In 2000 they lost us the climate crisis, in 2016 they lost us women's reproductive rights, and now in 24 they're angling to lose us democracy itself all so they can feel morally superior to those of us that actually have to live the difference they can't see.
Centrist Democrats will always blame progressive discontent for their losses, even if their losses are caused by the Supreme Court undermining democracy itself.
Quit moving to the right, and we'll quit pointing it out.
Yeah so what about Gore and climate crisis? We got a sweet ass pointless Iraq war with Bush. We got to do the most American thing ever, bully a small country for natural resources and stage a regime change. Would have Gore given us that? Pft no. We would have a serious conversation about climate and taken some steps to mitigate everything.
There would also not have been an invasion of Iraq, things like Isis would have probably remained an unkicked hornet's nest.
License to torture at will would not have been granted to government goons.
The threat of hijacking airplanes and smashing them into iconic buildings would have been taken seriously. Which opens up the possibility that 9/11 could have been averted. Then maybe the mouth-breathers at TSA would not have been given the power to profile and harass at airports.
The list goes on: Katrina and New Orleans; the neutralizing of the Consumer Protection Bureau; the typically republican financial free-for-all that led to the collapse of Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac.
Then there are Supreme Court appointments, which we get to keep for life, like goddamned herpes.
But since so many ignorant and smug lazy assholes stayed home on Election Day bOtH pArTiEs ArE tHe SaMe LoL aMiRiTe, everybody got a succession of utterly preventable shit sandwiches.
Yeah I was one of those, was young and edgy, still feel bad about it sometimes but then remember AlGore was a pretty different dude then too. Like, he picked Joe fucking Lieberman as his running mate ffs, so I harbor no illusions that he would have been anything other than status quo. Better than GWB? Oh fuck yeah, in retrospect it's not close, but their campaigns they were basically trying to out-center the other, and both seemed like just slightly different versions of each other. Assuming he would have been a major disruptor in terms of climate initiatives is naive I think.
Also since Al Gore invented the internet (well not really, but it was something he did care about) so maybe there could've been some standards and requirements for inter-operation (which was the direction things were going before Bush) and maybe the internet wouldn't have become the shithole it is now. Yeah it would still be a shithole, but we might've had a shithole that corporations actually had to do a little competition.
Climate Commitment. We’ve been screwed since the ‘90’s. Gore may have mitigated the warming, but a certain amount of warming would have occurred regardless, and will continue even if we achieve net-zero emissions. There is an amount of latent heat already trapped in the atmosphere. The warming we are experiencing now is from the early 2000’s.
I know. I suck. But the science is clear. We done screwed up. Much love to all.
Having someone who understands the problem is no guarantee that they'll be able to actually do anything about it. The US government, and all governments to a greater or lesser extent, fundamentally serve capital and are beholden to the interests of capitalists.
No president, no matter how far to the left, could possibly save us. They will always delay action as long as possible, when not actively accelerating climate change. We must make this system untenable if we want to save ourselves.
Voting does help, because a hostile government will systematically murder people who resist climate change while a "friendly" one will only imprison some of them. Voting is helpful, but not sufficient. We don't have any more time to waste begging for our lives.
Edit: also, he did win and then there was a coup. This was at least the third right wing coup in the last 60 years. So... Yeah...
america's been fucking its education system in the ass (unconsentingly) since 1980, and now you're a country of redneck morons, exactly per the plan you made. Good job!
Or the DNC could take responsibility for running a man with no charisma, with Joe Lieberman, one of the most hated men in america, as VP on an "I hate Clinton, too" platform while Clinton had 80% approval ratings rather than blaming voters. It's not my job to vote for you. It's your job to try to win by appealing to voters. And you suuuuuuck at it.
Another thing that might have been different with a Gore win: when Bill Clinton left office, the federal government did not have a balanced budget - it had an actual budget surplus of hundreds of billions of dollars. With a continuation of that type of fiscal "conservatism", we could today have been debt-free as a nation. Instead, we have a debt of $34 fucking trillion.
There would still be a problem because while the USA have a big responsibility in the fight against climate change, they are far from the only country that needs to do something about it. It's an us problem, not just a U.S. problem.
Would the world have been different with Al Gore? Probably. But it’s easy to make up perfect hypotheticals. Look at what the Democrats actually did in the years after. They basically all voted for the Iraq war, and then when they had a filibuster proof majority in 08, they did practically nothing on climate change.
Al Gore was a new runner for president after serving vice president for the two immediately previous terms, and was 52 at time of running.
Biden is an incumbent who served two vice president terms which he finished 8 years ago, and he is currently 81.
Now tbf, the orange definitely made Bush look like a competent and coherent president in comparison. But comparing Al Gore to Biden is kinda dumb. I expect Biden's huge train plan to go about as well as Obama's huge train plan of which he was also a part of.
It's not that both sides are the same, it's that they're both corporately backed which means nothing substantial will actually be achieved besides not shooting yourself in the foot like what Republicans like to do.
Also keep in mind the 2000 election was stolen by the supreme court because that power is totally valid against actual votes.
This is bullshit. Climate change wasn't a thing for Gore until he went looking for another job. If he had been president everything would still be the same....militaristic and corporate. And remember that he is a Southern conservative whose wife wanted music banned but had to settle for warning stickers.
You Enlightened Centrists sure do love selective glorification of the past
And then Obama won and he fixed the climate crisis and didn't start any wars. Good thing we finally learned to vote for Democrat! Both sides schmoth sides!
And Genocide Joe of course is fixing every single issue right now. Such as killing all Palestinians which is the most important issue as all the Democrats focus goes to keeping israel's Genocide going.