I hate it. I think Biden is a barely competent tool who is going to be a cheerleader for corporate America, but we’re not going to have a choice — it’s him or the totally incompetent grifter who is just in it for himself. Thanks, Democratic party! You’re a bunch of assholes!
But I do think they’ve put out an effective ad.
#MorningJoe just ran the new Biden ad. It's devastating. Make sure you're near your #faintingcouch if reality is too much for you. pic.twitter.com/piQs7LM45h
— KevinNoel (@KevinNoel) May 12, 2020
Remember, you’re not voting for a good candidate, you’re voting against a malignant one.
That’s not how voting works. You vote for e candidate that represents you. That’s all. Anything else is gaslighting. I will not vote for a rapist.
@1 Then you may as well vote for Trump,because alt-riech, gun-fondling, arseholes will be voting for Trump. Just to ‘trigger the libs’, as they like to put it. As Attlia the stockbroker once put it when Paul Keating was running against John Hewson, “it’s the difference between a bucket of vomit or a swimming pool of vomit”.
And now I’ll get off my high horse. I don’t profess to know the American voting system that well, but are you able to only vote for congress and senate and refuse to vote for the president?
What “gaslighting”, Joerg @1? Thanks to the USA’s first-past-the-post voting system, we pretty much are stuck with one of the two major political parties’ candidates. Acknowledging that fact, as unpleasant as it may be, isn’t “gaslighting”—but it could be good reason to get to work changing the US voting system to something other than FPTP.
It’s not “gaslighting” to acknowledge that the Angry Cheeto treats the office of the Presidency as if it were a profit center in his org chart.
It’s not “gaslighting” to acknowledge that the Angry Cheeto nominates to the judiciary candidates who are unfit in temperament for the job, who are regarded as incompetent by their peers, and whose only discernible virtue is their zealous allegiance to the Cheeto’s political party.
It’s not “gaslighting” to acknowledge that the Angry Cheeto has destroyed, and continues to destroy, most-to-all environmental protection regulations.
It’s not “gaslighting” to acknowledge that the Angry Cheeto has destroyed, and continues to destroy, most-to-all government programs intended to protect “the little people” from getting screwed over by the 1%.
It’s not “gaslighting” to acknowledge that the Angry Cheeto’s administration has been working to convert the US into a fascist police state.
It’s not “gaslighting” to acknowledge that the Angry Cheeto is incompetent and of thoroughly questionable mental health.
You know what could be “gaslighting”? Making like the Cheeto’s mania for praise, unfettered greed, and manifest unfitness for office is somehow not an issue worth considering when one is deciding who to vote for.
“That’s not how voting works”.. Umm.. sure it is. When provided with a bad choice, or the worst possible choice imaginable.. You take the bad choice. Sounds like you have decided what YOU are going to do, but I am not going to be she smug holier-than-thou asshole who sits back and claims my conscience is clear because I did a write-in.. or didn’t vote at all.. I know several of those people, and every one of them is smug, self-righteous asshole.. and Trump is President.
I didn’t see anything in that ad that makes me think Biden is any good. I already know Trump is a chump. So Biden’s message is “vote for anyone but Trump and that’s me!” Which means he understands the situation. I’d vote for a lightly fermented bucket of fish guts over Trump. Way to sell to your strengths, Joe, too bad you appear to have none.
As I have mentioned before, it is like when Herbert the octagenarian pedophile in Family Guy is fighting the octagenarian war criminal.
Herbert the Pervert is not a nice guy, but if he does not win, Sturmbannfuhrer Schlectnacht will murder Peter and Chris.
Don’t let them die! Support the Pervert in November!
(this is the closest I can get to a positive message. If the horror wins, I recommend moving to Iceland or New Zealand . They are virus-free)
First, the only vote for Trump is a vote for Trump. Anything else is not a vote for Trump. It is at worst a half a vote for Trump and a half a vote for Biden.
Second, I am able to think far into the future and if Trump is the result of 8 years of a nice neoliberal Democrat being in power, what will we be looking at after 4 years of Biden? Or whatever neoliberal vice president supplants him?
“Vote for me, I’m not as bad as that other murderous thief”, despite having a viable candidate that was good.
Fuck both parties, let them reap what they sowed. Enjoy the God-King, Emperor Trump.
Obviously, shit isn’t broken enough, so maybe when the country has entirely collapsed and our nukes are on the black market, both sets of whoring assholes will learn.
Or glow in the dark, at this point, I am fresh out of fucks to give.
@12.. Not sure this is the right situation for an appeal to future consequence… We are in a situation where it is (for practical purposes) impossble to construct a likely outcome that will be better with Trump getting re-elected.
Anybody but Trump. It sure would be nice to actually have a decent choice though. Biden ain’t that.
Calling a man a rapist because one woman says she was assaulted 27 years ago has said, during one of her several flip-flops, that he once assaulted her, is not how it works, either. It is absolutely no different from calling Hillary Clinton a traitor because Benghazi. There is no evidence – ever the victim’s story has not remained consistent. Some say her mother backed he up, but her mother is not conveniently dead. Biden has been accused of social awkwardness, not assault. He has no record of that sort of thing, nor any reputation for it. But you call him a rapist.
There is a candidate who does have a reputation for that sort of thing, who has been repeatedly accused of it, and who admitted it to Billy Bush on Access Hollywood. But they’re exactly the same.
Why not call Biden a child-molester while you’re at it? I’m certain you can find a political opponent (Reade has expressed her admiration for both Vladimir Putin and Bernie Sanders) who will make a accusation of that sort.
As for “way to go, Democratic Party,” are you blaming the plurality of Democrats who in fact voted for Biden? Is democracy unacceptable to you? Or are you a conspiracy theorist who has no doubt that Biden will get the nomination as a result of shenanigans, despite the “fact” that he actually didn’t get those votes?
gijoel@2: Yes, it is possible to vote for other offices without voting for President. You can even vote on referenda without voting for any candidates for public office.
But I’d like to suggest to everyone voting in the US that if you really can’t bring yourself to hold your nose and vote for Biden purely for the sake of unseating Trump, you should instead find yourself a third-party candidate that you prefer. It’ll have exactly as much effect on the outcome, and there’s at least some chance that some politicians will notice that more people voted Socialist than Libertarian or whatever and use that to guide their decisions. Whereas voting for no one basically just tells them “I don’t care, either one is good”, which is presumably the opposite of what you want to convey.
I apologize for the above typos. I’m legally blind.
Damn the gaslighting is red hot here. Also Joe Biden is a rapist and I believe survivors. If you vote for a rapist, you can go fall into a fucking deep ditch full of shit.
Is democracy unacceptable to you?
Democracy would be nice.
Easy to tell who believes that their literal lily-white hands will not get mussed in a continued Trump presidency.
And for those that think their ‘viable’ candidate was denied a chance, it is called the primary. If your ‘viable’ candidate could not Get Out The Vote and convince enough people to vote for them in the primary, that they are not running in the general election is on them and nobody else. Please note that I’m being generous in assuming that you did the whole GOTV thing for your ‘viable’ candidate.
Joerg@1–
Far from gaslighting, that is exactly how voting works in the US. Voting for a minority leftist candidate is more helpful to the right than the centre-left. If you want your version of voting to be true, then fight to change the electoral system. There are much better systems.
Australia’s instant-runoff system of voting is much better. It still tends to two-party domination, but at least it allows minority-party voters to (1) influence the major parties by showing the real size of their voting block rather than assuming every vote they got is a glowing mandate, and (2) occasionally win the balance of power in parliament and suddenly have huge influence well beyond their vote percentage.
There are also much better electoral structures than the US. Even better than Australia’s. But if you can’t get a preferential voting system in place, you’ve got zero chance of structural change.
And let the trolling begin.
“Fuck it all and burn it down” take your ball and go home right? The only people who will be hurt will be the abstracted, theoretical stupid-other-people deserving of, what, God’s wrath I guess. Certainly not you. Well you and the 1 percenters.
Go ahead now. Double down and say something that you know is stupid, because you’re too lazy to actually fight.
I don’t think it’s gaslighting if you aren’t manipulating someone into questioning their own sanity.
I do think it’s rape culture related lack of respect for concerns about rape when someone keeps moving attention from the concerns and refuses to engage with them because they are politically inconvenient. Or shames such concerns. The thing to do there is try to understand why someone thinks Biden is a rapist. In this country there could be lots of reasons to think someone is a rapist.
Otherwise I’m voting for Biden as the less worse potential rapist. Gaslighting would be trying to convince me that it’s a good thing that I’m voting for one of the people who covered up torture in front of all of america. I’ve seen people try that too.
@littlejohn 11
That’s a lot of gossip you have there.
Ruth Bader Ginsburg is 87 years old.
The Supreme Court.
That is all.
Not just the SCOTUS, also the cabinet. It matters who is secretary of education.
Not that a petulant child like Joerg will read this, but: “I’m voting for Joe fucking Biden.”
From the article I linked above:
I want you to know that if you criticize women as hypocrites for choosing the candidate that they think can win against the GOP juggernaut, and choosing the lesser evil, then you’re not changing those conditions, you’re simply one more voice blaming women instead of the system. If you criticize #metoo activists for not choosing to take on yet another traumatic battle which will be coopted in favor of Trump, you’re not holding perpetrators accountable. And it’s clear that many people criticizing activists right now were not aware of the basic facts of the #metoo movement before they saw a possible political advantage.
I don’t believe she was raped. I mean, the pattern has been for the last few years that a woman calls out a prominent man for being a rapist and a dozen more come forward with, “Me, Too!”. For Biden? Crickets. And no documentation. Not to mention that she has the hots for Comrade Vlad. I like to believe the woman too, but she’s just too hard to believe.
It looks as though the Democrats are repeating the error they made during Hillary Clinton’s campaign – showing Trump’s mistakes is not showing the Democratic candidate’s strengths. They ran ads with Trump looking ridiculous (certainly—in the eyes of those who already knew they wouldn’t vote for him), thus increasing his visibility at the expense of Clinton’s own. Now, they need to be showing Biden looking like a competent president, not the invisible man. The Obama administration had a plan for dealing with a pandemic, Biden could be pointing to that and contrasting it with the current shambles. But no. Give Trump a bit more airtime, what a great plan.
I must reluctantly agree with PZ here. Even a NeoLib Democrat is likely to be at least marginally better than any present-day Republican on what we might call “social issues,” at least as long as it doesn’t inconvenience the rentiers that they’re buddies with.
And Trump is almost the worst president imaginable. (I say almost because I can imagine President Pence who would actually be competant and have an agenda larger than himself.)
The reason we have Trump in the first place is because of over a century’s worth of internalizing the incoherent idea that there are only two options. The direct result is that, especially following the Buckley v. Valeo decision, candidates really only needed to prop themselves up as better than one other candidate and not necessarily as a good candidate.
Do not play along. Do not vote for Biden. Go vote, vote down ballot (that still matters!), ignore the vote for president or vote third party/write-in, and let that collectively send the message to the DNC that they will not have your support if they do not put up candidates that represent your values. If they know you will vote for them no matter what, just because the Republicans are worse, they have no incentive to fight for the things you value… because you will have shown them you don’t value anything more than beating the Republicans.
The lesser of two evils is still evil, and participating in that system under the pretense that it is at all actual harm reduction is why we ended up here in the first place. There is no solution that will make the world better in this one election; fixing things will take time. But it cannot happen until enough people stop buying into this incoherent false dilemma.
sez joerg @14: “Damn the gaslighting is red hot here.”
Again: What “gaslighting”? That term isn’t just a snarl-word you apply to Things You Don’t Like, dude. It has, you know, an actual definition.
Maybe Biden is every bit the sexual predator Tara Reade has accused him of being. Could be. How, exactly, is it “gaslighting” to point out that the Angry Cheeto is demonstrably worse than Biden on pretty much any axis that’s relevant to governance?
How, exactly, is it “gaslighting” to point out that a sexual predator who won’t loot the country, who won’t let the Coronavirus kill untold thousands of people as human sacrifices to the great god Freemarket, and who won’t accelerate the US’ descent towards alt-reich dystopian status… is, at the very least, a less-bad candidate than a sexual predator who, demonstrably, has been doing and continues to do all that shit?
If you’re a single-issue voter, and the single issue that you consider worthy of your attention is Not Being An Accused Sexual Predator, so be it. Other people are not required to hold such a view.
LOL, the difference between deontological and consequentialist ethics on full display in the comments. Also, the difference between presumption of innocence and presumption of guilt.
Hmm. Lesser evil is still evil because all evil is exactly the same, so vote for the magically pure, non-evil candidate. (Correct me if I’m wrong, but the assertion that all evil is the same is a Christian doctrine is it not?)
I have a relative who couldn’t decide whether to vote for Hillary or Trump because it came down to this: Hillary told a lie. Now, again and again, innumeracy strikes people with zero sense of proportion or even cause and effect apparently.
His gaslighting. Those critters run on projection. When a RWNJ calls you a thief, be sure his hand is already in your pocket or your wallet in his.
It’s the view of a puritan fanatic. No matter what religion or no religion at all.
Joerg, #14
Agreed. It would be bad if a sexual assaulter/rapist is president.
“But I do think they’ve put out an effective ad.”
Shooting dead fish tied down in a barrel filled with explosives with a howitzer a team experts set up just so you could pull the trigger for your photo op. Mind you, you can’t buy fish like these anywhere. Biden had better retire to the far side of the moon if he bungles this election. (50:50 we’ll at least get a moon mission out this)
Re: JoeBuddha (#25):
“I mean, the pattern has been for the last few years that a woman calls out a prominent man for being a rapist and a dozen more come forward with, “Me, Too!”. For Biden? Crickets.”
So I guess anyone but serial rapists is off the hook owing to lack of additional victims willing to come forward and face the usually crippling backlash? Gods, expectations of public figures are really low these days. But I wonder what the cut-off point is. With that and a rough probability of how likely other victims are to come forward once the first one does you could actually estimate just how many people a person with power can rape without repercussions. Really low expectations…
A sexual predator in position of power for decades who stops at the first victim is an oxymoron walking.
… the backlash would be far less crippling, if at all, if there were more, corroborating their stories mutually.
I live in California. I am registered as “no party prefernce” (NPP) because I don’t like any of the extant political parties. To vote for a presidential candidate in the primary on a Republican ballot, you have to be registered as a Republican. As an NPP voter, however, I can vote on the Democratic ballot. I voted for a Democratic candidate that I actually liked. That candidate did not win in California, or primaries generally.
Still…assuming things go the way it appears, I will vote for Biden in November. I will do so NOT because I favor Biden. He is a deeply flawed candidate. However, he is vastly better than Trump.
As for the first commentor… If you won’t vote for Biden because you think he’s a rapist, what do you think of Trump on that topic? And why would you risk four more years of Trump, with that in mind? Why would you vote in any way that could even conceivably aid Trump’s re-election? Yeah…Biden has been accused. Trump has bragged about it.
@JoeBuddha 25
“I don’t believe she was raped. I mean, the pattern has been for the last few years that a woman calls out a prominent man for being a rapist and a dozen more come forward with, “Me, Too!”. For Biden? Crickets.”
So for a rape claim to be convincing there has to be multiple rape claims. Single accusers get nothing from you.
“And no documentation. Not to mention that she has the hots for Comrade Vlad. I like to believe the woman too, but she’s just too hard to believe.”
So there are no rapes without a paper trail, and people with political opinions you don’t like can’t be raped.
You make me want to vomit.
Pharyngula commenters: same boring election arguments
Me: Damn, where did they get that juicy music?
@daverytier
“A sexual predator in position of power for decades who stops at the first victim is an oxymoron walking.”
I don’t believe you and it’s on you to show that all sexual predators have to have a trail of victims or specific kinds of victims. Just because the other is more noticeable doesn’t mean I have to take assertion at face value.
It’s entirely possible Biden fucked up and hasn’t crossed boundaries that badly since but sticks to more common sexual harassment now.
And who heads the EPA, who is AG, and many other positions.
Remember, PZ, you’ll vote for a malignant candidate to prevent another malignant one to stay in the White House. Also you’ll justify a political system that strongly justifies malignant candidates.
@2: “Then you may as well vote for Trump”
Ah yes, the good old “let’s vote for Göring/Trotsky or you’ll vote for Hitler/Stalin fallacy”.
Because the first ones would only have slaughtered half of the victims the latter did and hence are the lesser evils.
All the pseudolibs voting for war criminal Biden: enjoy yourself in your rabbit holes.
https://activatenow.us/the-long-list-of-joe-bidens-terrible-record/
That’s what you pseudolibs will not vote against.
strongly favours.
The main takeaway from the Sanders Dead-Enders on this thread is a long screaming wail about how:
No one understands the GLORY OF BERNIE!!!!!!111one
A guy who couldn’t be a plurality of votes from a party he is not normally a member of SHOULD BE THE CANDIDATE!
People who will vote for Biden are supporters of rapists/rapist enablers.
Bernie Dead-Enders: The other side of the MAGA-Hatter coin.
mnb0, #42
What would voting against Biden look like?
@stroppy, no, I say let it burn down because both fucking sides and the middle keep throwing firewood onto the fire.
When you want to get out of the hole, you first have to put down the shovel. Not keep shoveling feverishly, replacing shovelers with peer shovelers.
So, we’ll all enjoy more time stewing in the swill, with those of us that are that disgusted reminding the lot of you why we’re up to our eyeballs in swill.
As for the Biden rape accusation, it’s an accusation and the last time I looked, individuals were considered innocent until proved guilty in a court of law. Or are we taking a page out of the right’s book of guilty until proven innocent?
mnb0, as I recall, Biden went on at great length against Gulf War I. Then, promptly voted for it. I remember his condescending trumpeting against a rush to war, while entirely failing to address any of the justifications that the administration had presented for war. I remember that so clearly, as I was on alert status, with orders to arrive within the hour of being called to collect whatever weapons I believed would be needed and then get on the plane.
Most memorable, given that no proof of any such weapons was provided, save Saddam holding a couple of small spheres that aren’t inside of any modern nuclear weapon and some hand waving. Odd, given that we take imagery that can see the time off of a field officer’s wrist watch, but had no imagery available to display any such weapons.
Gulf War II was even worse, no realistic justification, save for a disregarded as fiction Italian intelligence report that was oddly worded and again, no imagery of the mythical uranium shipment. And both times, no realistic exit strategy, just get in and get out.
At least Marshall had a plan…
This choice is like voting for dumb or dumber.
BTW, this namecalling bullshit doesn’t help, “pseudolib”, “lib, “con” doesn’t fit the majority of people on the planet and surprise, this nation is indeed part of the planet.
Try to use a cookie cutter for liberal, conservative or middle of the road, you’ll bend your cutter into uselessness.
All that is doing is othering those who you disagree with and emotionalizing what should be reasoned upon instead. That’s the shortest path into getting nowhere and while you’re all squabbling, the deplorables busy are taking a shit on top of your coffee table.
I don’t know about you, but I really don’t relish the notion of shit sitting on my coffee table.
Amphiox @21 – This is the best argument för Biden.
-The most honest way to go into this election is, let’s vote for Biden for the same reason USA gave lend-lease equipment and guns to USSR.
But I still despise those corporate hacks in media and politics who are trying to paint Biden as the “most electable” candidate.
First, let’s defeat Sauron. We can cut the heads off the feudal lords of Gondor later.
It’s gaslighting to suggest that it will be my fault if Trump wins, when in fact it was not my decision to make a do-nothing loser asshole like Biden the neoliberal alternative. Our common enemies (presumably) are the “centrists” who prop up such candidates; and whether or not Biden loses, they are the ones most responsible for the outcome. They would only like to take the credit for it if things go their way – which by the way doesn’t mean anything like “good/decent/reasonable/respectable governance” but that those individuals will have political power – and what you should do is credit them either way, even when their actions give a result they did not personally want or intend.
Of course, those supporting Trump are also directly responsible for their part, because that’s who literally and obviously casts a vote for Trump. But if (for whatever reason) you’ve been searching far and wide for something less direct, you should not neglect the party leaders, donors, media personalities, etc. (whether they brand themselves as corporate Democrats or quasi-/former-Republicans) who fought very hard to make sure Biden will be a “choice” that you ostensibly get to make in a voting booth.
“An ability to compartmentalize and shut off fear of consequences.
Perpetrators of sexual harassment, assault, and rape know right from wrong. They are fully aware of the potential consequences of being apprehended. They have an uncanny ability to ignore them long enough to do what they want, all the while maintaining a sense of invincibility. They eliminate considerations of conscience behaving as they please without regard to emotional, physical, or other damage they might inflict. When they are unmasked, their chief regret is getting caught with little or no remorse for the victim. Instead, they regard themselves as victims because of the unpalatable consequences they must face.”
Does this sound like someone who would realize he f*d big after the first time and never do it again ?
Akira MacKenzie @ 23, that’s a powerful article, and hits on my own thoughts and feelings.
I really admire and take to heart what many commenters here write, but on this issue, I seem to be blind to the arguments some make. I cannot get, at all, how anyone can, in this time, with these choices, in this country with its system, do anything but vote for Biden. I cannot even grasp how this can be a difficult choice. The last four years have been surreally terrible in so many ways, and yet people are willing to let that continue because of how awful a choice Biden will be (and I don’t disagree that he’s awful).
Biden needs to win, and the Democrats need to take the Senate. We need to do whatever we can to make that happen. I don’t care about the whys and hows of how we got here (well, I do care, very much, but it is not vital now to my choices), but we’re here. If Dems win either the presidency or the Senate, we’ll be in a less bad place, but only by winning both do we have any hope of untying the knots of insanity that the Republicans have tied our country into. This seems simple and obvious to me.
And my hope is not strong that we will undo what has been done. I don’t think the Dems are either morally strong or very competent at getting things done. But the Republicans are openly, — even gleefully — destructive.
I’m a privileged old white guy, and won’t suffer as much as so many others will if the republicans are not stopped (like every woman out there, just to take one example). But I can think of nothing else but privilege that could make the obviousness of what we need to do unclear. Voting for Biden won’t lead to greatness, but not voting for him will increase Trump’s chances. That is simply the worst thing that could happen. The worst thing in my lifetime and yours. And not voting at all means that McConnell will get to continue stacking the courts with yet more republican control of all three branches of government.
With all do respect (and I have plenty of it), how is this not clear and obvious?
@46 wzrd1
I’m all for analogy as illustration of a point, as argument not so much.
Or you can throw dirt back in the hole as best you can.
I don’t think you’ve ever “stewed in swill.” If you had I doubt you’d be so glib. But hey, if you get bitter satisfaction is seeing your kids stew, then all I can say is WTF.
And of course it’s not just people, it’s the whole planet. Maybe you can have fun berating critters floating by your swill filled eyeballs, but you’ll have to excuse me if I don’t partake.
Here’s an analogy, I think what you’re advocating is passing accelerant to arsonists.
So, you are basically aligning with the forces of destruction because the world is rotten to the core and deserves to die. Now, tell me, how is it different from a doomsday cultist.
More like “refusing to take arsonist’s fire accelerant because theft is a crime.”
Again, contrast deontological vs consequentialist ethics.
I’m with Paul K #51. It’s not just voting for Biden for President. It’s also keeping the House and taking the Senate. What I see is that every time Pelosi and the Dems control the House, dozens and dozens of good bills are passed. But they go to the Senate to die. Those bills form the democratic platform I want to see enacted. I think Biden would sign those bills and I know Trump would veto them.
That raises a serious question and I’d love to hear what other people think. Almost nothing gets through Congress anymore because of the Senate filibuster. I think it’s time to end that filibuster. I’m scared of what the Republicans would do when they control House and Senate. But we need to be able to enact good laws when the Democrats control both.
Just replace atheist and christian and this is how non voting leftists sound like.
https://xkcd.com/774/
At the end of the day you don’t really care about leftist values. You just want to be seen as leftist, but stay away of the process so you can distance yourself from any responsibility. I’m voting for Biden mostly because Trump just committed what I like to call genocide through incompetence with this pandemic. If that means voting for a possible rapist so be it (which I dont think he even did). And if you know anything about rape culture you know damn well its never only one. Not for a man his age and position. Like with the above calling him a war criminal when he couldn’t possibly be one, you undermine your credibility by not understanding, though pretending that you, understand whats happening here. The burden of proof is still on the ones here making the positive claim. In the past not caring about burden of proof had meaning when it came to this due to not believing women. Now in the age of conspiracy theories and social media spreading false allegations and misinformation willy nilly its back to being important. But if he is fine, still voting for him. because its better than allowing thousands more to die needlessly through sheer incompetence and stupidity. Be a part of the solution or be a part of the problem. Yall are acting as another branch of propaganda for the Right Wing establishment just like in 2016 except you couldn’t accuse Hillary of being a rapist because she was a women. Leftist did accuse her of being a murderer war criminal who assassinated Seth Rich tho.
Also lol at the user who accused Biden of being a war criminal. He cant be a war criminal if he did not have command of the military. You sound silly.
And as for the other “I’m voting third party/not voting” fools out there, you don’t get it. Voting is a limited resource. A non vote for Biden is de-facto a vote for Trump. We are in this mess strictly because leftists don’t vote. You think you are going to change anything by not voting even more? Like the Democrats will magically cater to your platform by not voting? They already think your not going to vote anyways. Their goal is not to cater to you, but to cater to people like me. Leftists who know whats at stake and are willing to compromise, because unlike the rest of you we actually fucking vote.
https://benjaminstudebaker.com/2013/10/13/why-a-third-party-wont-solve-anything/
Re: daverytier (#50):
That’s a nice quote, the italics really add gravitas. An actual source would have done that, too, because I can’t find it and I have no idea who or what it’s talking about. Psychopaths? All rapists everywhere, perhaps? Do they have to conform to this description? Can we rule out that there are rapists that don’t rack up a larger victim count?
I can only guess. But this sounds like rubbish.
“… the backlash would be far less crippling, if at all, if there were more, corroborating their stories mutually.”
Sorry, am I still in the right universe? Am I dead? Is this paradise? The world I come from, victims who came forward about sexual assault by Big Names have suffered endless abuse and scorn from the media and general public, sometimes for years, even as more and more people came forward. There are always the generic insults and threats, but my favourite are those people who declare that it’s all lies until there is a conviction in a court of law, no matter how plausible the accusations, and – when or if that happens – still continue the same crap afterwards. That’s the miserable universe I’ve been stuck in.
And I should perhaps clarify: None of this is in reference to Biden directly. I don’t know what he’s done or not. But I do most strongly object to the idea that rape accusations shouldn’t be taken seriously unless or until there is more than one. And the notion that any rapist must be a repeat offender who’d inevitably be confronted by multiple accusers ignores the human nature of both perpetrator and victims, as well as recent cases which did, in fact, end in court cases going againts the attackers (Weinstein, Cosby).
https://apnews.com/a1bfb62e37fe34e09ff123a58a1329fa
I wish Sander’s supporters cared even one iota of a fuck about leftism and the wellness of this country as much as he does. Even the guy you’ve all held up to a high standard. Who is not “the lesser evil” (that bullshit will not die). Even the man who has never compromised in his vision throughout his entire career. That man, thinks you are all irresponsible. Because in the end of the day, I am not compromising on my values as a leftist by voting for Biden any more than Sanders is. You not voters, definitely are compromising on yours. You just dont want to admit so you use bullshit bad faith arguments like “not voting lesser evil” to hide that.
Not voting for Joe B in this election makes you as bad as a Republican who votes for the current PO–S.
What I’m saying by that is, fuck off. I will never take your opinion about anything, including the current color of the sky, as reasonable again.
Fuck off, completely.
Consider dying as well.
Voting for Joe B will be the most tasteless, unpleasant thing I have ever done,and yet doing so while he is the only possible alternative to the Republican PO–S makes it utterly simple and required of any vaguely reasonable, decent human being.
Also, about this: “Thanks, Democratic party! You’re a bunch of assholes!”
However true this is (very!), this time it was clear as the sky where I am today (very!) that the VOTERS overwhelmingly choose Joe B. It’s very clear that there were almost none of the shenanigans that the DNS used against Saunders last time. JOe B. won as clearly as anyone ever has.
I find that incredible, worrying and disgusting, but the voters chose him and we’re stuck with him as the choice against literal doom.
What a fucked nation the USA is now, in a fucked cycle of history – with worse surely on the way even if the absolutely stupid evil 23% of humanity’s suicide pact with the evil-stupid wealthy 1% is utterly defeated before I am scheduled to die of old age!
And at a time when rational human beings could essentially solve most human problems! Except they fact that we are determined to be Twain’s humans, of course.
Vote Joe B or never again be considered other than a stupid and evil enemy of life.
The Geneva Conventions don’t say that. No telling why it would not be a war crime under the 4th convention, if a scientist like Josef Mengele had no military position yet conducted such experiments all the same. And although he should certainly count, he did not have “command of the military” so to speak, which suggests it could only be those at the highest level of its command, like a president or dictator: those who command “the military” as such, not merely those with command over some subordinates within it. (That is, not “the military” meaning the entire thing.)
That would also imply, among other things, that Henry Kissinger couldn’t have been a war criminal. When I google “Henry Kissinger,” the top suggestion after his name by itself is “Henry Kissinger war crimes.”
Even if you really wanted to limit the term in this very specific way, which does nobody any good, you could not do the same with “crimes against humanity.” So LOL I guess? No, not funny. Not LOL.
Wiki:
Notice how, to make the point again, “a government” and “a de facto authority” are not equivalent to “in the military.”
j***** f’n C*****!
what is it about elections that I get the feeling that people seem to think they are a once and for all thing?
That is what I am hearing when I hear people say that they will refuse to vote for ” the lesser of two evils”
if this was a war what they are saying is that they would not want to win one battle unless it is a final victory and wins the f”n war!
it is one g** d*****d election not the end of anything. there is not going to be one grand victory then paradise peace and prosperity truth and justice for ever and ever.
It is going to be one hard long slog with every victory hard won. If you actually look at the history that is how it has been up till now I see no reason to expect it to change any time soon.
the 2020 election is one election the stakes are high but I will push forward where ever I can.
make your stand declare loud and proud what you believe and will tolerate and hold those elected accountable to deliver what you want it is we the people not the POTUS that is important here.
don’t take you vote and with hold it because the choice is not a perfect person. It is not some “great leader” that is going to “fix it” that is what the old bald idiot who is POTUS now said.
In some ways a Biden presidency will be much like the Ford presidency acceptable by most but not particularly memorable. The only outcome I would find really encouraging would be the the POTUS and VPOTUS would succumb to the virus and the Speaker of the House take over in the interim.
now that would be interesting indeed
uncle frogy
@60
I wont argue war crimes I will just say the Josef Mengele was convicted for what he did, not invading Russia or bombing Britten or any other acts done by “The Third Reich”
Kissinger had direct policy influence and directed actions.
What power or authority did Biden have or what direct actions did he do that could be considered at a level with any of the others?
uncle frogy
As an outsider, I see the next American election thusly:
Vote for the Rabid Cheeto crime gang.
Vote for the possibly-a-rapist crime gang.
Vote for neither of the above. Note that this effectively gives half a vote to 1. or 2.
Only one of these voting choices will make your country less of a laughing stock in the eyes of the civilized world. Choose wisely.
I have enumerated before my opinions on all of this – the lesser evil is still evil, BUT…less. And that’s going to have to be good enough this November. Because even if, as some people hope, 8 years of Trump leads to a very progressive Democratic president in 2024, it will be too late; RBG will likely be dead by that point, and the Supreme Court will have a conservative majority for at least a decade, and likely more. So we can say goodbye to Medicare for All, because if the Court was willing to reverse key provisions of the ACA (noting that it was pretty balanced at the time, with Kennedy as the swing vote), I can’t imagine what they’d do to a more progressive alternative. And Roe v. Wade is already on thin ice…22 states are poised to make all abortions illegal the moment the Supreme Court declares that they have the right to do so. If Trump gets to name a third justice, the fight is over; even John Roberts, who we’re all depending on now to save Roe (and maybe that faith is misplaced, I don’t know), wouldn’t be able to do so.
Moreover, given what we know about Trump and his Russian propaganda team, every time someone starts accusing everyone who is pragmatic enough to realize that Biden is better than Trump of “gaslighting,” I start to wonder if that person is speaking their actual views of the situation, or just saying the things they think will most effectively convince progressives to not vote (or not vote for Biden), and thereby work to guarantee Trump a second term. This tactic was devastatingly effective in preventing people from voting for Clinton in 2016, so I don’t think it’s paranoid to have that concern in the back of my head when reading comments regarding the upcoming election on noted progressive websites like this one.
I believe Reade’s accusation. But (also, given what we know about Trump and his Russian propaganda team) the timing makes me think that she may be being used by powerful people to help Trump. Or perhaps more likely, she herself is using her justified anger to fuel a personal attack against Biden, trying to reclaim her power by bringing him, and everything he holds dear down. Otherwise, why wait until he’s the nominee before coming forth? She added her name to the list of people who accused Biden of inappropriate touching in April 2019. Her words back then were to the effect that she didn’t feel she was a victim of sexualization, instead comparing her ordeal at Biden’s hands to being treated like an inanimate object, like a lamp. That’s obviously horrifying, objectification, but it’s not sexual assault. The Democrats proceeded with their plans to support Biden…had there been a credible assault allegation against him at the time (a year ago), I strongly doubt that would have happened. Fearing a repeat of 2016, they’d have thrown their weight behind another milquetoast centrist without an assault allegation hanging over his/her head. And then, finally on March 25, 2020, AFTER Biden had already defeated Sanders (well…not officially, but the primary was in the books by that point, there was no way for Sanders to recover), she drops her bombshell. It strikes me as awfully convenient for Trump that things should go down this way, that’s all.
And normally, I’d be right behind her, cheering her on. But her victory is the American people’s loss (and the world’s, truly). We can’t have 4 more years of Trump…it’s NOT an option. The amount of damage he can do is just unfathomable. And if HE goes and dies (given that he’s someone who famously doesn’t exercise, and that his diet is extremely unhealthy), we’d have to deal with Pence, and honestly, that scares me WAY more. I am hoping that progressives have learned their lesson from 2016, and will not be so easily manipulated by bad actors this time around…but I fear that this hope is misplaced, and we’re in for another 4 years of Trump. And that should scare people far more than the blow their “personal integrity” will take if they vote for Biden (who is possibly a rapist).
People are throwing around “war criminal” and “rapist” the way the RWNJs throw around “traitor”. Get over yourselves and at least use a charge that has a basis in fact and would be supportable in a court.
Re: unclefroggy @ #61…
Nice post.
I’ve spent a lifetime voting for the “lesser of two evils”. This is mostly because both major parties keep running really awful candidates and the Republicans keep nominating absolutely appalling ones. The only election I recall where I was happy with the choices in the general election was the US Senate race in California is 2016. I would have be quite content whichever candidate won, and it happens my (slightly) preferred one did. (For those that don’t recall it, it came down to a choice between Kamala Harris and Loretta Sanchez.)
First, a few questions?
(1) At a level with whom or with what? Do we need levels, how many levels count for these purposes, and how does one go about determining these things? I don’t think we need to make claims about exactly what is “at a level” with what, and we’re better off if we can think clearly and make good decisions without a very definite answer to those kinds of questions.
(2) Why ask for “direct” ones, when you already conceded that “indirect” ones also matter? I mean, you’re not claiming that Kissinger murdered somebody directly or by his own hand, but rather that he influenced policy and so forth. He also certainly could have done much less than he actually did, while still being guilty, so the threshold had better be somewhat lower if we’re going to be consistent about it.
Biden was pushing to take out Saddam in 1998, in the Armed Services committee. That is of course five years before the invasion of Iraq … and obviously prior to the 9/11 hysteria which purportedly caused him to vote on the AUMF in 2001. He was a leading supporter of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, before it even became fashionable. He chaired the Senate Foreign Relations committee at the time, from 2001-2003. None of this should be news to anyone, although I’m sure it is for some.
If you want to blame the POTUS and the VP and the Secretary of Defense, you certainly can. Most don’t seem to have a problem blaming Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld. You could also blame the Republican party as a whole, tons of people in the media … lots of responsibility to go around, really. But what you can’t say is that many Dems (and Biden specifically) had nothing to do with it. In fact, they did have lots of real power, and that is how they used it.
@daverytier 50
Why are you asking me about that unsourced thing? You’re the one who has a claim about sexual predators. I’ll think about addressing that when you source it and address your original claim which I still don’t believe.
sorry if that was unclear but I meant at the same level as Josef Mengele and Slobodan Milošević
I was under the impression that at one point Kissinger did do some directing of the war efforts i could be wrong however
uncle frogy
Can some explain the “timing” complaint? I didn’t see it with Ford and I don’t see with Reade. It looks like people are complaining about someone being politically effective with timing. That’s evidence of wanting to have an impact, not evidence of an accusation being untrue. “How dare they choose a time that makes things inconvenient for me or beneficial to them!”
Despite Robert Heinlein’s other wooly ideas, this one makes rather a lot of sense:
“If you are part of a society that votes, then do so. There may be no candidates and no measures you want to vote for … but there are certain to be ones you want to vote against. In case of doubt, vote against. By this rule you will rarely go wrong.”
There’s also a quote about the difference between good and bad vs. the difference between bad and worse. I think the latter describes the current situation.
Years ago, a friend told me there was one situation in which he would abstain from voting; if the choice was between Margaret Thatcher and Armageddon.
Rob, is your point that your friend was saying he’d never abstain, since Armageddon is not ever going to be a candidate?
Brony:
Someone already did: VolcanoMan @64.
And this is why we may have have 4 more years of Trump, evidence for rape is iffy, we could not get the perfect candidate, so fuck it and the 2 party system. I don’t like the choices so I am taking my ball and going home. So if trump is elected we will again have article after article on trumps disaster of the hour on this and other web sites.
We will have a 7-2 Supreme court going the wrong way. No Post Office. NO environment. No women’s choice.
This is not voting for the lesser of 2 evils. This is the difference between saying the earth is flat (trump) and the earth is a sphere (Biden) . Both are wrong but given a choice of voting for the lesser of wrongs, the vote is clear.
We lost the previous most important election of our lifetime. Now people here are saying this one doesn’t matter since they don’t like the choices or the two party system. What exactly does it take to say there is no more important objective than defeating trump and the republicans in this one? We may not have the tools of your choosing, but these are the tools we have.
This is not voting for the lesser of 2 evils. This is the difference between saying the earth is flat (trump) and the earth is a sphere (Biden) . Both are wrong but given a choice of voting for the lesser of wrongs, the vote is clear.
We lost the previous most important election of our lifetime. Now people here are saying this one doesn’t matter since they don’t like the choices or the two party system. What exactly does it take to say there is no more important objective than defeating trump and the republicans in this one? We may not have the tools of your choosing, but these are the tools we have.
And this is why we may have have 4 more years of Trump, evidence for rape is iffy, we could not get the perfect candidate, so fuck it and the 2 party system. I don’t like the choices so I am taking my ball and going home. So if trump is elected we will again have article after article on trumps disaster of the hour on this and other web sites.
We will have a 7-2 Supreme court going the wrong way. No Post Office. NO environment. No women’s choice. No DOJ – our democracy will be lost.
To say the earth is flat and the earth is a sphere are both wrong but if I must vote I am voting for the sphere.
I am not sure EXACTLY what it will take for some people here to realize the most important thing in this election is defeating trump and the republicans.
John @73: The point was a hyperbolic one about the awfulness of Thatcher. You seem to have a problem recognizing figures of speech.
Heh. So, that was not your point.
So, Rob, what is your point in claiming your friend thought Thatcher was awful to a degree that he’d never vote for her even though her opponent was a place often used metonymically for the Christian mythical final war at the end of time?
Are you suggesting that Biden is so very awful that one should not vote for him, though his opponent is Trump? Are you suggesting that Biden is akin to Thatcher?
As for figures of speech, I recognise them; their supposed relevance to the topic at hand, not-so-much. Thus my questions.
John @79: I dub thee “Two Short Planks” Morales.
Rob, fair enough. I dub thou “Mr. Evasive”.
(And you’ve just been the recipient of 2×4)
Just to say that the whole Democratic party is poison. What is their maybe second or third most “primary” concern, based on the number of damned emails I get all the time? “Which traitor to their liberal ideals, who, when it became obvious who the party wanted, immediately endorsed him, should run as Biden’s Vice President?”
Arghhh!
Back to the same stupid argument that not voting for someone is the same as voting for someone else. It does sound stupid as fuck when you put it like this, doesn’t it? Because it is. Not voting for Biden is not voting for Trump. Voting for Trump is voting for Trump.
You are free to vote for Biden with a clear conscious and you are free to not vote for him with a clear conscious as well. You are not morally responsible for the shitty choices other people make.
@John Morales 74
Thank you.
@VolcanoMan
Re: Russians. That’s literal prejudgement without actual reasons. You take the claim seriously in this society.
Re: Timing. The timing is irrelevant to the existence of the claim.
I don’t accept that Biden can be guilty and not be president. And very much want an investigation. I will have a society that takes these accusations seriously. We elect him and I will shame everyone involved. I’ve heard it’s past the statute of limitations even. It’s fitting symbol for what we are.
“Her words back then were to the effect that she didn’t feel she was a victim of sexualization, instead comparing her ordeal at Biden’s hands to being treated like an inanimate object, like a lamp. That’s obviously horrifying, objectification, but it’s not sexual assault.”
No shit it’s not sexual assault. So what?
“The Democrats proceeded with their plans to support Biden…had there been a credible assault allegation against him at the time (a year ago), I strongly doubt that would have happened.”
They covered up torture in front of the whole country. You be more cynical.
“Fearing a repeat of 2016, they’d have thrown their weight behind another milquetoast centrist without an assault allegation hanging over his/her head. And then, finally on March 25, 2020, AFTER Biden had already defeated Sanders (well…not officially, but the primary was in the books by that point, there was no way for Sanders to recover), she drops her bombshell.”
I haven’t seen you quote it even once. Have you listened to the interview?
“It strikes me as awfully convenient for Trump that things should go down this way, that’s all.”
That’s literally not all, you have a lot of material before this. You seem like a bullshitter.
“And normally, I’d be right behind her, cheering her on. But her victory is the American people’s loss (and the world’s, truly). We can’t have 4 more years of Trump…it’s NOT an option.”
It literally is an option. We can start the civil disobedience tomorrow you know.
“The amount of damage he can do is just unfathomable. And if HE goes and dies (given that he’s someone who famously doesn’t exercise, and that his diet is extremely unhealthy), we’d have to deal with Pence, and honestly, that scares me WAY more. I am hoping that progressives have learned their lesson from 2016, and will not be so easily manipulated by bad actors this time around…but I fear that this hope is misplaced, and we’re in for another 4 years of Trump. And that should scare people far more than the blow their “personal integrity” will take if they vote for Biden (who is possibly a rapist).”
Most of us deserve Donald Trump, some far more than others. Not native peoples.
But that’s why I’m doing all the shaming. I agree that we need to elect Joe Biden. But not at the cost of my values. You’ve shown me that I can’t rely on you. It’s shaming time.
lotharloo, you think this is not a two-party election? Because if not, it is not a “stupid argument”, but rather a fact.
Here:
Short of one of them becoming incapacitated, the only two candidates who realistically can gain a majority of the (popular) votes are Trump and Biden. This much has already been determined.
The “popular vote” (i.e. what other systems call “the vote”) will be won by whichever candidate gains the most votes.
Trump will get X votes, Biden will get Y votes.
If X > Y, then Trump will be the popular vote winner.
For every person Z who is eligible to vote but does not vote for Biden. the criterion becomes whether X > (Y – Z).
Can you see how, as Z increases, so does the likelihood of Trump becoming the winner of the popular vote?
—
As I’ve noted before, how people vote is pretty irrelevant, since the USA has only 538 actual electors — remember how Hillary exceeded Trump’s popular vote by nearly 3 million?
There isn’t a “no politics” clause to sexual assault claims, or rape claims political behavior notwithstanding.
@John Morales:
So, let me try again. Your claim is that if you have two candidates X and Y then not voting for X is the same as voting for Y, right? Am I correct? right, right right? So by this stupid logic, not voting for Y is also the same as voting for X which also means not voting for X and Y is the same voting for X and Y! Fucking logic how does it work!
@83
true but you will still suffer the consequences none the less. and if the vote is in any way close then your abstention has consequences.
but you can be so guilt free in your righteousness
uncle frogy
lotharloo:
[X > (Y – Z)] ≡ [(X + Z) > Y]
Quiet, so an addendum:
[1] is perfectly correct, in the sense of the outcome. It’s the converse – the variable’s referents change, but the inequality doesn’t.
[1a] I note that, for various reasons, I think there will be less Republicans not voting for Trump due to such considerations than Democrats. Alas.
[2] One can’t vote for X and Y, only for either X or Y. That’s the rule.
So even if your objection were logically sound, it would be out of scope.
[heh. s/b fewer, not less. Sad!]
Fuck, I’d vote for a tardigrade if it meant getting Lord Dampnut out of office!
The only way not voting for Biden/voting against Biden can be defended is if you can show that it will lead to neither Biden nor Trump being president in 2021.
Otherwise, you are making the case that a Trump second term (SCOTUS pick, Trump cabinet, plus the new people he’ll replace many posts with) will be better than a Biden administration. This, of course, renders you a piece of shit.
In 4 years, US Democrats will be arguing whether you should vote for the Dem candidate and Lesser of Two Evil (TM) Ivanka Trump lest the Republican candidate Alex Jones wins.
You are playing a losing game.
I understand the problem of whether or not support the Lesser of Two Evil, but is this the real problem?
Seriously, whether you want or not to vote for the LoTE, you are not enemies.
You should be storming the DNC with torches and pitchforks and demand a complete overhaul of the primary system, because the “Democratic” party right now sucks at democracy.
Otherwise.. I guess Ivanka Trump is better than Alex Jones…?
@94 Thanks, again, for reminding everyone that the game is rigged. So, who the F about giving us a useful way to unrig the game? Because otherwise, “I refuse to participate in the decision as to who would be burned at the stake.” – and this isn’t far from the truth when it comes to some of the insane crap the GOP wants to pull on some groups of people, isn’t going to do a damn thing to stop you, me, your family member, a neighbor, etc. from being on the next list of people they plan to do that with. It means fuck all that you don’t want to participate in the rigged system, you can’t, “get out of the system”, especially if you vote for the party that is using the system to build bonfires.
F.O. #94
Translate this into an actionable plan that can be carried out with result by November.
Saad @ 96
Because the DNC letting the Democratic members vote who to run in the general is SOOO ‘un-Democratic’ /s
That is where F.O. shows how unmoored they are from the rest of the universe.
Again, here are the arguments, from otherwise sensible people (mostly) that make absolutely no sense. Saad said it much more clearly and concisely than I can, but, Jesus, how can anyone honestly think that not voting for Biden is a morally justifiable, and logically sound thing to do? If you do not vote for Biden, Trump’s chances of winning go up. There is no factual way around that.
And there is no moral way around it, either. Trump or Biden. One will be elected in November. What you do, or don’t do, will have a bearing on that. If you choose to help Trump get another four years — and by NOT voting for Biden, you WILL do that — ‘This, of course, renders you a piece of shit.’ (– Saad, 13 May, 2020).
How can this be difficult?
It’s not by November, it’s by the next election in 2024.
But if dem voters where using the same anger that they are reserving for each other on the Biden debate, the DNC would have fallen already.
Stop spending your energies on the Least Evil problem and start demanding primary reform.
Post on social media.
Talk to people.
Reach out.
You know, the stuff that Americans know perfectly well to do but only reserve for electing a candidate.
Biden’s task forces have been announced.
Co-chairs of the climate change task force: AOC and John Kerry
Co-chairs of the health care task force: Pramila Jayapal and Vivek Murthy
All of them are at this link.
“@fshakir told me Sanders spent hours deciding who would go on the task forces and didn’t pick any ‘shrinking violets’ but also chose people who will actually compromise. He said the Biden campaign seems to be taking progressive input seriously with these panels.”
(I’ve been reading China Miéville’s October: The Story of the Russian Revolution and trying to imagine how things would’ve turned out had Twitter been around then. The Lenin Bros would have been exhausting.)
@consciousness razor, at what point is someone responsible for war crimes? Obviously, case law settled that leaders, including civilian leaders are responsible for war crimes. That was settled after WWII.
But, what of advisors and when are they responsible? Is an advisor only responsible if they have an official paid capacity of advisor, official unpaid capacity of advisor, citizen advising leadership via a posted letter?
That part isn’t settled, either in case law or even informed opinion, with opinions ranging from only leaders to even Joe Citizen writing a letter, even to a populace supporting said government and well, everything in between.
I’m of the view that an advisor who regularly informs a leader of ideas and options, whether paid or unpaid is potentially responsible, but not an average citizen merely writing a letter.
For those interested, our youngest has gotten sicker, SPO2 around 80 at times, body aches and fever. Her RN sister remains observant as to what is going on, suggesting that she go to the hospital when the SPO2 dropped.*
*RN sister is quarantined from possible, negative result testing for 14 days, which has now been extended until her younger sister recovers, plus 10 days. RN sister also has to take precautions to prevent spread of contagion to her children and husband.
@68 Brony, Social Justice Cenobite ,@57 komarov
Link to my source https://tinyurl.com/yb7gouy7
@57 komarov
Of course, not all rapes are perpretrated by sexual predators. But what’s described is a sexual predator.
Seems I missstated my claim. It’s not that if more speak up, nobody will turn against them. It’s simply the majority is far more likely to believe identical claims from several women, than just a single one.
Hey, stop it. I am not making a claim that strong. In such cases deciding just based on a single data point would be foolish. What I wanted to point out was more along the probabilistic lines – It’s one of the reasons why I consider the accusation not credible. There are several others. Each alone would not be sufficient. But together I think they more than suffice.
Lol you don’t get it that talking about consequences to people subscribing to deontological ethics is irrelevant ? In deontological ethics consequences don’t even enter the equation. If the rule is “stealing is wrong”, then stealing is wrong. Period. Consequences don’t matter. Snatching terrorist’s gun is as wrong as stealing granny’s last insulin injection.
Voting for a flawed candidate is wrong. You must vote for a candidate you identify with. Consequences don’t matter. Or even worse, their moral desirability is determined by the action – if the righteous action results in the end of the world, then the world ought end. If the wrong action saves it, then it’s continued existence is a wrong.
Want to know how they think, imagine them being a HAL 9000 like A.I. that got programmed with a list of must and must nots. And is meticulously executing them, irrespective of, and thus inevitably at the expense of everything else.
I do not wish to discount the issue of voting for someone whom you don’t particularly like (to put it mildly) in an election, but I keep hearing that people are only voting against Trump, not for Biden, that he is just like any other Republican.
And I have to keep myself from laughing too hard since Biden’s agenda is the most liberal since FDR. It’s like nobody has actually paid attention to the policies and programs he has put forward. This is just like 2016 when, despite Clinton talking about policy all the time, nobody actually knew what any of it was because the only media coverage of her was about her “electability” and her emails!!!!!!1!!1!1!!1!
So, ignoring the very white-privilege comments (Biden is the nominee because black people voted for him…the black vote is the core of the Democratic party. Black women in particular. No Democratic candidate for President has won the white vote in 50 years. Despite winning 6 of the last 7 elections, the only way the Democratic candidate wins the White House is when the black vote comes out to overpower the split in the white vote.)…where was I? Oh, yes. Ignoring the very white-privilege comments, here are some things to vote for:
2 years of community college/vocational training, tuition-free
Expansion of Pell Grants to include expenses beyond tuition
Doubling value of Pell Grants
Public higher education tuition-free for those earning less than $125K
Reform of student loans to include no interest if earning less than $25K, forgiveness after 20 years, forgiveness of $10K/year for public service
Forgiveness of loans connected to predatory for-profit institutions
Elimination of 90/10 loophole
Bankruptcy reform to include student loans
Investment in HBCU and other MSI to ensure they are not undercut by tuition-free education at public colleges, that they have infrastructure, and that Title III and V are available to them
Green New Deal
Infrastructure for roads, bridges, power grid, water distribution in recognition of climate change
Recommitment to Paris Agreement
Action against those companies that target poor and minority communities like Flint and Harlan.
Reversing Trump tax cut
End subsidies for fossil fuel companies
Ban sale of assault weapons and high-capacity magazines
Regulate existing assault weapons under National Firearms Act
Buy-back of existing assault weapons and high-capacity magazines
Restrictions on number of firearms allowed to purchase
Universal background check, including for kits and 3D printing
Close boyfriend, hate crime, Charleston, and fugitive from justice loopholes
Straw purchasing to avoid a background check a federal crime
Notification to law enforcement in failure of background check
Require lost/stolen guns to be reported
End online sales of firearms and ammunition
Reestablish and expand the Violence Against Women Act
Expansion of lethality assessments in cases of domestic violence
Expansion of housing assistance and ensuring Fair Housing Act protections remain in place
Allocation of money to programs like TANF to ensure survivors have funds to reestablish their lives
Amend tax code to allow domestic violence as a hardship withdrawal from retirement savings
Paid leave for domestic violence, sexual assault, stalking victims to obtain care, find housing, go to court
Strengthen Title IX and Clery Act and undo Betsy DeVos’s disastrous handling
And that’s just a tiny bit of it. Nobody talks about this. This doesn’t even touch upon the expansion to the ACA, including a public option (remember when we were all clamoring for that?)
So even if you don’t think this is the best solution, the idea that this is some sort of “corporatist” or “conservative” (neo- or otherwise) or “Republican-lite” agenda simply flies in the face of reality. Speaking of reality, hardly any of this can be accomplished without Congress. And unless we can somehow acquire a supermajority in the Senate, most of this will never happen. The Republicans in Congress will do to Biden what they did to Obama. So make sure you get out to vote no matter what and make sure that no Republican gets to stay in power anywhere.
But, that isn’t quite the point of this post. It’s to show that there are lots of reasons to vote for Biden. If you truly are in support of the things you claim to support, Biden is a decent choice. He is for the things you say you are for.
rrhain, this makes good sense. The only argument I might make is that this is what Biden says he will do, and those of us who would rather have someone else as our candidate are looking at what he’s actually done in the past.
Still, he will have — heck, after today’s announcement (see SC’s comment 100), he already has — people working for him who have shown that they are both firm believers in good causes and also willing to speak up when they need to.
So, thanks!
@daverytier 102
Where’s that support for your claim about sexual predators?
If you’re going to abandon that without a word I’m going to think of ways of being annoying.
@106. Again. It is not my claim. Link to the source is in my previous comment.
@rrhain 104
You can talk about that stuff. That’s your job. You’re doing it right now. You make the positive case and anyone else who wants to. How about you just do it instead of getting other people to do it?
And me and others point out the negative things that still need pointing out. For the parties and candidates. Unfortunately that includes the fact that Biden can say whatever and I don’t necessarily believe he’s going to get it or really wants it. I felt good about Obama at the start too.
@daverytier 107
Yes it is your claim, you brought it here. It doesn’t matter if it’s someone else that made it, you offered it as support. If you aren’t willing to work with it I have no reason to give a shit about it.
Do you even support whatever that is or did it just look politically convenient to you?
@109. So I have to prove my sources ? With what ? Other sources ? Then I would of course have to recursively prove those too. And then those too, ad infinitum. Demand infinite proof from the other side and preventively accuse of bad faith. You know what ? I think you are projecting and the one not arguing in good faith is you.
@ Brony, Social Justice Cenobite 108
“My job”? I don’t recall getting paid. I’m not a volunteer for Biden and I didn’t vote for him in the primary (Warren was my choice.) This is me simply paying attention to the candidate and doing homework.
Interesting that you seem to be upset that someone is actually pointing out reasons to vote for Biden. I do bring this up. I’m bringing it up now. The point is that when I see people complaining about how they think the election is about “not Trump” instead of “for Biden,” it’s almost always because they don’t know what Biden is for, despite it being very easy to find out. Did the supporters of other candidates go to Biden rallies to hear him speak of his agenda? Have they visited his web site to see the policies? He’s been broadcasting throughout this epidemic…has anybody actually watched them? No? Then can anybody who is claiming that he’s “Republican-lite” honestly make that claim? As I pointed out, this is just like 2016. Clinton was talking about policy all the time, but nobody seemed to know what it was because it was never part of the narrative. It was all about “electability” and “her emails!!!1!!1!!1!”
Let’s take Warren. Her schtick was, “She has a plan for that.” And “everybody knows” that she had plans for everything.
Does anybody know what they actually were? For example, I heard some Sanders supporters saying that only he had a plan for Medicare for All and denigrate Warren for that when in reality, she also had a plan and one that got to the point of single-payer, universal coverage in 3 years whereas Sanders’ plan was in 4. They didn’t actually know what Sanders’ plan was. They only knew the buzzwords and many simply thought it would happen immediately.
People know the narrative. They don’t necessarily know the details.
And as for your last bit, do you honestly think Sanders or any other candidate would be able to get it? Sanders, who can’t get anything done in the Senate and witnessed first-hand how even a minority-Republican Senate can stop everything, would somehow magically break the Republican stranglehold on legislation? The White House is important, but Congress is right up there and arguably even more so when it comes to actually achieving an agenda. No matter how wonderful a Presidential candidate there is to be nominated, it means nothing without a Congress to create the legislation.
“Or really wants it.” And that’s what it comes down to. No trust. OK. Nobody can change your mind. No amount of evidence will ever be able to counter someone’s lack of trust. Despite him surrounding himself with the staff and advisors and people who you would think would work to achieve this agenda, you don’t trust him.
Time for the cliche: No candidate is perfect. That’s why there are elections, so you can consolidate the progress you’ve made and elect a new person who can build and achieve more. You don’t think the Republicans managed to snatch control of everything overnight, do you? Nixon and Reagan, despite being near saint and near god to the Republicans, couldn’t get elected in the current Republican party. They were merely stepping stones.
But like I said, I can’t do anything about your lack of trust.
Author of the text I quoted :
“Stanton Samenow, Ph.D., is an expert in criminal behavior. He is the author of many books including Inside the Criminal Mind.” (it’s in the same article, if you think I am lying, go check it out)
.
That’s a source credible enough all on its own… for people who don’t have an ax to grind, anyway.
@103
“Voting for a flawed candidate is wrong. You must vote for a candidate you identify with. Consequences don’t matter. Or even worse, their moral desirability is determined by the action – if the righteous action results in the end of the world, then the world ought end. If the wrong action saves it, then it’s continued existence is a wrong.”
The essence of the nihilistic Berner, distilled to its purest form.
cf. Fundamentalist religion.
@113. More like fundamentalists in search of a religion. But otherwise correct. This is the same mindset as christian or muslim fundamentalists.
@111
Thank you for pointing out that people do not actually know what they are talking about because bad actors spun a narrative and are intrnt in keeping it.
2016 i was part of the anti clinton feel the bern movement. Once it became clear he wasnt going to win I looked into Clinton and realized something. Shes very flawed but no where in hell as bad as my side was making her out to be. Then the conspiracies started rolling around propagated by my side. I realized this movement have been taken over by liars and idiots. Maybe its always been. 2020 is here and nothing changed. Didnt expect it to.
I have heard argued (here and elsewhere) that another 4 years of Trump will be a good thing, because it will make enough people mad, destroy the DNC, and guarantee a progressive president in 2024. I hate to burst bubbles here, but I see no evidence that this is likely. For one, RBG almost certainly isn’t going to last another 4 years (man, I’m just hoping she can last until January)…this means that the Supreme Court will have an unimpeachable conservative majority for the foreseeable future (10-20 years…and longer if Breyer, who’s 81 now, is also replaced by a conservative justice). Hence, even if progressive Democrats can win the presidency and both branches of Congress in 2024 (which is going to be difficult, since even the current Supreme Court will almost certainly allow any number of policies whose effects include voter suppression and gerrymandering to go through between now and 2024), the Court will be able to obstruct any and all progressive bills that Democrats might try to pass. There’s no way something like Medicare for All, or even a public option will stand such a situation, given how the much more conservative ACA was gutted by the courts. Moreover, say goodbye to Roe v. Wade…remember – 22 states have laws on the books NOW that will take effect if Roe is overturned, ending abortion in their borders. And while these measures may be opposed eventually (and possibly reversed), only state politicians will be able to reverse these measures, so Democratic control at the federal level won’t matter in the least.
More importantly, all of the above presupposes that America is still recognizable after 4 years. Trump has successfully demolished American politics and decimated important institutions (like the State Department) in just 3 years…give him another 4, and I don’t know what America will look like. I don’t know that the institutions that have (barely) kept things running (poorly) will continue to hold things together in the absence of any TRUST in their officials, in an age when nobody’s motives are taken at face value, and when every single issue is politicized. America’s already had one civil war…how much death and destruction would take place in a second one, with modern weaponry and massive population density in the largely Democratic cities? It is NOT hyperbolic to suggest that there’s a very real chance that if Trump has 4 more years to work with, there won’t BE an America (or at least an America that we recognize) in 2024. I would hope that the Covid crisis has taught people to not take things for granted…the chaos that Trump has helped usher in since SARS-CoV-2 first appeared on American shores has been disturbing to witness, but it is still orders of magnitude less severe than what would happen if the Union falls apart.
I have heard arguments for civil disobedience, for local action, protests, that sort of thing…these are all great ideas! They are also NOT things that require abstaining from voting in November (or voting for a 3rd party)…one can take the pragmatic approach of voting for the lesser evil (who is still…LESS evil, who will keep things going, maybe help to pass some useful legislation, and certainly cause far less damage to America than Trump would) and also do those things that might have a large effect on what happens in your own jurisdiction.
Finally, I do understand that there is a philosophical difference of opinion here, and that people who are arguing against Biden may indeed be deontologically-motivated. I would ask these people to consider the future…the people who will suffer and die under Trump who would not under Biden. The people all over the world whose lives will be made worse because of a lack of action on climate change NOW, when we can still maybe have an impact, compared to later, when it will cost ten times as much to have a smaller impact (and thus those actions will be EVEN MORE politically untenable, given the extreme cost for little benefits). We don’t have forever to deal with these problems, and while other nations are taking actions on this critical issue we all face, every country on Earth is subject to America’s whims here, since without action from America (and China…which is actually doing MORE than the US right now), the future is bleak. Americans are in control of the future of humanity right now, which is a very unfair situation to be faced with for the rest of the world (including for people in my own country…I am making these arguments from Canada…and while actions taken by me and those who agree with me, protesting the new pipelines that are being built here, and the environmental degradation that has resulted from tar sands mining, might have a small impact, without leadership from America, that impact will be unimportant in the long run). To put your own ethics above the very real harms that you can play a part in preventing is selfish. Voting for Biden can make life better for some people and prevent making life worse for millions (potentially billions)…doing otherwise, especially given the foe you face, those who will gleefully vote for Trump in November – people who WANT to continue the destruction of everything we hold dear, people who are looking forward to the end of the world – is inexcusable.
rrhain@104,
Yes, yes, yes, but apart from that, what is the difference between Biden and Trump????
During my moment of realization that the left I once stood by has been corrupted (2016), a friend of mine after trying to convince me to not vote for Hillary told me that “you cant let corruption win” and he began ti walk away as if it was some kind of full proof argument. I had to stop him and ask “by letting bigger corruption win? Trump is the nost corrupt business man who ever lived and he will be the nost corrupt president we’ve ever seen. How can you fight corruption by allowing the bigger corruption win?”
He answered that with “allowing fascists to win will lead to a communist revolution in the future.” And when I said ” people like me (bisexuals and lgbtq) tend to be victims of such things” gis response was ” buy some guns and join the revolution”.
Later in the conversation he asks “come on. You dont really think hes going to win, do you?”. I told him theres a lot of people who dont like Hillary and even less having a woman as president. The Trump voter in the group said” thats a good thing actually”. Later they kicked me out for being an SJW. He was thr only trumper, the rest were left or liberal in the group.
I was made to be seen as the illogical one. Not the trumper. Me. Of course this an anecdote, but I see shades of this behavior among the entire left including this forum. I see the white, hetero, cis male privlege ( although neither of my two friends were white lets be real here.) I see the useless and ridiculous fantasy of having a leftist platform after another 8 years of trump when historicaly for the past 60 years making the presidency more right wing lead to a more right wing democratic party because you push the overton windown to the right. I see the virtue signaling in fighting corruption while enableing it. I see the dishonesty and the conspiracies in painting the centrist candidate way worse than they actually are in order to advance purity politics. And worse of all I see the partnership and/or enableing of the Right.
@daverytier 110
Explain why that quote is convincing to you. How it relates to the situation. How does show that predators have to have multiple victims?
You asked me a question about that quote and that’s got things backwards. Why should I care about it? I can keep pointing out that you’ve given me no reason to believe sexual predators have to have a particular victim pattern.
@rrhain 111
This is how you introduced your positives.
“I do not wish to discount the issue of voting for someone whom you don’t particularly like (to put it mildly) in an election, but I keep hearing that people are only voting against Trump, not for Biden, that he is just like any other Republican.”
All you had to do was start discussing the positives, the rest isn’t particularly accurate so I consider you discounting. Otherwise I like the positives you mentioned.
@daverytier 112
You can whine about sourcing your information, doing your job, all you want. That’s a flaw I can use. I recommend you fix it.
Sorry in my last comment it should read “…even more do not want a woman president.”
I hate typing by phone.
Hey Brony.
Whats so innaccurate about @111?
And as for this “Explain why that quote is convincing to you. How it relates to the situation. How does show that predators have to have multiple victims?”
You didnt ask me this question but im answering it anyways. 1) it comes from an expert. You know the people we rely on for information. 2) its a pattern corroborated by other experts of rape victims, the MeToo movement, and law enforcement. The FBI had the rape rate for women very high but the amount of perps for men very low. The disparity was due to repeat offenses. Does this mean that you HAVE to have multiple accusations? Depends. For someone like Biden’s age and position…yes. Ive never seen otherwise. When you have that much power, influence, and control as he had decades ago before MeToo getting away with rape was piss easy. So there was never just one. These are aspects of rape culture I learned in this very forum from former victims fighting against the rape apologists during the “DeepRifts”.
Also maybe read the fucking link?
@Brony, Social Justice Cenobite:
Yes, I want to acknowledge that there are other factors to decide why someone may or may not vote for someone. The only thing I wished to engage was the attitude that the only reason to vote for Biden is that he’s “not Trump,” that there is no reason to vote for Biden, only reasons to vote against Trump.
And thus, I was showing that there are reasons to vote for Biden. Many good things. Many things that people who claim to be liberal claim to support that Biden also supports. That the claim that he’s “corporatist” and “conservative” and “Republican lite” simply isn’t true.
That doesn’t mean anybody has to like him or want to vote for him. But make sure that the reason you don’t want to vote for him is not simply a narrative somebody fed you. Make sure you (generic) understand that you are not voting for him not because he doesn’t support your agenda. He does. You’re (generic) not voting for him because of something else and you (generic) are willing to sacrifice that agenda for that something else.
Sometimes that’s the right thing to do. The robber barons made huge donations to society. That doesn’t justify how they got that money and it is understandable why some people don’t like it. It’s the argument made regarding Buttigieg and his acceptance of donations from wealthy donors.
And that goes back to my other point: Trust. If you don’t trust the candidate, then all bets are off.
daverytier @103:
There are consequentialist arguments for not voting for Biden. One example I’ve seen, paraphrased from memory:
VolcanoMan mentions another one @116.
Whether or not you agree with the arguments, it’s incorrect to suggest that the only arguments for not voting for Biden are deontological.
As an aside, the consequentialist arguments I’ve seen for not voting for Biden often involve looking further than just this election and its immediate consequences. Some of them are accelerationist, but many aren’t.
=====
rrhain @104:
A lot of people seem to be dismissing that because of his past record (only ended declared support for the Hyde amendment when it was politically necessary, functionally supported segregation, repeatedly said no to medicare for all, etc). On top of that Biden is associated with Obama’s administration, which failed to deliver on several of it promises (e.g., closing Gitmo). Plenty of people know about his policy proposals but don’t believe him.
I think the anti-Biden arguments proffered here are more akin to virtue ethics than deontological.
dreikin @ 125;
So a conjectured 8 years of climate inaction (nihilism is such fun) vs a proven additional 4 years of climate degradation. With the strong chance that the guy coming in afterwards, elected despite not being pure enough (that will be a sure bet), will NOT be able to fix the damage caused in the time they are in office.
Literally an argument in favour of ‘Let the World Burn! That will show then Less Pure!’
Wow, that’s two minutes blaming China and crying about the stockmarket and half a sentence about all those dead people and the devastation of communities.
Biden really IS the worst, but actually he might get those white people to vote for him because they care more about the stockmarket than people as well
+++
Also a big fat “fuck you” to all the dudes here going “she was not raped because I don’t want her to be saying the truth”. Congratulations, you’re part of rape culture.
You know, you can actually acknowledge moral difficulties and contradictions and understand that life is messy and absolutely not fair, that this election puts decent people between a rock and a hard place, but instead you just go “nanana, I can’t hear you, b*tches be lying
To vote “against” malignant candidates, one must vote third party. The Democrats — including, I can say in advance, each and every person who objects to this comment, whether they do so out loud or not — have become too much a part of the problem for any decent, sane, informed person to do otherwise.
Vicar:
Depends on your definition; voting “against” someone normally means attempting to ensure that someone does not get elected.
Note that I’m not a Democrat. You USAnians are so bloody insular…
(Also, it’s revealing that you think no Democrats are decent, sane, or informed; clearly then, you are not one such)
… I did like the wording.
The advocacy against Trump’s opponent:
vote third party in a de facto two-party race.
The “plausible” deniability:
anyone who is not the candidate subject to the vote “against”.
The overall message:
don’t vote for Democrats.
Not exactly subtle, but an effort nonetheless. Well done!
The Vicar, #129
So you’re against Clinton or Biden being president from 2017-2024 but not against Trump being president from 2017-2024. Brilliant. Wow. So progressive. So much caring about the welfare of the country and the marginalized!
I always thought you were some right-wing troll that PZ and all the regulars here just tolerated for some reason, but now you’re making it more and more obvious.
@John Morales:
If you care about the arithmetic difference between the number of votes of Trump and Biden, then yes, “subtracting one vote from Biden” is equivalent to “adding one vote for Trump”. But the whole point is that you do not have to consider your voting right as a mathematical contest.
Basically, I am questioning the moral equivalence of “not voting for Biden” and “subtracting one vote from Biden”. Those two things are not the same.
Let’s start from the fact that each citizen has a very complex set of preferences, even if you are given two candidates X and Y: you may want to vote for X or Y, you may want to vote against X or Y, you may like both of them, you may like none of them and so on. In this particular election, almost everyone here wants to votes against Trump, meaning, nobody wants Trump.
However, the way the elections are designed and interpreted in US, the votes for a candidate are considered votes for that candidate. You are counted as a supporter, meaning, it is assumed you also generally support the policies of the candidate you are voting for. Nobody is reporting the results of 2008 election as “69.5 million Americans votes against McCain but as only 60 million voted against Obama, we congratulate Obama as the least hated candidate.”
In other words, the system equates “a vote against X” with “a vote for Y”. The voting system is imperfect and it misrepresents the will of some voters. Now, you may not have a problem with it. You may be fine with your will being misinterpreted and misrepresented for the greater good, but you cannot dictate how someone else should feel about their own misrepresentation. If you want people who are morally responsible for electing Trump, blame those who vote for Trump. Period.
lotharloo, #133
What a silly idea to blame 60+ million adults who made conscious efforts to go out and voluntarily use their arm muscles to vote for Trump. Surely it’s the people who voted against Trump that are the problem.
The Vicar,
Sounds awesome on paper. It’s impossible in the real world we’re living in now, so the suggestion can be easily dismissed. Next.
@saad:
This is obviously sarcastic but I’m not sure I get what you mean.
lotharloo:
Dunno about the moral element, but the mathematical equivalence is inescapable given the circumstances. As you admitted.
I do partially agree with you, FWTW; in relation to the net difference in votes, each yields the same outcome, but outside that aspect, they are indeed not equivalent.
No, the math does. Remember, the very concept is the net difference in votes received.
@John Morales:
No. It’s how the system is designed because you have two options “Vote for X” or “Vote for Y” but another voting system could have “Vote against X/Y” options. Another voting system could have a preference list, “1st preference A, 2nd preference B, 1st vote against X, 2nd vote against Y”, and so on. While there is no perfect voting system that can accurately capture what everyone wants, there can be systems that reduce the misrepresentation of the voters.
This is not just some stupid pedantic stuff. Assume in the current system we allow people to vote against someone and your voting score is the total of votes you receive and votes against the other guy. From a mathematical point of view, it would be equivalent to the current system. But now imagine two scenarios: (1) In the current system, 100 million vote for Biden, 50 million vote for Trump. Biden delivers the biggest historical electoral defeat to Trump. (2) 40 million vote for Biden, 60 million vote against Trump, 40 million vote for Trump, 10 million vote against Biden. Mathematically (2) and (1) are equivalent but not from a policy point of view. The 2nd scenario is a fucking disaster for the establishment Democrats, it’s a disaster for Biden and Trump whereas in the 1st scenario the Democratic party can go on about “the American people have spoken, and they have chosen us! We have a mandate!” and they can go on about doing business as usual.
lotharloo:
Sure. But the system at hand is the system that currently exists, under which voting will occur. Also, there could be Peace on Earth, too… but I doubt I shall live to see that.
Hm, you make a good point. If things were different, things would be different.
But the subject at hand is the current election, not hypothetical voting systems.
—
PS (source: wikipedia, citation elided)
Results speak for themselves.
That’s the system citizens of the currently USA enjoy.
You, and I suppose anyone who wants some modicum of fairness, should probably want that changed to something fairer.
Hm.
Perhaps paradoxically, in the light of such facts, a fatalist perspective would possibly palliate angst about whether to withhold one’s vote for virtue (or perhaps deontology ;).
It really makes not that much difference.
dreikin, #125:
Although I didn’t phrase it explicitly in terms of consequentialism and what it entails, my comment #49 was arguing the consequences at hand, as well as whose actions are the primary causes of those effects, are being misconstrued by the pro-Biden contingent here (and elsewhere for that matter).
That doesn’t make it an argument “for not voting for Biden” but a criticism for those who treat that generic theory of ethics as if it actually supplied them with this particular normative conclusion (i.e., “we should all vote for Biden”). That’s simply not how it works in general, and this is just one example.
You could also turn the tables easily, if this is the game they want to play…. Just make a corresponding superficial assertion, that it’s “deontological” to have the rule that Trump must not remain president. Nothing prevents me from categorizing it that way, so I win. (Because deontology is for losers, or something along those lines.) That is the sort of consequence I wanted, or in any case, it’s good enough for these purposes. If they object, they’ll need to give some details about exactly what the negative consequences are of making this assertion (if there are any), and if they’re so inclined, compare them with the positive ones (if they have some idea of how to do that).
As opposed to the gross difference? I mean, there is voter suppression, so I suppose you could perversely think of that as a sort of “expense” that has to be deducted from the total number of votes received. But I kind of doubt that’s what you were thinking.
When voting for the POTUS, all of these options are on the menu:
1) Biden +1 & Trump +0
2) Biden +0 & Trump +1
3) Biden +0 & Trump +0
Those are not the same, and I don’t know what to make of your claim that they are, mathematically speaking. (Fortunately, it’s not a valid option to vote for both Biden and Trump, so we don’t have to worry about that one.)
Then, just to be thorough, whatever you may do above, they don’t actually count the popular vote but the electoral college vote (as you clearly know, John). So…. Which state is this person voting in and how many electors does it get? What are the odds that this state goes for one candidate or the other? (Because it’s probably not 50/50 and we shouldn’t assume as much.) And so forth.
CR, not your best effort.
No, as to the modulus.
That way it’s in the set of natural numbers, rather than of the integers.
Ahem. My immediately preceeding words to that which you quoted: “in relation to the net difference in votes, each yields the same outcome, but outside that aspect, they are indeed not equivalent.”
Also, I refer you to my #85.
(Hope that helps you to know what to make of my claim)
Did you miss my most overt distinguishing between the popular vote and the electoral vote? I doubt any participants here are Electors rather than mere peon electors.\
Two different categories. Can you guess which one is the subject of this post?
Then I refer to your #85:
I’ll credit you for saying it clearly. But the asymmetry here is a bit glaring: there’s no item being subtracted from X as there is from Y. The claim presumably isn’t that this is impossible, inconceivable, etc.
— For Z eligible voters who vote for neither Biden nor Trump, the question is whether (X – Z) > (Y – Z).
— Since Z = Z, we can simplify that to whether X > Y.
— It shouldn’t have to be said, but that does not depend on the value of Z.
@119. Brony, Social Justice Cenobite
Let me parse that again. You want me to explain why I believe what an expert in criminal psychology is saying, and demand me to persuade you to believe him ? Well, rational people don’t have to be persuaded to listen to the experts – if I even tried, you would just declare it invalid and demand further proof, then proof of proof, proof of proof of proof, ad infinitum. It’s obvious you are just trolling.
LOL, I am not whining. I am in fact thankful to you for providing an excellent example of the utter absurdity of presumption of guilt.
P : Prove that you didn’t kill J.F.Kenedy !
D : Uh, that’s easy. I wasn’t even born back then.
P : Prove it !
D : Shows his birth certificate, long form.
P : Prove it is not fake !
D : Calls in a forensic expert.
P : Prove she is not lying to cover for you !
@125, dreikin
All consequentialist arguments for giving trump another 4 years I’ve seen are basically a combination of
– accelerationism ( let’s burn the world down asap so that we can sooner start building our utopia from the (radioactive) ashes )
– extortion( It’s my way or the highway ! If more horrible things happen, they will have to surrender to me )
– cut-nose-to-spite-face ( if you did not give me a candidate to my liking, you all deserve trump )
– ignorance/myopia ( It’s not that bad under trump, he didn’t kill us all yet. What more harm he can do ? )
Needless to say, on their own they are quite pathetic. More yet, I have yet to see someone else using them than people espousing deontological arguments. To me it seems they are all just post hoc rationalizations.
@126 John Morales
I think the distinction between this kind of virtue ethics and deontological ethics is purely semantic.
In one is a list of must and must nots, irrespective of consequences, in the other the same list but called virtuous and sinful actions.
Why is my next comment not displayed ? Is there a “3 subsequent comments are forbidden” rule ?
Sometimes the server eats comments. Don’t know why, however you may want to check your comments for keywords that could get caught in a spam filter that doesn’t recognize context.
Uh, no. That’s not how it works. There are three possible choices
– Vote for X, yielding X+Z:Y,
– Don’t vote, yielding X:Y,
– Vote for Y, yielding X:Y+Z
And since people we are talking about don’t even consider X, it can be simplified to comparing only X:Y and X:Y+Z.
@dreikin 125:
They may make that argument.
They are wrong.
The Biden agenda is extremely strong on climate change. The issue of “no significant movement” will not be because a Biden administration isn’t working for it. He and Sanders have just listed various task forces, including climate change (with AOC to co-chair it).
It will be because an obstructionist Republican Congress does nothing about it. This election is about so much more than the Presidency. This is a common problem of voters, thinking only of the Presidency, but is more pronounced in the Democrats who tend to spend all their time arguing over the White House and neglecting all the other races.
And that gets to your other point:
People say this as if it’s the President’s whim to do so. OK, so we close Gitmo. What happens to the people who are there? The most obvious solution is to put them into the federal prison system…just like all the other prisoners we have captured and for which we’ve never had problems with. And that was what the Obama administration said they would do.
And then Congresscritters lost their minds over the idea of “Muslim terrorists in YOUR STATE!” (fainting couch and pearls to be found to your left). Congress passed a law preventing the transfer of detainees to the US. OK, so send them back to their home countries. Except they either didn’t want them or they quickly acquitted them (some of whom went on to engage in terrorism against the US).
And then the ACA was the big shiny and everybody lost interest.
Obama simply didn’t have the power to close Guantanamo on his own.
You mean just like Sanders? Sanders voted against DOMA.
But not because he actually supported marriage equality. No, he only voted against it because he didn’t think it was something to be settled at the federal level (so Loving v Virginia was wrongly decided?) He thought it was a “State’s rights” issue. As his wife and Chief of Staff, Jane Sanders, told the AP in 1996: “We’re not legislating values. We have to follow the Constitution. And anything that weakens the Constitution should be (addressed) by a constitutional amendment, not by a law passed by Congress.” And when Vermont came out with its separate-but-not-equal “civil union” bill, Sanders approved of it but again, it was based in a state-originated result rather than a national, fundamental right. And no discussion of the fact that these unions did not provide all the rights of marriage, they were managed differently, and since they only applied to the state in which they were issued, couldn’t be taken anywhere else in the country or overseas.
He only changed his mind when it was politically necessary.
See, all candidates with any significant record will have this. And let’s not forget, it was Biden, the guy who voted for DOMA, that got Obama to flip-flop yet again to support marriage equality…Obama was for it when he was in Illinois in 1996, then “undecided” in 1998, then “civil unions” in 2004. The charge of “politically necessary” will always be thrown about. And they’ll forgive their own candidates for changing their minds while damning anybody else who does as being fake.
Which means it isn’t about the policy. It’s about trust. Biden can do everything that those who say things like, “Biden really IS the worst” (see below), and they still won’t be able to vote for their own interest because they can’t get past the symbolism. Remember the ACA? How all the Republicans claimed it was the worst thing in the world? Well, we all remember that it was essentially the Heritage Foundation’s plan from the 90s when Hillary was involved in trying to set up universal coverage, yes? That it was what Romney implemented in Massachusetts, yes? The Republicans’ own plan was suddenly anathema.
Because it was being proposed by a Democrat and we can’t let the Democrat have a win.
Biden is for all the things we supposedly say we are for. And yet many of us still can’t vote for him.
So it isn’t the policy that’s the reason.
Let’s not be greedy and settle for “a large share of all the things”… But anyway, what you say is correct. And also won’t change anyone’s mind. See the “consequentialist vs deontological” comments.
the argument for not voting for Biden has two parts I think
one is he has a big undeniable flaw that makes morally wrong to vote for him. it is only justifiable to vote for someone who is not flawed
not voting for him and allow Trump to win so as to insure that there is an even better candidate in the future.
by the first ones reasoning Grant should have not been placed in charge of the Union army during the civil war because he was deeply flawed being a drink and a failure, forgetting the fact that he was a pretty good general
To the second I will only give the following “a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush”
uncle frogy
@unclefrogy 152
But like all heuristics, it does not always work identically in all situations.
Sometimes the big, undeniable flaw is sufficient to outweigh any other positive characteristics. There’s a phrase I often use when discussing the misdeeds of people. I call it the “Doesn’t Kick Puppies” Syndrome. It’s the idea that so long as a person has some redeeming feature (“He doesn’t kick puppies”), then that somehow absolves anything else done, they can’t be all that bad, and you should stop being so negative about the person. It’s a variation of black-or-white thinking: Someone is either bad or good and if they’re bad, then they’re bad in absolutely every possible way so if we can find that a person isn’t bad in some way, then they can’t be bad at all.
But depending upon what those misdeeds are, that is enough to discount anything else. Suppose you had your perfect candidate regarding every policy you care to name. But, we find out that this person is also the Joker who’s going to poison the water supply for the entire city. Can we at least understand why some people will say they won’t vote for him? That the policy benefits from having an administration run by this person is not worth the deaths of everyone in the city?
So we get to the question of “insure an even better candidate in the future.” That’s engaging in wishful thinking. It hasn’t managed to happen previously no matter how bad things got. Nixon and Watergate, but no liberal utopia following (despite Carter being one of the best presidents we’ve had in the recent past). Reagan/Bush and Iran/Contra, but no liberal utopia following. Bush II and the endless war in Iraq and Afghanistan, but no liberal utopia following. This goes to what I have been saying for years: Candidates for office don’t just appear. You have to cultivate them years, sometimes decades previous. You need to start working NOW at your local level with your mayor, state attorney general, governor, congresscritters, etc. to find those candidates you would be willing to vote into higher office so that in 8, 12, 16 years time, they will be in a strong position to take the national stage. So let’s say that you can’t vote for Biden and think that another 4 years of Trump will finally do what has never happened before and convince people to go for the liberal candidate.
Who is it going to be? I asked this back in 2016 when Clinton lost: Who are they supporting now (2016) in order to get them into a strong position for the 2020 election? Was it Kamala Harris (because everybody thought she would run)? If not her, who? Elizabeth Warren? Buttigieg and Yang weren’t on the radar of anybody at the time. Sanders is 78. It’s conceivable he might run in 2024, but I wouldn’t count on it. So who is going to be the person to pick up his mantle?
And if you don’t have somebody in mind (AOC will just barely be old enough), then what makes you think there will be anybody who will by the time the election rolls around?
And that doesn’t even begin to get into the pragmatic aspects of how much change a body politic is willing to engage in. It can be done, but it’s very difficult to get people to turn quickly and go far in the opposite direction. That doesn’t mean not to try, but be very aware of the work that will be required to do it. So who is going to be the recipient of that work NOW?
daverytier @146:
Heh. The difference is indeed semantic, that is, their meaning.
(Perhaps you meant lexical?)
One considers the actual actions, the other considers the impetus for those actions.
@SAAD
It definitely looks like Vicar is a right wing troll, but you know what? I think hes a lefty like a lot of you. Functionaly hes right wing while still being left. This sounds suspiciously like the horseshoe theory bullshit but bear with me. I think these guys are our libertarians. In that they take a concept which is rightous but adhere to it so religiously that they inevitably begin to believe in stupid shit.
Libertarians believe in freedom and autonomy and against government oppression. Great. They are against restricting abortions, criminalizing marijuana and they support gay marriage. Great, however their religious allegiance to these concepts becomes a problem. Their support of the second amendment is done using the argument of autonomy just like their allergy to taxes and other things. They take it to a stupid level and eventually all that stupid accumulates into even more bad ideas some even contradictory to their beliefs.
Vicar and the like are the same way, except with antiestablishmentarianism as the rightous concept. They are so opposed to the establishment that they dont care if they support the right since thats not THEIR establishment. Im fact assuring the right wins means the democratic establishment fails so they win in their eyes and get to gloat on how all this bad happened because democrats suck (they do but this is clesrly a distraction to their own failings).
patricklinnen @127
The example I offered is very simply put, and it’s easily seen that it’s not what you said. It’s not purity ethics, it’s not accelerationism, it’s a consequentialist argument that neither Biden nor Trump will do enough and that the one with a shorter term is the better choice so someone who will do something can potentially be elected sooner. Whether you agree with the assumptions (that Biden and Trump will be effectively the same on climate change) is irrelevant to the category of the argument (which was the subject of that half of the post).
And to be even more direct about the purpose of that section: Misrepresenting (or more generally, failing to accurately represent or demonstrate understanding of) other people’s positions and arguments is not going to win them over and it makes the person doing so appear untrustworthy and/or not worth listening to. Strawmanning a position like you have doesn’t help things.
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daverytier @146:
I’m glad to see I’ve given you a new category to add to your list. What new category and description will you give it in order to dismiss it?
That doesn’t make the arguments deontological, even given your assumption of them being post hoc rationalizations. Just like people can care about more than one thing, people can think about (and argue argue about) things in more than one way.
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rrhain @150:
I saw that argument pretty close to either Super Tuesday’s results or Sanders suspending his campaign, so part of that hadn’t happened yet. And the other part falls into the trust issue.
The rest of your post mostly misses my point, although it touches on it near the end, ignores it again, and then finishes the thought at the very end. Like you said, “it isn’t the policy that’s the reason”, “It’s about trust”. The post I was responding to appeared to me to argue that if only people knew about Biden’s actual proposals, they wouldn’t be so much against him and wouldn’t view him the way they do. I believe that’s incorrect for many, who look at what they know of his history and/or recent public appearances and conclude that he either won’t or can’t do as he says. Because of that your assumption that Biden can be trusted to follow through on his policies makes most of your arguments fall flat for someone who doesn’t agree with that assumption, and listing Biden’s declared policies isn’t enough to convince someone who doesn’t believe him; you need more.
Aside 1: most of the anti-Biden pro-Sanders stuff I’ve seen hasn’t been from people who view Bernie as a great, exemplary candidate who has done no wrong (or has done wrongs that can be easily dismissed). “Bernie was the compromise” is how I’ve seen several people put it, for instance (although not everyone is so far left as that). So for those people, pointing out Bernie’s flaws isn’t going to be as useful as you might think; he’s already viewed as an imperfect candidate.
Aside 2: “Biden is for all the things we supposedly say we are for.” Except for things like medicare for all.
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In case any of you were mistakenly trying to treat the examples I’ve brought up as my own positions or arguments, fear not: they’re (mostly) not, and I live in a safe state for Biden so it’s not worth the time of any of us to worry about convincing me one way or another.
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The Democratic party seems to have internal divisions as strong as those between the parties. I wonder if there’s going to be a real split in the near future.
@Giliell
Saying “she wasnt raped because I dont want her to be Saying the truth” is a gross straw man.
The fact is that during the MeToo movement several journalist outlets involved in outing big names have also vetted and investigated Biden exhaustively and found no rape allegations of any kind. What they did find was that Biden is a touchy feely creep who doesnt respect boundaries. These same outlets reached out to Rheade and she turned them down in favor of biased pro Bernie outlets and Meghan Kelly all the while dishonestly claiming the story has been ignored by the mainstream media. The political madness thread has a link on this.
Should we ignore this? It doesnt look good in terms of credibility. If investigative journalist find nothing other than an increased amount of reason to find the accuser is lying, should we ignore that? No one is making a “bit***s be lying” argument because such an argument involves thinking a credible woman is lying and Rheade is not credible. She doesnt fit.
The same investigative journalism which brought down Al Franken who a lot of democrats wanted to run in the primary fir groping as a joke and Louis CK liberal comedic darling for harrassment apparently wont do the same for Biden? Please.
And again I must add its never just one for a man of his stature, influence and age. Every single one taken down during MeToo had a consistent pattern involving multiple women who came forward. With Biden nothing but crickets. Not even republicans can find anything and you know they are searching as this will help reelection. You may not want to admit it but the burden of proof is on y’all.
Im mad at Rheade for the same reason Im mad at Jussie Smollet. Because bad things happen for real but people dont believe it does. Lying about bad things happening is rare but still happens and every lie about it makes it hard for the victims of the very real bad thing to be heard.
Lol most anti-Biden pro Bernie stuff wass absolutely about how Bernie can do no wrong. I was knee deep in Bernie shit thats what I saw.
@dreikin 156
(I know it’s not your position that you’re elaborating upon in this comment, so this isn’t directed at you, but at the argument that 4 years of Trump is better than 8 years of Biden, due to the idea that it will result in better action on climate change, sooner.)
Aside from the obvious retort (that is that there is a big difference in the policy proposals of Trump and Biden on climate change – Biden WILL take needed, moderate action on climate change, while Trump can do a lot of damage in 4 more years, moving the needle in the OTHER direction, leaving the world with significant ground to make up after his hypothetical second term), which you brought up, there is an incorrect assumption built into this argument, namely that after 4 more years of Trump, America will get a progressive president who, with the help of both a Democratic-controlled Senate and House, will take extreme action against climate change* that is far beyond what is politically-viable at the current moment. That’s an awfully-big risk to take…there is every chance that the Democrats nominate someone Biden-esque in 2024, and then the people making this argument will be faced with a similar conundrum (only there’s no temporal discrepancy…either candidate could get 4 or 8 years in office). Moreover, there is a chance that, given the way the Supreme Court is going these days, the Democrats would have to win the national popular vote by a 58-42 margin (or greater) to win control of the House (given the gerrymandering and voter suppression that is already taking place, virtually unimpeded by the Court, things are definitely headed in this direction)…and that’s not even mentioning the fact that a supermajority in the Senate is often completely out-of-reach for the Democrats (given the way the system is set up to give small, rural states as much power as large, mostly urban ones). So Trump fatigue might get a Democrat elected to the presidency in 2024, but there’s no guarantee it’ll be one from their progressive wing, and no guarantee that they’ll have the Congressional support to pass meaningful climate legislation.
But what worries me more is the long-term effects of 4 more years of Trump. Because even if the Democrats manage to start shifting the Overton window towards more progressive ideas (in the wider culture), a 6-3 or 7-2 conservative majority on the Supreme Court that lasts a decade or more (given the ages of the current conservative justices, it could be over 20 years before Democratic presidents get the opportunity to shift the balance back towards the left**) will impede much of that progressive agenda (giving the 25-30% of the American public represented by those conservative ideas the power to dictate what’s politically feasible). Also, the governmental institutions that help the country function properly (both internally and diplomatically) will continue to be shat upon by Trump, causing damage that will take a long time to repair. Thus Biden, in my opinion, is a necessary president for the American people. He can save the court (or at least maintain its 5-4 conservative “balance” for his term in office, should Thomas and Alito manage to maintain their respective tenures on the court for the duration of Biden’s presidency***); he will take action on climate change (a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush…I’d rather see guaranteed moderate action NOW over a slight hope of more significant action in 4 years); and he will have an administration that will competently re-build the institutions that Trump has tried to destroy (which could save a LOT of lives, given the importance of some of those institutions, especially since 4 more years of Trump decimating these institutions could result in doubling, or tripling the amount of time it takes to fix them). Before the American people can have a chance at a true, left-wing president, they need someone like Biden to begin a return to what we might call “normalcy.” Trump has shattered the trust Americans place in their politicians and institutions (both governmental and private, e.g. the media)…that trust needs to be re-built ASAP. Giving him 4 more years to work with is NOT an option.
*The action that is necessary to truly save the future of humanity may be labelled “extreme” because it will result in significant tax increases that will affect maybe half of Americans…these are the people (well…many of them) who are going to be pushing hard against these changes, no matter who proposes them, or when. We have to get used to the idea that extreme action is both necessary and good, since that’s the framing we’re going to be dealing with (even though I wouldn’t personally call it thus).
**And while that’s guaranteed eventually – the demographics of the US are shifting leftward every year as the country gets more diverse – voter suppression and the even more long-term poison of inadequate public education will ensure that it’ll be a long time before Democrats can win, given the increasingly unfair conditions with which they’re having to deal (conditions that have hitherto been unimpeded by the courts).
***I think that John Roberts could become the court’s new Anthony Kennnedy, given the fact that he cares about his legacy (if the Court is constantly deciding cases against the will of the majority of people, that legacy won’t be positive), and the reality that justices almost always become more liberal as they age.
The desolate cries of the nihilistic Berners on this thread are insanely hilarious. They, as a group, are unwilling to actually fight for what they want….they are every bit the ‘Snowflakes’ their opponents think they are.
They don’t want to fight for what they believe……the want others to do the fighting FOR them.
What a fucking joke.
Trump winning the presidency in 2016 didn’t lead to a good Democratic candidate for 2020, but if we work to get him back in office for four more years I promise this time it’ll work!
sez saad @161:
Hmm. How many times in history has that particular tactic ever worked (if any)?
@154, John Morales
Well, wrong word choice. I meant the difference between them is just using different words.
Well, yes. by the encyclopedia definitions. Thoese are however very vague on how actual actions are to be judged. Technically, consequentialist ethics could be considered a subset too – aiming for the best consequences is certainly a virtuous motivation.
Yet from what I gather it is inevitably the opposite case – it is the actions themselves that are deemed virtuous or wicked. Motives at best are just ann additional constraint – you have to perform the virtuos action, additionally also with a virtuous motive.
And as I said before, the people we are talking make value judgements based just on the actions themselves, not their consequences.
@161 Saad
^^^^^ this
@156 dreikin
No, you didn’t. Your “argument” is just a combination of the aforementioned ignorance and accelerationism.
lol, yea. Trump is just “not doing enough”, as opposed to actively doing as much harm as he can… all while naively assuming that after the 4 years you will actually get a better choice…. Dude, your “consequentialist argument” disintegrates at the slightest touch of reality.
Except that their one line argument falls apart at the first glance, always inevitably revealing the other one.
… should be “one line of argument”
@dreikin, 156:
To use your phrasing, your post mostly misses my point, although it touches on it only to immediately ignore it. It isn’t that, as you put it, “if only people knew about Biden’s actual proposals, they wouldn’t be so much against him and wouldn’t view him the way they do.” That doesn’t happen. We all know from interacting with creationists and flat earthers and 9/11 truthers that simply presenting information to someone doesn’t work to change their mind if they’re emotionally invested in standing against that information.
And there’s where you lose it. I am not assuming it. I am looking at his actions. He is doing the very things those who oppose him as “just another Republican” claim he won’t do. They don’t care. It isn’t about the policy. It’s just like the Republicans and the ACA. It’s their own plan, but they hate it because someone they don’t like is proposing it and getting it done. They say that it’s because Biden doesn’t “really believe” in the policies he’s campaigning on, but their actions indicate that their reticence is based in something else.
And I’ve provided it. His staffing choices indicate that he’s really going through with it. He’s working with Sanders on these things. So unless we’re dealing with people who thought even Sanders was some sort of shill, the idea that this is all just some sort of con job doesn’t have much to justify it. We saw this back in 2016 regarding Clinton and her supposed slavish devotion to Wall Street. This despite the fact that her economic plan for Wall Street was signed off by Warren. I asked many people to explain how it is that Warren would agree to such a thing and they responded that that meant Warren had been corrupted.
It’s conspiracy thinking. Granted, it doesn’t have the evil overlord aspects, but it’s the same idea: When you’re emotionally invested in a particular view of the world, simple reality won’t likely change your mind. As the cliche goes, you can’t reason somebody out of a position they didn’t reason themselves into.
To your aside, I haven’t seen anybody say, “Bernie was the compromise.” I’ve met people who didn’t think Bernie was socialist enough, but that’s because they are so far off to the left that they border on communism. Indeed, pointing out how Sanders has changed his mind isn’t going to work on them, but I think we can agree that they are hardly common. They are not the typical Sanders-supporter. Instead, they find Sanders’ flip-flops to be signs of integrity. Anybody else who does the same is simply shifty (see below).
But even so, it doesn’t really matter. Once again, when someone has emotionally invested in their position, demonstrating the factual errors in their claims isn’t going to do it.
I don’t expect it to. But that doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be pointed out that their stated claims are false. As I have said repeatedly, that doesn’t mean anybody has to like Biden. But it does mean that they aren’t being exactly honest if they insist upon reasons for that dislike that have been shown to be false.
Fully buzzword compliant, I see. “Medicare for all” doesn’t actually mean anything. Do you mean Warren’s version? Sander’s? They’re not the same. Would a Swiss version of healthcare that has universal coverage through private insurance be sufficient? Exactly what does “Medicare for all” mean? Does it include dental and vision that most employer-based insurance has plans for? Because Medicare doesn’t cover those things. You need a private Medicare Advantage plan for that. What about prescription drugs? Part D is a nightmare for those who fall in the donut hole.
And as I pointed out, Biden is for the public option. That’s Medicare for all, too.
Unless what you really mean to say is, “single-payer, universal coverage” (though even that is a bit vague).
And as I said, do you honestly think that if Congress (did we forget about them already?) were to come up with a fully fleshed-out plan that describes what the plan covers, how it is going to be paid for, how to manage the loss of millions of jobs in the insurance industry, how to manage the transition to a single-payer system, details if there will still be a need for Medicare Advantage or if that will be included, etc., that Biden would veto it? After the congresscritters spend months on the Sunday morning shows discussing it, after all the press questioning of what it is and how it works, and somehow they managed to get the Republicans out of the way, that Biden would veto it?
Yeah, he has said he’s not for single-payer. But he is for the public option. Do you honestly think that if everyone were to show him how a single-payer system would be better, he wouldn’t listen? Doesn’t the fact that he has demonstrated that he is able to listen to opinions counter to his own and change his mind mean that it’s possible for this, too? Remember what I said about the opinion that someone who changes his mind has integrity? Here it is. It comes down to trust. If you trust your guy, you assume that their changes of heart are based in integrity. But if you don’t trust them, then you’re waiting for the other shoe to drop. That it’s just a plot to distract you from something even worse.
So, yeah, it’s a risk that Biden might veto a comprehensive plan. But does anybody think Trump would be more likely to sign the bill?
After all of this…
I say we take off and nuke the site from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure.
Still, the best question was, “What is the different between Biden and Trump”.
Well, lessee… Biden is smarter than a can of dried paint, Trump isn’t. I know, I met him long before unreality TV, was the boor of the party and had less intelligence than the serving trays.
daverytier @163,
So, is a tracheotomy deemed virtuous, or is it deemed wicked?