Critique

The fact that one can win the popular vote and still lose is a yuuuuge part of what’s wrong with our fucked up voting system.
- One single current supreme court justice was appointed by a republican president who won the popular vote.
  There's six of them.
  
  That's an astounding fact that speaks to the much deeper problem.
  
  I still tend to look back on GHWB as probably the most moderate, institutional-minded GOP POTUS of my lifetime, yet I see Thomas as probably the most radically right-wing and corrupt Justices of my lifetime.
  Thinking about it now makes me want to ask, "how could that have happened?!" But then I think back and remember how it happened.
- Popular vote should just be the vote.
  
  Unfortunately it's just too popular.
  
  I wish, but once again, the system is set up to give those tiny states way too much power. Overrepresented in the Senate, House, and Electoral College votes.
- We're always one Brooks Brothers Riot away from the election being hijacked by a handful of well-placed political operatives.
- There hasn’t been a single time a republican has won the popular vote since like 1988 except the one time there was a fake war behind em.
  
  Bush Sr. won the popular vote in 88 and Reagan won the popular vote in both 84 and 80. You're right about 2000 and 2016 but let's not exaggerate.
  
  I'm pretty sure the war was real, millions of dead Iraqis would probably agree (if they weren't dead).
  I think you may mean the justifications for the war were fake.
  Because the war was very, very real.

Hillary Clinton’s campaign was poorly run, but she didn’t invent Trump or get millions of people to vote for him. Trump was set up by 25+ years of extremist Republican media - people like Limbaugh, Murdoch, O’Reilly - and enabled by the “liberal” mainstream media, who wouldn’t stop talking about his stupid shit for the 2 years leading up to the campaign, and are doing the same thing this time.
- Just a reminder that Clinton had deep press connections and so acting like her elevating of Trump didn't impact other media sources is a bit disingenuous. It was a campaign strategy to elevate Trump, and that included working with "friendly" journalists.
  Did people forget that Correct the Record were literally keyboard warriors employed by the DNC to go and do exactly the kind of shit I'm complaining about online. Shitting all over progressives and forum sliding?
  
  You forget the democratic party isn't the progressive party. Look at New Hampshire. When Bidens not on the ballot people are writing him in. Democrats are a big tent you can't just boot out the centrists or the neo-liberals and expect to win anything.
  It sucks, and it double sucks because fascism is looming and the Dems are pretending everything is status quo. They sit in a high tower thinking progress is something serfs will win all on their on and when they do they'll be just as protective of the status quo. It's delusional but we need these guys or we need to turn the 50% of Americans who don't even want to be involved.
  End of day we can criticize Biden but we don't fucking have to keep on bringing up Hillary.
- Trump was an outsider candidate that took advantage of anti-establisment sentiment. He was barely a republican before 2016. He won because Hillary was incompetent and the DNC didn't pick up on the anti-establishment vibes, and picked the most establishment candidate possible. Yes Republicans have been attacking Hillary since Bill got elected, but that wasn't news to Democrats that didn't care.
  
  Roger stone began working on the Trump campaign in 2012.
  I believe he also ran Trump's 2000 campaign for president.

I know this isn’t necessarily the point of the post, but I’m going to use this as an opportunity to bring it up anyway—
I can’t help but fear that the 2024 election is going to be an example of the DNC “reaping what they sowed.” In 2020 it felt like the DNC did whatever they could to push Biden through as a candidate despite more youthful, progressive options (and Bernie, who wasn’t youthful, but was progressive and in line with what a lot of the US left wanted). In many wants it felt like they did this because Biden was:
More moderate in willing to bend to the political interests of lobbyists
An easier option to beat Trump
In some ways I understand why it happened, but I was terrified of the situation we currently are in back then. Fast forward four years and now we’re left with a very elderly Biden versus an even more extreme Trump; and now it’s not a sure shot that Biden is going to win. Instead of uniting as a party and building up a new candidate who truly represented the people’s interests in 2020 the DNC decided to kick the can. As a result of that can kicking we may be facing the end of American democracy as we know it in 2024. It’s sickening to me.
- No, that's definitely part of the point!!! Excellent addition, thank you.
- building up a new candidate who truly represented the people’s interests
  You realize the DNC has no interest whatsoever in this, right? Like the Wasserman/Clinton fix was exactly this not happening.
- I thought Biden was to be an easy way to get Harris in. I didn't expect him to last the whole term.
  
  Actually a really good point

SHOULD'VE BEEN BERNIE
- BERN
  Abso-fucking-lutely.

It's a good point but there is plenty of blame to go around. The democrats have part of the responsibility, but the lions share sits with the republicans.
The democrats are also at fault for elevating Clinton. She was a poor candidate who was backed by the political establishment. The notion it was "her turn" had already played out with Obama and she lost handily. There were better candidates in the primaries.
The same problem is happening with Biden. He is a bad candidate but he is being waved through by the party out of a paralysing fear of trump.
But they're all symptoms of the extremely broken US electoral system with first past the post, gerrymandering, electoral colleges and politically appointed and elected officials including judges all entrenching the absolute power of 2 parties.
In my opinion the solution would be at the grass roots with local plebiscites on proportional representation in elections to local and state government, and other positions. That would bring more meaningful change than most of the other propositions that get put on the ballots as it'd allow a route for political opposition to organise into new parties, capture funding and power and gradually build a base to fight and win other elections.
Unfortunately the 2 main parties have convinced the electorate that the status quo is vital. For example California is a "democrat state" and anything that undermines that is dangerous because the enemy might get in. It's all bullshit. The rules are being set by the incumbents but actually the whole game needs to change.
- The real problem is the cap on the size of the house of representatives. If we doubled the size, California would get about 60 more representatives and votes, while states like Wyoming might get one more vote. It would also reduce the cost of campaigning per candidate, because donors aren't just going to give significantly more money just because more people are running.

I mean it's fine to critique the DNC as long as we don't ignore the current political climate. We had an insurrection, confidential documents were stolen, spies were killed.
That president worked with his party to get several justices who have caused a divisive climate over abortion, which has had several state upsets due to it being more unpopular than initially believed.
The President responsible for this is currently buried in court cases. He is the presumed frontrunner for his party despite everything listed. The most likely reason he wants it above his dictatorial speeches is that he wants a pardon for everything he's done up until now. That at the end of the day is the problem that nothing else can really beat out, but if we really had to add anything, it's that he hasn't even shown to be opposed to any of the things that are negatively affecting the current President.
Like I didn't think he was a great President, but it's pretty much everything he did going out the door that made it clear he shouldn't come back. For all of DNCs issues, it was absolutely the republican party at the end of the day that made the situation we have today. The DNC was just incompetent to do anything about it.
I think the general issue with a lot of anti-DNC posts lately is that they come off as "We will vote for a party that doesn't win on any level of government, just to show our opinion"
Which...seems to ignore that one party is trying to erode voting rights, which would make it hard to fix these issues long-term, and assumes that DNC would take it they lost votes to a third party....which lets be real here, if you already think they don't pay attention, they won't when you do that. It also comes off as a bit insincere, since if you truly are against the DNC...you should be trying to build the 3rd parties enough to actually win in some states, before trying to take on the presidency...I there probably aren't even enough states that know who the third parties are to possibly get them elected at this time.
So yeah, mainly my problem with a lot of anti-DNC posts isn't so much they make the democrats to be incompetent. They honestly are. It's that they seem to ignore the the domestic threats coming from the other party, and bury into some completely unrealistic goals currently.
And yes, I will just say it: We have failed as a civilization. No actions will prevent another genocide in the current political climate. It is supported bipartisan. It is literally one of the only things supported bipartisan.
- I think the general issue with a lot of anti-DNC posts lately is that they come off as “We will vote for a party that doesn’t win on any level of government, just to show our opinion”
  I think this is mostly a valid critique, but this is the part I take issue with, and why I made this post to begin with.
  That we plan on not voting for Democrats seems to be the automatic assumption of anyone regarding these posts. I even agree, some of these posts come off as pretty lame and like they intend to withhold their vote. Especially when a post gets removed and they move to another instance to post the same post again. That's just spammy and abusive and doesn't speak to a good faith argument, so I agree, some of the people with these opinions are absolutely shitty. I'm just tired of being a target because other people are shitty.
  Why not find out what people's plans for voting are by asking them instead of making crass assumptions and gross conspiratorial comments like "Da, daddy Putin!" that come off as just as wildly unhinged as Trumpers, assuming everyone who disagrees with them is a Russian plant. It's fucking pathetic and I see more comments like that than thoughtful ones like yours.
  Anyway, thanks for a thoughtful and well considered reply.
- I think you're confusing a tremendous amount of distrust for HRC instead of the DNC. Yeah, the DNC is ultimately responsible, but now that HRC's out of the picture, they seem to be behaving.

I literally do blame the Democrats for Trump, and if you don’t, you weren’t paying attention.
Barack Obama had the opportunity to become the next FDR. Instead, we got a modern day Woodrow Wilson, more interested in shoring up domestic businesses and building out international military alliances than repairing the post-'08 damage to the housing economy or extending full public health benefits to a nation crippled by medical bankruptcies.
By the time he left office, he was running on... what? A Pacific Rim trade deal we didn't need. A climate change crisis he'd failed to address. A slew of new military conflicts in the Middle East introduced under his administration that he'd originally promised to end. A federal court system he'd allowed his Senate rivals to hijack.
Hillary sucked. But far too little credit is afforded to the guy who had eight years to deliver on desperately needed federal reforms and - either through incompetence or unwillingness - failed to do so.
- "Abortion is not my highest legislative priority." -Obama 2009
  
  To be fair, the federal government has very little ability to change abortion policy outside of the supreme Court interpreting the bill of rights as protecting the bodily autonomy of the mother. A constitutional amendment is the only other way it could be done
  
  Given the state of the economy at the time, I don't blame him for this. He also said he believed marriage to be between a man and a woman back then. He evolved. If Obama joins Joe on the campaign trail I'm willing to bet he'll be bringing up abortion because it's getting voters motivated.
- Not to mention the whole spying on his citizens PRISM thing happened under his watch.
  
  Spying on citizens is the backbone of the modern government and has been since at least the Palmer Raids of the 1910s.
  PRISM gave Obama a golden opportunity to back off the intensive degree of domestic espionage. But, of course, he didn't. Instead, we spent a few months arguing over the defunding of ACORN.
- o7
- You have a lot of lofty ideas of what it takes to reverse shit like climate change on an oil addicted economy
- "But but the filibuster"
  Dude had 60 senators for two years.
  
  Okay, look it up. He did NOT. He had that many for slightly over two MONTHS and Congress used that time to just barely get sweeping healthcare reform passed.

- Why did you quote that and then change "democrats" to "Biden"?
  Biden had nothing to do with 2016, for better or worse.
- There are literally only two options
  I'm going to support a third option
  A THIRD OPTION IS SUPPORT FOR THE FIRST OPTION!
  
  In primary season it isn't necessarily and for the presidential election specifically it doesn't either due to the electoral college.
  There are a handful of battleground states and a couple states that do split their electors in some way.
  But for everyone else? Their vote is mostly an advisory vote.
  There is always the risk of a candidate being so unpopular they actually drive their own party away from voting for them, but that can't really be on the voters at that point.
  
  It is not.
- A couple of us can read and are fighting the good fight!

I don't have a problem with people critiquing Democrats, I have a problem with them arguing that voting for democrats is bad.
- This is my sticking point as well. I'm down for any and all critique of the Democrats, but when the general election comes around the absolute #1 priority has to be preventing and removing conservatives from power. Not a single good policy comes from conservatives. They exist purely to block progressive policies. Let's get rid of them and see what we can accomplish.
- It's bad because it is. You're just trying to fill in the blanks that you tacked on at the end yourself.
  
  I have no idea what you're trying to say.

Tribal thinking is a sign of lack of maturity. If you don't think being, "better than TFG." is a pathetic excuse for a party platform, you're either a child or utterly incompetent at governing, or both.
Similarly, if anyone assumes someone attacking Democrats, a center-right party, MUST be coming from the right ... they're painfully ignorant of politics in general.
Too bad this country is full of immature children that managed to reach adult age... Regardless of how bad the Dems are, they're still the only valid choice for someone making moral decisions. No, Biden is anything but perfect, but literally no one else can win that isn't outright evil ... partly because Democrats run a pathetic party and don't actually fight for democracy.
- Yep. That's what makes it so downright abusive for them to dangle fascism over our heads like a threat if we don't get behind their milquetoast bullshit half-ass glad-handing fascists fuckery. They know we don't have a choice so they don't even fucking try.
  
  The job of a US politician seems to be convincing their donors and constituents that they will protect each from the other.
  Campaigning on policy that benefits the voters goes against the class interests of the donors, but campaigning on "the other guy is bad" keeps the donors happy.
- "Not Trump" isn't a pathetic position, it's a smart one. There's plenty of Republicans that don't like Trump (See 43% Haley in NH yesterday), and getting into specifics will only remind them that "Not Trump" is a liberal commie Democrat.
  If you want to know what Biden is running on other than that, you can find it here:
  https://democrats.org/where-we-stand/party-platform/
  
  That's a nice list. Let's see what Democrats actually do in office.
  Oh what's that? Sit on their hands and complain about how Republicans won't play nice?
  Again, pathetic party.
  
  Weird, I don't see record oil production there. Record as in more than any country to ever exist.

If we keep trump out but do nothing else, we've only delayed a fascistic movement reaching the white house, not defeated it.
Biden needs to put forward actual policies that address the conditions that are fostering the violent fascistic rhetoric, not just so that he can win in November but so that we aren't dealing with a growing nationalism problem for the next cycle.
The people who are criticizing Biden now desperately want him to succeed by these measures, but don't believe he's yet done enough. Maybe if we were having this debate a month out from election day, then we should be panicked about the electoral calculus; but he has ample (or at least some) time to address the concerns being raised here. In a non-incumbent cycle, a primary would help refine the policy agenda for the general. So far all we've gotten is "we have to keep trump out".
That is not a winning agenda (no matter how true it is). It didn't work in 2016, and it likely won't work now. Biden needs something tangible to campaign on, and right now it's not clear that he has one.
- They plan on doing the same thing they did in 2016. Beat voters over the head with "how great of a job we're doing" while ignoring voters real concerns, talking down to them, and generally leaning on "if you don't vote for us, you'll end up with a fascist who wants to kill you." Which in itself certainly feels like a threat. "We can skip the country to escape, you can't, better vote for us!" It's downright abusive and it has an unfortunately good chance at catching up with them this election and the only people who will pay are the US citizens.
  Still voting for Biden anway. Don't really have a choice if I don't want fascism. Just don't like being bullied into it by the people I'm voting for while they smugly ignore my legitimate concerns.
- The problem with that is that the Democratic party survives because it's part of a two-party system. So many GOP politicians deserve to be ousted via the 14th amendment, and Trump deserves to be in jail.
  But if you do that it takes away the perception that there are two choices when you're voting, when the reality is that we have one political party. The GOP is an opposition Force with no ideology other than "own the libs".

Yes!
Next up; How I spilled my Pepsi and why I blame coke.

Voters =/= DNC though
We got Trump because Clinton was largely uninspiring. She made herself this bland neolib that nobody actually wanted to vote for and then mocked Trump as a non threat.
Everything you said is true but I personally think the real reason it happened was because Clinton was a bad pitch and she would've lost to most Republicans at the time.
They should've gone with Bernie just that simple
- But the DNC didn't care about the primary votes and shoved her in because "we need a female president" or some shit.
  I genuinely believe your average person both wants a female president and badly does not want it to be Hillary.
  
  I'm astonished you people have maintained this level of delusion after Bernie has lost twice.
  He had his chance, twice, and the voters did not choose him, twice.
- She literally ran the same year as Jeb "Please Clap" Bush, and this was after a stint at Secretary of State where she had to do an "apology tour" for spying on other nations.
  People were fed up with political dynasties that year, and the fact that the Democrats couldn't read the room is why they lost.
  The DNC literally hid behind being a private club to justify putting their finger on the scale for Clinton.
  What's that old saying? "If you have the facts on your side, pound the facts; if you have the law on your side, pound the law; if you have neither the facts nor the law, pound the table."
  https://observer.com/2017/05/dnc-lawsuit-presidential-primaries-bernie-sanders-supporters/
  But here, where you have a party that's saying, We're gonna, you know, choose our standard bearer, and we're gonna follow these general rules of the road, which we are voluntarily deciding, we could have -- and we could have voluntarily decided that, look, we're gonna go into back rooms like they used to and smoke cigars and pick the candidate that way. That's not the way it was done. But they could have. And that would have also been their right, and it would drag the COurt well into party politics, internal party politics to answer those questions.
  Here is the Democrats pounding the law that the DNC is a private club, so nobody can say their own rules are fair but them. They never argued the facts about whether or not it was rigged, because they didn't have facts to support that.
  
  You know you can be a part of the DNC right? Like if it's so important, have you engaged with it at all?
- Why not both? She sucked AND the DNC didn't do enough.
  Bernie wasn't a car-carrying insider like HRC. He wouldn't play their game and they "owed" her for paying off the DNC debt.
- I was saying before the 2016 primaries that the only candidate who could lose to Trump was Hillary, and the only candidate who could lose to Hillary was Trump. If either party had run a halfway decent candidate we wouldn’t be in this stupid timeline.

Moderation around here is not prepared for this trash to seriously pick up this year.
Can't wait to hear my daily "reminders" about how everything is actually the DNC's fault for not resurrecting Bernie's campaign for a third time because he'd totally win this time.
- The DNC purposely drew the press's attention to Trump in the primaries to intentionally move the Republican party further right. They thought the far-right candidates would be easier to beat: https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/11/hillary-clinton-2016-donald-trump-214428/
  Democratic groups and candidates purposely took out ads promoting pro-Trump candidates in 2022. This is a very dangerous strategy.
- I don't want Bernie this time around simply because he's to old, Biden is too old, Trump is too old. Also he ran seriously twice and lost both times. What was ridiculous was some counties had to decide the nominee by coin flip. I didn't think actual luck had a place in elections.

The dnc should have let Bernie Sanders become the nominatee like the voters wanted, instead of rigging the primary for Hillary.
- I voted for Bernie in the primary, and I wanted him to win. I think the DNC was shady but I was under the impression that the voters DID choose Hillary.
  I remember looking at which areas in MA went to Hillary, it was most of the non-rural ones.
  The DNC favored Hillary over a guy who wasn't even a Democrat, which shouldn't really have been a surprise. Regardless of the DNC shenanigans the voters still could have choosen Bernie, they just didn't.
- This, NEVER rig the Primary if you can't rig the General
- It's been adjudicated enough. Bernie was popular among the voters but Hillary moreso.
  He had a second chance in 2020 and the advantages that came with being the frontrunner early on. Still lost.
  
  Then all the selfish pieces of shit who voted for Biden in the 2020 primaries can elect him in 2024 all on their own.

Okay. Blame them all you want, just don't stay home on Election Day. VOTE against Donald Trump as he's the more immediate problem, then we demand voting reform...
- What if Dems gave us something to vote FOR instead. What a world that would be.
  
  The Democrats run "centrist" right-lite candidates with crappy campaigns.
  Not voting for the Democrat candidate lets the much worse Republican in.
  Two things can be true at the same time.
  
  instead
  How does that conflict with what I said? Are you holding your vote hostage until the Party is perfect...?
- I mean, my post is only entirely about people who immediately make such an assumption simply because I'm bothering to criqitue.
  Why don't you get your head out of your ass and ask me, or check any number of numerous comments in here where I said I'm voting for Democrats because I literally don't have a choice.
  But sure, all you fucking idiots coming in here and saying this shit fifty times isn't exactly what I'm talking about.
- No.
  
  You sound like a reasonable member of society...

The worst part for me is I literally see the hubris playing out again with Joe Biden’s stance of only running because he is the only one who can beat Trump. Polling keeps showing he is literally the only possible candidate on Dem side that could lose against him. It seems most Dems are either hoping Trump won’t win and those who think he will are shouting any and every other name including the former first lady Michelle Obama, over Biden or even his VP Harris. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/19/us/politics/trump-biden-voters-2024-election.html https://www.nbcnews.com/meet-the-press/first-read/biden-trump-both-underperform-generic-opponents-poll-finds-rcna126098 https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-national-lead-grows-opinion-poll-republican-primary/
- This whole "we have to beat Trump at the ballot box" shit also shows how truly toothless the Democrats are. This guy started a fucking insurrection and they're letting him run for President. They waited two years until he started selling nuclear secrets to start any criminal proceedings against him. I've said plenty of times our reluctance to punish Bush for war crimes is a direct line to Trump. They weren't willing to stand up for war crimes, and they won't stand up for this.
  They literally are signaling loud and clear that if Trump wins again, even illegitimately, they will not be the defenders of democracy and they will step aside and let Trump be a dictator.
  Hell, they'll probably pull a Ray Nagin and run off to Europe to cry on CNN Europe about how sad they are for all of us still stuck here under Trump's authoritarian thumb.
  
  Waiting 2 years was political. Nothing more. They're to blame again if Trump gets in. I'm so tired of their stupid milquetoast candidates.
- He needs to retire or die right now so we can get a viable candidate in there.
  
  Biden is awesome, and will widely be viewed as a great president in the future.
  This leftist trend of hating on Biden is really cringe.

Hubris was a factor, but it pales in comparison to the furor of the conservative voter base after 8 years of that brown feller.

Critiquing Democrats is not endorsing Republicans but constantly saying Biden is bad over and over and making sure that's the only thing that is said is endorsing Republicans. You really think people who hate Biden also say "but remember, the Republicans are worse."
- They don't want this to happen? They shouldn't suck so bad. It's their own fault because they're incompetent.
  You're not supposed to watch Curb Your Enthusiasm and go "now that's how I should act!"
  
  Ok now that you've that, if someone were to look at your comment without any context, what do you think the underlying message is? To me it says "Democrats are bad and only them." You took the time to criticize the Democrats and only them which implies you have nothing bad to say about the Republicans.

I literally do blame the Democrats for Trump, and if you don’t, you weren’t paying attention.
I wasn't paying attention?
The structure of government in the US, federal and state, has always been unfairly tilted in favor of "land" over "people." The electoral college is the most glaring example, but even the concept of giving each state two Senators regardless of population, and then requiring bills to pass the Senate to become law, makes everything that happens in the federal government require the approval of people who have more political power than their number warrants. State governments are organized in the exact same way. The Three-Fifths Compromise did even more, giving slave states far more representation in the House than their free citizens warranted. The power and influence that comes with wealth tips the scales, too - again, in so many places where that wealth was extracted from human bondage and handed over to the slaveowners. Sprinkle some gerrymandering on top of that.
This was all in place well before any well-organized political parties existed in the United States.
The US has always, and by design, been arranged to benefit assholes. Trump and his supporters are just today's assholes, and nobody else in the world is responsible for that.
- A valid critique, thank you.

In this thread:
People reminding the rest of us how much they don't remember shit. Also in this thread: See how propaganda works! More at 11.

Some More News made a really good point: If we can't call out our own guy without being told we're helping the other guy, how is that... good?
- Who's saying it's good? First of all, there is no "your own guy". You don't have a guy. There is no "your own guy" anywhere here.
  Not helping "the other guy" is an indispensable condition in maybe getting the "this guy" to acknowledge that the whole thing is not working and to stop pretending this is buisness as usual as opposed to a slow moving coup that needs deep reform to prevent.
  I don't understand how these conversations are the same as in 2016, or in 2001, for that matter. In Germany it took some minor electoral increases and a leaked mention of "mass deportations" and they set off thousands of marches country-wide, involving hundreds of thousands of people. Trump is openly talking about mass deportations to an adoring following, Stephen Miller is planning mass concentration camps and Texas is actively trying to kill migrants.
  And we're talking about whether it's ok to be more or less rough with what you say of Biden online.
  I say this from a place of profound worry and fear. What the hell, man?
  
  I totally get it. Trump is evil and we need to elect Biden. And that being too hard on Biden or saying "I'm not gonna vote" is being incredibly risky with the lives of the most vulnerable among us.
  But there is something deeply wrong with our system if it allowed things to get to this point. Ever since I became politically aware in the 90s the Republicans have been a threat to rights and life. When is that gonna end so we can have a real conversation?

I mean, Trump won prettily handily against the other Rupublican's is my recollection. I can agree that Clinton and her campaign wanted to face him, and helped, but I think it still would have been Clinton vs Trump regardless. I think blaming Democrats for Trump is similar to blaming Trump for Covid: Yeah he made the US response worse, leading to unnecessary deaths, but Covid was still going to affect the nation and people were going to die regardless.
I mean there's an increasingly muddied line between critiquing the potential president, and supporting their opponent. Russia is almost certainly trying to push the latter here in Lemmy and everywhere else. It worked amazingly well in 2016 and they're hoping they can repeat that for this election. With so much of that propaganda they're pushing, people do get defensive about critiquing Biden. Sometimes rightfully so ("Biden is supporting genocide in Gaza, we need to vote 3rd party or Republican so the Democrats can change") other times its not warranted ("Biden needs to fix his response to Israel to not turn off voters to him").
Critique all you like. You're allowed too. But I feel a lot of people draw the line at encouraging voting 3rd party, not voting or voting for Trump for this election. There may be a D candidate that's more favorable than Biden, but statistically, the incumbent has better odds at winning reelection than losing. I'd much rather ensure that Trump doesn't get reelected, rather hoping a new candidate is not only better than Biden, but also able to beat Trump.
- But I feel a lot of people draw the line at encouraging voting 3rd party, not voting or voting for Trump for this election.
  And here's the crux of the issue, a lot of us aren't actually doing that but are being accused of it nonetheless. We're often still being accused of being "Russian shills!" even if we profess our plans to vote Democratic and that we want people to vote Democrat, but we don't want them to be thoughtless cult followers like Trump voters. We want thoughtful, engaged, educated voters. Those voters question things, even when it's not comfortable or the best time, sorry.
  
  I mean, you know what your are. Ignore the ignorant conversations and focus on the actually thoughtful conversations. The internet has its share of assholes or mistaken people, all you can do is try to reach out the the sensible people.

didn't she also illegally sabotage Bernie?
- The primaries were rigged against Bernie so the insider's pick would be on the democratic ticket, yes
  
  But unfortunately, not illegal because they're a private club, so they can make their own rules.
  They literally argued in court it was legal for them to just smoke cigars in back rooms and choose the candidate, and that we should be happy that we even get sham proceedings.
  They didn't argue that they didn't tip the scales for Clinton in court because discovery would have shown that wasn't true.
  If you have the facts on your side, pound the facts; if you have the law on your side, pound the law; if you have neither the facts nor the law, pound the table.
  They couldn't pound the facts so they pounded the law.

Critiquing Democrats is not an endorsement of Republicans
OK.
Just be aware that doing so publicly, especially around election time, increases the probability of Republicans getting elected. So ask yourself if its the right time and place - regardless of what your intentions are, what sort of effects will your actions actually cause in the world?
IMO, the best time and place to make your opinion on Democratic policy known is the Democratic primary election and who you choose to help campaign for the primaries.
- As I pointed out to someone else: So valid critiques of the Democrats are what depress and demotivate voters, not... *checks notes... the things that the Democrats failed at themselves? No, it only rises to upsetting people when people talk about it. Do you realize that's what you're arguing here, that Democratic failures don't demotivate people, only people talking about them.
  I'm sorry but I'm pretty sure the failures are demotivating on their own, and folks like me are demotivated by being told we're not allowed to talk about them.
  Also, we have elections every two years. My entire life, I've been told it's "too close to an election to for that kind of critique."
  As I asked others (with no good answers) when are we going to be allowed to critique them, then? Because I'm pushing fifty and I've dealt with this bullshit "you can't critique them NOW" for over twenty fucking years of voting.
  
  Way to take a valid point and reject the fuck out of it.
  
  woosh
- IMO, the best time and place to make your opinion on Democratic policy known is the Democratic primary election and who you choose to help campaign for the primaries
  No, because Superdelegates. It’s not a real vote if the party apparatus can force the result they want by blunting a challenger’s momentum/stopping their win.
  Besides, airing complaints at the primary only gets them heard by the hyper-engaged of the electorate. I.e. not your typical voter. “Go vote in the primary” is the correct messages, yes. But you’ll never be heard by a bigger crowd who might agree and also agitate for change(s).
- During the democratic primary? So.. like, right freaking now?
- How many decades now have democrats been 3 steps less right than Republicans running on nothing but "We're not Republicans?"
  They've had plenty of time to get it together but instead they slither further and further right to sate "centrists" (that were never going to vote dem anyway.) Meanwhile, everybody shrieks that dems are the only line between us and fascism as they fascism all over their voters at the dnc and Biden sidesteps congress to fund genocide.
  Sounds fascist to me. 🤷
  
  Your solution?

Trump won because he embraced the "fuck it all" voters.
.. and there are a lot of those.
I'd like to see Biden address them, and he probably already did, we just didn't hear about it because the media turned down his microphone years ago. He needs to show his balls on TV to get attention.

Ah, yes, the fallacy where the Republicans are the de facto winners and the election is only up to what the Democrats do.
I mean, yeah, they ran a mediocre campaign, but there is a difference between "critiquing our leaders" and literally campaigning against them, and leftist in general have a hard, hard, HARD time with that one. Critique is for when you're in power. You analize, you apply your newfound political power to create pressure, you postmortem what went wrong. Campaigns are for winning.
- And every year we're told it's "not the time to critique the Democrats" because its "too close to an election."
  Dude, I'm pushing fucking fifty and this has been every year of my fucking life with this "this is not the time for critique" shit. When is gonna be a good time to critique them? Because it sure fucking feels like the argument is never or this wouldn't have been going on since fucking Bill Clinton left the Presidency.
  
  Okay, let's break it down.
  How about first half of the Trump presidency, when the Democrats needed to regroup, take stock of just how badly they screwed up and plan how to never do that again? I'd say that was a good time.
  How about the first half of the Biden presidency, when the Democrats could actually pass legislation and position themselves to brand the nature of their term? That was a good time. Happy to engage then.
  I know it sucks to not have an alternative. I get it. But going after the only side that is even vaguely functional because you think you're holding "your guys" to account is not one of the set of options you have at the moment. Spend those good times to debate lobbying for deep, profound reform that unlocks the political system for more varied options, as opposed to making every election an existential choice between actual, explicit fascism and literally anything else.
  Until you do that, these are your choices. Not liking the choices doesn't change that fact.
  
  ??
  This wasn't even the political climate during the 2016 election. It wasn't the political climate immediately after clinton
  In fact I remember people being VERY harsh on democrats during the 2016 election.
  
  THIS. I feel this. If I could super-upvote, I would. The same argument is deployed towards anyone voting 3rd party. The argument that ranked choice voting is the solution to a lot of problems, is valid. But we are never going to get that either so long as we keep diligently voting for the less evil between two parties. Seems like "never" is the answer to the question of when a lot of imperative, necessary, vital change is going to happen.
  Given this dynamic, I can understand how anyone who has been paying attention, becomes disillusioned with our system and votes immorally just to encourage some change, even if it's making things worse. I don't condone it, but I see it happening and I can understand why
  
  After an election seems like a good time to discuss what to do differently next time.

So that presents an interesting perspective. All this shit is happening, then, because some arrogant Republican state officials were miffed Hilary snubbed their state entirely (another profoundly arrogant move, admittedly) and used that and their naive 2015 perspective to essentially doom the entire fucking world to this incredibly horrible shitshow we're all being treated to round 2 of as though it was their right to put it on the schedule.
"Democracy".
Sounds like everyone involved has had their job for entirely too long, no doubt decades too long in some cases.
- It wasn't state officials. The Hillary campaign ate their own propaganda, and believed they were far in the lead. In the final days before the election, they campaigned in states their polling said were the closest. Meanwhile, Trump was in all the states that actually were closest, making his case to the voters he needed in the right places.
  If you aren't ever willing to hear bad news, people will learn to lie to you, and the result was bad - because voters didn't turn out enough for Hillary in the contestable states.
  Ironically, when the Republican establishment left Trump out to dry in a few ways, he was also obviously unwilling to hear bad news, and it also didn't turn out well. I wish there was a lesson in all this.

The irony is, this would have worked if she wasn't Hillary
- The real irony is she actually won, but because of poor campaigning, lost three major Democratic strongholds in the EC vote.
  We just don't pay attention to the popular vote here in the US.

Hubris may have lead to Clinton’s loss but Trump voters made him win. If the powers that be didn’t fully understand the hostility of voters that lead to Trump’s victory then maybe they are not as smart as they think they are but not actively malicious. Trump is actively malicious and surrounds himself with the same. The Democratic Party may have tipped the scales a bit for Hillary but they also must have thought she would get the most votes and was one of the most qualified candidates from either party. I’m not going to defend the two party system but only one is pushing for ranked choice voting, electing by popular vote, and reducing voting restrictions. Not voting or third party isn’t going to make this any better
- The issue here is that Bernie was leading polling (among dems,) and killed the NH primary’s popular vote by a landslide and Iowa caucus was the closest margin in Iowa dem history.
  Despite this, the NH superdelegates pledged for Hilary. This performance was in spite of the DNC actively taking steps to harm Bernie’s campaign (cutting access to voter databases; fucking around with debate scheduled).
  To be blunt, the DNC fucked America by not nominating the best possible candidate in ‘16.
  And they’re doing it again. Biden has all the same weaknesses that Hilary has- and some extra besides. Meanwhile Trump has had 4 years to spin and retcon his bullshit to his base; the memories of his term are less fresh.
  He’s weak with the millennial vote (and gen z.)
  He’s soft on the black vote: (he opposed busing for desegregation in the 70’s, said he didn’t want his kids going to a racial zoo- or however he said it,); and then there’s the condescending bullshit he dropped “if you vote for Trump ya ain’t black”.
  Soft on Latino votes; because his border policies also suck. His first two years he could have had motion but now he’s fucked on it.
  Soft in Palestinian and Muslim votes. “Genocide Joe” is a far more apt nickname than anything else Trump has called him.
  Biden has consistently opposed abortion (flip flopped in his ‘19 campaign for president. historically voting for restrictions on abortions, and voted to block federal funding for abortion providers.), and let’s be honest, if he wanted RvW as law; he could easily have gotten that done in his first two years.)
  Biden is historically soft on LGBTQ rights- voting to ban gay marriage.
  While improved from Trump; Biden’s economy still objectively sucks for the vast majority of Americans, 60% of whom are living pay check to pay check. (Which is actually up from Trump’s term; even if it is trumps fault, mostly.)
  Inflation is still fucking most Americans; who are consistently being told it’s our fault (asking for wages) despite record-setting profits for corporations.
  If you’re being honest with yourself, you’d understand a rapist insurrectionist who has proudly declared he wants to be a dictator is the only candidate that Biden could realistically defeat.
- Not voting or third party isn’t going to make this any better
  I made this post because of bullshit ass assumptions like this. I voted for fucking Clinton with gritted teeth and the same for fucking Biden. I know the fucking stakes, I vote for fucking Democrats, but even in the response to this meme I've got chucklefucks assuming they know what's on my mind or what I'm arguing here.
  What do you assholes want from us, a pound of fucking flesh? You already have our fucking votes!
  
  Really? I voted for Jill Stein, and none of the discussion on Reddit leading up to it was deterring me from doing that.
  Seeing the results of the 2016 election, which again ended in an insurrection, is specifically why I won't be voting third party for this one.

People attribute a lot more competence to the DNC then they've really demonstrated.
Like yeah HRC might have legitimately thought that way about Trump, but if her own campaigning didn't win the election for herself suggesting it's what put Trump over the finish line or even that it was of any significant contribution is pretty disingenuous.
Not to mention how the DNC and HRC aren't able to mind control voters, like 99% of attempts to make Trump into the DNC boogeyman's fault ignore the choice voters made to vote for him or to just not vote for Clinton, and the "shoved Clinton down our throats" narrative is pretty racist since it basically casts Clinton's primary win through significant support by the black and poc vote as illegitimate.
We almost had a double down on that shit in 2020 but the "low information voter" dog whistlers just decided to blame everything on Clyburn this time.
- I mean, I wouldn't really say my critique is that they're "competent." Hubris does not imply competence.
  I would say elevating someone like Trump because you think it's an easy win falls under "incompetent."
  Clinton isn't the only reason he won, but acting like her campaign didn't have an impact on Trump, and that her campaign centering him isn't also part of why he ended up the nominee is acting like she never had any influence or impact at all, is also not true.
  Clinton's campaign literally had press access and so to act like her campaign didn't influence what the media discussed is also brazenly ignoring what happened. Did she make Trump President? No. Did she give him way more opportunity to win than he would have had otherwise? Yes.
  You don't have to be competent for that.
  
  Ehhhh, attributing the boatload of free coverage trump racked up as the result of the Clinton campaign seems a little silly.
  Every network ran trump coverage because it was ratings gold. I remember many non political friends who couldn't wait to watch the debates for the sheer idiocy.
  I'd say it's true to say that Clinton wanted to elevate trump. But it also seems ludicrous to suggest the only reason he got through the republican primaries was because of Clinton's deep and friendly contacts in the right wing traditional and social media wings. (Just imagine the poor Clinton staffer calling up Breitbart.)
  Edit: Just look at the list of press contacts. Do you think any Republican primary voters were waiting on Rachel Maddow or Ronan Farrow's opinion?!?

This is ignoring the iceberg that sunk the titanic and focusing on the shoes of the lookout man for being too comfortable so the guy wasn't as uninsurable aware as you think he should have been.
"I literally do blame the lookout guy's shoes for the boat sinking, and if you don't, you aren't paying attention"
- Actually it's a lot more like if the lookout told the captain that he saw an iceberg and the captain was like "You know, I think we'll do better if we just get a little closer to it first..."

I’ll keep this advice in mind as I ponder what possible situation I could be in where it would be beneficial to know. Maybe if I decide to run for president?

Hillary Clinton "elevated" Donald Trump? I must have missed that part
- https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/11/hillary-clinton-2016-donald-trump-214428/
  Six months later, Clinton associates' wariness of Bush and his likely financial firepower was still acute: Democratic pollster Celinda Lake wrote to Clinton adviser Minyon Moore to warn her that she’d been testing Bush’s economic message for a client. “It has been remarkably strong. Getting even half of african americans and democrats and two thirds of latinos. Some thought it ended too harsh. But the perspective on the economy has really worked. Now we didn’t tell people this was from bush. But it’s a warning."
  So to take Bush down, Clinton’s team drew up a plan to pump Trump up. Shortly after her kickoff, top aides organized a strategy call, whose agenda included a memo to the Democratic National Committee: “This memo is intended to outline the strategy and goals a potential Hillary Clinton presidential campaign would have regarding the 2016 Republican presidential field,” it read.
  “The variety of candidates is a positive here, and many of the lesser known can serve as a cudgel to move the more established candidates further to the right. In this scenario, we don’t want to marginalize the more extreme candidates, but make them more ‘Pied Piper’ candidates who actually represent the mainstream of the Republican Party,” read the memo.
  “Pied Piper candidates include, but aren’t limited to:
  • Ted Cruz
  • Donald Trump
  • Ben Carson
  We need to be elevating the Pied Piper candidates so that they are leaders of the pack and tell the press to [take] them seriously."
  While the campaign also kept a close eye on Rubio, monitoring his announcement speech and tightly designing the tweeted responses to his moves, Clinton’s team in Brooklyn was delightedly puzzled by Trump’s shift into the pole position that July after attacking John McCain by declaring, “I like people who weren’t captured.”
  Eleven days after those comments about McCain, Clinton aides sought to push the plan even further: An agenda item for top aides’ message planning meeting read, “How do we prevent Bush from bettering himself/how do we maximize Trump and others?"
  
  OK nice copy and paste job. It's says Clinton aides drew up a plan. Can you give me actual examples of Hillary Clinton elevating Donald Trump? Laugh at Trump supporters all you want, those that couldn't bring themselves to vote for Clinton were target of foreign disinformation and let Trump get elected. Folks haven't come to grips with that and it can happen again

Move on. Talking about the 2016 election only serves Trump.
- I remember being told that about the Iraq War and War Crimes and how talking about the Democrats needing to move on prosecuting those crimes "only served the Republicans."
  
  So you got fed some bunk, wtf does it have to do with what I said? Anyone who wants to relitigate an 8 year old election only to bring up the same tired arguments is wasting our time. Hillary was a divisive candidate and Biden doesn't have the same issues. This is coming from the same person who constantly gets shit on for criticizing him. I just don't want to talk about fucking Bernie and the DNC screwing him for the next 10 months cause we've said it all before. If you continue on I can only assume you're a fucking troll and would be happy to see Trump in the Whitehouse than have another dem presidency.

Regardless of your opinion many of your responses are abusive and break community rules.
Anger and frustration over the political climate in the US is understandable but for someone who’s almost 50 you still need to work on your self control.
If you can’t engage in civil discourse then don’t reply to people, you only hurt your own cause.
- The GOP wants to salt and burn the earth, many of our rights, and many of our loved ones for being who they are. Civility politics is no more virtuous than the sham of the model minority
  
  I didn’t bring up the GOP or civility politics. OP is breaking community rules and being abusive to people in the thread. Even if I agree with someone’s opinion, that type of behavior undercuts it, regardless of the topic.
  Some examples from OPs replies that I reported:
  No you arent eat shit asshole.
  Get fucked, asswipe.
  I literally didn't fucking argue that, chucklefuck.
  “ Profanity is the effort of a feeble brain to express itself forcibly.”

Donald Trump was winning that Republican nomination no matter what.
This is pure leftist cope.
- Donald Trump entered a wide open primary with 17 other candidate. Jeb Bush, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Scott Walker, Ben Carson, and John Kasich all had either the lead or second place in early polling at one point or another. We can laugh at them now, having seen what Trump did to them, but at the time rach was a party leader and legitimate contender.
  Trump was viewed by the left as a disruptor, an agent of chaos, and most thought he was a clown with zero electability. He would say and do outrageous things, and made the GOP look silly in comparison to the DNC's coronation of Hillary.
  Every news article about Trump got clicks. Every tv outlet that talked about him saw ratings rise. He was fucking everywhere in that summer, and he barely had to spend a dime. When he started rising in the polls, and the donations came in, Democrats thought it was the funny shit they ever saw. Independents in open primaries like New Hampshire were being told to cast a ballot for Trump, because wouldn't that just be hysterical if he won.
- Doesn't that make your post just another dumb righty banging the pots and pans together so they don't hear the conversation and thus risk understanding something their pastor didn't tell them? Remember, you set up this paradigm.
- Hillary didn't even campaign in republican states. The DNC chose the most lackluster, boring, non-person candidate to run for them and killed Bernie's campaign to make her look better (which didn't work).
  This isn't cope, Hillary was just a fucking terrible candidate all around and should never have been given the opportunity to run. She literally was just a woman and that was the only draw. The DNC effectively gave trump the presidency in 2016.
  
  She literally was just a woman
  But also internationally respected, experienced, former Secretary of State and target of 30+ years of Reeepub propaganda.

I blame the progressive who call everything they don't agree with racist and who don't understand there is a center that they can just force left.
We'll turn Texas blue might have been peak.