This conversation is held daily over in the echo chamber known as !conservative@lemm.ee
Careful, winning an argument with a mod earns a free lifetime ban.
Careful, winning an argument with a mod earns a free lifetime ban.
So just like the old subreddit then? Weird how that piece of culture sticks with them.
The difference is that on Reddit I got suspended from the entire site for “report abuse” because I (correctly) reported misinformation in r/conservative and it hurt the snowflake mods’ fee-fees.
In other words, Lemmy is structurally superior because there are no fascist admins with the power to ban you from the entire network.
Lmao, I reported genocidal comments in r/worldnews and was site banned for the same reason.
I had 4 reports total, 2 were acted on and the other 2 were pretty blatant calls to violence.
It’s actually what made me quit Reddit.
For my “worldnews” ban, I called someone out for ONLY posting pro-israel content, from biased Israeli media sources, and how every comment under all their posts that disagreed were downvoted into oblivion 😅
The upvote/downvotes for my comment were shifting by dozens of votes in both directions for DAYS. It was hilarious
It’s not much different here. I get comments removed for calling out right wing propaganda trolls pretending to be far left tankies.
Conversations like this make the whole Internet feel like a shithole now.
It’s funny that you call us tankies when it’s Democrats and Republicans who gladly support a trillion and a half dollars a year being shipped off to war.
Look up what “tankie” means. And maybe you’ll understand why people call you that.
And for the record, know that you’ve essentially outed yourself for claiming the title. Good job there bud.
Idk if it is just me but lemmy has appeared to have a massive right wing shift, at least a huge influx of liberals unable to have a conversation without blindly slinging accusations. A lot of people on lemmy now unable to comprehend unhappiness with the system, singing praises to the status quo and woefully inadequate reforms at best. Welcome to election season I guess.
Site bans don’t carry the same weight here though. You get site banned, you can still be on all the other sites. With Reddit, a site ban means you can’t access the whole network.
Meanwhile I got no questions asked appeal denied lifetime banned from Reddit for saying “I should totally be allowed to punch Nazis”.
I always mentally append “Nazi sympathizers” to reddit now…
I got an account wiped out because I explained how Merari01 (a powermod with powers in hundreds of subreddits, plenty of them among the top 100 subscribers) permanently banned people in r/ContraPoints for complaining about its mods banning people for participating in third subreddits, without even checking what sort of comments they had there. I got a perma for one comment in a subreddit that didn’t even show up in r/all. Back then, I looked for comments of people complaining about Merari01 in the whole site, and the only thing I could find was another powermod explaining that Merari01 had always been involved in drama with other mods and was possibly grooming a minor.
deleted by creator
Careful, winning an argument with a mod earns a free lifetime ban.
Im gonna speedrun a ban rq
Tell them I sent you. That’ll probably be enough to get you banned for “Ban Evasion” because they think somebody’s running a sock puppet thing or whatever. I don’t know, I was permanently banned for that reason when I pointed that Obama actually WASN’T separating children from their parents under a blanket policy at the border. Being right really triggers them.
20 minutes from my first post there LMAO
Everything triggers them.
When you’re wrong as often as they are, it must get tiring
“Quick, hide our incompetence.”
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“Trump sucks, Bush sucks, Regan sucks.”
Al Gore won
The REAL stolen election
Don’t remind me. I voted for Nader.🙄
I wasn’t old enough to vote yet.
I haven’t voted third-party since. Nothing worse than seeing your third choice elected.
Ha, awesome. They’ll be deleted when you’re banned but I like your enthusiasm! +1 to each and every one of them if I could. After all, I’m banned too.
Heh, 24 hours, they let you off easy
It’s full of bad faith arguments, putting rules before humanity, the strictest possible interpretation of those rules, and they LOVE to put words in your mouth or waste your time asking for resources that they won’t read and will just respond “What are you even talking about?” because they’ve already moved the goal posts. Their newest mod spent his first hour as a mod getting in fights about Hunter Biden’s laptop and is so vehemently against tax increases because he’s one of the rich whose taxes would probably go up. He’ll gladly tell you that the rich are already paying TOO MUCH and they wouldn’t benefit from paying more.
But, hey, at least they ban the R word and homophobia.
They should scuttle back to Truth Social or X. It’s pretty obvious their ideas aren’t welcome here. Comments, posts, anything with a lick of conservative coding to it is downvoted heavily. But they tell themselves it’s a few bad actors following them around. Fucking narcissists.
I can understand conservatism at a base level. While it’s not something I agree with, I can see why people would lean towards it, and respect that people have different political beliefs.
However, as someone in Europe…what most Americans believe is conservatism would be very right-wing anywhere else in the developed world. If anything, many conservatives in Europe are at odds with the rise of the right, as populism has pushed traditional conservatism out of the conservative parties. In the UK, Boris Johnson literally kicked many conservatives out of the conservatives for not backing him on a Brexit vote, leaving the current PM Rishi Sunak looking at an election wipeout AND basically no MP’s remaining that believe in what the party was originally about.
I feel for those that have lost their party, because it basically means that the likes of Trump (win or lose) will likely mean few people that can continue their beliefs in their primary party.
I don’t feel sorry for the people who “lost” their party. To start, it was never a good party to begin with and for the final nail in the coffin, they didn’t fucking fight very hard to not lose it, did they?
The people who lost the Republican party were already far right by european standards. The average Democrat is closer to your moderate Euro conservative, sans immigration and maybe LGBT rights
Eh, in the UK moderate conservatives brought through equal marriage rights and were quietly content about increasing immigration while talking a big game about it to appease the swivel eyed tabloid readers.
Then Brexit and Boris happened.
My point being the DNC are on Parr with moderate UK conseratives. The problem we have over here now is that the Labour Party have been sprinting to the right to try and gobble up those disaffected conservative moderates as those swing voters are worth twice that of any conscientious lefty’s. So they’re currently barely indistinguishable from the 2010 Conservative/LibDem coalition.
I feel for those that have lost their party
Your not owed a party though. It’s as much your individual responsibility to make or contribute to the spaces that represent you as anyone else’s.
It’s an echo chamber filled with snowflakes over there. You’re not allowed to challenge their fee-fees.
Echo chambers don’t end well. But they need to be ended.
Why even go to any conservative board? Same for the tankie boards. It’s just madness in there
To break up the echo chamber. To me, silence is acceptance and downvoting their posts as I scroll by doesn’t feel like enough.
You’re throwing a bleach wipe into a portopotty. Is it really making that pile of shit any cleaner?
Well you’re certainly not
I am certainly not no. I just don’t spend time in the reservoir of a portopotty
My sanity is limited.
silence is acceptance
Just please be kind to yourself. It’s not your job to fix the world and everyone in it, and there’s too many asshats out there for you to be able to.
Also, please be kind to others. There are a lot of people in the world against this bullshit who are too busy with necessities to spend time arguing with internet ghouls, or too tired with everything else in their lives. Everyone has their own struggles and has to pick and choose the battles they can fight.
Silence definitely aids the spread of reprehensible beliefs, but it’s absolutely not the same as outright acceptance ir agreement. There’s just not enough time in life to debate every fucking chud out there.
I go there to be aware of what is going on in people’s heads.
Echo chambers are nice and all (I actually think they are healthy), but they don’t inform you of the current state of everyone.
Being banned from a conservative zone is like a mark of quality humanship.
Except Lemmy seems to have just as many insane extreme “leftists” and tankies that also “both sides” everything.
I can still remember how the news in fucking Germany changed. Suddenly, once Biden was in office, we didn’t get US politics in our evening news multiple times per week anymore. The United States became silent again.
Make America Boring Again
I long for the days when I thought government was boring and not worth my time. I know too much now too go all the way back, but it’s refreshing to have someone just quietly running the nation without starting a shitstorm every time their ego gets a little bit bruised.
It was always worth your time. The whole boomer mentality of not talking about politics is how we got into this mess.
But I’m glad you’re with us now. The sane need all the help we can get.
The whole boomer mentality of not talking about politics is how we got into this mess.
It’s part of it, but the bigger problem is that 99% of voters are content to just vote for their team color no matter how their legislator votes.
There isn’t enough real accountability, and therefore, no impetus for meaningful change.
I totally agree, I was just a dumb kid at the time
I didn’t vote in Bush v Gore. I remember asking a friend because I didn’t know the difference anyway.
We need to elect PhDs who have proven intellectual rigor and base decisions off data. The current setup is nothing more than a soap opera ran off corporate donations.
We need to elect PhDs who have proven intellectual rigor
You want Jordan Peterson? Because that’s how you get Jordan Peterson.
Not sure who that is but after a quick google I believe I understand your point. My idea that I’m trying to get across is that politicians are obsolete, we need PhDs who specialize is the dynamic systems involved in governing and balancing the many needs of the public. The current model promotes politicians who favor power and money / those who fund them. Throw in an uneducated public or the hyper-focused capitalist and trump is what you get. We’re not heading in the right direction with the current model.
Blind faith in technocratic ‘meritocracy’ just gets you guard rails and inclusivity stickers in the bootonyourthroat factory.
You don’t need PhDs presidents. You need to elect people who will listen to people with PhDs and other actual experts and do the right thing.
No, what we need is for all politicians to have served as teachers, professional childcare providers or medical professionals for at least five years before they can run for federal or state office.
Lügenpresse! -Donald Trump
Trump sure was entertaining. We in Finland have had quite a lot of Biden news around us joining NATO but otherwise things have been pretty quiet. I fear the Americans are going to make things interesting again.
Look at all these fucking Russian/MAGA trolls in the comments trying to play a “both sides” thing.
I was there. I lived through both. You can go fuck yourself. Like trump.
There’s a visibly coordinated effort to trash Biden and/or democrats on lemmy. The commentary is all the same. They use some form of “both sides” blaming both democrats and republicans for being awful while attacking voting for either. They focus hard on Israel and call Biden “Genocide Joe” or some similar derogatory term. Overall, they always pick at Biden’s policy completely devoid of nuance while never discussing Trump’s policies past or planned. I got several posts removed from /world calling out such similar comments.
Conversely, every single time someone makes a legitimate criticism of Biden or the Democratic establishment (and there are many to be made), someone dismisses it as “both sides”.
Democrats are undoubtedly better than Republicans. Biden is undoubtedly better than Trump. Both parties are still corrupted by mega-donors and entrenched elitism.
I have no problem with legitimate criticism. There’s plenty to criticize. However, when that criticism is derogatory, often baseless, and comes with the aforementioned attacks on voting, you bet your *** that there was nothing constructive about it.
The only people propping up their argument these days with “both sides” are the willfully uneducated and the conservatives.
I’m willfully educated and a Bernie Democrat, and I’ve been accused of making “both sides” arguments many, many times. It’s almost a guarantee that it will come out in response to any criticism of Democrats.
I don’t disagree about disengenuous conservatives making bad equivalency or “uni-party” arguments. However, it’s also true that the establishment consensus across both parties is very much outside the needs and desires of mainstream Americans.
I’m just pointing out of that it’s really easy to accidentally throw the baby out with the bathwater, and it’s not in the long term interests of the Democratic party to derail serious criticism.
Show us this “serious criticism”. It needs to be:
- sourced, or very well established facts, i.e. winner of an election (not including The Big Lie of course)
- longer than one paragraph
- have an original point
Bernie Bros are a thing. Not that you’re a Bernie Bro, just that - Trump-supporting Bernie people most definitely exist and are famous for crapping in threads. As a Bernie person myself, I don’t mean offense, I’m saying it’s easy to say “hey i’m a progressive, but Biden sucks” and that’s actually what we’re calling out here. That’s a russian troll mainstay. Actual reasoned criticism is . . . rare at best.
Bernie Bros are a thing.
Please try and apply your criteria to that statement. Write it up with multiple paragraphs with ample citations, add something original to it, then, frankly, shove it up your ass.
Or they call you a Russian asset/plant/bot or whatever.
Further, if you’re a wage earner, chances are pretty good nothing has happened under Biden to make meaningful positive change in your life, so why skip a day’s pay you desperately need in order to vote?
Unless you are in a union, have a child, drive an electric vehicle, did anything to make your home more energy efficient, want to avoid WW3, or benefit from a functional economy, Biden hasn’t done anything for most Americans.
I have a lot of criticisms to make of Biden, but he’s the best president we’ve had in at least 50 years. That is sadly an incredibly low bar, but I think he’s cleared it. I think he could have handled Gaza a lot better, but I’m not sure it would have actually helped, and I’m pretty sure that no other recent president would have done much different.
I’m pretty sure that no other recent president would have done much different.
If you’re a wage earner, he is exactly the same as a Republican.
If you mean he hasn’t personally come to your home and washed the dishes and played with the kids, yeah. Ok.
For having not even two years to unfuck all the amazing bullshit Trump intentionally or incompetently caused with a Democratic house, he’s done amazingly well.
And seriously “I’m a workin’ man he ain’t done nothin’ for me” is straight up talk radio garbage. Do you want examples? We got a bag full. But I’m guessing you don’t.
I totally agree. However I never see any well-stated nuanced argument against it.
It’s always “Yeah teh genocide” and a (╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻
My point being, that’s indistinguishable from a russian troll / MAGAt / b0tH SiDeS comment. Occasionally people will use some keywords like FPTP or Citizens United or such, which is good, but they usually still essentially just leave snark droppings and wander off. Which doesn’t really help.
And it’s always either lemmygrad or Lemmy.ml
with a bit of lemmy.world sprinkled on top
as expected, socialists and communist can’t and won’t tolerate the existence of a fascist state
And yet China and Russia are facist states
Neither of those countries are fascist.
Go to China and talk about tiananmen square or go to Russia and oppose the invasion of Ukraine. You’ll be locked up instantly.
Self proclaimed communists who support authoritarianism are either wildly propagandized or flat out shills
If Trump wins, he will outright ban the Democratic Party, if not at least make it SUPREMELY difficult for the party to be changed in any significant way for the better. I will only vote for Biden to buy a little more time in which for the more progressive wings of the Democratic Party to act. Technically, there’s nothing stopping our government from just Thanos snapping a party out of existence. I really would not want to see Trump snap his fingers and suddenly the only party with the means to oppose him just stops existing. And before you say the DNC doesn’t have the means to oppose Trump and the GOP, they absolutely do have the means. They have all the tools they need to stop them. The will to use those tools? That’s what the DNC is sorely lacking. This is because the party is suffused with neoliberals and their bullshit that MUST be called out and pushed out. Unfortunately these neolibs also have a lot of money, something something the more progressive members of the Party are lacking.
While I’m sure these trolls exist, I think there is still a minority that genuinely disliked the dems and don’t want to support genocide.
My point is: everytime I see someone saying that lemmy is having a coordinated effort to trash Biden, it kind of makes me trust that statement less because I’m one of those who actually criticizes Biden without trolling.
This is why those trolls are so effective, cause their goal is not to troll us, is to get us to troll and argue with each other over miscommunications they started.
Then I don’t think you understand the difference between trolling and criticism. There is absolutely plenty to criticize about Biden, and criticism should be done, however making up “genocide Joe” comments, trashing on voting for him, and implying potential supporters are complicit in the actions of the administration is not criticism.
I think there is still a minority that genuinely disliked the dems and don’t want to support genocide.
Seriously? You think a majority of Democrats support genocide? That’s . . . incorrect.
Being unhappy with both options and focusing on Israeli war crimes is a perfectly valid political stance.
Da
True. The American uniparty corpocracy does mirror Russian oligarchy.
Like, I know Biden is not that great, but at least the slow collapse of the country isn’t being put in your face every day like it was with Trump.
I can’t think of a single other president in my 32 years on this planet that I can say that the end of their time in office acutely improved my mental health.
Like, I know Biden is not that great, but at least the slow collapse of the country isn’t being put in your face every day like it was with Trump.
Noted, but if you work for a wage, you’re living the collapse of the country every day. You’re likely paying 2.5x more for groceries now than you did in 2020. Permanent $3 gas is here. You’re also likely paying for those things with 2-3 jobs.
What you guys don’t get is that it doesn’t matter that Trump was a bad president. Too many people are living in a bad presidency, and they’re going to want change.
Those aren’t Presidential decisions. You’re describing capitalism run riot.
How does Biden raise the price of goods across the board while companies make record profits?
in your face every day
This is the media. And Trump’s love of publicity.
Maybe if he didn’t do horrible things to benefit himself at our expense every day the media wouldn’t have been having a field day. I mean, every word and every action that guy makes is 100% about boosting himself up and knocking everyone else down. Hard not to report on all that when the guy that’s supposed to be leading us and improving things is sabotaging and grifting us in plain sight. Ya know?
We are not going to change Trump’s narcissistic, destructive grifting, but the media doesn’t have to report on it.
Can’t say that pretending his narcissistic destructive grifting doesn’t exist sounds like a better option.
It exists, but it doesn’t need to be amplified.
Right, elect Trump and stay quiet. Got it.
True. And honestly I wish they would stop. Even now he KEEPS getting tons of media attention he wants.
Even media adjacent things like all the late shows went from comedy about anything to all Trump all the time and I had to stop watching them. It is exhausting.
Fair. Turning off media is a valid decision.
They are the Russian bots at it again.
Here’s a record of all things Biden… https://twitter.com/PushBidenLeft
lmao, genocide joe shills, i hope trump wins…
I’m pretty old. Biden has been the best president of my lifetime.
He should be viewed as a national hero for beating Donnie in 2020 and making it stick, which was probably harder than it looked. The US President starting a coup has lots of strings to pull.
I genuinely think that the only reason so many people aren’t able to admit that is because of Gaza.
I deduct credit from a President if they are primarily fixing problems that they themselves caused or greatly assisted in creating throughout their previous political career. In Biden’s case, that means that he is unlikely to get better than absolute neutral due to his incredibly long history of selling out the American people.
I will not give Biden an 11th hour passing grade just because he is up against Trump, he doesn’t deserve to be graded on a curve.
Eh, this is a bit too “moving the finish line” for me. In a super long political career, attitudes shift. I don’t think you can judge someone for, say, cheering about Don’t Ask Don’t Tell (a win for it’s time, but now seen as a crappy half measure) as long as their attitudes shifted. That’s kind of how politics works. 100 years from now current liberal attitudes will be looked down on because they aren’t progressive enough. That’s sort of the definition of progress.
So if I spend my life being a right bastard, like 50 straight years of kicking dogs, stealing from old ladies, being a slum lord and extorting people, breaking people’s legs in mafia style protection rackets, dumping toxic industrial byproducts into rivers, and using my wealth and power to keep and enforce “sundown laws”, but then in my 60s open an animal shelter, fund bingo nights and retirement centers, set up community reinvestment grants, sponsor efforts to get the wetlands to get cleaned up as a Superfund site, and get diversity and equality training implemented for the police department, would I then be considered to be a good person because my attitude shifted? The thousands of people I hurt and potentially indirectly killed over those 50 years don’t count against the good I am now doing?
Even simpler, if I steal and destroy your car, causing you to lose your job because you don’t have transportation which then causes you to lose your home, should I then be praised for giving you a nicer brand new car a year later?
Sticking to politics in case that’s the only place this kind of behavior gets a pass, what if someone didn’t cheer for Don’t Ask Don’t Tell but instead had sponsored bills undoing limitations or bans on gay conversion therapy. Does later supporting a bill making conversion therapy illegal undo the suicides and trauma they inflicted because their apparent attitude has changed? Are they now equal to the person who spent their entire career pushing for gay rights, because this person supported strengthening of domestic partnership laws instead of marriage equality 20-30 years ago? They both support gay rights now, so is saying that the first person is doing the bare minimum and shouldn’t really be called an ally “moving the finish line”?
all I see is three back to back strawman arguments. when did Biden do this?
Biden was Senator from Delaware for nearly 25 years, during which time his state discarded usury laws and became a haven for the Credit Card companies and predatory Banks. He was one of the sponsors removing the ability to discharge student loan debt in bankruptcy. He had a rather staunch record of supporting financial lobby interests throughout his career. He supported drone strikes, including on American citizens, while Vice President. He was openly against desegregation actions in the 70’s, but let’s give him the benefit of the doubt and say he has grown on that front.
I am saying that the harm he was part of due to the selling out of protections for the American people at the beheadst of the financial services lobby over multiple decades means that his current actions to cap fees and provide some student loan relief are little and late. It’s better than nothing, but he is not a paragon of supporting the little guy
You think Biden becoming President and trying to fix the mistakes he made previously in his political career is a bad thing?
How many politicians do you know of that will admit they made a bad call or their previous track record was shitty for the people, let alone become president in an effort to “right those wrongs?”
Politicians make bad decisions all the time, and we suffer because of it, so I applaud anyone who can realize it and do what they can to fix it… a lot of the politicians today will stand by every decision they make, most of which will just double-down on it.
No, I don’t think it’s a bad thing. In fact I think that fixing his mistakes is a good thing. I also don’t think that it more than balances out the years of damage that be did before having a change of heart when he is running for President and needs votes. He started in a hole, and the good things he does start in that hole, not at ground level.
I don’t think that Biden is now as ethical as Bernie Sanders just because he is trying to reduce some of the harm he was responsible for. Let’s also not attribute to genuine generosity and compassion that which can also be explained by pragmatism and calculus. If he was not running for President and was instead still a 30+ year incumbent Senator of Delaware, would he be sponsoring student loan relief bills and credit card/banking fee limitation bills? I don’t think so, but maybe you do.
If he was not running for President and was instead still a 30+ year incumbent Senator of Delaware, would he be sponsoring student loan relief bills and credit card/banking fee limitation bills? I don’t think so, but maybe you do.
I honestly think he would. Not out of compassion or anything, but if you follow Biden’s career, there are three constants:
-
Man loves his choo-choos.
-
He’s a strong Union supporter by the standards of US politicians (ie by the lowest imaginable bar).
-
He otherwise shifts with the party.
When the party’s opinions change, so does he. Not necessary the opinions of the entire American electorate - not necessarily the opinions of just the top brass - the party as a whole. In some ways, you could say, in that sense, he’s a reed in the wind or an opportunist - but he is pretty consistently responsive to firm shifts in the outlook of Democratic voters, before most other moderates do.
Student loan relief and banking fee limitations would have be anathema (yes, even amongst most of the voters) for Dems even just 20 years ago. Dem opinions have changed, and Biden sways with them.
-
I totally agree, but I also think that every president for the last 50+ years would have walked out of office and into a prison cell in a just world. Judged in that context, Biden looks pretty good.
Also, a ham sandwich would have beaten Trump in 2020. I know this because half the Biden supporters on Reddit were constantly paving over Biden’s deep flaws by pointing out that they would pick a ham sandwich over Trump. I have no idea why it was always a ham sandwich. All Biden had to do was hide in his basement and not say anything mind-blisteringly stupid. That and avoid catching COVID from Trump on the debate stage.
It was a ham sandwich because Sol Wachtler, a New York State Chief Judge, once said that he could get the average Grand Jury to indict a ham sandwich, if he were to bring charges against it.
I think Obama was better in charisma and speeches. Which is motivating. But Biden is damn good.
He had a good sense of humor but also drone strikes
Idk why someone downvoted you; that’s the most tepid take I’ve read all week.
The Biden Administration maybe. Joe can’t even find his way to stage left
You’re quite literally an idiot if this isn’t disingenuous
This guy LOVES a good old fashioned genocide.
I honestly don’t get the hate against Biden. From what I’ve seen, he’s old and he’s done a whole lot of good, more than the average democratic president.
Him being the choice over Trump should be an obvious, nearly anyone over Trump is the better choice, so what the hell is wrong with these people wanting to vote trump or not vote at all just to stick it to Biden?
There’s other good answers here, but there’s a more basic one.
Biden simply doesn’t have the charisma of Obama or the outlandishness of Trump. The reason he was an effective leader in the Senate was because of his ability to coordinate people and get shit done.
It’s what he’s done as President as well. It’s good organizational leadership, but it isn’t flashy.
Biden has also been way better than Obama on policy, which I really didn’t expect from his record in Congress. Obama’s charisma has really blinded a lot of people to the deep flaws of his administration.
What were the deep flaws of the Obama administration in your eyes?
Not OP, but drone strikes goes on the list.
He campaigned on “change” then governed as a competent manager of the status quo. His first major initiative was to protect Wall Street execs from the crisis they caused and stabilize the banking system on the backs of working Americans.
His crowning achievement was the ACA, which will be a complete economic disaster. It fixed some terrible shortcomings, but it’s also been a massive wealth transfer from workers to Wall Street, and the worst is yet to come on that score. He mistakenly gave the health insurance companies a seat at the table as a stakeholder in American healthcare, when they are actually in the financial services business. That philosophical mistake is at the heart of the rapidly accelerating collapse of the system today.
Price controls in the ACA were very badly thought out or, worse, they were well thought out. The rule that requires health insurance companies to spend 80% on healthcare sounds great, but it also means that insurance companies can continue to grow profits out of the 20% by spending more on the 80%. There is a soft cap of 15% on annual rate increases and, sure enough, the industry has aimed to stay just below that. It also means that the insurance companies largely ignores fraudulent claims. Those claims just increase spending on the 80% side, allowing them to increase profits. Anti-fraud enforcement comes from the 20%, which decreases profits. I don’t want to write a novel, but I could go on for quite a while on the ACA.
In short, Obama was just another neoliberal who only addressed the worst issues in society when he could sell the solution to Wall Street. The moment he left office he received a flood of cash from the investment community, all under a thin veil of legitimate transactions. He also bankrupted the DNC, setting the stage for Hillary to come in and “rescue” it. The particulars of the resulting takeover led directly to the infamous emails that got leaked and probably threw the election to Trump.
“Looking forward not back”
“Giving the Republicans way more than they should have because that’s democracy”
Good organizational leadership and not flashy is exactly what we need rn. I only wish we weren’t at risk of it ending so soon
I strongly disagree. A little inspirational leadership would go a long way to calming my nerves about a potential second Trump administration. Biden is incapable of winning a mandate for a second term, and we are all lucky that Trump seems capable of losing anyways.
It’s easy enough for some voters to be happy with a competent administration. But, for a lot of Americans, that looks like an extremely privileged point of view.
That’s older politics. Speeches made the difference. Now is the dis track and highlights. The tweets and the memes. Sad but true.
I said “leadership”. Flowery speeches and clever memes are fine, but what’s his vision, and how do we get there? At best, he offers minor tweaks to a system that’s starting to implode.
Speeches were the memes back in the day. “Ask not” and “tear down this wall” and “read my lips” and so on.
Oh they definitely were memed. But I don’t think speeches resonate as they once did. I personally find people reference memes and jokes more than policy and facts. Maybe it’s who I work with.
It’s not a job for a clown. It’s a job for an accountant. You would expect your accountant to honk a horn each return they do so I don’t get this expectation a president is supposed to act like a sideshow reverend in Las Vegas
Definitely not a job for an accountant. It is a job for someone who is good at hiring qualified people and delegating work correctly.
I believe the metaphor was more to do with the most effective attitude. Accountant = boring from the outside and focused on doing the job.
This guy accounts
It’s what he’s done as President as well. It’s good organizational leadership, but it isn’t flashy.
Loud work wins in corporate America, and I’m sure the same applies here. The reason it wins is simple: this country is full of fucking idiots.
Two reasons. First, there’s GOP just blanket hating on anything without their party’s Seal of Approval, sometime posing as democrats.
Second, it’s in the nature of progressives to want something better. To point out that, while [thing] may be OK, it could be improved, even in small ways. So, while you’re comparing Biden and Trump, they’re comparing Biden with some Platonic ideal President. Most of them will, when it comes to the actual ballot, and they have to choose between the two actual candidates, vote against Trump, but they’ll grouse about it. The others probably weren’t going to get off the couch for anyone, anyway.
The only people who are really pushing the trump agenda are Russian bots. Like they did during his first campaign only then it was pizzagate Hilary bullshit.
They’re angry and justify to avoid challenging their own worldview. Apart from general evil, that basically sums it up. To expand: Plenty of them are convinced what they are doing is right. They legitimately believe they are on the right side. We don’t really see this because we aren’t constantly soaking up the same news every single day. We aren’t surrounded by people parroting false truths without a check (though we are in our own nodes), and we challenge one another’s beliefs, something people leaning left tend to do. For the rest it is about hurting others. A much smaller percentage could be convinced they’re wrong and just haven’t found a strong enough reason to challenge what they believe in.
None of this is good. Though we will gain the most ground by attempting to be understanding and being firm whenever needed.
I honestly don’t get the hate against Biden.
I hate on Biden, even though I believe he is a good president overall. My hate stems for the very obvious (maybe petty) reason:
He is the wrong direction. The way to beat fascism is by being bold, progressive and forward thinking. Biden is basically the “let’s play it safe” candidate. All well and good, but clearly he did not reduce the appetite for fascism.
And yes, I think Bernie would have.
I agree almost entirely. Boldness is the way to defeat fascism, and Biden is not bold enough.
At the same time, I do think there is a caveat. Reducing the appetite for fascism is reliant on success, and, if I am being honest, fucking no one was going to be successful in this political climate with this Congress and electorate. If Bernie flounders, progressivism is discredited, even if it’s not at all his fault; even if he, individually, is doing the best anyone could be expected to do. If Biden, who is very much a moderate on most issues, flounders, appetite for change increases.
There’s a sick calculus in politics that, though you as a voter should always vote for the best candidate who has a serious chance to win, in objective analysis, the best candidate winning isn’t always the best thing for the cause.
I voted for Bernie in the 2016 and 2020 primaries, and if the 2024 primary was at all serious instead of locked-in to the incumbent, seriously speaking, I would vote for him in 2024 too, just to be clear.
That’s great and everything, and overall I agree, but Bernie lost two primaries. But somehow the trolls ignore that and move to how he should run for president in 2024 because he’d be better than Biden when clearly that’d just help elect Trump.
Prior to being the VP and now President, he had a long political career as an establishment corporate Democrat. His home state is where almost all US usury is headquartered, and he consistently sold out the American people to those corporations. He sponsored the bill removing bankruptcy options from student loans, sided with the banks and credit card companies on interest rates and fees, was a war hawk, and was more than “it was just how it was at the time” racist.
Essentially every bit of the “whole lot of good” has been an 11th hour change of heart and fixing problems he was more than complicit in creating. Add to that the DNC manipulation to block other candidates, and you have the South Park special of a Douche vs. a Turd Sandwich.
You like “usury” don’t ya. The word. I noticed you used it a couple of times already.
Usury. Has some weight to it, doesn’t it. Some heft. It’s got . . . connotations.
Do you have a better word for lending money and charging exorbitant interest rates, fees, or conditions to unjustly enrich the lender? I could just call them legally gray loan sharks, which they are, but the laws surrounding the governance of money lending are actually called usury laws. That’s why I used the term. I think the Banks and Credit companies that have bled the countries bottom 50% dry and have nearly succeeded in eliminating the middle class qualify for the label, but you do you.
i honestly don’t get the hate against drumpf, isn’t the us a fascist state already?
The fact that the US is currently in an election year and there is uncertainty about the likely winner demonstrates that this is nonsense
moon logic from lemmy.ml users as expected
i honestly don’t get the hate against drumpf
We know you don’t. Authoritarian sycophants like you love people like him.
Yes OK, but apart from all that, what has Biden ever done?
Reminds me of Monte pythons the life of Brian
I expect that’s the joke they were making.
He mAdE tHe pRiCe oF cHeeSe Go uP!
biden sitting in the office, twiddling the “cheese price” knob and giggling to himself
That’s why the cheesemakers are blessed, so that they’ll increase production which will result in lower cheese prices across the board.
Obviously he was referring to all manufacturers of dairy products.
Apparently he personally killed thousands of Palestinian babies. /s
“You don’t think this is a result of decades long fucked up relationship between US and Israel, driven by almost all political and administrative entities from both DNC and GOP, and not just Biden?”
“yOu ArE gEnOcIdE eNaBlEr!!11!”
“That’s the way we’ve always done it” is a poor justification for supporting genocide.
That’s not what they said at all.
You are mixing up “the way it is” with “the way it should be”. They are speaking to the way it is not trying to argue that it should be that way because we always have.
It’s simply stating a fact. The US has a multiple decades long bromance with Israel and the unsettling truth is that we both love doing the whole industrial war machine killing and genocide thing. A lot. Slavery, Trail of Tears, Vietnam, Banana Republics, Tuskegee, Iraq, Afghanistan, and on and on. And you’re gonna sit there and tell me it’s Biden’s fault alone that Israel is doing a genocide? And that he alone can somehow stop them after decades of doing it too and backing them?
Should Biden denounce the genocide? YES Should Biden at least stop sending munitions? YES Should Biden send in our troops to stop the IDF? Yes? No? Maybe? I don’t even know. Is he responsible for the genocide? NO
He supports the genocide by selling weapons to Israel. If he ever stops, I’ll stop saying he supports genocide.
I didn’t say it was Biden’s fault alone.
Fair. And I agree.
One thing that makes me bristle at the situation is that a lot of people are saying “he is doing the genocide so let’s elect Trump!”
And I’m like wtf? No. He isn’t DOING the genocide, he is enabling it sure, but not doing it, and not voting for him to let Trump win is 100x worse.
One thing that makes me bristle at the situation is that a lot of people are saying “he is doing the genocide so let’s elect Trump!”
And one thing that makes me bristle is when people assume that all opposition to the genocide is this. My position is that Biden is supporting Netanyahu’s genocide and that he should stop.
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It’s so neat seeing the only policy centrists actually stand up for when they encounter pushback.
I’m ready to get past trump so we can stop talking about trump. His cluster B narcissism is loving all this attention. Can’t wait to never hear about the fucker
First we gotta make sure he isn’t president again. Or else it’ll be a long time before anyone will be able to forget him.
Father Time is our best friend
Father cholesterol ahould be, time is taking too long to show up to the party.
No, it isn’t. Kissinger lived to be 100.
Honestly, that’s probably the worst outcome.
He’ll live long enough to rig the system to ensure only people like him win, setting the stage for the next far more competent fascist.
I’m planning a party the day he dies, but before/after that, I’m down to never hear his name again.
I’d also love to never hear about him again.
Sadly, I’m pretty sure he’s going to win in November.
As someone who takes crazy pills every day, I am highly insulted that you associate me with the Trump administration.
Furthermore, my nipples are in tune with God and tweaking them will grant you his holy message.
I think the middle person is living on the military grade hopium where there’s bound to be a revolution that solves everything, it’s just around the corner too. So why bother trying to get small wins or even slow down the worsening conditions. Revolution will fix everything.
Any day now…
Everybody thinks they’ll come out on top after a “revolution” but they almost certainly will not. Such chaos is far more likely to help than hurt fascists. That’s kind of their jam.
See: Iran.
AAAAnd China. The progressive communist revolution was pioneered by young and ambitious urban intellectuals to fight against warlords, Foreign imperialism, and old China; later also the attempted dictatorship of Chiang Kai-shek. Unfortunately, their hard work was eventually hijacked by conservatives and dictators.
A bit of fun fact: after the communist revolution and cultural revolution, China was slowly stepping towards democracy, through internal CCP reform:
called for the end of bureaucracy, centralisation of power as well as patriarchy, proposing term limits to the leading positions in China and advocating the “democratic centralism” as well as the “collective leadership”.
Deng emphasized that the Constitution must be able to protect the civil rights of Chinese citizens and must reflect the principle of separation of powers; he also described the idea of “collective leadership” and championed the principle of “one man, one vote” among leaders to avoid the dictatorship of the General Secretary of CCP.
Unfortunately, the pro-democracy crowd lost, because they sided with Tiananmen square student protest. Their defeat eventually leads to the Tiananmen Square massacre. And the political power fallen into the hand of the conservatives.
after the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre, many leading reformists including Zhao and Bao were removed from their posts, and the majority of the planned political reforms (after 1986) ended drastically. Left-wing conservatives led by Chen Yun, President Li Xiannian and Premier Li Peng took control
The pro-democracy leaders were all weakened or arrested after Tiananmen Square massacre:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhao_Ziyang
lost power for his support of the 1989 Tian’anmen Square protests.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hu_Qili
he was purged for his sympathy toward the student protesters and his support for General Secretary Zhao Ziyang’s opposition to the use of armed force.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bao_Tong
During the 1989 Tian’anmen square protests, he was one of the very few Chinese senior officials to express understandings with the demonstrating students, which led to his arrest shortly before the June Fourth incident.
So there might be a bizarre alternative world, where Tiananmen Square protest did not happen and China is now a democracy…
Oh true! Great point, that example slipped my mind but very on point.
The bizarre alternative world isn’t even where the protests didn’t happen, it’s where agents of foreign governments and local fanatics didn’t hijack/build them up with the explicit goal of producing as much bloodshed as possible.
I was hoping tankies won’t have a conspiracy theory about one of the most tragic event of human kind, but I guess I overestimated humanity.
These were well-educated, progressive, and ambitious students, passionated about a brighter future for China. They share the same vision and drive as the founding members of CCP. And they are more passionate about communism than all the tankies I have seen, and willing to sacrifice their life for their admirable goals.
Their requirements has always been simple and clear: build a progressive democratic government in Hu Yaobang’s vision, and purge the conservatives like Li Peng from CCP, which is founded upon a progressive vision of China. Thus, they are needlessly and brutally murdered by conservatives who seek to stabilize their own power.
If you work for the CCP, I doubt I will be able to project any sense into your brain. I can only hope these word might be helpful for readers of your comments to gain some context.
Okay, I guess Chai Ling never existed and the multiple admitted connections to western regime change programs of three letter agencies are all cpc propaganda?
It’s one thing to say that the events are tragic and that it would have been good if dengist students could have implemented reforms, a sentiment I mostly agree with, it’s another entirely to suggest that there was no manipulation towards violence by people either directly or indirectly tied to western intelligence operations.
E: autocorrect dengist -> dentist where’s my denguin holding a pick hexbear emoji?
Uh, US interference in Iran directly contributed to current affairs of Iran.
Correct, that’s what I’m trying to say. The chaos resulting from the US interference led to the current regime using other factions to, ultimately, get into power and quickly turn against. Sorry if that wasn’t clear.
There’s a chapter in uncle Bob’s book Clean Code about how everybody dreams of a grand redesign in the sky, but that it never really works out in the end.
I’m sure the same would apply to laws of society.
Quoting Uncle Bob in this context isn’t the best idea though
Is it ever? :)
Revolution will fix everything.
Me, living in Paris in 1926, excited about how the new commune movement will fix everything permanently
Me, moving to Shanghai two years later, because that are the odds of this happening twice?
Also known as accelerationism, yeah
There are only so many ways to get the kind of society that works, and far too many ways for it to go wrong. It’s kind of a crazy idea to think that burning it down and starting over would be beneficial.
This video is about 2020 in general, but it really encapsulates the news style Trump fostered. Just a firehose of garbage that overwhelms the senses. And it’s only gotten worse.
I believe Steve Bannon’s quote was, “flood the zone with shit.” News is by definition, new, so if you never give people a chance to talk about what happened 5 hours ago, nobody is ever pissed off for the same reason.
“flood the zone with shit.”
This is pretty much just how US media has always worked.
no, it absolutely is not.
this is a new thing, which really started with 9/11.
this is a new thing,
I guess you don’t remember the garbage they were peddling in US media back in the 80s and 90s?
From wikipedia:
First presented in their 1988 book Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media, the propaganda model views corporate media as businesses interested in the sale of a product—readers and audiences—to other businesses (advertisers) rather than the pursuit of quality journalism in service of the public. Describing the media’s “societal purpose”, Chomsky writes, “… the study of institutions and how they function must be scrupulously ignored, apart from fringe elements or a relatively obscure scholarly literature”. The theory postulates five general classes of “filters” that determine the type of news that is presented in news media. These five classes are: ownership of the medium, the medium’s funding sources, sourcing, flak, and anti-communism or “fear ideology”.
It did intensify after 9/11 - but it was only an intensification of what was already there.
ah, I suppose I’ll concede - I was referring to the 24/7 flood of shit (which was a distinct change in intensification of the flood), but you were just meaning a flood of shit.
many people weren’t around then, 11-9 was more than 20 years ago
Many were, though. And they’re telling you that’s what happened.
It’s an interesting quesiton. I would argue the launch of USA Today followed relatively closely by Fox News is what started it.
Like how do people like that exist with themselves all with coming up with an opinion and just not researching it let alone questioning it for a second just to be debased in a matter of seconds. And that’s giving them the benefit of the doubt. Deep down I think they are trolling.
I think it’s just because the media reports the negative things that happened under Trump more loudly than they reported the positive things under Biden.
You think the media reports Trumps bad things as much as they report Biden’s good things and that’s the difference?
Wow.
Ya think? Like how they only care about kids in cages when they don’t like the president?
Of course they are. After all the allure of spreading fake news anonymously is strong indeed. In such environment default stance is trolling and conscious effort is required to not to when there are no consequences.
they are definitely a troll and I’m with you on that. there is always a slim possibility there is someone who will read this shit and actually swallows it. So it’s exhausting when so many bots and trolls suck up time of others who are trying to run triage.
And yeah, I wish there were better and more effective consequences than ‘tell a mod’ cuz that doesn’t do shit on meta or Reddit or x
Advanced trolls are almost indistinguishable except that they seemingly drastically change opinions every other comment. Best you can do is just refute the comment as it is and quickly end it.
Just click on the username and read their comment history. It’s pretty simple.
We should train a neural network that will detect this. We have the technology. Create a profile of political views and likes of a user, and if it is too chaotic, eliminate the dissenter with a well-placed Improvised Explosive Device.
Alternatively, we can carry out a precise air strike on the subversive element. For example with a General Atomics MQ-1 Predator remotely piloted aircraft.
Like how do people like that exist with themselves
In 2016 it was reported by several places that tens of millions of Americans can’t absorb a sudden $400 expense without going further into debt. That number has grown significantly under Biden, which is why people don’t care about articulating their opinion of why he’s a bad president. (For instance, in 2023, homelessness jumped 12%)
Their lives just got harder, and that experience is all they need.
Careful, you’re going to upset the tankie hive mind. Then they’ll report you until your comments are removed for violating some vague unexplained rule.
That’s the thing, Trump did accomplish something - he showed that radicalism in a position like the president is possible. One can act like an autocrat and actually get things done. He showed that being cut throat to accomplish your political ends is possible even when in power.
Obama had a chance to put in a second Supreme Court Justice near the end of his second term, but decided it was too close to the election and wouldn’t be fair to the democratic process… Then came Trump. Trump’s accomplishment was showing the world what radical rightwing politics could do.
Now we have imitators around the world and new strains of fascism.
Many on the left feel like similar is in order on the left. So don’t blame the tankies, as they’re as much a product of the times as anything else… And it’s quite easy to want a radical leader when it’s this obvious that the system is no longer efficient at serving the will of the people… Or should I say, the will of the left.
RIP Bernie Sanders’ presidential run. Hopefully we’ll get someone similar, but we won’t get there without making the demand clear as possible.
Obama had a chance to put in a second Supreme Court Justice near the end of his second term, but decided it was too close to the election and wouldn’t be fair to the democratic process
Obama didn’t decide anything. The GOP had majority. They stonewalled his nomination.
Obama’s mistake was to not give a forced ‘thank you for your service, you deserve rest’ to RBG when DNC had majority.
Which was a social norm Obama wasn’t legally bound to follow but he chose to (and we all know Trump wouldn’t have). See the Merrick Garland section below:
Here’s a legal article saying so:
is it legally possible for President Barack Obama to make some sort of last minute move to appoint Merrick Garland to the U.S. Supreme Court? The short answer is yes. The long answer is that it would likely pose a Constitutional challenge.
Trump would have. So some people think the democrats are neither radically left, nor ruthless enough.
Their politeness is paralyzing.
Did he really accomplish much, though? The only thing he did with his trifecta was passing Yet Another Tax Cut, with everything else either filibustered or voted down (ty Mr McCain). After 2018, his legislative agenda was DOA. He forced a shutdown over border wall spending, which failed. I can’t think of anything else notable legislatively.
On the executive side, he managed to unwind some regulations (that were reinstated after Biden came in) and his FCC pick repealed net neutrality, but all of the super radical stuff he tried to do got tied up in the courts for most of his term and either struck down, reduced drastically in scope, or only took effect for a short while before he left office.
The biggest thing he did was packing the supreme court, but I would argue that’s just as much due to McConnell, and any Republican president would have given us the same extremist court. All the stuff that’s uniquely Trump, like the border wall or the Muslim ban, failed miserably.
You are absolutely right.
It’s laughable that Democrats pretend to be powerless when they held the presidency and Congress for two years. I’m not a Trump supporter, but he was living proof that the president can (at least to a degree) achieve what they promise if they’re willing to fight for it.
There were several good things he did for the wrong reasons, in fact, like pulling the US out of Syria.
It’s laughable that Democrats pretend to be powerless when they held the presidency and Congress for two years.
Are you joking? How do you think bills get passed? And how long does that take, do you think? A few weeks maybe?
they held the presidency and Congress for two years.
They never did, you fucking liar.
he showed that radicalism in a position like the president is possible
Please learn what the word “radical” means.
You can also get your posts removed for bringing up this tactic.
Was a risk worth taking. That shit needs to be called out.
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What gets me is the Democrats have a candidate who actually supports policies that would enrich the poor and working poor: Marianne Williamson: Universal health care, universal living wages, affordable housing, free college, taxing the ultra wealthy, etc.
You wouldn’t have to make excuses for her like you do for Biden. And even better, she can string together a coherent sentence.
This election is a rerun of 2016. You’re all ignoring the most important fact, that tens of millions of Americans have experienced such paralyzing inflation that their cost-of-living has become untenable unless they work 2-3 jobs and sacrifice their lives and health in order to do it. I’m seeing it myself, with 80 year-old parents that have to work DoorDash.
They’re not going to care that Trump is a fascist. What’s going to win this election for Trump is that he can market himself as the candidate of change.
What’s going to win this election for Trump is that he can market himself as the candidate of change.
People don’t understand the power of this, but that was like, half of obama’s whole schtick, his whole charisma, despite being a kind of lukewarm libshit president a lot of the time. There’s a lot of power to that kind of marketing, there’s a lot of power to the anti-institutional appeal, for americans.
Who?
