this post was submitted on 18 Jan 2025

121 points (89.0% liked)

politics

19356 readers

2656 users here now

Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!

Rules:

Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.

Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.

Example:

Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive. Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.

That's all the rules!

Civic Links

• Register To Vote

• Citizenship Resource Center

• Congressional Awards Program

• Federal Government Agencies

• Library of Congress Legislative Resources

• The White House

• U.S. House of Representatives

• U.S. Senate

Partnered Communities:

• News

• World News

• Business News

• Political Discussion

• Ask Politics

• Military News

• Global Politics

• Moderate Politics

• Progressive Politics

• UK Politics

• Canadian Politics

• Australian Politics

• New Zealand Politics

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

121

An American tragedy: how Biden paved the way for Trump’s White House return (www.theguardian.com)

submitted 19 hours ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

51 comments fedilink hide all child comments

top 50 comments

sorted by: hot top controversial new old

[–] [email protected] 43 points 17 hours ago* (last edited 7 hours ago) (2 children)

There's a lot of 'either-or' fallacy going on here.

You can be pissed off at Biden and Harris for their enabling genocide; angry at the DNC for making the same mistakes again and again that keep opening the door to fascism, recognize Trump as the worst case scenario, vote for Harris despite the bullshit above cuz she was the clear lesser evil, be angry at other voters for either overtly supporting fascism or allowing it to win in some self-defeating act of defiance, and recognize that people are burnt the fuck out and drew the line at both sides supporting genocide to just clock out and let the world burn cuz nothing else is working.

Pointing your finger at any one person or concept isn't going to accomplish shit. We're dealing with a system that's absolutely saturated with compounding failures.

The solution? I don't fucking know. Probably nothing Lemmy's TOS would allow us to discuss. But two or three or fifty etc things can be true at the same time, and what we DON'T need to be doing is fragmenting communities that see eye to eye 99% of the time - that'll just package ourselves up in little bite sized pieces for the fucking Nazis to steamroll like they did the last time.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

There literally is only one party(no pun intended) worth holding accountable, and that is Biden, Harris, and the Democratic party leadership. Sure you can be angry at other voters for not voting how you wanted, but that's not productive, and ignores the issues that made them vote however they did. The Dems one job was to appeal to their voting base, and they failed miserably. Holding them accountable is the only solution that actually addresses the issue, which is that millions of people are dissatisfied with them. You're not going to bully a huge amount of Americans into changing their minds, but putting pressure on the Dems, whoch is what the 'undecided' voters were all about, might eventually yield results. It might have even happened in this last election if other so-called progressives hadn't taken such a strong stance trying to silence them, or accuse them of being russian trolls. If the polling numbers had been worse in the year leading up to the election, if the 'blue no matter who' crowd had taken a stand, if people hadnt theown away their only leverage months before the election even happened, then maybe the democrats would have altered their campaign trajectory and we wouldnt be in this situation. As it is the DNC are the only ones who are truly at fault.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 hours ago

As it is the DNC are the only ones who are truly at fault.

They certainly hold a large share of the blame, but my point is they're not the only ones who fucked up.

Since we're following parallels to pre-Nazi Germany, let's compare it to that. They had a similar cascade of failures that lead to the Nazis rise in power, so as a 'what if' kind of thought experiment, what should _____ have done in order to prevent that rise (and ultimately the Holocaust)? The blank applies to any of the key players, ranging from the established government, to the individual citizen, and everyone/every group in between.

All of them fucked up to some extent - some WAY more than others, but the important bit is that their collective effort (or lack thereof) failed.

I'm sure you see where this is going. Fast forward to today and we find ourselves in the same boat, riding the razor's edge edge of that exact same failure... but as dangerously close as we are, we still haven't gone full Nazi, so we're still (barely) in 'what should ____ be doing' territory. Not what should we have done, but what should we be doing.

And like I said in my previous post: I don't know. Probably something we're not allowed to discuss per Lemmy's TOS, so I guess we just skip that part of the conversation while we're here. What's left? Mutual aid. Planning. More planning. What are the most immediate threats we're facing under the worst case scenario, and how are you prepared to handle those? Do you have a passport? Where do you plan to go if you need to use it? Is it up to date? Are you equipped to defend yourself in the event that you belong to one of the groups Trump targets via stochastic terrorism? Do you own a firearm? Have you cleaned it in the last decade? Is the ammo still serviceable?

Those are the kinds of questions we need to be asking ourselves and anyone in our life who's part of a group targeted by Trump. Here and now, I don't really give a shit about the DNC. What's done is done. I'm worried about what I need to be doing to keep myself safe. I'm worried about whether or not my trans neighbors will be able to stay safe, or the immigrants who have come to support my community through their labor, or, or, or, -- you get the point.

What we need right now is unity. If it becomes evident that Trump or his admin lack the capacity or spine to go full Nazi, then fine, let's spend our energy on bitching out the DNC. Right now we have bigger fish to fry.

Do what you need to do to be safe, and please help others on that path as you're able.

[–] [email protected] -2 points 16 hours ago

nothing Lemmy's TOS would allow us to discuss

some knowledge..

https://youtu.be/24Dz5THmfrw

[–] [email protected] 90 points 19 hours ago (3 children)

I don't directly blame Biden though.

The blame falls first and foremost on the DNC. It's likely that if they hadn't overtly sabotaged Sanders, Trump wouldn't have even had a first term, much less a second.

[–] [email protected] 37 points 19 hours ago (5 children)

I blame Biden for his administration's unwavering support of Israel's ongoing genocide campaign. That 100% depressed voter turnout.

[–] [email protected] 30 points 19 hours ago (3 children)

I saw a couple heavily down voted articles that said that was the largest issue and around 30% of people who voted Biden 2020 but didn't vote 2024 gave that as their reason.

It's fucking insane so many people immediately started denying that was the biggest issue

[–] [email protected] 20 points 19 hours ago* (last edited 18 hours ago) (2 children)

The stupidity is with these fools thinking Trump would be better for Palestinians.

If it wasn't obvious with Trump moving the embassy to Jeruselum and telling Bibi to, "Finish the job" while privately meeting with Bibi to likely stall a ceasefire agreement pre-election to make Democrats look back, Trump definitely is fully enabling of said Genocide, likely making it worse (eg, you think he would've pressed for a humanitarian aid route into Gaza? FUCK no.)

So then the logical thing to say in an inevitable binary-choice election is: "if Trump and Biden/Harris are equally bad on Israel/Palestine policy (they're not), is Biden/Harris better on other issues, notably domestically, like oh I don't know women's rights and climate change?" You bet your ass.

Hence why couch sitters and Stein voters piss me off far more than Trump supporters, themselves; for they should know better. Yet they fell for the online astroturfing disinfo wars. Drank the Russian vodka.

Edit: The user below keeps curiously deflecting, so I'll just cut to the chase by going above:

Genocide (a) has a spectrum of severity and is not a boolean function, while (b) Gaza isn’t the only place an attempted Genocide is currently being carried out; Ukraine is another place — and it is abundantly clear that both Biden and Harris were better than the Putin-sympathizing puppet that is Trump. So if you didn't vote, worked against Harris, voted Stein, etc. then YOU, too, are complicit with blood on your hands of WORSENING not one but TWO genocides.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 6 hours ago

yeah no. If people seriously abstained from a vote because of Israel and Palestine, and that abstention allowed Trump to win, then the democratic voters deserve to never win an election ever again.

I still believe 2016 was the most important election of our lifetimes, but this one is was a close second, World War III is basically in its pre-game show. and this is how people voted. Just kill me now. ffs

[–] [email protected] -1 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

Uh... Trump actually did something about Gaza so it seems the Gaza protest non-voters got what they wanted.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 hours ago* (last edited 11 hours ago) (1 children)

Your fallacies are:

Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc
Begging the Question / Circular reasoning

Try not to construct your beliefs atop a flimsy house of cards.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 hours ago

Can I have that in English? In case you're saying what I think you're saying, you should read [this>(https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jan/15/a-stern-message-how-return-of-trump-loomed-over-gaza-ceasefire-negotiations).

[–] [email protected] 12 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

Big? Sure. Biggest? No. Biggest was "the economy". It's practically a law of nature that inflation ends governments.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 18 hours ago* (last edited 17 hours ago) (1 children)

No, it beat the economy.

I'll try to find it

Edit:

According to the poll, 29% of that voter group said "ending Israel's violence in Gaza" was the "most important issue" for them in the election.

Gaza was followed by the economy (24%), medicare and society security (12%), immigration and border security (11%), healthcare (10%) and abortion policy (9%).

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/new-poll-shows-gaza-conflict-a-key-factor-in-kamala-harris-defeat-after-ceasefire-deal/ar-AA1xjvCn

[–] [email protected] 4 points 16 hours ago

I wasn't thinking so specifically about Biden voters who stayed home in 24. I see that's what you were talking about initially.

If you simply ask everyone who voted for Trump, the economy was the top issue. https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/11/13/what-trump-supporters-believe-and-expect/

That's all I was saying. But there are, I think, three groups which it would be interesting to have this answer for. The first is the one you mentioned. The other two are people who voted for Biden and switched to Trump, and people who chose not to vote in 2020 and voted for Trump in '24. I couldn't find those answers readily.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

are you noticing that your comment regarding the yougov poll stating this fact is getting more engagement than any of the other comments and are you also noticing that they're all refuting it?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 17 hours ago

Nope, but I block alot of people who refuse to address how to gain voters back and just want to screech at them (even tho they'll never see/hear it).

It makes social media a lot better and I highly recommend it.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 19 hours ago (2 children)

Better not vote for the Kamala because she "supports" genocide. I'll just sit back and let the guy that said he'd let Isreal wipe Palestine off the map win. That be much better, and I can lir to myself that I didn't take part in a system that gave us these two choices.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 16 hours ago (1 children)

This is a great example of why Democrats lost: feeling entitled to votes. You don’t get someone’s vote just because the other guy is worse, you have to get the vote out by convincing people you will help them. “Stop whining about drowning in debt and the rising COL, the economy is great” obviously didn’t do that. Better double down on it and call everyone morons, I guess.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

But like what’s the other option? You know you’re getting one or the other, and one is going to hurt a lot of people rather directly.

Really, though, the time is now to start trying to make changes, when we’re in an election that ship has sailed and you ARE picking the lesser of two evils.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

The other option is what people did: staying home, not voting, and not caring which one they get because neither one has done anything to improve the material conditions in their day to day lives. All the yelling about duty and democracy isn't going to do shit to motivate people who are up to their ears in bills and working three jobs to pay rent.

Like, obviously that's not ideal. I'm one of the people who is at risk during a Trump presidency, I know he's the worse option. But the DNC can't coast on "wow those guys are just so bad" forever, they have to actually do something.

And yes, I know Republicans try to stop the government from doing literally anything helpful at every turn. That doesn't mean the Democrats have to lose their fucking spine about it. If they're not even willing to threaten the nuclear option with the filibuster then they're not even doing politics, they're just getting paid to argue politics on TV with their office buddies.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

Sure I get it, and I don’t disagree, the dnc cannot just coast on ‘well at least we’re not THAT bad.’ But if someone stayed home and didn’t vote or voted 3rd party out of spite, I have no patience for their calls of ‘boo boo don’t blame us, blame the dnc!’ I know several people who are terrified about what the incoming presidency could mean for them, and I am also afraid. Sure the dnc and the democrats don’t do very much for us, but at least they are militantly opposed to us.

Again, the time to start pushing change is NOW. Not in 4 years, when if we do nothing we will once again be stuck with well, at least is isn’t actively awful.

That is if we even have a democracy for next time.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

Yeah, for the most part I don’t disagree. I held my nose and voted Harris even though my presidential vote doesn’t matter in a blue state anyway. I just think the responsibility ultimately lies with the DNC, not the voters, since the DNC’s job is literally to get Dems elected. I’m not particularly optimistic about how much the DNC really supports us, even if they are for sure better than Republicans.

I’ve stopped expecting anything in the way of progress nationally that isn’t coming out of the courts (SCOTUS is weirdly a mixed bag in this regard). I’m not expecting any of them to stick their neck out in the next 4 years when I’m already seeing think pieces about how trans rights cost Dems the election.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 13 hours ago

Same on pretty much all count there. Get involved locally, form communities, let’s do the best we can to support each other and ride this out

[–] [email protected] 9 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

Do you disagree, was voter turnout for Democrats not low? Or are you being sarcastic because you can't address the content?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

I'm pretty sure I directly addressed it. I don't even know why you would think I was implying turnout wasn't low. Fucking weird.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 19 hours ago (4 children)

You didn't directly address anything, you deflected legitimate criticism of the dnc to criticize voters.

[–] [email protected] -5 points 17 hours ago (1 children)

Voters should be criticized, they made a stupid decision for stupid reasons. Every person has personal accountability and responsibility.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 17 hours ago (1 children)

Another reading of the election is that people were unwilling to crawl over the bodies of dead Palestinians to vote for a choice between maintaining the genocide or increasing it.

I don't particularly agree with that reasoning, but I understand it. Voters carry some blame, but it's ridiculous to say that it's mostly or even significantly the fault of voters. It's primarily an issue with the electoral system and the political parties within it.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 12 hours ago

Really? It's worthy of ridicule to say voters are responsible for the results of their votes? Sophistry.

load more comments (3 replies)

[–] [email protected] 8 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

Right, but again, the only reason that was relevant is because the DNC sabotaged Sanders and forced Biden on us instead.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

They sabotaged Sanders twice, technically.

And Hillary Clinton literally ran with a "Pied Piper Strategy" to elevate Trump because she was convinced she was going up against Jeb Bush. She wanted to make the right-wing seem unhinged and god damn it she got what she wanted, they're actually unhinged.

[–] ArbitraryValue 1 points 16 hours ago* (last edited 16 hours ago)

Pied Piper Strategy

It seemed like a good idea to me, given the information available at the time. I didn't believe that the American public could support a man like Trump. I don't think I was particularly uninformed, or that my judgement was poor.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 15 hours ago

especially since this is so completely different from every presidents lack of support for isreal even if you just take demorats into effect. Pluse the way the issue completely allowed a party that would fight isreal to win. And of course that we did not push our 911 agenda so much that any ally could say this is our 911 and immediately get not only from us but also from europe. yup. completely unique to biden and nowaday democrats.

[–] knobbysideup 1 points 16 hours ago (1 children)

Fuck people who didn't vote over that. Like it or not, we have a two party system, and not voting was a vote for the current state of affairs.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 15 hours ago (2 children)

Like it or not, those people have the right not to vote. Pressure your 2 parties to have less shit choices or that will continue

[–] [email protected] 0 points 13 hours ago

The parties don't see not voting as pressure to change. They see it as permission to not give a shit about your opinion. Get progressives.to run in Democratic primaries then turn out to vote them onto the ticket for the general.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 15 hours ago

Sure, but they forfeit the right to complain about the current government.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

I don’t directly blame Biden though.

I do, he wasn't capable to be president and knew he was just going to be an empty suit.

And he signed up for it faster than Reagan.

If Biden gave half a shit about America he'd never have even ran in the 2020 primary.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

Mm... there's some merit to that I guess, but that's expecting more integrity from a politician than is likely even possible. If he wasn't an ego-driven opportunist, he wouldn't have had a political career in the first place.

No - I still blame the DNC first and foremost. Biden's unfitness wouldn't have mattered if the DNC hadn't cynically and self-servingly engineered his win.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 17 hours ago

but that’s expecting more integrity from a politician than is likely even possible.

Don't judge every politician as a block.

Some actually work for the people, they're often called "progressives".

Then we have "neoliberals" who propped up Biden despite him obviously being a shell of his former self.

They might have the same letter by their name, but don't let that trick you into thinking they're the same.

[–] [email protected] -2 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

A good chunk of Americans are so poisoned when it comes to socialism that they think Biden is a commie and you think Bernie had a chance?

[–] [email protected] 11 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

Yes.

Two things I believe in that context:

Those Americans are louder than they are numerous.
Some significant portion of the ex post facto "Sanders couldn't have won anyway" spin was and is astroturf.

[–] [email protected] -4 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

The last election just proved your first part wrong.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

I think it proves me right.

Harris had a clear lead right up until she started backing away from her earlier more populist rhetoric in order to suck up to the corporate donors.

[–] [email protected] -3 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

Her policies were significantly more progressive than Trump’s yet Trump won the popular vote.

[–] noscere 3 points 5 hours ago

I voted for Harris, but were her policies significantly more progressive than Trump's. Which policies specifically? Harris lost because she moved right, and alienated her base to try to woo the center right. Leftist policy regularly polls really well with Americans of both parties once you remove party affiliation.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 19 hours ago* (last edited 19 hours ago)

"An American Tragedy 2: How they'll fucking do it again in a few years if Democrats keep running on a return to normalcy boogaloo"

load more comments