 80 years. Great for the world.
dafuq are you on about? Do we already have political shill bots on here?
Being able to see through the RW/Kremlin propaganda fog does not make me a “shill bot.” I suppose by your metrics, AOC is also a “shill bot” for supporting Joe Biden? He’s the first in a LONG WHILE to promote any kind of true global unity on important issues. Not perfect, but DAMNED good.
Yes. AOC is controlled opposition at best. Biden’s only redeeming quality is that he’s not Trump.
This comment will stay in the negatives, but anyone who is looking at this objectively knows you’re correct. They just don’t like it.
It’s getting downvoted for the “crazy left wing” part, not the “what has Biden done wrong” part.
Because he’s ancient. He’s a half century older than the majority of the voting population.
Why is this a bad thing, specifically? Like, articulate reasons that this is bad.
Because he isn’t the one that’s going to have to living in and running the world in another 20 years or fewer.
Because there are plenty of other choices that better represent the current and future population.
Because he was alive during a time that is so drastically different than the current world.
I don’t want a representative of the population. I want someone competent who can accomplish policy objectives I share.
That’s a very individualist way to look at a national decision.
I don’t understand what you mean. The rest of the population can make the same choice in the same contest
That’s what voting is.
Right. And when the rest of everyone votes with the same exact mentality, what’s the result?
To say the quiet part out loud, he simply isn’t charismatic enough to hold the President position. Common people don’t feel their future to be secure under his leadership. Look at GOP’s candidates meanwhile (DeSantis, Ramaswamy, Trump) - they are all populist if not anything else.
And like it or not, this perception matters. I can guarantee he’ll recieve less votes this time (compared to last year, he can still marginally win simply because of how unpopular the Right has become).
Populists should be fought because populism is a cancer. Biden is exceptionally charismatic, in my view. Significantly more so than most Presidential candidates not named Obama or Clinton.
Populism alone isn’t bad. Sometimes, it’s the only way to get a perspective or idea out there, and make it not seem like a taboo anymore. And some ideas out there are worth supporting.
Populism is indeed always bad
Do you have any evidence that populism is inherently bad? Yes or no? Incidents can be easily rebuked with incidents where populism has allowed progress or improvement into quality of living. So, if incidents is all you have, simply say no.
I’m sorry, but that’s a delusional take. A fricking potato has more charisma than Biden.
It must be weird to be so wrong about what is cool or not.
Results will tell.
I didn’t vote for Mr. Crime Bill '93 last time, and I certainly won’t be voting for the segregationist eulogizer the next time around; but y’know, feel free to shill for Jim Crow Joe to your heart’s content.
– Malik el-Shabazz
You didn’t, but the black congressional caucus advised on it and supported it, as did the black community overwhelmingly at the time
https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2016/04/09/473648819/some-blacks-did-support-bill-clintons-crime-bill-heres-why
It ended up being the bad choice, but it wasn’t a racist choice.
…You’re gonna invoke the Black Misleadership Class at me now? All them capitalists talkin bout “buying up the block” then turning around fucking their block sideways on their way to living in a gated community? Laughable. Next you’ll be citing the Drone King at me thinking you’re saying some prosaic shit lmfao
How is RFK Jr. the primary opposition? I know he wasn’t, but it feels like he was put there by the dem establishment as a threat. When I’m feeling like I would support any other democratic candidate to run in place of Biden, this barely younger absolute crank leans in and goes ‘anyone?’ Ah fuck, let’s go dark Brandon… if i have to… I guess.
I think he was actually bankrolled by Bannon and the like. I’m not sure why they thought a far right loon like RFK would weaken Biden. Like you said, his candidacy feels like a purposeful Biden advertisement.
Because they fundamentally don’t understand how left-leaning people think, which means they don’t understand what we want in a candidate. These are the same geniuses who convinced Kanye to run for president in 2020 because they thought he’d peel away the Black vote from the Democrats just because he was Black. (Did I mention they’re all racist AF, too?)
Hahahahahaha, no. He’s been entirely enabled by those on the right and their hangers-ons in the podcast dork-o-verse. He’s an entirely artificial candidate that only appeals to the fringe 5% or so that would have otherwise voted for Nader, or Jill Stein, or Kanye West.
Don’t lump Nader in with those kooks. He would have been a decent president. There’s no way he could have won, but he would have done the job fairly well.
My only real misgiving with Biden is age, but I do still agree. With how crazy and dangerous Republicans have become however, we can’t afford to take any risks. We don’t just need to beat them, we need to beat them by the largest margins possible. We need to send a sharp condemnation. Biden’s incumbency advantage is indispensable for this.
You really don’t have any additional misgivings about a man who sold out the people of the United States to the credit card companies for a few measley hundreds of thousands of dollars, and who cosponsored a large percentage of why our student loan crisis is as bad as it is? There is a reason that all predatory credit entities are based in the state he represented for his entire political career. He doesn’t get a pass after decades of being a predatory corporate shill selling out the American people. How can the Dems not be capable of fielding literally anyone remotely electable if they weren’t competing opposite truly garbage candidates like Desantis and Trump? I have the same question for the Repubs, for fielding Desantis and Trump. And neither side actually solving abortion rights, gun rights, healthcare, etc when they hold all 3 branches because they are all afraid of losing their major wedge issues, without which they aren’t confident they can win elections.
The problem is really that the whole system is fucked up.
Elections being about “the lesser evil” instead of voting FOR what you actually want is just horrible - no wonder so many people are losing faith in democracy over there…
Biden was a clear “best choice” instead of a “lesser evil” for me. I think he’s a great guy doing a great job.
I want someone who wouldn’t have greenlit the Willow Project in the Arctic. We are way past making compromises in the climate emergency.
I am literally a climate lobbyist. I have a meeting with a republican rep in 2 weeks. His stance is that climate change is probably real, but is undecided on if humans cause it.
That’s what we have on the other side. That’s a MODERATE position for the other side right now. Compromise is the only way we’re gonna make any progress if we can’t get them out of office, and majorities are tough to come by
Approval of drilling projects is an executive decision. The president doesn’t need to compromise with anyone in making those decisions.
That is not how politics works at all
Ok, what environmental benefit did he gain for us from compromising on his executive authority, Mr. Politics Understander?
That’s again, not how politics works.
Biden’s top goals are to placate and provide for the American people.
This move checks both boxes, to the detriment of a minor part of his climate progress. It’s an easy political trade to make.
Note that I am a literal climate lobbyist. This doesn’t exactly get my dick hard. I’m just living in the real world and understand how the machine works.