this post was submitted on 24 Jul 2024
-4 points (25.0% liked)

Memes

45558 readers
725 users here now

Rules:

  1. Be civil and nice.
  2. Try not to excessively repost, as a rule of thumb, wait at least 2 months to do it if you have to.

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
 
top 43 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago (3 children)

Today in things that never happened: whatever the fuck this post is.

Nobody liked Biden.
Did you get offended because someone argued for critical support in the absence of choice??? You're acting like a butthurt baby.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Nah people would get fucking pissed if you said you didn't like biden. I've seen lots of pretty standard anti-biden (not the genocide joe trolls, those deserve the hate imo) comments get blasted, and to avoid it you had to write a whole disclaimer about how you're still going to vote against trump before you could get to the criticism of biden, or even just saying you think he should drop out. And if you thought he should drop out you had better have had a replacement in mind too

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago

Tbh, I’ve been restraining myself from calling him genocide joe, exclusively because I didn’t want to drive people away from voting. Now I can acknowledge that I suspect even W would have been more assertive about Palestinian aid than Biden was without feeling like I’m bringing on a president who would be even worse.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago

IMO people are seeing a fear of even more disenfranchisement, and confusing it with uncritical support.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 3 months ago (1 children)

If you genuinely think this didn't happen, you haven't been paying attention during the last month. Like there haven't been hundreds of people doing this shit:

https://sh.itjust.works/comment/12559334

At this point i feels like it’s all republican trying to do a psyop telling people not to vote.

In response to a fucking meme stating a reasonable concern, which honestly is pretty telling of the mental state of some people. This is just an example I could google from memory, but this behavior has been rampant.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago

You're confusing a fear of voter disenfranchisement with uncritical support.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Nobody liked Biden.

Quick, someone inform Lemmy.world and sh.itjust.works that they actually didn't think Biden was the most progressive president in history after all.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

Ugh, put your straw man away. Show me one single .world user who thought that.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

"Joe Biden has led the most progressive Administration in the nation’s history, investing in social justice, environmental programs, curtailing abuses by corporations and predatory institutions, stood with workers (both on the picket line and in the halls of government), developed initiatives and instituted policies to combat racial injustice, staved off a nuclear power’s assault on a weaker neighbor, overseen the largest growth in real wages in over a half century, passed keystone legislation which committed the largest investment ever into green policies and programs while also committing the largest investment ever into revitalizing the nation’s infrastructure, put more federal judges on the bench in his first term than the last two presidents combined, weathered the highest levels of inflation in generations so well that US fared markedly better than peer nations, guided the economy through that inflationary period without the need for a Volcker Shock, expanded trans rights in every corner of the federal government, oversaw the largest reduction in childhood poverty in the nation’s history, reduced pharmaceutical prices for Medicare users by over 20% on average and brought the cost of insulin down to less than $30, and that’s just off the top of my head.

It’s trendy for the terminally online to knock Biden, but he’s gotten more done in three years than any President in recent history has in eight. I’m not ceding this ground to low-information voters like the commenters here seem to perpetually be. I’m excited to vote for the President who has achieved more leftist goals in three years than any other American elected official has over their entire career."

https://lemmy.world/comment/9431889

Do I win a prize now? Or do I just get crickets when you knew quite well that people over there have been strongly and actively supporting Biden himself, not just voting against Trump, even after genocide began?

[–] [email protected] 0 points 3 months ago (1 children)

that bar is so low it might actually be possible.
Still a garbage conservative, but amongst other garbage conservatives.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Even then, that needs to be compared to Presidents like FDR.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

It also depends on if you mean progressive relative to the times vs progressive on a direct platform comparison.

Even the most progressive historical presidents were disgustingly conservative compared to today, in many aspects.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 3 months ago (1 children)

It's usually more sensible to analyze historical context, as everything is a product of its time and conditions.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Maybe for academic purposes.
But from a more "absolute" perspective, it still means he'd be making progress, just not as much as we'd like (although personally I'm not convinced of that).

[–] [email protected] 0 points 3 months ago (1 children)

What is "progress?" I wouldn't consider Biden to be making progress if the overall trend is still negative, and the root cause isn't being addressed. To be somewhat fair, I don't believe the Democrats can do what needs to be done while maintaining their position, similar to what is happening to the Labor Party in the UK from its conception to now.

Historical progress is relevant because it is a good indicator of what people were fighting for and against. The French Revolution was progressive against the Monarchy, even if the resulting French society would not be considered progressive today.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago

I agree with you, but I'm not sure that's a reflection of what people mean when they're supporting Biden.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 0 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Plenty of people on Lemmy immediately attacked you if you mentioned that Biden was going to tank the election or that he had mental health issues, and even though they became a little bit less aggressive after the debate, they still insisted and would call you a Trump supporter if you even suggested that the Democrats should have someone else run. Now that Biden is out of the race and Kamala is projected to have a much better chance than him, they've been proven wrong, but none of them will apologize for having denied reality.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago (2 children)

You want an apology for that?

That's dumb as shit.

That's like going to a restaurant that sells hot dogs and hamburgers and ordering a pizza. No, they say. We only have hamburgers and hot dogs. Which would you prefer? And you just keep saying pizza. You get frustrated and leave. You come back next week and see that they added pizza to the menu, and you want an apology because last week they refused to sell you pizza that wasn't available?

We're all happy about Biden bowing out, but last week pizza wasn't an option, it was only hamburgers and hot dogs, and talking about pizza just reduces voter motivation, which is great for Trump. (I didn't want to spoil the good names of hamburgers and hot dogs by assigning Trump's name to either)

So no, no apology, but you should feel fortunate that it worked out despite your dissent.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

What a disengenuous analogy.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

You keep saying that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

[–] [email protected] -2 points 3 months ago (1 children)

"disingenuous

adjective

not candid or sincere, typically by pretending that one knows less about something than one really does"

Was this analogy sincere? Did you know it was flawed when you said it?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] -2 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Then you're right. It wasn't disingenuous. Merely stupid.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Might just be beyond you. That's ok.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 3 months ago

OK, I'll fix it for you.

You walk into a restaurant. It's the only restaurant in town - indeed, your only available source of food at all. It has a menu of one dish only, changing every four years. It's been hot dogs for the past four years. Not your favorite, but tolerable.

A sign posted on the door says that the menu should be determined by the will of the customers, and broadly describes a process for them to express their preference. In practice, two factions of chefs have emerged. They each consult with their own set of customers about proposed menus, and narrow them down to two final options. For some reason, Team Hamburger wants to put poison in the hamburgers, and their customers agree.

You sit down for a nice hot dog and say to your friend, "Not only do I think pizza tastes better, I think it would stand a better chance of averting a mass hamburger poisoning. We could change our minds about trying for hot dogs again." Your friend retorts, "We are already committed to hot dogs. Stop talking about pizza. Pizza is impossible. It's not going to happen. And frankly, that kind of talk makes you sound like you want poisoned hamburgers. You don't want poisoned hamburgers, do you?"

A week later, pizza happens. Does your friend owe you an apology?

[–] [email protected] -1 points 3 months ago (2 children)

And here you have it: the serf mentality of the median American. Speaking out against your in-group, lest things could ever become better? Madness, better tell everyone to shut up about the fact that the ship is sinking, at least we're not directly ingesting arsenic. If things ever become better, thank the heavens that they happened to fall down that way, because that behavior leaves you at the behest of whoever is leading the chorus, even if that person had been clearly screwing up for months, with no hope of ever influencing it yourself.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Ha. It's funny that you think you understand me. You're way off the mark.

What I want is FAR from what even Harris is going to bring to the party, but in the reality that we live in, you have to take small steps towards the goal. Not throw a tantrum when you don't get everything you want right now.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago

but in the reality that we live in, you have to take small steps towards the goal.

What are those steps, and what is the goal?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

That poster has a point. I'm a Brit here, so no skin in the game. You're more focussed on being right that trying to comprehend that people look at things differently.

No one thought Biden was good, but he was the candidate and most know that name recognition is key in US elections. Most presential candidates fail on their first run. Kamala, despite having some OK polling numbers still has to get through to disengaged American voters who do not follow politics and probably know little more than the attack lines heropponents will throw at her this campaign. They have to define her before others do. This option is riskier than you realise, the only thing that changed was Biden became a riskier option than before.

Things are less black and white than you want them to be. Nuance and grey area is key, despite being inconvenient.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

My more liberal friends haven’t liked Biden basically since the start. He was just the only option against Trump, whom they hate (a wonderful position our duopoly has put us all into). I will never be a fan of anyone that cheerleads for politicians though. It’s cringe to me. They work for us, not the other way around.

If Kamala actually comes out fully against the genocide in Gaza that Biden has been recklessly fueling, that will be a good sign. We need at least one Democrat to break this status quo mold bullshit.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 3 months ago (1 children)

My more liberal friends haven’t liked Biden basically since the start. He was just the only option against Trump, whom they hate (a wonderful position our duopoly has put us all into). I will never be a fan of anyone that cheerleads for politicians though. It’s cringe to me. They work for us, not the other way around.

By "hardline dems" I don't mean "more liberal" or "more leftist", I mean the "You criticized the official party line? Behold, I will immediately misrepresent what you said and paint you as an enemy". They're actually preventing their own party from becoming more effective.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago

Behold, I will immediately misrepresent what you said

Yeah imagine doing that

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Behold children, the ancestral lands of the strawman.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

Not a strawman, I saw it here on lemmy

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

No matter how reasonably I phrase the argument, I haven't been able to point out that the Dems would have better chances if Biden dropped out without getting accused of supporting Trump all the way up to the day after Biden dropped out.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago

Yuppp. The fact that trump wants to find a way to force biden to stay on the ticket speaks volumes

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Is nowhere safe from US politics?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

We need some sort of bot that can detect&tag it so the user can set a filter

[–] [email protected] 0 points 3 months ago (1 children)

And a US instance where people can talk about it, so that we can block it like lemmygrad or lemmy.ml if we want to.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago

You're on Lemmy.ml, lol

[–] [email protected] -1 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

Jeeze, look at all the salty Bidenists giving you pissy downvotes now that their favorite big wet boy is planning for retirement.

I've been telling people that the Dems would have to drop the incumbent to win 2024 since 2016 when the DNC rigged their own primary, but no matter how I try to explain it I immediately get accused of being a Republican. I feel like Cassandra, cursed to utter true prophecies but never be believed.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 3 months ago

I can forgive someone for being disconnected from reality, but when that someone goes and berates others for stating that a person obviously suffering from age-related issues does, in fact, does suffer from age-related issues, insists that it's impossible for anyone else to compete against Trump, and has the knife ready at their hand ready to jump at you with accussations of being a Republican for raising very reasonable concerns, that's a pretty heavy issue, and plenty of Lemmy users have done one or several of those things to the point that, frankly, discussing politics on this site has been just almost as unbearable as doing so in Reddit.

I'm not going to receive apologies and I'm not expecting them, but I'm at least going to ask you to take a long time (weeks, months) wondering from time to time if you're suffering from cognitive biases in your opinions. This is not an insult, everyone suffers from cognitive biases, I did suffer from pretty heavy ones a long time ago, but if they're provoking harm (and most specially, doing political damage), you should at the very least take a look at them.

On a side note, I have to say that I didn't expect much from Kamala other than having a reasonably better chance than Biden of preventing the US from further falling into fascism, but she has surprised me positively by confronting with Netanyahu as soon as she got a bit of spotlight.