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Conservatives joke that progressives just blow with the wind from one controversy to the next. But I can't help but notice the anti-Biden "left" shifted hard from Genocide Joe to Bad debate Performance without skipping a beat or looking back.
Almost like the people stoking these fires don't really care about left issues at all.
russian troll farms be out here like
“no we’re innocent socialists!” “democrats aren’t progressive enough and therefore must be defeated” “you can’t accuse me of parroting russian disinformation talking points just because I’m using the same words and arguments”
Accelerationism is a position that is literally only possible to hold from a position of privilege.
I'm sure crashing through the decline into fascism looks like a great idea when you know you're high enough on the kill list to avoid the actual consequences of fascism happening.
The white left never saw us as allies, only as fodder.
I’m not sure of the term for this, but I’ll call it “billionaire blindness”. Not blindness to billionaires but a blindness that affects billionaires. And it works like this: because they overestimate their own abilities – their ego cannot handle the large part that luck played in their success – they correspondingly underestimate the abilities of their lackeys.
In this particular context, they vastly underestimate their political pawns. They fail to realize that once Trump and Taylor-Green and cohorts gain dictatorial powers, then those former lackeys will become the masters. To quote Jello Biafra, “In the real fourth reich you’ll be the first to go.” I don’t know what we’ll call it tho. “Night of Long Knives” is too poetic.
Night of the faces getting eaten
Accelerationism is a position that is literally only possible to hold from a position of privilege.
And boy do they get butthurt when you tell them that they're privileged.
I got one person really indignant with me when I called them privileged because they were pushing accelerationist bullshit about Palestinians being genocides because they didn't have to deal with the results of their rhetoric.
“The white left” … (?)
White self proclaimed socialists and leftists who will theory their way all around why it's everyone else's job to praxis in even the bare minimum ways, and who see queer folks and PoC effectively as pawns to throw into the meat grinder of fascism until it eventually chews its teeth out.
See also, when the french communists outed immigrant resistance leaders to the retreating Nazis to take all the credit with the dead unable to correct the record for themselves.
I understand your definition and can relate to this being a (privileged) element of left discourse. That being said I question if your attribution of this definition to a broader category of your own making… “the white left” is helpful to anyone. If you feel it is keep throwing it around I guess
"Progressives" with enough privilege that they think that if it comes down to it, they can always bend the knee to avoid the wall.
These people tend to be rabidly accelerationist, cause it's not their lives and livelihoods on the line.
This line of thinking allows you to be an ideological purist and denounce any incrementalism or harm reduction as antithetical to the cause, stirring up infighting.
It also happens to be an excellent strategy outlined in the CIA's saboteur handbook. (Literally, Google it, download the PDF from CIA.gov)
Almost like the people stoking these fires don't really care about left issues at all.
It’s pretty easy to prove that many of them don’t.
Accelerationists would be encouraging people to plow ahead with Biden so trump wins...
Not trying to maximize chances to beat trump while there's still time before the candidate is named.
trump is a huge threat to American democracy, and I dont see any other reason why so many people insist on a sub optimum candidate except they don't care if trump wins.
It might be different if Biden didn't have a 37% approval rating or a 56% disapproval rating.
But people just don't like Biden, for various reasons he's just not popular with voters. That's why people bring up multiple reasons why Biden isn't a good candidate, there's just a lot of them. And added together they might let trump win like he did in 2016
Aren’t you making the same mistake you criticize here?
This issue is contentious because we’re all scared of Trump and we all know he has a real chance of winning. And the reality is we genuinely don’t know for sure which strategy can defeat him. People who don’t like Biden respond to this fear by calling for Biden to step down, because they genuinely think someone else would have a better shot. People who like Biden are doubling down because they’re afraid of a contentious replacement process or an untested candidate falling flat and they genuinely think Biden is the best option in this context.
But I don’t think there’s any reason to believe any of this stems from a place other than genuine concern for American democracy. Assuming ill intent just creates pointless anger among the left coalition and doesn’t get us any closer to actually defeating Trump.
People who like Biden are doubling down because they’re afraid of a contentious replacement process or an untested candidate falling flat and they genuinely think Biden is the best option in this context.
I don't particularly care for Biden. He's better than I expected, but certainly not ideal. He's still pretty clearly the best option this election. Certainly not the best choice to run the country, but once you account for odds of success, there's really not a viable alternative
Yeah, yeah, we've heard you regurgitate the same anti biden rhetoric for the last few months.
If you think leftists “just” shifted to hating Biden, I’ve got news for you. In fact, I don’t know anybody, I mean ANYbody on the left that has nothing but distain for Biden for the last several years. Did you ever consider that people are allowed different opinions from you without being paid operatives.
If Trump wins then all these "Genocide Joe" people are going to learn the real meaning of that term, that's for sure.
Are you suggesting that half a million people being intentionally starved somehow doesn’t constitute a genocide?
No, but I am suggesting that if Joe Biden isn't still president this time next year, then there's a good chance everyone in Gaza will be either dead or Israeli by then.
I'm convinced they're just astroturfers. One of the many voter suppression tactics of the right.
I don't want trump, I've said before that I think that his complicity in Gaza isn't only abhorrent but will lose him the election. Not exactly a stretch to then say "Oh and it turns out he is sunsetting too?" It sure seems like somebody else would be a better call to again not have trump. Give me Whitmer, Warren, Buttigieg, Duckworth, Ocasio-Cortez, Warnock, or Abrams and I'll be happy.
But it’s just not that simple. Israel is inextricable from a huge area of US power in the region - for better or the obvious worse that’s the case. We’ve been given what we’ve been given. If you think we should shut down all ties and delete the existing structure, say that. The ramifications may not be wonderful, particularly if one is unfamiliar with what those ramifications are.
And. AGAIN. As we know Trump has suggested Israel nuke them, he’s 100% on board for complete displacement, and I’ll bet large dollars he’ll collect real estate in the ensuing debacle. Biden is THE option. Trump or Biden. Certain death or a good government.
Every other conversation at this time is secondary at best, or in many cases deliberately inflammatory at worst.
Not a tankie. I don't want the US to collapse and burn, that's going to end badly for a lot of people. I want us to reform and do better, though I'm now convinced that that's not going to happen. I point this stuff out because I don't think Biden can win. I didn't think he could win last time, in all fairness, but he was and is a weak candidate, whose only shot lies in the democrats making the gamble that his opponent is weaker, which is kind of a stupid gamble to make imo. I don't want Trump to win, I want the democrats to hit the republicans like a run away steam engine and smash this fascist bullshit into the dirt. I WANT NOTHING MORE THAN FOR RONALD REAGAN'S GRAVE TO BELCH BLACK SMOKE FOR A WEEK STRAIGHT THIS NOVEMBER. Instead we're gambling if the guy who would have got sent home from being a Wal-Mart greeter with his debate performance can beat the guy who wants to hold military tribunals for political opposition. When Biden loses, I'm going to skullfuck the first Democrat who high-mindedly tells me this is really the fault of people not voting for their guy. No shit, do you want a gold star for that? Turns out when people don't vote for candidates, they don't win, whoda thunk it? Apparently not the goddamn DNC, since they keep seeing the ever-lowering RNC bar as an excuse to run correspondingly worse candidates each year instead of running a rock star that would shatter the Republicans. OH, what's that, the republicans have opened a portal to Hell and are running just Hitler and Charlie Manson for their ticket? Oh boy, Joe Biden might be too far left to win against that, we better see if we can get the actual corpses of Milton Friedman and Henry Kissinger to run for us. Fuck off. Of course people aren't excited to vote for a shitty candidate, because they're a shitty candidate. Get someone who can speak in complete sentences for God's sake.
My friend, I hear ya. And I agree. But you need to know that the time for those discussions was both years ago and constant, just not now.
No, you. I've been beating this drum since 2016 and "I get it, but now now" has always been the answer, and it was the answer in Obama II when we wanted codified gay marriage rights and more. If you've always just missed the boat, one starts to wonder if the boat was ever in the port to start with. And I think we both know the answer to that.
No amount of dithering about the conditions of things just now is going to change the fact that the candidate fucking sucks and, realistically, has not great chances of beating the bastard that wants to start having military tribunals for his political opponents. Biden has been looking and sounding pretty rough for the last six ish months, at least, and that debate performance was just the most pitiful thing I've ever seen. I've been watching the debates since Bush/Kerry, including Biden's previous performances, and I've never seen a candidate perform so badly. On average, Biden was barely intelligible, and at worst he rebooted on stage and beat medicare. And that was not his stutter, we have previous debate performances to reference that can show that well enough. He would get sent home from helping people pay for their car wash, he is not up to the fucking job and everyone knows it. The last ten years have been pretty fucking stupid, but this is taking it to a new level.
No, you. I've been beating this drum since 2016 and "I get it, but now now" has always been the answer
What the heck are you talking about? What drum have you been banging for eight years? not-Biden?
You sound like maybe you don’t do a lot of work with political parties? It takes years for someone to get to a place to run for President. At least until trump, Putin, and Moscow Mitch all colluded to break everything for fascism.
You’ve got roughly NINE WEEKS to change the DNC nominee, and you’re like “Ugh this always happens! I think this is rigged!” C’mon.
Do you even have someone you want? Who?
Banging the drum of "why is the DNC throwing its full weight behind a garbage candidate and then shaming people for not being excited?" Or, more succinctly, "why, in the face of fascism, is the DNC sending us its worst candidates?" Hillary was wildly unpopular, everybody knew it, including the HRC campaign, which is why they worked with media organizations to promote Trump, because they figured they had their best chances against him. Biden didn't exactly get anyone excited, especially when he showed up to the first primary debate looking half dead. Now we've got Biden again, who seems to put off the vibe that he'd struggle just with activities of daily living, much less running the country, and that's the best the democrats can do to save us from straight up unironic fascism?! Are you fucking kidding me?
How about Newsom? He's no flaming radical, and while he does have baggage from California, he's a competent and well-spoken politician who's used to an executive office. AOC? I'd go for fighting fascism with a (at least for USPol) "flaming radical". I'll fucking take Al Gore at this point. I'll fucking take Vermin Supreme, and he's more progressive than Obama was on gay rights. More seriously, I know there was somebody that I read up on, liked, and voted for in the CA primary, but I don't recall their name and I don't think they'd be a good fit because they'd be a real nobody. I honestly think Newsom, AOC, or a (politically) resurrected Al Gore would be among the better candidates, if only for name recognition.
I like Biden. He did very well, better than I think anyone expected. So don’t act like he’s shit-on-our-shoe. Yes, when he was on the tv box he didn’t throw a car or swing a magic hammer like we wanted, agreed it sucked, but this is becoming the new “Biden gEnOSiDE” carping point that means waaah we don’t participate in shit, and the people that do picked bad. Where the fuck were these people in 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023? Possibly not of age to vote I guess, if so; fair enough.
I think Newsom has too much baggage for a sixteen week Presidential run. We move fast but that’s probably going to be a wash as far as can he do better than Biden. I’d think worse, actually. AOC isn’t old enough. I’m voting for her when she is. Al Gore - man, I dunno. He fucking had 2000 in the bag and dropped it. Maybe. I think he’s qualified and capable but the Murdochian Sewer Gremlins will have a field day with him. Also not worth it, I think.
No love for Deez Nutz? Okay, okay, going the traditional route with Vermin Supreme. Hey someone said Jon Stewart. I say hell yes. Let’s go pick him up and carry him to Washington and take care of business.
I think you are confusing showmanship with the ability to run a country in the state they come to the position and how much they can do from that point on.
Yes, showmanship is ever more relevant in winning elections, if not has been the most relevant thing even before. So it makes sense to put forward a good entertainer to win an election.
What you are wrong about is that most of the time, show people are just goddamn big liars and completely incompetent fools at ruling anything. It is fitting, tho, since all they do in their primary skill is to make people forget about problems by making them pay for a brief period of entertainment, nothing more.
Biden is an old bastard with a foot in the grave. He shouldn't be out there running a country, but the current alternative is Trump that just plays to the audience and has no experience or aptitude for directing.
Yes, Biden should not have been running for president, and a balanced mix of showman and leader should have been out there instead, but who is that or who was that? A no-name in the political sense can't be considered a showman, and we saw what other options could the left procure without stooping to Trump levels. They were not enough of a showman at all. So, why not go with the decently-competent decision maker instead of an unfunny showman?
The blame for not producing a balanced showman and a decision maker falls on two groups: One is the political organization of the Democrats, the other is their voter base. The political organization is corrupt to an extent no matter what you do about it. People with power careers form pacts within pacts. A full education reform is needed for quite some generations to get rid of tribalism and corruption. The voter base is irresponsible. They have lots of other responsibilities and pursuits in life, but a core decision about these falls on taking on the political responsibility, maybe more than other decisions directly affecting the daily lives at this period of the world's history. Voters should not isolate themselves from being a talking part of candidate production of the political organisation, even if they don't actively take part in the local representation. Even just been keen about which names are being talked about in the political organization would give the voters years ahead of an election, and those years would decide if a candidate candidate is popular or not liked within the political organization. Voter dislike for a candidate months before the election, and when the campaign process has already started, will hardly make an impact on even bringing the topic to a discussion of a change of candidate, let aside producing a better one.
On the contrary to asking for a change in candidate for a better one just months before an election is a complete show disunity, and such a lack of show of unity in voter base is even more damaging than a lack of show of showmanship in a candidate.