Two party democracy will do that.
We need to think bigger.
Edit: Fuck Joe Biden and all the old white people running the “West”. And double fuck ●●●●●.
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Unfortunately two-party democracy is what you have right now, and voting for Biden and the Democrats is a necessary, though not sufficient, step if you wish that to change.
Specifically, sitting out the election or voting third party will NOT help and is entirely counterproductive to the goals of improving US democracy.
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Im in Australia.so i cant vote in US elections, but if I could, i would vote for Vermin Supreme
Just to send a message.
Free ponies.
And fuck the System.
Cool for you that you can treat it as a game, but as mspie500 noted, people here’s lives actually depend on Trump not getting in. The fascists are openly planning to take power forever; Biden can go to hell, but needs to be voted in so he can be kicked out.
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And i guess all the people who will get fucked with another Trump presidency… because that’s what happens when you vote for a third party in the US right now (at least in a place that isn’t safely blue)… 
Lives are at stake, let’s not mistake this for just the same old same old election.
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Just for the record…
I do think it is possible to both be outraged at the actions of the administration in regards to Gaza while still recognize that it has accomplished more than I suspect anyone expected in terms of climate and DEI support. It’s not a simple black-or-white issue. And, of course, in every single example, a Trump administration would be lightyears worse.
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You say, “fuck the System.”
As @chenille and @Mindysan33 say, what about the people who the System will fuck over, if you (a generic ‘you’, in this case, as you’re Australian) treat the election as a joke?
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Oh, absolutely. The Inflation Reduction Act was the biggest climate act in history (it could easily have been called the New Green Deal, but then it wouldn’t have passed), and the administration has continued to pile on since.
As far Gaza, I’ve been solidly in the “the administration is complicit in genocide” camp, but after reading some pushback, I’m beginning to feel like it’s slightly more gray. But I welcome people disagreeing because my ideas aren’t fully formed.
The question is: did Biden really have any additional leverage over Netanyahu? It seems clear that Israel has the weapons and manufacturing capability of it’s own to commit genocide and flatten Gaza and the West Bank too if they want to without US weapons. If Biden had said a hard “No” six months ago, they would almost certainly continued doing what they’re doing, but worse.
Through Biden’s pressure, Israel has let aid workers in (though it has killed many), allowed the US to bring humanitarian supplies, and to create the seaport. The US forced the negotiation of the only cease-fire in the war so far. And he’s continued to push for a Palestinian state after the war.
None of these are things that would have been likely to happen if Biden had taken a hard-line stance from the start. And Israel would absolutely be working towards eliminating Palestine much more permanently.
So our hands would be cleaner if we hadn’t sent weapons, to be sure, but probably many more Gazans would be dead.
I don’t know. Obviously I hate that it’s US bombs that are being dropped. Maybe that’s the whole issue, in black and white. I think I probably still agree with that, and want Biden to hard-line stop support. I’m just not 100% sure that it’s that easy, though.
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This. It’s a universal truth that for every complex problem there is a simple, obvious solution, that is totally wrong, but feels good. I don’t think the Biden administration used all of the leverage it had, but I also don’t think Israel asks US permission for its actions. The idea that we have a veto over Netanyahu’s actions is just simply wrong.
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America doesn’t have a veto over Arabia’s actions, but somehow everyone here thought it was awful they got away with assassinating a journalist with no consequences.
Now Israel has been killing thousands of children, bulldozing hospitals and communities and graveyards in a transparent land grab – and clamping down on its own journalists, if somehow that was the part that bothered people – and Biden is still defending them as the good guys against the freaking Hague, and yet suddenly it’s all complicated and he’s probably trying his best and what do we expect from him when he’s only the leader supplying them needed weapons and defending them in the UN and all.
Sorry, but I don’t think it’s complicated at all. Biden is not saving lives by denying genocide – nobody ever has. Netanyahu is going all on massacring people anyway, and the whole world can see America is enabling him and disregarding the idea of international law. The right answer was very simply to condemn what is happening and he won’t, he stands with his pal Bibi against Hamas, even though what is happening is open ethnic cleansing, by now obvious to every other country.
Biden can go to hell, and needs to be voted in so he can be kicked out.
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I very much agree with your post, but with one complimentary nitpick: Israel didn’t allow the US to bring in aid via the temporary dock on the Mediterranean. The US just built it and started bringing in supplies.
And it’s very hard to disagree with that, too. I do think there are very different messages going on publicly vs privately in the relationship between the US and Israel right now. There are things the US has to say publicly that conflict with what they are doing behind closed doors, but Biden’s failure to at least recognize the justification for student protests and failure to actively protect their 1A rights to protest is unforgivable.
It always blows conservatives’ minds when they say that Obama should have been impeached and I agree with them. They really don’t like my reason why he should have been impeached - for extrajudicial assassination of a minor US citizen - but they are shocked I would support that step for someone on “my team.” I’d support the same if the Biden administration ckntinues to support genocide and blocks ICC extradition of Netanyahu and his cronies.
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Crosspost from:
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You vote for the compromise up-front in a two-party system, or you vote for the perfect little party and watch it compromise by forming a ruling coalition with parties you’d never vote for.
Personally, I am happy enough with the American version, at least in that respect.
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How about because The Media, as a conglomerate, pushes this idea relentlessly. Just like the need to make this a horserace instead of publishing the absolutely incomprehensible gibberish Il Douche routinely spews. Drag down the Dems and push up the respectability of the fascists. I would almost start to believe the conspiracy theories!
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The economy is great for the people selling the gas, selling the groceries, and selling the fast food, but the rest of us have to pay twice as much as we did before the pandemic. The bottom half of the country aren’t wrong or being mislead by unscrupulous media. It’s Biden’s Achilles heel.
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Bullshit. Unemployment has stayed below 4% for the longest streak ever. Wage growth has outpaced inflation for over a year straight. GDP growth spiked at 5% in Q3 2023 and has cooled since but remains strong.
Objectively the US economy is running strong for everybody. The outcomes for workers would benefit significantly with policy changes the the Biden administration already has queued up for 2025 if Dems regain control of Congress. But it is a lie to say the economy is only working for the wealthy right now, any more than it is structured to do purposely.
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True, but let’s not forget the concrete financial realities that many people in the US are still dealing with on the daily, such as spiraling inflation, the need to work two or three jobs just to stay afloat (often while not being able to purchase the health insurance that none of their jobs provide), the instability of those jobs, the difficulty of finding decent housing to rent at an affordable rate (never mind the pipe dream of buying their own homes), the need to put off doctor visits because they’re too expensive, the inability to save virtually any money while sometimes needing to use credit cards for basic expenses because their income isn’t enough to make ends meet, dreading any kind of sudden unpayable expense over a few hundred dollars, and on and on.
@dfaris was typing while I was (here’s a Coke voucher!), but yeah, many people do have reasons to think that for them at least, “the great Biden economy” they sometimes hear about still isn’t going great for them.
If the corporate media reported more loudly on the leading indicators of economic progress that Biden has been making, it seems fair enough that a lot of people would still suspect that such progress isn’t going to trickle down to them any time soon.
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I can’t really improve on what @DukeTrout said. It is also true that not everyone benefits equally, and that our whole system is set up to shaft the working folks. But recession has a definition, and this ain’t it. Wage growth, unemployment, GDP all are rising. Inflation is a problem, but (and this does not get nearly enough press) not because of any government policy, but because the corporations are registering record profits. The robber barons are hard at work, and they hate Biden because of his pro-union stand, his economic policies and will do whatever it takes to get Il Douche elected.
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