Maybe you’re unsurprised that an atheist would express that sentiment, but I mean it literally: Dick Cheney has announced that he’s voting for Harris/Walz.
I am now hoping that Cheney stays alive until November, and waits until 6 November to choke on a bag of dicks.
When one of the most evil US political figures in recent memory, Darth Cheney, takes a stand like this, over fear for what evil Donald Trump is capable of if reelected, it takes the wind right out of you for a moment. There was a time, not too long ago, when I figured I’d need to buy some very expensive champagne to celebrate the eventual achievement of room temperature of Cheney. I’m tentatively revising that purchase for someone else achieving that state…eventually.
I don’t know if the Cheney daughter/father endorsement will budge the needle any come November with the electoral college, but I hope so. Maybe Darth’s stance will get other conservatives who were afraid to signal their secretive vote for Harris/Walz to make it publicly known. Sure Trump and friends will spout venom some more and call them RINOs or Commies, but at this point whatever keeps Project 2025/Agenda 47 from being implemented by Day One Dictator is expedient and welcome.
It wasn’t like Cheney tried to define himself out of the executive branch “… at a particularly delicate time — when Cheney’s former chief of staff, I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, and other aides were under criminal investigation for their suspected roles in leaking the identity of CIA operative Valerie Plame” or anything:
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2007-jun-22-na-cheney22-story.html
Weird times we live in indeed.
Perhaps this is an example of weirdism driving people to the middle. Ever since 2008 when the GOP put Sarah Palin on the ticket with McCain, weirdism has been increasing in power in the US. I can almost name more oddball, kooky politicians than normal ones of either party these days. I don’t watch TV, but I guess they play well on the theater for the absorb run by Fox News and its ilk. They probably get a lot of airplay because they attract eyeballs. Rupie’s and the oligarchy’s game play must be to undermine democracy with ridiculousness.
This has nothing to do with preserving democracy. Cheney just wants the GOP back in the hands of the patrician blue-bloods that used to run it. That is, if anyone is going to control the corn pone hicks and suburban white flight refugees that make up the average Republican voter rolls, it’s going to be Cheney, not vulgar upstarts like Trump and Co.
“Trump is the greatest threat to our democracy ever,” says former greatest threat to our democracy ever.
You know this is serious business when Mr. I Stole a Heart to continue living comes out and admits it. The architecture who manipulated and used false info to go to war in Iraq to the benefit of his war machine owning buddies must think Trump would take away that money from his friends in the Military Industrial Complex. Associated him with the devil rings to the truth. It is embarrassing to be on the same side as him.
Harris must have found the One Ring, if she can command the Nazgul to follow her.
I admit it disturbingly weird to watch Bulwark neocon anti-Trumpers on Youtube and think WTF has happened since 2016. With neocons it’s at least partly the isolationism that made them balk with Trump. There’s much neocons need to answer for, but when I consider the alternative to Harris/Walz winning, if it takes repugnants like Bill Kristol and Dick Cheney to nudge a few reachable conservative voters away from Trump…so be it. Hopefully 4-8 years will exceed Trump’s natural life span, though others will no doubt take his baton, maybe one of his sons or Desantis. Let’s get through the next 4-8 years with a livable Harris administration while figuring out how to deal with that potential resurgent problem down the road. If it means interventionist warhawk neocons relieved Trump stays out of power, I can live with that.
Who coined the phrase “keeping the world safe from democracy” please?
Shades of German military/business conservatives thinking they could control Hiter.
Its like someone writing an alternative version of the X-Men, in which Trask (creator of the Sentinel project) discovered that Apocalypse was coming to earth and decided he, at least in the short term, didn’t really hate mutants quite as much as he thought he did – or, literally any other comic book/story book universe in which some horrible bad guys somehow figure out that some even more horrible bad guy is out there, and switch sides, how ever temporarily, to work with the heroes. Except, its literally a freaking mirror universe episode, and not usually ever “reality”…
Actually, no.. Come to think of it, this is more like Darth Maul turning out not to be dead, and showing up at the last second in Return of the Jedi, to throwing the emperor down the utility shaft instead, because Darth Vader was too slow to act and stop him.
This is like Morgoth coming back from the void to announce that Sauron is just too dangerous for Middle-earth.
Rather, shades of German military/business conservatives coming out against Hitler. I suppose there were some, but none come to mind at present. The description would fit most of the 1944 plotters, but they only tried to kill Hitler once it was obvious Germany would lose the war, not in advance. Alan Bullock, in Hitler and Stalin, Parallel Lives says, in the chapter on “Hitler within sight of power”:
Of course the parallels are not exact – Hitler had not been in power and resisted his democratic removal already, and he was far more ideological than Trump – but I can’t help but give some credit to the Cheneys, vile though they are.
That a notorious war criminal, a highest-up in the worst presidency of my lifetime, and an architect of world misery in his own right decides the Harris campaign shares his values should raise red flags. His rehabilitation is complete. Tricky Dick didn’t move, Democrats instead met him where he is at.
I am hoping that Cheney stays alive so that he is convicted and sentenced to life in prison at the Hague, ideally around the same time as Genocide Joe, Nuland, Blinken, and their accomplices are likewise convicted.
@3:
True, but I strongly suspect establishment Republicans are going to have a very difficult time getting that particular genii back into the bottle.
First, if Trump loses, he’s not going anywhere, even in the unlikely event he ends up behind bars. (I still think the worst that will happen to him is home internment, if even that.) He and his MAGA supporters will continue to rail against the deep state and lay the blame squarely on the establishment Republicans for betraying him and not doing enough to stop the steal, mark 2.
Even if he can’t or decides not to run again in 2028, he’s still going to be the Republican kingmaker, and the one who bends the knee the most will be his chosen successor, and as long as he doesn’t completely blow it (which he might), then MAGA will follow.
And if his man (it’s going to be a man, right?) succeeds in winning the nomination, the callow establishment Republicans will circle the wagons just as they did with Trump and ride him all the way to the election. If questioned about their unquestioning loyalty, they’ll simple repeat the same platitudes they made about Trump before his victory in the knowledge that regardless of the threat to American democracy, as long as the Republican Party is doing the damage, everything will be fine — for them.
Hey, beholder #14, what’s Russia Today paying you per week?
Have you stopped betraying your country yet?
That a notorious war criminal, a highest-up in the worst presidency of my lifetime, and an architect of world misery in his own right decides the Harris campaign shares his values should raise red flags.
So what are we supposed to do — vote for Trump to spite Cheney?
Akira MacKenzie @ #3 — I agree that this no sign that Cheney et al are interested in “preserving democracy”–if that’s said, then it’s just propaganda. Seems to me this is primarily a disclosure of the rift in the GOP over control of the GOP, i.e. a power struggle. As we know, political parties are coalitions of factions, and the Cheney-Bush faction is clearly out. If they can break the hold over the party of the Trumper’s and their mega-donor supporters then there’s a way back in for them and their agenda. Their agenda isn’t that different from the MAGA crowd, it’s just got them in power instead of Trump.
I have always believed that some Republicans shared a fundamental commitment to democracy, even though they wanted a very different democratic outcome than I did. To see Dick Cheney join those Republicans is pretty surprising – when he was in office, he appeared to be running a secret parallel government in order to manipulate President Bush, Jr. I remember being worried that he would try to replace our government with a dictatorship. Looks like I was very wrong.
Many awful Republicans like Secretary of State Raffensperger in Georgia helped stop a Trump dictatorship four years ago. Turns out that there were many Republicans who weren’t actually Fascists, enough to stop a coup. It’s been more surprising how few Republicans don’t share that commitment to democracy. I expected (in vain) most of them to turn their backs on Trump after the Jan 6th putsch attempt. Lust for power made an irresistible poison.
I don’t think Cheney and co. changed much. I think those of us on the left misjudged a lot of Republicans. A basic commitment to democracy is way more important than all the other domestic and foreign policy disagreements. We agree to talk out our differences rather than kill each other over them. And basically agree that we’ll fight by the rules (laws), and abide by the result.
Trump’s thrown out that basic commitment to democracy. The Republicans who still support him – knowing that he’s a liar, knowing that he attempted a coup – have abandoned our democracy. There’s no hell too hot for them.
So the Cheneys and others like them are fundamentally on our side – the side of democratic government. Even if what they want is an elite-run, dishonest democratic government it is still a democractic government, and we get to argue with them over it. That basic commitment turns out to be pretty important, and I think we forgot that in the ’90s and after (on both sides),
So let’s mend fences, and embrace them, in spite of all the differences we have. They are small in face of the difference between democracy and dictatorship.
It’s almost as if he’s had a change of heart.
The big question is where the loyalties of the next generation of Republicans lie–those who owe their positions of power to Trump and the MAGA vote. We already know how spineless Mike Johnson is, and while Johns Barrasso, Cornyn, and Thune are supposedly leaders in the race to replace McConnell, it’s not that likely Trump will endorse any of them, so it remains to be seen if they can overcome whoever becomes the MAGA/Trump endorsed favorite to become leader of the Senate Republicans.
tacitus @15: I don’t see Trump moving on to becoming the Republican kingmaker or trying to establish a legacy. He wants to be king, anything less than that is unacceptable. Likewise, I don’t see him picking a successor because that would be an acknowledgement that there’s a Republican Party after Trump and he doesn’t want that. To him, it’s all about Trump, with no concern for how things will go after he’s gone. I expect that the MAGA movement will splinter into multiple squabbling groups once he’s out.
You really trust Dick Cheney to do what he says he will?
#23: Doesn’t really matter as long as he doesn’t publicly rescind his endorsement. He’s just one vote.
#22: I agree it’s all about Trump — I predicted from the day he lost in 2020 that he would be the Republican candidate this year. I guess I should qualify what I said with “If he finds himself in the position of not being able to run again and he is not dead or otherwise incapacitated” he will continue to carry as much influence as he can muster with the Republican Party, and with the backing of MAGA, he’ll have plenty of influence on who runs in 2028, especially if Don Jr. decides he wants to jump in.
The next Republican nominee will need to bow to MAGA even if they don’t need to bow to Trump, that’s for certain.
@25: Yes, but MAGA is very much a cult of personality and isn’t going to just up and support a non-Trump candidate. We saw that to some extent already with politicians like Desantis tried to appeal to them and failed miserably.
I disagree rather strongly with the sentiments that the Cheneys are actually on our side. They (currently) talk a good game, but their policies would be horrific all the same. Their apparent commitment to the appearance of politeness, civility, and democracy is useful to us, because it means they’re now fighting against another one of our enemies in Donald Trump, but do they actually believe in the principles behind those ideas? I do not think so. I would not bet on having actually won over either Cheney to anything approaching actual good, and would consider this a win strictly in the sense that infighting among our enemies helps us.
It doesn’t matter whether Cheney truly turned “good”. The more the GOP tears itself apart and offers a display of quarreling disunity, the better for everyone else, that’s the only thing of importance here.
Cheney should invite Tang Caligula out duck shooting.
If MAGA ends up doing all of the Project 2025 nonsense they will be tempted to go quite a bit further in order to achieve their claimed/actual goals. Dick Cheney realizes that this would put people that he cares about in danger.
When people like Dick Cheney, David Frum, and Bill Kristol join your party…it calls for a little introspection.
They are joining the party because Kamala will give capital, intelligence agencies, military industrial complex, and Zionists whatever they want along with a blank check. They are also Chicken-Hawk warmongers that have been wrong every…single…time.
I need to remind you folks when she was running for president, she dropped out before Iowa because she was polling in single digits…even in her home state of CA. Her record as a DA is abysmal, and she fully supports genocide. Also, the DNC shut down the primary and said Biden was sharp as a tack. When it became too obvious of a lie, the leadership anointed Kamala. They are doing the most undemocratic things to “save democracy”.
Present someone with a false choice, do not criticize when none is chosen. I do not support either party, and both are hopelessly corrupt.
I do not beleive Kamala Harris is perfect, nor has previous Democratic presidents been all that good. Please see it as an opportunity to take a first step to push back bona fide fascists.
Alliances are not pretty. FDR was allied with Stalin.
.
In case you think I am an apologist: The surge in the polls has been bought at the cost of ignoring Gaza. If Harris wins, she owes it not just to the election volunteers, but to 40 000 dead people in Gaza that were thrown under the bus. Thank you so fucking much, Democrats.
I’m glad the Cheneys are working against Trump and his horde of differently-favored evil.
Nothing they did is forgotten or forgiven.
No promises of trust will be extended to them without further evidence they are not what they’ve always been. They don’t have to agree with me, about anything, They have to be honest and human (not that I think that can happen outside of fiction, mind you).
Kamal Harris will likely do as much as she finds possible in this very bitter, selfish and brittle America. Like Joe Biden, especially if the House and Senate are Democratic, she’ll likely do much more than I now dare hope – especially in dealing with Gaza and Ukraine, and in turning back the lazy, currently fashionable, empty but very dangerous fascism in Europe (and elsewhere).
The enemies of reason and humanity in the US will not disappear, however. Miracles are either a metaphor or a lie.
I’m not giving up my values. Not even bending them very much.
I certainly HAVE given up purity and most self-righteousness. There are a lot of stupid-smart bad actors out there, though.
jimmyfromdelaware perfectly demonstrates why the Democratic party loses: faced with the possibility of winning, it engages in self-sabotage in order to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory because they’d rather watch Trump burn the entire country to the ground than vote for a candidate who isn’t perfect.
While simultaneously pretending that a Republican victory won’t be disastrous for all the issues they claim are important.
microraptor Has the audacity to say I am a democrat and foolishly thinks this country is a duopoly.
I belong to neither party, and my vote gets earned. I officially dropped out of the Democratic Party when it committed genocide by giving Israel every single bomb/missile/plane/etc they wanted and killed tens of thousands of children with those American weapons.
If you want to be affiliated with a political party that is committing genocide, that is your prerogative.
And as a consequence, instead of taking an action that could result in less genocide, you instead choose to do nothing and let the genocide happen unimpeded in order to maintain the illusion of moral superiority.
Stop overthinking it people.
The US may not be a duopoly, but in most of the states the electoral system flattens out the presidential vote into an example of Hobson’s choice – on the one hand vote for a candidate who at least some of the time will respect your country’s constitution, (small d) democratic traditions and the rule of law, or on the other hand, vote for an adjudicated rapist and felon facing conviction who wanted to throw out the vote, spurred an insurrection to hold onto power, and says he will wield dictatorial powers if re-elected.
Those are the only two people with a chance of being elected in November, and any vote for any other candidate will have no effect; so in the end – it’s not really much of a choice.
When people like Dick Cheney, David Frum, and Bill Kristol join your party…it calls for a little introspection.
And what conclusions, in your opinion, should such introspection be expected to yield?
lumipuna@20:
A remarkable feat for someone who has none.
I just love how people just ignore that I am being presented with a false choice and therefore will not choose.
The introspection would be if evil people, people who tortured, kill, started wars are joining your political party…you are in an evil party.
This video is for all you vote blue no matter who liberals:
https://youtu.be/VuUKJS-ISUY?si=5Wj6_F8DNxf0lPUr
Jimmy from Delaware started from a false premise: the Never-Trumpers listed above are not joining the Democrats in any real sense. They are however refusing to vote for someone who is obviously and egregiously far more unfit for office than the alternative.
(And in Delaware it is “first past the post” plurality voting yes? Best of luck voting for a third-party candidate as a “protest” vote.)
The Republican Party as it existed in the days of Reagan and Bush (Snr and Jnr) no longer exists, though many of the voters who vote red probably have barely noticed: it has now been roundly taken over by waves of TEA party reactionary, QAnon tin-foil hat wearing, MAGA cultist, and Christian dominionist ideologues who support a traitorous insurrectionist as the major party nominee for President.
What the Never-Trumpers (and the few remaining non-insurrectionists in the Congress) really ought to do is form a new Republican Party and wedge the extremists out, but instead the few remaining moderates have largely been voted out.
The introspection would be if evil people, people who tortured, kill, started wars are joining your political party…you are in an evil party.
They’re not “joining” the Democratic Party, dumbass. They’re just saying they’ll vote for ONE Democrat in ONE year because the Republican running against her IN THIS PARTICULAR YEAR is totally unfit for office.
@20. lumipuna :“It’s almost as if he’s had a change of heart.”
I see what you did there and like it!
@beholder :
Funny how you only blame Democrats and not Repugs as if the alternative wouldn’t be so many time sworse.
Nikki Hayley personally signed artillary shells fired on Gaza writing “”Finish Them! America [Heart drawing] Israel” and :
Source : https://www.newsweek.com/nikki-haley-mesage-israeli-bomb-sparks-outrage-1905578
That is the Repugs response to Biden-Harris and the Democrats calling for restraint, ceasefire Israael NOT to invade Rafah and criticising Netanyahu for being an obstacle to peace. Biden has even delayed and refused to send some arms to Israel.
So NO the two partie sare NOT the same here. The Repugs are 100% backing Isreal enthusaiastically and have zero regard for Palestinian lives. The Democratic party is at least trying to stop the war witha ceasefire, criticising netanyahu and open to being pressured into doing even more. Trump has stated he wants Israel to finish the job quickly. Kamala has stated the loss of Palestinian live sand their suffering is heart-breaking.
Those are the two options.
Posts like the Tankies here – Beholder, jimmyfromdelaware, The Vicar – are designed to help the Repugs into power and thus help Putin.
@ 36. #41 jimmyfromdelaware : “microraptor Has the audacity to say I am a democrat and foolishly thinks this country is a duopoly.”
Fooloshly? Dude, Jimmy, the United States of Amercuia is a duopoloy. That is a fact. Until you get peferential or run-off voting oand probly other major political reforms the simple reality is you have a system where the chocies are either DEmocrtaic or Republican – Trump cult. You weren’t around when nader robbed Gore or the BernieBros, Stein & Johnson among others robbed HRC of their Electoral College wins? Boththose being the actiual choices of the majority of Americans for POTUS? Third parties are spoilers, staying home aids Trump. The only way to stop trump becoming POTUS is tovote for Kamala Harris.
I agree this sucks and should be changed. Work for reforms – don’t put Trump bacjk in unlimited power.
Has Trump earned your vote and if so how? Do you prefer the Repugs position on Gaza here?
If you want to be affiliated with a political party that enthusiastically supports committing at least two genocides – Ukraine as wellas Gaza, that is your prerogative. If youwant tomake Putin the POTUS that is your prerogative. We can and will judge you and your character and credibility accordingly..
Not choosing is itself a choice here. It says youar ehappy toallow Trumpand Project 2025 and the Ukrainian genocide to happen. There si nothing false about the choice. The aprties ar eindeed very different. One ha s aNazi cult leader, the other does not. If you pick the nazi, well..
PS. Is it just that tankies all sound the same following a similar script provided to them or does anyone else wonder if our trio of pro-Putin trolls smell of socks?
@ jimmyfromdelaware
If Trump wins, I hope someone drops a dime on your ass along with all the other “purity leftists” who thought what was going on in Gaza was more important than preventing what’s happening in their own damn country. I hope some fascist thug task force, torn from the pages of Project 2025, drags you and the other smug Bernie Bros and Stein Sisters off to some black site from which you’ll never leave.
Hell, it might even be someone like me who rats you out? Why? Because as much as I hate the right and knowing full well Trump will get to me eventually—along with all the LGBTQ folks, non-whites, non-Christians, liberals, and anyone else who displeases him that week—at least I’ll die knowing that those who helped create this dystopian hell by withholding their vote got a bullet to the brain first.
Fatwa envy much, Akira? Do the rest of us a favor and set up your fascist thug task force honeymoon without involving any of the rest of us.
@ 47
No, shit for brains. I’m merely pointing out what’s going to happen if Harris loses because of assholes like you two. Everyone on this forum will suffer if Trump gets back into power—along with many of our friends and loved ones. If I’m unjustly doomed to Hell, I just want to see those stubborn idiots responsible for sending me their burn first.
What beholder and jimmy are saying that the lives of people on the other side of the planet are more important that American women, Blacks, Latinos, gays and transgender individuals, non-Christians (including all the domestic Palestinians they claim to care about)! and leftists. Not to mention what Trump will do to the environment and the rights of workers if he gets his mitts back on the levers of power.
The Repugs are 100% backing Isreal enthusaiastically and have zero regard for Palestinian lives.
Also, at least one dipshit in Trump’s family has openly talked about building his own casino on the Gaza coast, after Israel gets done killing or driving out all those Palestinians who currently live there.
Yeah, yeah, we get it, this election is all about you and how you’ve been insulted by being offered a “false choice”. I admit, I’m relieved not to be an American and thus faced with the choices you are, but in any electoral contest where either a Democrat or a Republican could plausibly win, I’d feel morally obliged to vote (and campaign) for the former. Because a Trump victory will in all probability mean both the global triumph of fascism and climate catastrophe, while a Harris victory, particularly if backed by Democratic control of Congress, will keep alive the hope of avoiding both.
While disliking Akira’s revenge fantasies, I find your brazenly dishonest attempt to implicate the overwhelming majority of commenters here in your own disgusting support for fascism far more offensive.
Ain’t it funny how YuriFromChelyabinsk…eh, “JimmyFromDelaware” thinks Cheney cutting support for Trump is something that should fill Kamala Harris with doubt? Isn’t Trump the guy who should mull over losing support within his harem of yes-men and yes-women? But no, just like the stinking mainstream media, Trump is treated like an unthinking force of nature that should never be held to any human standard of logic or decency.
Ahem, Republicans lie.
What has been the impact of the nose-amputating face spiting ultra-purist extremes here?
When Nader cost Gore the election, what happened next? Was the Democratic party pushed tothe kleft? Was the USA improved?
I don’t think so – quite the reverse. Dubya Bush II apponted John Roberts and Samuel “traitor flags” Alito to SCOTUS. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supreme_Court_of_the_United_States#Membership )
9 /11 resulted in the invasions of Afghanistan then Iraq. The USA was generally shifted towards the reichwing. In particular, there was a lack of focus on Climate action as a result of Gore’s defeat and Dubya’s dubuious election.
How about when HRC was robbed by among others Jill Stein – did that push the Democratic party leftwards and see the nation a s a whioe move away or towards leftwing polciies and values?
Nope. Trump got to appoint three SCOTUS Justices who lied to to get their jobs and overturned Roe Vs Wade. The Overton window was kicked far out to the reichwingand the Democratic party far from going leftwards in direction turned to Biden.
So given the history, given what we’ve seen happen why the fuck would you think putting Trump in as now dictator would somehow do anything at all positive for the leftwing and for the USA and the world?
How do you think that would help the Palestinians in any way whatsoever other than the slight consolation of hurting Biden and harris and the democratic party which would be very small consolatrionindeed as trump completes the genocide and enables Netanyahu to triumph in Gaz aand then annex the West bank and finish the Palestinians off for good.
You have heard the line about insanity being doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting different results right?
–>When Nader cost Gore the election, what happened next?
This is the biggest lie, repeated over and over again. What about the 200,000 democratic voters that voted for Bush? Or that Gore also lost his home state.
Blaming Nader for Gore’s loss is laughable.
@50. Raging Bee : There’s also the fact that Trump actually has an Israeli settlement named after him :
Source : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump_Heights
Then there’s what Palestinians themselves say :
Source : https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/7/23/trump-would-be-the-worst-palestinians-react-to-us-presidential-race
Plus what Trump has said and is using as an attack against Kamala Harris – as well as using “Palestinian”as a slur against Biden of course :
Source : https://www.politico.com/news/2024/09/05/trump-jewish-republicans-harris-israel-00177622
Who do you think Netanyahu – and Itamar Ben Gvir & Bezalel Smotrich want to see win? If you’ve looked at comments and views from those on the reichwing they think Harris is NOT sufficiently committed to an Israeli esp Netanyahu triumph and doesn’t support Israel enough.
If the genocidal Netanyahu-Gvir-Smotrich regime wants Trump in power -and they do – then why not spite and hurt them by making sure Kamala Harris gets elected instead of de facto helping them by enabling Trump to win?
@57. jimmyfromdelaware :
Source : https://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-nader-effect/
Maths Yuri, sorry, Jimmy, how does it work again?
Nader and his fanbois might deny it and try to pretend otherewise but there’s no doubt Nader cost Gore the election -and not JUST in Florida either..
Also regardless, the idea that a defeat for the relatively left-leaning Democrats means they move further left rather than shifting more to the reichwing is disproven which is my main point. History shows that does NOT happen and if theDemocrats lose, they”ll move further reichwing not towards the left and the country as a while will go further reichwing. Given w e now have Musk and Trump openly pushing nazism it may seem hard toimagien but then most people didn’t imagine Trump could actually win back in 2016.
(Sure enough he lost the popular vote but in the USA where Wyoming votes count for many times more than Californian and NYC votes the anti-Democratic Electoral Collge needs to be won rather than the majority of Americans getting their choice.)
The only way to stop Trump and project 2025 and a Christianist fascist takeover this year is vote for Kamala Harris. That’s the reality even if that like the maths cited above escapes the likes of putrity nose-chopper / Russian toolJimmy here.
StevoR @58
Nader played a role, but if we are looking at the narrow margin in Florida, aside from notorious voter error with hanging chads muddling outcome, there was one often overlooked factor. Right or wrong, the decision of the Clinton administration to have Elian Gonzalez sent back to Cuba, especially how the extraction operation played out on TV, arguably shifted the Cuban vote ever so slightly. Cubans are typically staunch Republicans, but enough could have cast votes for Gore in the universe where there was no Elian Gonzalez situation to put wooden guy whose wife hates kids listening to music (eg- Prince’s Darking Nikki) into the White House.
Gore could have lost on the Danzig/PMRC vote along. “Mother…Tell your children not to walk my way, Tell your children not to hear my words, What they mean, What they say…Mother”.
https://www.tallahassee.com/story/news/2020/10/21/new-film-connects-2000-presidential-vote-florida-elian-gonzalez/3666051001/
Gee you think that this will help her as much as Kissinger’s helped Clinton? We are faced with really bad versus total fascist. We are fucked.
StevoR@58,
Aside from Florida, I can only find one other state which Bush won where Nader’s vote exceeded the difference between Bush and Gore: New Hampshire. And as both jimmyfromdelaware@56 and Hemidactylus@59 point out, there were other factors that could also have made the difference. But the fact does remain – if enough Nader voters had instead voted for Gore in either of those states, he’d have won, so jimmyfromdelaware is simply wrong in saying it’s a lie to blame Nader for Gore’s defeat.
How can Trump be any worse than Biden/Harris in Gaza, when Biden gave Israel everything it wanted to kill Palestinians? Israel is now doing everything it can do to escalate the war by violating Iran and Lebanon sovereignty. The corporate media downplays this by saying they are attacking Hezbollah. Folks are being incredibly obtuse at the damage Biden has done.
We are screwed as a nation no matter who gets elected. And people who say a vote for anyone but Harris
is a vote for Trump, has fallen victim to some superb propaganda to maintain the shitty status quo.
I assumed people here were pretty educated people. It goes to show that anyone can fall victim to a false narrative to make a choice when there is none.
Blaming Nader for Gore’s loss is laughable.
Ralph Nader explicitly took CREDIT for Gore’s loss. So go laugh at him, dimwit.
I think everyone gets that. But if you refuse to make a choice, then you forfeit the right to complain if other people make a choice for you.
I’m assuming you’re not going to vote at all. If I’m wrong, can you tell us who you’re voting for? Are you writing in Jesus of Nazareth or Gautama Buddha, or are you going to vote for a flawed human being who can’t be trusted with the full power of the Presidency and will inevitably make a bunch of horrible mistakes?
How can Trump be any worse than Biden/Harris in Gaza, when Biden gave Israel everything it wanted to kill Palestinians?
That question has already been answered here (and elsewhere), including quotes from actual Palestinians. Your willful ignorance of those answers proves you’re an idiot, if not a propagandist tool.
And even if we assume Trump is no worse than Harris on that ONE issue, there are still plenty of other issues where they’re wildly and blatantly different — and if you don’t see or don’t care about these differences, it’s probably because you’re in a place, or an insulated bubble of class privilege, where the consequences of a Trump victory won’t affect you. In which case, good on ya mate, but don’t pretend you can lecture the rest of us.
Folks are being incredibly obtuse at the damage Biden has done.
Biden didn’t fail to inform Ivanyahu about Hamas’s preparations for last October’s attack (in fact, US intelligence gave him plenty of warnings, which he ignored). Nor did Biden order IDF units AWAY from Gaza just before the attack. Nor did Biden force Israel to prop up Hamas just to discredit Fatah. Nor did Biden order, suggest or coordinate ANY of Israel’s indiscriminate genocidal military actions against the people of Gaza, or the West Bank.
I assumed people here were pretty educated people…
And I see our responses to your tired-assed blither-points have proven your assumption valid.
We are screwed as a nation no matter who gets elected.
So once again, another advocate of third-party protest-voting can justify their action ONLY by making up some rationalization to pretend a protest vote won’t count or won’t have any effect. Which is as childish and irresponsible as it is stupidly self-righteous. Not to mention utterly useless to the rest of us. Fuck off to bed.
@ jimmyfromdelaware, #41
Yep! Welcome to humanity. We’re not nice people.
See, I do that “introspection” you’re so keen on. I know quite well what I’m a party to, I know what I’m guilty of, and I know what I am. What I know is nothing good or even particularly pleasant, but I accept that I have far less capacity to change any of that than I’d like, because I know what I am.
I object to many top Democrats’ stance on the Israeli government’s genocidal actions against Palestinians, but the choice here is between their bad stance, and the vastly worse stance of the Republican leadership. There is no choice I can make that will exempt me from complicity in the acts of those two parties- one party will be the actor, and I will be a party to their actions as long as I live. Even suicide wouldn’t absolve me- I will still have been complicit in life.
That’s the way it is, and the most I can do with my limited power is try to lessen the harm. There is no decision I can make that will stop the US from committing and supporting genocide. The best I can hope for is to vote for those who have shown themselves to slightly responsive to human rights concerns (and, crucially, also have a chance of gaining power), and advocate for them to suck less.
That’s it. That’s the limit of my power. I can squander that minuscule bit of power by voting for a third party candidate who has no chance of winning, or I can throw it away entirely by refusing to participate in the process, but the consequences of those decisions still rest on my head. If I choose no to do my utmost to make things a little better, and the worst happens, then that means I helped make the worst happen.
From your #62:
Trump and company will happily send Israel all the support it needs to eradicate the Palestinian people. Total extermination, down to the last child, in Gaza, the West Bank, and everywhere else Israel and the US military can reach. Yes, even in the good ol’ US of A. Trump himself doesn’t particularly care, but the extremists he surrounds himself with have made it clear that that’s their goal, and if they flatter him a little he’ll give them all the firepower they need to make it happen. Trump does love to see people killed in his name, so he won’t take much convincing.
If you honestly can’t see how that would be different than our current administration’s policies and actions, then I got news for you: it’s obvious to everyone that you don’t give a shit about Palestinians, or anyone else.
@ StevoR, Raging Bee, Akira, vucodlak
At this point I would rather be dealing with complete monsters who are unapologetic about genocide, perhaps only regretting that it isn’t happening somehow faster, than the disturbingly high numbers of Democrats who are willing to put a smiley face on the crime of genocide and pretend that Biden and Harris are doing a kinder, gentler ethnic cleansing. It’s somehow even more gross than openly admitting that, yeah, Palestinian lives don’t matter and you want to kill ’em all.
jimmyfromdelaware is right about you. Y’all are sick and twisted, warped by the poison coming from your chosen party for at least twenty-three years now, and it’s gotten so bad that you can’t even correctly respond to “What should my country do about an entire genocide?”. If you can’t even get that question right, why should I trust you on anything else?
vucodlak – Are you trolling, or are you serious?
—>”Trump and company will happily send Israel all the support it needs to eradicate the Palestinian people. Total extermination, down to the last child, in Gaza, the West Bank, and everywhere else Israel and the US military can reach.”
We…are…already…doing…that…right now. It is laughable that you think you have a miniscule of power voting for either party. Rs and Ds have done a phenomenal job of bipartisanship to keeping a 3rd party off the ballot and giving the false illusion of democracy. We essentially have 1 political party with 2 divisions. 1 socially liberal and 1 socially conservative. Ds and Rs are in lock step to fund genocide, start forever wars, and censoring views that they do not like.
Did it bother any of you that the DNC just installed Harris and have kept her away from press, and she refuses to do interviews? And the DNC screwed over Bernie in a primary, and he sued, but the judge dismissed it saying the DNC is a private corp and can do what it wants. If all you folks are doing is consuming corporate news, you are being misinformed.
And to Raging Bee for calling me a dimwit and to fuck off – it shows that you have lost the argument. You provide no counterargument and make unsubstantiated claims. You even correctly explained how corrupt Netanyahu is by ignoring the Hamas attack. You should be livid that the US is supporting him while he destroys Gaza and murders mostly children. But no, you still think Ds are great even though they are just as corrupt as Rs. The only thing you can do is hurl juvenile insults because you probably never had a discussion with someone you disagreed with.
Or is it Trump bad, therefore not Trump good?
@ beholder, #67
Dear sweet summer child, when you’re talking to me, you ARE dealing with a complete monster. I colder, crueler, and more bloodthirsty than anything you can imagine. And that, right there, is your entire problem: you lack imagination. You are unable, or maybe just unwilling, to do the work, to walk the path, and to take a look into the dark places. You hide your eyes and plug up your ears and wail that it’s all so terribly unfair to you, personally, never bothering to imagine that no one offered you or anyone else any fairness to start with.
Righteousness was never on the table, beholder. To live in this world is to drag your proverbial shiny soul through mire, defile your precious purity with filth, and harden your heart with shards of ice. Innocence is a fairy tale, and not the pastel, sanitized kind you want so desperately to believe in. When all is said and done, the fey will rip the teeth from your screaming mouth to make their jewelry and strip the hide from your shuddering flesh to make their pretty clothes, and they’ll sing a happy little song while they do it.
I was sick and twisted long before I became interested in overt politics, and it is the simple act of living in this world that warps my heart a little more every day. I see it, because I wanted to see, and sometimes I even like it. Other times, I think that if the hate and rage that live in me were a physical thing, I could drown the world in it. I might like that, too. I try to be open to new experiences.
When you’re ready to stop hiding under your blankie and face reality, perhaps you’ll have something interesting to say. Until then, you’re just a useful fucking puppet for people even worse than me.
@ jimmyfromdelaware. #68
Ah, another fool with no imagination!
You have no concept of just how bad things can get. None. If we wanted to, the US military and the IDF could wipe out 90% of the population of Gaza and the West Back in a week. The vast majority of the rest would be dead in no more than a month. It would take longer to round up and slaughter Palestinians outside of those territories but, in the almost-year since the Israeli leadership allowed the October 7 attack, more than 90% of those people could also have been killed.
There are certainly those in control of the Israeli government and US that want that, but they (obviously) aren’t running the show. What the US government has aided and abetted is despicable, but it’s nowhere near as bad as it could be, or will be under Trump.
No, because A.) that’s not remotely what’s happened and B.) unlike you, I actually understand the stakes.
Oy, jiminovich. FYI, the POTUS doesn’t actually have any authority over other countries, just America. I know it’s hard for tankie-trolls to comprehend this point.
Of course, you feel the need to bolster your lies with nonsensical claims about Dems installing Harris, as if there wasn’t just a whole Democratic convention that ENTHUSIASTICALLY endorsed Harris/Walz.
Only the orange guy thinks there is any problem with the way Biden dropped out of the election.
Okay – I am done. Most of you have turned into Blue-Anon that Aaron Mate coined. I find it hilarious that people have no counterargument based on facts and result in petty put downs.
Calling people who disagree with democrats, Trump supporters or Putin Puppets, has a rich disgusting history In this country. People would call those that didn’t advocate for endless wars, or who disagree with, communists. To support a genocidal presidential candidate because the other would be more genocidal shows how ridiculous the argument is.
I will let you folks have the last word.
One of the greatest dangers to democracy is the one issue voter.
Bernie isn’t actually a member of the Democratic Party, and nobody has called Jiminovich a communist afaict. Funny how he thinks the McCarthy red scare is at all relevant to the push back he is getting for trolling this post with convicted felon propaganda.
Well, yes, even in a democracy the government is mostly going to serve the interests of the wealthy and powerful. (In fact, that’s what “wealthy and powerful” means)
The best strategy in this situation is to vote for the wealthy and powerful people that show the greatest sense of “noblesse oblige” . It sucks but no one has ever offered me a better solution.
jimmyfromdelaware #72
Well. Thank for that.
beholder @ # 14: … the worst presidency of my lifetime…
Either b is less than four years old, or shuffled off the mortal coil before 1/20/17.
If the latter, pls clarify for us, b: zombie, lich, vampire, poltergeist, or ___?
“I will let you folks have the last word.”
Great! Fuck off and die!
While I’d never vote for Trump in a million years, I did try to keep an open mind to the points made by beholder and jimmyfromdelaware. The problem is neither had a point beyond “genocide is bad.”
I agree with that and as profound as that declaration is, it really gets us nowhere. Would you suggest we sit the election out, vote for Cornell West or Jill Stein, or pray that Kamala Harris declare Israel to be an ethnic cleansing apartheid state in his next stump speech?
What, exactly, is your goal here?
@79
I think the entire goal is
protectshow off his moral purity / superiority. This also explains another common observation that most of those people will be minimally affected by their non-choice: Trump vs non-Trump really doesn’t affect them personally (which is why I used “his”). To me, saying “both sides are exactly the same because of X” is a deliberate choice which means “I only care for this issue and I only care for it to show off my moral superiority / purity, and I don’t care about any other issues at all because those don’t affect me”.Jiminovich you’re a fucking embarrassment to your handlers.
PSA: remember, the enemy of your enemy is not necessarily your friend
Y’all need to zoom out. Why is there only a binary choice available? Because the system is set up that way. In many other democratic countries it is not: in Australia I can vote Green and have it count. The Greens won’t form the government, one of the old parties will, and that still sucks, but at least there’ll be representatives in parliament in the House and Senate who can influence policy.
So instead of ‘I know Harris has her issues but I’ll hold my nose and vote for her because the binary alternative is worse’, why not start trying to reform the system so that you don’t only have a choice of evils?
…I would rather be dealing with complete monsters who are unapologetic about genocide…
But you’re calling US “sick and twisted?” Go pester someone else with that pointless nihilistic self-righteousness. You have nothing positive to offer, so there’s no use listening to such nonsense.
…why not start trying to reform the system so that you don’t only have a choice of evils?
Or, why don’t you try to reform your own mindset so that you don’t think of everyone who doesn’t agree with you 100% is “evil?”
I was rhetorically referring to the expression ‘lesser of two evils’, rather than making a moral judgement.
Tempting to try ‘why don’t you try to reform your reading comprehension’?, but I’m not here to be petty, I’m here to be positive. I was attempting to suggest that there are better and more democreatic ways to do democracy.
It’s of course telling that comrades beholdrikov and SashaFromOrsha are clutching their pearls incessantly about the poooor Palestinians but have also made posts supporting Russia’s genocide in Ukraine. Sorry, can’t make a convincing case of moral virtue signalling by lambasting “Genocide Joe” when you so enthusiastically support “Genocide Vlad”. But hey, 100k a week are 100k a week!
That is easy.
Have you looked in a mirror lately?
“I hate Joe Biden for supporting genocide, but I’d support anyone who commits genocide themselves!”
-a 100% rational and logical stance taken by BorisFromRoslavl
YuriFromChelyabinsk
jiminovich
beholdrikov
SashaFromOrsha
SergeifromVladivostok
BorisFromRoslavl
Call me a bleeding-heart librul snowflake if you want: Really disappointed Pharyngulites can’t argue without resorting to blatant disgusting racism. The bigotry in this thread is utterly nauseating.
(Imagine arguing with a supporter of Israel by calling them Shylock, Fagin, [insert anti-Semitic caricature of your choice]. This is what you sound like.)
I think I’ll just call you a twit Silentbob, it fits better.
It is actually possible to do both at once – and not only possible, politically and morally correct. The key choice for Americans* this November is between Trump and Harris, and at Congressional level, between Republicans and Democrats. The stakes at those levels are extremely high: a Trump victory would be utterly disastrous – he and his supporters have made clear their intention to speed up climate disruption (yes, of course the measures being taken to slow it are are grossly inadequate and inconsistent), intensify the attack on women’s bodily autonomy and LGBTQ+ rights, and end what there is of democracy in the USA. He would clearly abandon Ukraine to Putin, encourage and support the complete genocide of Palestinians, and support fascism around the world. But the work of building a third, progressive party could and perhaps should begin at local level, in states which are clearly going to go to either Democrats or Republicans at presidential and congressioinal level: work to elect state assembly members, mayors, members of school boards, even the proverbial dog-catchers if those are elected positions. Without that sort of basis, particularly in a country where a party duopoly is as deeply entrenched as the USA, running third-party or independent progressive candidates for president is at best a self-indulgent irrelevance, at worst active and deliberate connivance with fascism. The obvious alternative is to work for a progressive takeover of the Democratic Party – the way the far right has captured the Republican Party – which again would require work primarily (pun intended) at local level. I don’t claim to know which of these strategies is best, and they are not mutually exclusive. But pretending that the two big parties are indistinguishable, or that it doesn’t matter vitally which wins in November, is utterly dishonest and irresponsible.
*Like you, I’m not one, and in the recent UK election voted and campaigned for the Scottish Green Party.
Silentbob is more concerned about the poor feelings of the Russian stooges than the damage those Judasses are willing to do in return for their thirty pieces of silver.
Maybe ask Putin to not finance and support fascist movements world-wide to destabilize other countries instead. How about that? See, I live in a country where those fascists have it out for me and my family. I have no reason to be in any way gentle and forgiving to Russia for this.
During the Iran-Iraq war, Khomeini talked about Little Satan (Iraq/Saddam Hussein) and Great Satan (USA).
For the moment, it makes sense to ally with Little Satan (Darth Cheney). There is no coming back if Great Satan becomes president.
Who’s talking about “allying” with anyone? If Cheney votes for Kamala that’s all there is to it.
Or are certain people here saying that we should talk Cheney into not voting at all or stick to his vote for the Trumpenführer for the sake of leftist ideological purity where only the votes of saints can be accepted? O wait, that’s exactly what those dumbasses have been saying! Maybe Putin should reconsider giving 100k per week to brain-amputed paramecia who couldn’t motivate a swarm of flies off of a piece of poop.
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/EvenEvilHasStandards
OK, I see some people believe their votes need to be ‘earned’. These are people no party with serious intentions of winning will ever bother catering to. Parties are not trying to get any vote possible, they are just trying to get a few votes more than their rival party. And the most productive way to do so is by turning out as many as they can of their loyal voters, those that do not condition their vote in the general election on any particular thing.
If you want to change a party’s position on any specific issue you must become such a loyal voter. You organize with like-minded people in your state, in your congressional district, to run candidates to your liking in primary elections. But come November, you vote for whoever represents said party, no matter who, no matter if they match your views or not. That is how Evangelicals took over the Republican party. Since the party knows they are a loyal demographic the party now caters to them.
Deciding the party is not good enough for you on a specific issue to vote for does nothing.
bravus #83
And how many “old parties” are there exactly? If it’s just two, then you really only have a two-party system like we do here in the US. The difference is it isn’t the voter making the choice between the two evils but the minority party members who have to choose which evil to program with.
Walter Solomon@98
That’s an over-simplification. When there are more than two parties with significant representation in the legislature or a realistic chance of getting it, even if there are only two with a realistic chance of leading the government, they often have to modify their policies, both when campaigning and post-election, in the first case to appeal to those who may vote for one of the smaller parties, in the second to survive confidence votes, get their budgets through, and get support for other policies. In the UK the 2010 election resulted in no party having a majority, and the Tories negotiated a coalition with the Liberal Democrats. The latter could have tried a coalition with Labour instead, although this would have needed support from even smaller parties to have a majority. It’s widely felt that the Tories outmanuevered the LibDems so the latter got less than they should have, but there was nothing inevitable about this.
I heartily endorse this statement from anat @97
This is exactly what we did in Minnesota. We got involved with the existing Democratic Party, and worked hard to swing it to the left, and elect more women to public office.
As a result, MN has passed legislation that supports women’s reproductive freedom, gave all school kids free breakfast and lunch, and our Governor has been chosen as a candidate for VP. Apparently our state economy is doing very well too, but that wasn’t our primary goal.
I’ve no idea what silentbob is claiming to be racist.
Russian isn’t a race, and some of us have excellent reasons for despising everything about that backward country that has done nothing but fail its people over and over for two hundred years.
https://x.com/AnasAlSharif0/status/1833139004402790794
…..and what is the best you can do to make this less likely to keep happening in the future? Think long term.
@ jimmyfromdelaware. #101
Gee whiz, that’ll really make those of us claiming that the IDF is just delivering flowers and puppy-dog kisses to Palestinians think twice! Oh, wait… absolutely no one here is defending the genocidal actions of the IDF, or the US policy of supporting the IDF’s genocide with weapons and other forms of aid. We’re pointing out that only options in the upcoming presidential race are:
1.) Harris, who has at least shown some willingness to listen and respond to criticism, and has been part of an administration that has at least exercised a bare minimum of restraint
2.) Trump, who has stated his willingness to exterminate all Palestinians everywhere, and who has surrounded himself with people who are positively eager to slaughter Muslims, Arabs, and non-white people in general, and Palestinians in particular
3.) Voting third party or abstaining from voting, which will help #2.
That’s it. That’s the choice. You either support someone who won’t do enough to stop the genocide, or support someone who will do everything in their power to supercharge it.
If you find that video upsetting, then understand that there won’t be anymore like it if Trump wins. Journalists who try to film the atrocities will be shot on sight, as will anyone trying to rescue the wounded or recover the dead.
But please, tell us about how things can’t possibly get worse.
For all of those arguing about Nader/Gore, Hillary/Bernie and the purity of the Democratic party:
Both the political parties are collections of factions. They emphasize the issues that hold their faction together, and try to find issues that will let them poach a faction from the other side (or elsewhere). The Democrats have been making the calculation that the Stein/Nader faction is incompatible with the liberal Rockefeller Republican faction that joined the Democrats in the 80s and 90s (probably correct) and that the Rockefeller Republican faction is larger (also probably correct). It doesn’t help the calculus that the Rockefeller Republican faction in the party had its hands on a lot of the levers of power in the party (and still does, but less).
Ultimately, Gore and Clinton miscalculated. The rebuffed Stein faction isn’t to blame, anyone even close to their positions within the Democratic party has been attacked by the ‘moderate’ faction. The far left has been unwelcome in the party, leaving them isolated. Why should anyone expect their support? Clinton’s self-inflicted wounds (the secret $10 million lectures to bankers, ignoring the former industrial heartland) and Russian interference probably had a much larger effect on the outcome.
Trump also won by gathering in people from two factions that were not aligned or in play (as described by Pew Research Center in the Obama years): a clump of people who were mainly interested in celebrities and avoided politics, and another group that was characterized by despair, desperation and flipped from party to party as each in turn failed to deliver a better life. Trump’s anti-elite appeal resonated with the desperate group – he attacked the Republican elites as well as the Democrats, and that group is a core part of the MAGA party now.
Things are different today. There’s a very clear choice between voting to continue our democracy, and voting to end it. In this situation, abstaining delivers a win for the side you wouldn’t choose.. Other issues aren’t really important, because this is an existential vote. Refusing to vote and voting for Trump are both votes to end democracy – and that’s why our former Republican enemies like Cheney are supporting Harris. It is a temporary alliance, but necessary to prevent a dictatorship.
There’s only one issue more important and more existential in this election – climate change. And the Democrats are infinitely better than Trump on this issue too. If there’s no civilization, there’s no choice between democracy and dictatorship. And if you think the collapse of civilization is not on the table right now, you need to read up – the DoD has been planning for localized collapses. If we trigger one of the tipping points that generate a warming feedback loop, it’ll get very dicey.
Not voting really isn’t an option this time around. Period. Perfection has to give way to triage, the perfect has to give way for the not-very-great-but-not-an-utter-disaster outcome.
The situation in Gaza horrifies me. A part of the Jewish people is traveling the path the Germans took at Hitler’s side – demonizing a group as subhuman, giving license to their slaughter. Embracing a narrative that everyone in that group threatens their nation, even children. The military and police standing aside as right-wing (Nazi and settler) gangs destroy their homes and their livelihoods. Teaching their children that the other group is evil and awful. It’s the path to genocide, so it’s really surprising and sad to see any Jews follow it.
I cannot support Israel (or any country) in the grip of such a political movement (hello, Modi and BJP). Although I’m basically a Zionist since I support a Jewish state where Jews can live free of persecution, I can’t support the current genocidal government.
George and Laura Bush and Mitt Romney have announced they will not endorse anyone this cycle. While this might be seen as positive it isn’t the same as endorsing Harris.
Who had on their bingo card that of these four people, the least morally repugnant would have been Dick Cheney?
@97, 100 Votes do have to be earned. Al Gore’s pissing and moaning about how Nader stole “his” votes is just the whinging of a sore loser. Votes aren’t yours until voters actually give them to you.
US political parties need to do minimal work to keep loyal voters; they realize that they have to keep those voters at minimally happy but that’s it. Political parties in election years pay more attention to swing voters, because that’s where the tipping point is, hence the rush to the political center in the actual election but the catering to the lunatic fringe during primaries. Political parties need workers to do a lot of unpaid scutwork–making calls in phone banks, handing out flyers, etc., which is where the party loyalists come in. But the real rush is for the undecided voter, who, if the political party can’t get them to vote for the party’s particular candidate, have to figure out a way to prevent that undecided voter from voting for the opposition. Hence the Republican party’s massive push towards voter disinformation and voter suppression in 2020. The joke’s on the Republicans though–all that confusion & voter suppression, particularly towards early voting, actually wound up suppressing a core part of the Republican vote, ie. the elderly voter. POC voters tend to vote early, which is why the GOP tried so hard to kill early voting but that bit them in the ass, because senile fundamentalist elderly voters also vote heavily in early voting. As long as the US remains a political duopoly (which it will, until we actually enshrine ranked voting nationwide, at which point we will have something closer to a parliamentary system) voting will most closely resemble a game of Go–if you can’t flip a voter from black/white the only other option is to get them off the board altogether., ie., voter suppression.
Yes, I agree that MN was pushed to the more progressive end of the spectrum but MN is also a pretty purple state. I’ve seen fossilizing parties (both parties) that never change no matter who joins, because they don’t have to change–they’re in a safe district, usually in a non swing state.
@102 I’m with you regarding long term consequences but good luck explaining that concept to the purists on this thread, the ones who whine that if they don’t get everything they want, they are going to stomp off and sulk in a corner (bar usually) and not vote at all. We all saw how well that worked in 2016.
There’s no denying that Harris has issues but at this point I will vote for a dirty sock on a stick to keep democracy alive for at least one more election cycle and to keep Cheetolini out of the Oval Office.
@1, 3, 4, 15 I wouldn’t read too much into Darth Cheney’s endorsement of Harris. That family has always been venomous, whether it was Liz throwing lesbian sister Mary under the bus to gain the love (and votes) of homophobic religious extremists for a Congressional seat or Dick Cheney going after the MAGA portion of the GOP, the Cheneys have always had self interest, grifting and venality as their guiding principles.I admit, it’s a little weird to have interests align this way, kind of like when you find out that Halliburton was the voice of reason and safety in the whole Deepwater Horizon environmental disaster that was the BP Gulf oil spill. Makes you realize how deeply fucked up the situation is. Politics really does make for strange bedfellows.
@106 The Bushes and the Romneys have relatives who they are trying to bring up in the Republican hierarchy (John Huntsman for the Romneys and a multitude of extended Bush family members), so no, they are going to be mute on the whole subject. But yeah, I keep expecting to hear a Rod Serling voiceover any minute now, when Darth Cheney at least gives the appearance of a more moral stance.
Does it help to note its more like Satan is in league with you?
Incidentally, off topic but the Polaris Dawn mission to do the first private (albeit heavily subsidised with NASA funding) space EVA has now lifted off successfully. This mission -one of the ones mentioned here :
https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2024/08/24/i-thought-capitalism-private-enterprise-would-make-space-travel-more-efficient/
NOT the Boeing Starliner one obvs!