Via Berkeley Mews
this post was submitted on 30 May 2024
20 points (91.7% liked)
Comic Strips
20802 readers
2532 users here now
Comic Strips is a community for those who love comic stories.
The rules are simple:
- The post can be a single image, an image gallery, or a link to a specific comic hosted on another site (the author's website, for instance).
- The comic must be a complete story.
- If it is an external link, it must be to a specific story, not to the root of the site.
- You may post comics from others or your own.
- If you are posting a comic of your own, a maximum of one per week is allowed (I know, your comics are great, but this rule helps avoid spam).
- The comic can be in any language, but if it's not in English, OP must include an English translation in the post's 'body' field (note: you don't need to select a specific language when posting a comic).
- Politeness.
- AI-generated comics aren't allowed.
- Adult content is not allowed. This community aims to be fun for people of all ages.
Web of links
- !linuxmemes@lemmy.world: "I use Arch btw"
- !memes@lemmy.world: memes (you don't say!)
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
The entire premise is BS because Biden has a list of accomplishments from infrastructure to debt forgiveness, progressive drug guidance, progress in gender/race equality, departments like the ftc and irs being competently run again with actual resources, to judge appointments. Hmm I wonder to who's benefit it is to ignore all that and label him "not Trump"?
Care to offer an actual list? Every time someone tries to offer an actual list it turns out to be meaningless victory laps. With the possible exception of the NLRB Cemex decision. But that's getting it's stress test right now so it's a bit early to celebrate.
Here you go:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_executive_actions_by_Joe_Biden
All of it is pretty decently documented.
I mean usually people try to curate it to stuff with physical outcomes. Otherwise 90% of that list is performative crap like this one. And if you don't think that was performative have a look at what red states are doing in schools.
cough supporting a genocide cough
Until then he was doing great yeah. Bit of a big one though.
And before you hit me with the usual I know Trump would be worse for Gaza but it doesn't change what Biden has done
1 he always supported it, so if you say "until" you just didn't care until it went hot, 2 I don't think it changes it that his opponent supports it harder, but it does speak to your options.
He always supported Israel... I think the 'until' is in reference to Israel's more recent and more blatant attack on Gaza - prior to that, Biden's support for Israel wasn't nearly as flagrant as it is now.
Like, no one would bat an eye if I told them I support my wife's decisions, but if she started breaking into the local NICUs and stomping on people's babies, my continued support for her decisions would be a tad sus. ...especially if I regularly said "honey could you tone the baby-stomping down a bit?" as I handed her a new pair of baby-stomping boots.
I'm not a both-sides'er (unless I'm talking to a trumpanzee in an attempt to steer votes away from Agent Orange). My vote is going to Biden and I encourage anyone reading this to do the same, but our complicity in the genocide on Gaza is genuinely upsetting, partly because it's complicity in a fucking genocide, and partly because this WILL cause voter disengagement and could hand that other dipshit the presidency on a silver platter.
You're saying that about a guy who has been saying shit like "I am a zionist" every year while sucking Israel's dick. LOL.
You're just showing that you have 0 idea what you're talking about and that your opinion is only based on your fantasies, reality does not seem to be of interest to you.
So if you are against genocide, you don't get a candidate that can represent you. And americans would rather drag their dick through miles of broken glass than to vote 3rd party.
I don't need to torture my penis to know it would have a bad outcome to do so, kind of like giving my vote to trump with an extra step while pretending to be a martyr
Only voting for Trump is giving him your vote.
Except for the fact that we know how the system works and third party candidates have no chance
So should people who are not going to vote for a Trump or Biden actively cast their vote for Trump then? It's the same thing, after all, right?
Is not casting a vote for Trump actually a vote for Biden?
Did you fail math?
Obviously if you refuse to support the non-fascist then you're failing to prevent fascism and it's functionally the same as supporting it. You people love to pretend to not understand this but that doesn't erase it
You're kind of avoiding the question.
If I "fail to support Trump" then I am defacto supporting Biden, right?
You're avoiding the truth, not accidentally btw
Just following your logic.
I didn't invent basic logic, and no, you are not. You are making up dumb shit to try to deny basic logic.
So, for my own sake since I'm such a dumb pleb, you are saying not voting for Trump is a vote for Biden? Or is it not?
I kind of missed your answer to that.
If we know that third party candidates can never win, and we absolutely know that, then what options are left? Watching the fascist take office or voting against that.
I'm sure you have some really amazing, totally good faith arguments against this.
Christ, why is this such a difficult question to answer? Is not voting for Trump a vote for Biden? Or is it not?
They are avoiding the question.
I think since the scales are tipped in republicans' favour (e.g. losing popular vote but winning presidency always goes one way - Trump, Bush), not voting likely benefits them over the dems. Depending on your state of course.
Well, at least that's a cogent basis for an argument, thank you.
Though I still think this is something Democratic strategists should understand at this point -- ultimately it's Biden's responsibility to drive out voters, not play chicken with his base in defense of unrepentant war criminals.
I don't think voters can be blamed for being unable to support the politics of the party moving so far to the right, especially when Biden's presidency itself is already representative of a massive compromise by progressive voters. If Biden loses, the blame and pressure needs to be put onto the DNC and Biden for failing to do what it takes to keep their base fed, not on the voters, or we are going to end up in this same cycle forever.
A lot of our most prominent progressive representatives came into office after 2016, as a result of Clinton's failure. The party strategists understand when they lose, they do post-mortems even if they're not public about them. So I still hold that it's a valid strategy to allow democrats to fail when they end up going to far to the right, especially in such an egregious case as what we see with Gaza. Democratic support for the genocide can't continue, it's beyond the pale.
According to you if you watch a murder happen you are simply protesting the victim and the murderer
This situation is more like seeing two people murdering others and getting told you're supporting the one who has killed eight people instead of seven because I'm not helping either of them kill people.
Thanks for actually improving my analogy
You watched them kill all those people and then when questioned by police you shrugged your shoulders because bOtH aRe BaD
Yes, both mass murderers are bad. The fuck kind of neolib crack have you been smoking?
He was doing pretty bad up to that point, thus why his approval rating was dogshit. Gaza simply made him unelectable by those who might've been able to hold their nose to avoid Trump.
Biden bragged about cutting social security, has no desire to reform healthcare, and doesn't care about income inequality or labour rights. He looks at America's race-to-the-bottom economy and he's like "yeah. Everything is working just fine here"
Also, many of the things you listed here are basically just "not Trump/not Republicans" in their own way. You really think "appointed competent people to run government departments" is a positive and not just a non-negative point (as compared to what his opponents would do)?
Also, Biden is obviously fucking senile and I'm tired of people pretending he's not just because they're afraid it will give Trump power. It's totally fine to vote for Biden because he was the lesser evil, but let's not pretend he was ever a good option. When you ignore reality because it makes it harder to like your preferred candidate, you are doing the exact same thing the MAGA idiots do.
Before you accuse me of anything, you should know I'm Canadian and have absolutely no dog in this fight. This is my unbiased outsider perspective. I could give a shit who wins the next election in the US, but I'm tired of people lying to themselves about either of the candidates not being a steaming pile of shit.
substitutes everything the candidate runs on to "I'm not the other guy", because the other guy doesn't run on those things
accuses candidate of running on "I'm not the other guy"
My point was "he appointed competent people to run some departments and gives them enough resources to do their jobs" isn't a point in his favour. It's only a neutral point. It's the baseline that should be expected from someone in his office. You're saying "Biden doesn't actively strip the government for parts". It only makes sense as a point in his favour if you assume that the alternative is "starve the beast" tactics (which TBF it definitely is). It can only be considered a positive as compared to his opponent.
I disagree with you first statement. It is definitely a point in his favor because the election doesn't happen in a vacuum, you must take into account who the alternatives are.
The point is that you should hold the Democrats and Biden accountable for being evil and not doing good things that make people's lives better (which they absolutely have the power to do). They sit back and watch the world burn, then when election time comes they say "at least we didn't start any of these fires" (they just don't bother extinguishing them)
.
You're never going to get these people to acknowledge any of this stuff.
They'll still be defending whatever Biden 2.0 clone is in office a few cycles from now because "He only sent half the number of people to the gas chamber compared to [Identical GOP Incumbent]!"
That is the thing, the GOP isn't identical. It is pretty much worse every single time.
The technical distinction are becoming less and less compelling. The whole "Things will get better if you just vote for our chosen establishment democrat one more time." starts to wear thin after decades of 0 substantial results and, more often than not, straight up complicity in the worst crimes of the far-right.
Establishment democrats support the corporate aristocracy and banks just the same, they barely fight for really basic stuff like civil rights and only enough so they have something to point to, not to actually fundamentally change anything in a way that the right can't just reverse. That's why we are where we are right now, the Conservative Democrats' greed and lack of spine has allowed the far-right to capture the courts and undermine our institutions, unopposed over the course of 40-ish years.
The Democratic party is the only one with potential to change, but that's never going to happen if they can just keep doing the pied piper shit and getting re-elected. For all intents and purposes they are identical.
Here's the problem, people don't vote down ticket, and they only vote every 4 years instead of every 2 years.
The president is more of a cheerleader than a person of substantial power. That's not to say the office of the president isn't individually powerful, but you need strong margins in the house and the senate to actually get stuff done.
We kind of had that for 2 years when Obama and we got the affordable care act... Even then the margins weren't that great; I don't think Obama was the problem so much as they couldn't find the support to do something bigger in Congress.
Even with those thin margins Democrats come across the aisle regularly to actually get governance done (e.g. fund fixing infrastructure). They're not even close, we've got one party that actually governs, and another that prints money for the rich, attacks people based on their bedroom preferences, and doesn't give a shit about the environment.
In no small part due to DNC suppression and interference. This is why people say the neoliberals need to be allowed to fail until they have no option but to tlstop suppression tactics (or leave and go to the GOP where they belong)
The base cannot reform the DNC they can only starve the power structure until it's desperate enough to stop sniping progressives. It worked after Clinton's failure, we got a ton of progressives in office after that.
You speak as if the democrats cooperating with republicans is a flaw on their part. They don’t exist in a vacuum — they have to deal with the American public. And when half this fucking country is voting for the disgusting shit the republicans are all about, the democrats aren’t going to stay in office if they always do the right thing. Politics sucks.
And just to clarify: I’m not saying they’re innocent. They do protect a lot of the same institutions that drive inequality, etc.
Also I don’t really hear "Things will get better if you just vote for our chosen establishment democrat one more time” much lately. It’s more like stopping the bleeding or putting down the gun against your head before you can start making improvements. Trumpism is just that bad.
The majority of Americans are for basically all progressive policies, particularly when asked directly about a policy rather than a party or politician.
The issue is not the American people (of who MAGA chuds are 30% at best) the issue is that Democrats and Republicans work in concert to rig the system and deny the people access to politicians who are actually willing to implement popular policy.
This corporate circle jerk game (fueled not inconsiderably by Citizens United) is why the fascist roght is able to keep pushing our institutions further t9 the right. Establushment Democrats and Republicans are so busy gorging on lobby payouts and shoving AIPAC money ip their asses that they literally put up no resustance except when it comes to changing the status quo. Which is when they turn and will snarl and bite at anyone who tries to interrupt them.
So no, it is not "dealing with the American people" it's deliberately side stepping and suppressing them to loot our nation's legacy.
BoTh SiDeS
In terms of establishment conservative Democrats and Republicans? Yes, they represent the same path to fascism. So it's not both sides, more like same side.
Progressives would be the only non-fascist side.
He certainly did give a ton of handouts to corporations with nice sounding names, yeah.
And he offered the GOP every fascist policy they want on border with literally no strings attached. Twice. What a great totally-different-from-republicans guy.
Really knows how to reach across the aisle and be bi-partisan by...-checks notes-...giving the GOP everything they want with no conditions.