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jarofpiss posted:im not saying anyone should or shouldn’t vote for the lesser of old rapists but i dont think characterizing it as taking a moral stand with the candidate is right. it kinda is, tho. a vote is an endorsement; it's a consent to be governed granted to a candidate. casting a vote is saying "i want this person to lead the nation" -- there's no way to attach qualifiers or to add a footnote to your vote. at the end of the day, you are contributing towards a candidate's mandate to rule.
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Aug 21, 2020 08:01
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as a private individual that's all you're doing, if the election comes down to a single vote the institutions take over and it turns into a fight about which votes count etc, such as in florida in 2000
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Aug 21, 2020 09:51
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If you want them to stop forcing rapists to the front of the ticket then you shouldn't vote for rapists imo
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Aug 21, 2020 12:56
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Gene Hackman Fan posted:it kinda is, tho. a vote is an endorsement; it's a consent to be governed granted to a candidate. i think it's in the interest of the ruling class to attach moral significance to the act of voting. the left position that voting for a rapist means you endorse his rapes is just a reversal of the liberal tactic of shaming folks for not voting for the rapist because of the moral obligation to get trump out of office. really, as an individual (and even as the minority party group), you're gonna be governed whether you consent or not. a lot of the electoral process is about manufacturing a mandate for whatever heinous poo poo the political class wants to get up to. most americans agree on general ideas/policies, and our elected officials do the opposite and get away with it because of the notion that the electoral process has granted them our consent. it feels like murky territory to me to say you "shouldn't" vote, so i won't say that. i've seen red guard graffiti like that painted in black neighborhoods and it's gross. i just think that the fact that we're all whipped into a manufactured trolley problem around our votes is something that we should recognize and try to break out of, at the very least for our mental health. it's also reflective of our cultural tendency to worship personality that this only comes up around the president, and not the downballot candidates. i don't think there's a kantian universal answer to this right now. i may or may not vote for joe biden depending on the mood i'm in when the time comes (probably not). i recognize that if everyone doesn't vote we still get more trump, and at the same time i recognize that if everyone votes we get biden with a manufactured mandate of support. none of those seem like good options, so maybe the best outcome is a historically low turnout with a narrow morose biden victory to slow down fascism and buy us more time. hard to organize around that outcome though, so maybe the best thing for our brains (at least mine) is to forget that the whole thing is even happening and continue working to build the radical zeitgeist. the important thing is that it's there so people can come over as their material realities intrude and break them out of their current political mindset Communist Thoughts posted:If you want them to stop forcing rapists to the front of the ticket then you shouldn't vote for rapists imo again i'm not saying anyone should or shouldn't do anything around this biden stuff. i think it's kind of a personal decision and you should literally do whatever let's you sleep better at night because that is the most important thing around this mess, the wheels of history will turn regardless of your individual action here.
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Aug 21, 2020 13:21
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if you vote for Joe Biden you have to live with that fact every time he drone strikes a Muslim wedding, every right wing coup he arms, every dead in American in the streets from brutal austerity and no healthcare. you have to live with the fact that you cast a ballot of open endorsement of those actions.
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Aug 21, 2020 13:24
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Taintrunner posted:if you vote for Joe Biden you have to live with that fact every time he drone strikes a Muslim wedding, every right wing coup he arms, every dead in American in the streets from brutal austerity and no healthcare. you have to live with the fact that you cast a ballot of open endorsement of those actions. i think this is the same framing that liberals use to shame you into voting against trump. it's good to trigger libs in response to their arguments to vote but i don't think it's a correct analysis of what participation in the electoral process actually is.
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Aug 21, 2020 13:26
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a vote for joe biden is unquestionably and entirely a vote that in cases where you deem it necessary for the good of the rapist, rape is okay and should be rewarded with power
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Aug 21, 2020 13:27
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jarofpiss posted:i think this is the same framing that liberals use to shame you into voting against trump. it's good to trigger libs in response to their arguments to vote but i don't think it's a correct analysis of what participation in the electoral process actually is. it’s not and you’re delusional. If you vote for Biden you’re not a socialist. you’re a liberal who knows it’s wrong and you dress up your mind palace in revolutionary aesthetics to distract yourself from this fact, but when the rubber meets the road you do nothing but vote for white supremacy and the mass murder of PoC.
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Aug 21, 2020 13:31
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Taintrunner posted:if you vote for Joe Biden you have to live with that fact every time he drone strikes a Muslim wedding, every right wing coup he arms, every dead in American in the streets from brutal austerity and no healthcare. you have to live with the fact that you cast a ballot of open endorsement of those actions. Zvahl posted:a vote for joe biden is unquestionably and entirely a vote that in cases where you deem it necessary for the good of the rapist, rape is okay and should be rewarded with power i'm legitimately sympathetic to these perspectives but i think there's a problem with this framing of voting because it necessarily results in a categorical withdrawal from the bourgeois electoral process if you have moral principles. we have got to participate in the electoral process to the extent that we can put sympathetic figures in state power to prevent the state from being completely overrun by fascists while our revolutionary base is still building. you must have sympathetic politicians in power to defend your minority political position from being black sited away in its infancy. i'm not saying you need to vote for biden here. i'm just saying framing this as if a vote for a candidate is a full throated endorsement of the worst thing that candidate has ever done is incorrect because it means no candidate can be voted for ethically and you must cede the existing electoral process to the most reactionary forces in the country.
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Aug 21, 2020 13:34
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Taintrunner posted:it’s not and you’re delusional. If you vote for Biden you’re not a socialist. you’re a liberal who knows it’s wrong and you dress up your mind palace in revolutionary aesthetics to distract yourself from this fact, but when the rubber meets the road you do nothing but vote for white supremacy and the mass murder of PoC. lol
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Aug 21, 2020 13:35
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i gotta go get in the shower but i am curious what you hope the outcome of this election will be
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Aug 21, 2020 13:38
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jarofpiss posted:i'm legitimately sympathetic to these perspectives but i think there's a problem with this framing of voting because it necessarily results in a categorical withdrawal from the bourgeois electoral process if you have moral principles. we have got to participate in the electoral process to the extent that we can put sympathetic figures in state power to prevent the state from being completely overrun by fascists while our revolutionary base is still building. you must have sympathetic politicians in power to defend your minority political position from being black sited away in its infancy. okay when they're not rapists, don't have extensively racist legislative histories, and don't think poor people should die from preventable diseases out on the street like dogs, we can talk after those are satisfied as to whether or not allowing them power is responsible
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Aug 21, 2020 13:41
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somebody post the buttigieg mao meme imo
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Aug 21, 2020 13:41
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lmao socialists 4 biden is the most embarsssing development of this election cycle. completely undisciplined liberals LARPing before the line up to endorse the mass murder of innocent Muslims and terrorism of Black lives, utterly hopeless and beyond redemption.
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Aug 21, 2020 13:42
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Taintrunner posted:lmao socialists 4 biden is the most embarsssing development of this election cycle. completely undisciplined liberals LARPing before the line up to endorse the mass murder of innocent Muslims and terrorism of Black lives, utterly hopeless and beyond redemption. i appreciate your good faith reading of what i've been writing. taking a sacramental view of voting is the liberal position btw
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Aug 21, 2020 13:51
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jarofpiss posted:i appreciate your good faith reading of what i've been writing. taking a sacramental view of voting is the liberal position btw ok liberal have fun voting for another few thousand dead Muslims. turns out white supremacy is a hell of a drug.
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Aug 21, 2020 13:54
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trying to imagine the bravado of demanding "good faith" readings of someone betraying the work and struggle of their comrades by voting for someone who has spent decades militarizing the police, criminalizing Black lives, and championing endless war against brown lives by voting for a geriatric warmongering rapist freak, and just laughing my rear end off
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Aug 21, 2020 14:03
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Biden loving sucks and while ostensibly having him in power would be better than Trump, I can’t actually bring myself to urge anyone else to vote for him or to find fault with anyone who says they won’t vote for him. This election was the DNC’s to lose and they picked one of the worst candidates they had as their guy. I’m not going to post about how much he sucks (a lot) on social media until after the election, but I’m not going to post in his favor either
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Aug 21, 2020 14:09
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there will always be a level of nose-holding. i think a lot of people here staked a somewhat reasonable post in that bernie sanders is a deeply flawed and conservative compromise candidate who nonetheless said he was willing to do some things that were right and needed to be done, to the point that they were willing to say 'this is okay.' I feel kind of silly having done that, because it shows the value of compromise. He was going to immediately kowtow to his friends nancy and chuck as soon as they said one mean thing about him. he was not going to help pass healthcare. in the end, all that matters is that they are willing to endorse and support a platform that is nothing but air. just the words no trump no trump no trump repeated endlessly because their donors give them money to move to the right. the fact that someone is willing to consider endorsing a biden presidency ignores everything joe biden himself has said and done in order to run no trump, and means that the next time the democrats help to manufacture a monster, like they have been rewarded for doing in 2016, just means that they will use the next opportunity to do it again, and be compromised more, because they were tsked at by their work friends and want to get paid more and be on tv more gently caress democrats and gently caress voting for any of them that are willing to say biden is fine under any circumstances for any reason
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Aug 21, 2020 14:15
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jarofpiss posted:i gotta go get in the shower but i am curious what you hope the outcome of this election will be i'm curious to know yours. biden openly promised to wealthy contributors that nothing would fundamentally change under his presidency
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Aug 21, 2020 14:18
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Suspicious posted:i'm curious to know yours. biden openly promised to wealthy contributors that nothing would fundamentally change under his presidency he already pledged he would do nothing about the climate, and for 4 years it would be nothing but brutal austerity and corporate handouts. you know, the thing that got Trump elected. A vote for Biden is a vote for brutal, competent fascism in 2024.
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Aug 21, 2020 14:20
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but trump is soooooo embarrassing, gosh
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Aug 21, 2020 14:21
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but seriously, if you're not a complete dumbass, the only reason you would rather have biden over trump is that you don't actually mind murdered PoC, kids in cages and the planet fast becoming uninhabitable, you just want the man at the top to be more decorous about it
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Aug 21, 2020 14:24
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Suspicious posted:i'm curious to know yours. biden openly promised to wealthy contributors that nothing would fundamentally change under his presidency i said earlier i thought perhaps the best outcome is a narrow historically low turnout biden victory with a really morose national mood. i dont think that’s a possibility you can organize around.
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Aug 21, 2020 14:26
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Taintrunner posted:he already pledged he would do nothing about the climate, and for 4 years it would be nothing but brutal austerity and corporate handouts. you know, the thing that got Trump elected. yeah if you think this is legitimately an election between two fascists i understand your position. i definitely think trump is a fascist but im not convinced biden is. i think biden is the same right wing neoliberal democrat as usual. it’s all abhorrent but im not sure it’s actually fascism. open to being convinced otherwise tho
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Aug 21, 2020 14:28
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this is you right now, btw
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Aug 21, 2020 14:29
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Taintrunner posted:he already pledged he would do nothing about the climate, and for 4 years it would be nothing but brutal austerity and corporate handouts. you know, the thing that got Trump elected. why, when trump tells obvious stupid lies he's never going to act on, is he held to account for it? frankly, given his record as a deeply insecure and pandering rear end in a top hat, i feel it's far more likely he'll accidentally be so incompetent as to do something right, or just so trolly that he'll send out a check with his name on it, which is far more than any benefit I got from that loving sham obamacare. but biden says things, and we're required to ignore everything in joe biden's legislative history, everything in his time on the senate judiciary committee, every action he helped champion as vice president under a deeply conservative shithead, and everything he's done on the campaign trail to instead say 'no, read the website, he will do it, biden good' the democrats are meeting nothing but praise and love for their actions in 2020 from their donors, and it's all because they helped elect trump in 2016. if given the chance, they will manufacture another monster, and give it attention and love to nurture it into a threat to use to bludgeon to their left, and they will do it because they were rewarded for running on TRUMP BAD
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Aug 21, 2020 14:30
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Suspicious posted:but seriously, if you're not a complete dumbass, the only reason you would rather have biden over trump is that you don't actually mind murdered PoC, kids in cages and the planet fast becoming uninhabitable, you just want the man at the top to be more decorous about it or i think that my partner probably wont get black bagged under biden and very much could under a second term trump
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Aug 21, 2020 14:35
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The people who really love Joe & Kamala are just people who aren't very media savvy and take things at face value. It's not complicated, they just read some mix of NYT/Vox/CNN and nothing else. https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1296422224287719424 Or they are just millionaires voting for another millionaire.
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Aug 21, 2020 14:39
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Taintrunner posted:this is you right now, btw yeah as i’ve said repeatedly im not “for” biden or anything around the personality cult of the american presidential election. i think if you’re gonna vote at all it’s just a decision about if you think it’s worth leaving your house to pull a lever to buy time against fascism which may not be worth it at all if you think both candidates are fascists. ive said i think assigning a moral component to your role in selecting the american head hitler in charge is nonsense
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Aug 21, 2020 14:42
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biden pledged not to fundamentally change anything. he didn't add "but i'll dial back the blackbagging"
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Aug 21, 2020 14:46
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Suspicious posted:biden pledged not to fundamentally change anything. he didn't add "but i'll dial back the blackbagging" If anything he'll accelerate it
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Aug 21, 2020 14:47
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jarofpiss posted:lol not only did biden not promise to stop black bagging people, he actively partook in it during his stint near the executive https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/feb/26/police-black-site-chicago-washington-politicians-human-rights what's more, his response to the police brutality of the summer of 2020 was to say that police needed financial rewards for doing it, to get a slaver by his side at VP whose crown jewel as an AG was making sure the poor were burned to death to protect the property of the wealthy, and to promise his owners above him that nothing would fundamentally change from the way trump is running things other than not tweeting. enabling and empowering fascists by doing their agenda for them and calling it not fascist does not count as an improvement
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Aug 21, 2020 14:55
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jarofpiss posted:i said earlier i thought perhaps the best outcome is a narrow historically low turnout biden victory with a really morose national mood. i dont think that’s a possibility you can organize around. Turnout has never factored hard into interpreted mandate though. Bush/Gore had a 50.3% turnout which is pretty drat low, Bush lost the popular vote and probably the electoral as well, and proceeded to do the Iraq War and Patriot Act. You could interpret that as just "necessary" reactions to 9/11, but the domestic agenda even before that was "completely privatize social security" which, I'm sorry, sounds pretty radical. Meanwhile, Obama had the best turnout in over 40 years in 2008 and then proceeded to issue executive orders at the lowest rate since Grover Cleveland. Maybe that's just a governance style. Either way, I just don't think the manner of election will impact how emboldened Biden will actually feel. I honestly think the best outcome, should it have to come down to the two major party candidates, would be Trump wins but congress turns heavily left and with actual leftists like Mondaire Jones and Markey staying and so on so forth, and Trump becomes a lame duck like Bush after Katrina, largely defanging him. I think part of that to happen would be Shahid toppling Pelosi even though he seems to suck a bit and Booker getting a write-in vote against McGrath and McConnell. That's probably not happening. The real hell dimension seems likely - that all of Biden's pandering to conservative suburbanites will net him the win but those same Republicans will just vote R for the downballot, therefore giving Biden a government where he can't possibly lead to the left (not that he would) and does empower him to heavily conservative austerity policies. I'd say they'd impeach him too, but Kamala might make them pause on that, yet that might not stop them from just doing it anyway to keep him from ever taking legitimate action like sitting a supreme court justice. That's the true hellworld, and also looking like the most increasingly likely possibility.
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Aug 21, 2020 15:25
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Trump has a 90%+ approval rating amongst Republicans. Biden isn’t winning them over.
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Aug 21, 2020 15:30
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No, I don't think he will, and I think more people identify as Republicans than do Democrats and Obama largely won through Republicans being embarrassed by Palin (that was the sense I saw in Republican voters crossing over to him). Incumbency is a hell of a drug too, which I think D&D and a lot of pollsters are ignoring. But the economy is poo poo and elections are usually referendums on the economy, though Obama got away with a slow recovery because, again, incumbency. It could go either way. It's probably going to be very close, probably won't be decided by the end of November, and RGB not retiring and Obama refusing to force in Garland is going to end up being a far more pivotal thing than anything that happened on November 2016. Either way, Democrats will pin it on the leftists. If Biden wins, we never needed 'em, if Biden loses, these people don't play ball after all we offered them with a progressive VP (lol) and committee approaches (also lol) and, real reason, our donors hate 'em, so gently caress 'em. I would love to actually look forward to something in politics, but that cute 30% bump in boomer votes just killed that and now I kinda just wish Japan had won WW2.
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Aug 21, 2020 15:37
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jarofpiss posted:or i think that my partner probably wont get black bagged under biden and very much could under a second term trump me and my partner got tear gassed, shot at by rubber bullets, had flash bangs deployed, and generally endured all manner of munitions being shot at us at the discretion of a democratic mayor for having the audacity to ask that police maybe be held a little bit accountable, and joe biden picked a cop as his running mate and made a point of saying most cops were good so, y’know, maybe joe biden will stop dhs from scooping people into vans. but, uh, i sure fuckin doubt it
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Aug 21, 2020 15:43
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The dismissal of trauma as something that clouds decisions instead of informs them is one of the many reasons things are so hosed up. Probably Magic, I am sorry your friends are like this, but time and God will teach them, one way or another.
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Aug 21, 2020 15:45
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Declan MacManus posted:me and my partner got tear gassed, shot at by rubber bullets, had flash bangs deployed, and generally endured all manner of munitions being shot at us at the discretion of a democratic mayor for having the audacity to ask that police maybe be held a little bit accountable, and joe biden picked a cop as his running mate and made a point of saying most cops were good Biden was VP during Standing Rock and Ferguson. You know, that time all those Black protest leaders mysterious died by shooting themselves in the back of the head in the backseat of a burning vehicle. loving hilarious that anyone would bring up "DHS black bagging" and thinking Biden wouldn't do that poo poo. Motherfucker wrote the OG Patriot Act. He loves this poo poo.
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Aug 21, 2020 15:47
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