• immutable@lemm.ee
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    6 months ago

    I’m a progressive, volunteered for Bernie’s campaigns. I don’t remember electing you to speak for me, maybe you don’t have your finger so squarely on the pulse of every single progressive.

    I plan to vote for Biden, am I excited about it, no. Is the Democratic Party going to put up anyone else, no. Would me holding back my vote matter, no.

    There is no world where “not voting for the least bad option” equals anything other than the most bad option winning. You can be upset that that’s the word you happen to find yourself in, no one asked me if having to pick between the two jackboots of the capital class was how we should arrange things either.

    One thing I haven’t heard is what’s the alternative. You have my full attention, what would you actually concretely hope to have happen. Let’s say you could convince a large number of Democratic Party voters to follow your lead, what would you have them do?

    Perhaps watching the Democratic Party leadership gut the chances of Sanders twice to put up boring ass garbage candidates has hardened my heart. Would you have them sit out the primary convention, great Biden still wins because of super delegates. Would you have them protest and hold back their votes in November, great trump wins. Is there some other thing that’s supposed to happen? What’s the plan?

    • archomrade [he/him]@midwest.socialOP
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      6 months ago

      I am very happy for your politics, honestly I am. I wish more people were as involved as that.

      Bidens approval is at 38% right now. That is the second lowest approval rating of any incumbent president in their third term in modern history, second only to carter. The lowest third year approval rating where the incumbent won reelection was Obama with 45%. Biden can afford to lose 3% of his popular vote, assuming 2020 turnout and ignoring the electoral vote(spoiler, that’s a worse situation)

      If you’d like to ignore reality and argue that Biden hasn’t lost any fraction of his support from this conflict, just because you personally could concede that issue, then feel free to completely ignore me. Keep reassuring everyone those numbers aren’t real and pray that this doesn’t sink him.

      I personally think the only path to victory is Biden about facing in Isreal. That’s what I’d do if I was organizing: do everything in my power to push Biden to see reason. I can’t campaign on “yea Biden is materially supporting a genocide, but he’s not irredeemable” to progressives that are camping on campuses for weeks to months over it. There is nothing I could do to convince those people to vote.

      Spend your time how you want but I think it’s far more sensible to try and sway Biden than it is to convince an entire cohort to vote for a candidate that’s complicit in genocide.

      • immutable@lemm.ee
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        6 months ago

        Ok, but concretely, how do you want to do that? This meme?

        I believe you, you think that Biden’s support for Israel will ensure his defeat. What do you think could get him to change his position, I highly doubt he’s browsing lemmy.

        I get your frustration and I read some of your other comments and I don’t really disagree with you. The thing is, the people disagreeing with you in this thread agree with the deeper concern. I’m concerned that Biden’s support for Israel will make him lose too. I don’t believe there is anything the voting public can do to change that support. I believe that support has been bought and paid for by the capitalists that want that support for whatever awful reason they have, and that our shambling “plutocracy in democracy clothing” means we won’t be able to change that.

        So I look at the line you are pushing and I think, what are the likely outcomes of this effort.

        • Biden retracting his support for Israel, no.
        • Some people on lemmy getting disenchanted and sitting home, maybe.
        • The horse race obsessed media running endless stories about Biden losing the left and the youth vote, which while true, act as a flywheel suppressing more voters, absolutely

        And I just can’t figure out the point. Maybe you are more optimistic than me, maybe you still believe that shouting into the social media zone could swell a grassroots rebellion, get Biden to change his stance, and secure his victory. I just have a hard time believing it.

        Now if you told me you were going to start a super pac and throw 10s of millions of dollars at the campaign but only if they move on Israel, yea, that could work. Shitposting here isn’t doing anything but demoralizing pragmatic leftists that understand what a shitty fucking dumpster fire of a system we have and are also worried Biden’s unwavering support for Israel is going to fuck us all over. And I struggle to understand who that helps

        • archomrade [he/him]@midwest.socialOP
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          6 months ago

          If I believe that Biden will lose because of a position he’s taken himself, and i believe that nothing I say could sway the people we need to vote in November even if I could make it convincing, what else is there to do but anything to get Biden to reverse course?

          The sad thing here is that Biden is able to move on things. He was essentially republican before the 2020 primary! Bernie and Warren had a lot to do with that. You campaigned for Bernie, you already know that!

          I think if progressives are loud enough, the people in Biden’s circle can break through to him. I’m more optimistic than you are.

          We lost the 2016 election because moderates were overconfident and condescending to their constituents; if nothing else I will cut them down, even a little, so they might not repeat that mistake.