this post was submitted on 31 Jan 2024
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Isn’t playing it safe literally what got us into this mess?! I say no, the time for sincere, meaningful, and drastic change is NOW. We’re on the titanic cruising towards that iceberg, and we need to change course quickly or our democracy will be lost. We have to root out the corruption in DC before it’s too late.
Biden claims that democracy is on the line in this election. So why is he working so hard behind the scenes to ensure there isn’t even a primary debate, or primary elections held? If he is so deserving of a second term, wouldn’t he naturally come out ahead in those? And if not, wouldn’t the platform for the emerging candidates give them the national boost they need to clinch the win? He doesn’t care as much about democracy as the non-MAGA 2/3 of us like to think. The truth is Biden’s ego is telling him he deserves a second term, and not his record, which is an incredibly dangerous game for this absolute dinosaur to be playing with our democracy.
I hear you on Gore, the world would be so different. We could be leaders in renewable tech and have ushered in a new age of prosperity free from the fossil fuels which are wrecking our ecosystem. But let’s be clear - Nader voters did not cost Gore the win. After several recounts, it was proven that Gore did in fact win FL. The Supreme Court at the time decided to give the win to W Bush, because the corporate news media had already called the elections, and they didn’t think it was worth causing too much of a ruckus. A court which Biden has left incredibly biased at a time where they’re stripping away women’s bodily autonomy - he should be pushing to resize it, remove corrupt justices, etc and he’s done none of that.
Biden’s only promise he truly delivered on was to his donors - “nothing will fundamentally change.” I’m telling you, that’s not good enough to “save democracy”. Not by a long shot.
You call him out on something that he has absolutely no control over, aside from solutions which would set dangerous precedent.
There is a mechanism for recalling corrupt judges. It requires a non-corrupt Congress. The founders never suspected that we’d be dumb enough to vote for half of Congress to be equally corrupt, but here we are.
The alternative of a president unilaterally removing seated judges, sets an absolutely disastrous precedent. And expanding the court would just be met with the courts growing in size every time control of the executive branch changes.
Better would be to reform how judges are seated and for how long. That would take a constitutional amendment. But at least we’d have a maximum end-date for some of the insanity, as long as we’d be smart about how. My opinion is that SCOTUS seats should be a 36-year appointment, with one judge nominated per presidential term. Special nominations (due to death/illness/treason/early retirement) would be for the remainder of that seats term only. The most tenured seat get replaced at the start of the next presidential term after ratification. Judges should be a long term - the intent of SCOTUS is to be outside of the sphere of political, industrial, or social influence as much as possible so they can focus directly on the intent of the law as written… and that’s difficult to do on a short term.
Playing it safe is the only option. Picking a candidate that sits any further left of Biden (which itself is not difficult) would only move more moderate voters towards Trump, and his base would be even more enraged. Picking someone more moderate than Biden would upset the far-left more and possibly keep them home on Election Day, with even more substantial damage done down-ballot as a result.
The game has to be played knowing that the other side is a way better cheater. They start out with votes that are more valuable and then make sure they carve out their voting districts to suppress any dissenting voice.