Some people will be miserable no matter who is running

  • Catoblepas@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    3 months ago

    We’re electing a president, not a monarch. Nobody is above criticism, and there’s a weird segment of people who act like criticism from the left exists only to help the right.

    Like, I actually saw someone say we shouldn’t do it because it’s too nuanced for the average voter, and sorry but I don’t do paternalism like that. If reading criticism of how a candidate isn’t far enough left makes you vote further right, that’s a basic political literacy problem.

    • Zachariah@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      I mean, we could focus on defeating the GOP and the day after the election results come in start using social pressure to guide our elected officials. If the criticism risks the GOP seizing even more power, it might be counterproductive to your goals even if the criticism is valid.

      • Catoblepas@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        3 months ago

        Any good faith criticism of the Dem candidate should be obvious in its criticisms that R policies are inherently worse. For example, Harris’ record as DA is worth criticizing, but any bad decisions related to imprisoning people are going to be a million times worse under Trump, as Project 2025 shows.

        • ᗪᗩᗰᑎ@lemmy.ml
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          3 months ago

          Any good faith criticism of the Dem candidate should be obvious in its criticisms that R policies are inherently worse.

          Your argument would be great if we didn’t live in the reality presented below. There are too many people sitting on the fence who legitimately cannot discern between a mediocre candidate and a career conman, criminal rapist. Where you see nuance, others see “she’s no better than Trump”.

          Source: https://web.archive.org/web/20240721200927/https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/us/elections/polls-president.html

          I like Harris as much as I like Biden, which is not at all, but the alternative is the very real possibility of the end of America.

          • Catoblepas@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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            3 months ago

            For my money those charts will look very different after the next debate.

            There’s also not a combination of words that’s going to convince me leftists criticizing Dems are going to kill America. Even if Trump gets elected, you are missing every potential lesson if what you take away is “leftists too mean.”

        • Rentlar@lemmy.ca
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          3 months ago

          Exactly this. On this platform and elsewhere, there is a lot of well-meaning criticism but there are many agents of chaos or narrative pushers that disguise themselves as genuine criticism. I try to interact genuinely and give an opportunity to demonstrate that they are looking for a constructive path forward for the party.

      • Queue@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        3 months ago

        Well, last time we pushed Biden left it was called too soon after election, give them time to form a plan. Form a cabinet, figure out policies.

        Then it was midterms. Questioning the policies for misterm gives Republicans a win. They have to keep these conservative polices set by the last Republican to win over Republican voters.

        Then it’s 2024. Questioning policies is a win for Republicans. They need to win this election, and then we can push them left.

        I’m hoping it ends with a younger nominee.

        • Keanu@lemmynsfw.com
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          3 months ago

          Biden enacted the most left-wing policies of any president in US history. If that’s not enough for you, you won’t be satisfied with anyone who will get elected in the US.

          Vote anyway.

      • Katana314@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        It’s a lot easier to criticize the Democratic Party if the GOP is first discarded as useless trash and gets no votes in an election. Then we can decide who among our progressive candidates actually has the best approach forward.

        Yet I keep seeing this thought assumed, that a 100% blue vote would “give them too much unchecked power”. This is the difference: We have a party while the GOP has a person. A bullet 2 inches to the right would have destroyed their whole movement.

    • Socsa@sh.itjust.works
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      3 months ago

      Because when all those people do is criticize Democrats, sabotage outreach efforts, and don’t put any time or effort into defeating fascists, then it is very obvious where they stand.

      Like I get it - huffing farts from time to time is great. But you gotta take a break and mix some productive advocacy and outreach if you actually care about Democracy instead of just smelling farts.

      • iknowitwheniseeit@lemmynsfw.com
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        3 months ago

        Just to point out… many people don’t care about the Democrats, except as a bulwark against the even more right-leaning Republicans. It’s not an institution that they respect and admire, but one they grudgingly tolerate.

        I only joined the party so I could vote for Bernie in the 2016 primaries! 😉

        • Croquette@sh.itjust.works
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          3 months ago

          If people want a shift to the left, they have to make sure that the Democrats crush the Repulicans for a few election cycles so that the Overton window can stop moving right and go left instead.

          Unfortunately, the Repulicans are voting in a united front every election, no matter what.

          The Democrats are notably terrible voters. They don’t show up like the Republicans do.

    • brucethemoose@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      Maybe I’m super cynical, but does that really matter on Lemmy and the platforms connected to it?

      Like, who’s reading this comment section that’s actually on the fence about going out and voting for a Harris ticket? It has to be a miniscule fraction.

  • Cagi@lemmy.ca
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    3 months ago

    Some people think criticizing is the same thing as not supporting.

    If you want things to get better, you have to honestly and critically examine your leaders, not blindly support them and pretend they are flawless. Shutting down criticism is short-sighted nonsense and will only lead to worse candidates in the future.

    • prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      3 months ago

      Right. The problem with the current political atmosphere in America is that only one of the two parties is actually self-critical. The other is a cult of personality that can do no wrong. They set the reality from the top, and everyone below falls in line.

      Only one side of the political aisle in the US will ever actually admit they were wrong about something instead of doubling down on it. Only one side will, at this point, admit defeat even.

      In a Real Politik sense, this is a weakness.

      • Katana314@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        Even Fox was calling out the tone after Trump was shot. They acknowledged Trump himself has used language akin to encouraging violence on many occasions, while the worst the left has done is label him a fascist - a mostly accurate term. Yet, people had been praising those violent remarks while calling out democrats, even after discovering the shooter was a devout Republican.

        There is no introspection among them.

        • Schadrach@lemmy.sdf.org
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          3 months ago

          even after discovering the shooter was a devout Republican.

          Was he? He’d voted in what, one election as a registered Republican and made one tiny donation to ActBlue. I doubt he was a terribly devout anything politically. I suspect once more about him becomes public it’s going to be about fame seeking.rather than a political message. After all his name is going to be in the history books, and would have been there more prominently if he’d landed the shot.

          • Katana314@lemmy.world
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            3 months ago

            They interviewed his colleagues at school and they were adamant that he was very much on the conservative side.

            • Schadrach@lemmy.sdf.org
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              3 months ago

              Then why target Trump? Surely he wrote some kind of something about his goal there? I doubt he thought killing Trump would trigger the meteoric rise of a “true” conservative leader who would mobilize the right under Trump’s martyrdom and that no one would notice his political affiliation in the process.

              • prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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                3 months ago

                Go ask a psychologist, there are a billion fucking reasons for a human to snap and do irrational shit.

                People don’t even need to snap to be consistently irrational.

              • Katana314@lemmy.world
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                3 months ago

                You can ask him, if you’d like…

                The working theory is that he was part of Project 2025, and felt betrayed (as all of Trump’s former supporters have been) when he disavowed himself of involvement in it (as he pretty much had to since it was terrorism).

                It’s a stupid pattern. Trump claims he supports X with no plan to support X, then when talking to X’s opponents, says he opposes X; then does nothing either way unless it benefits him. Millions of people are only slowly figuring this out.

                • Schadrach@lemmy.sdf.org
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                  3 months ago

                  You can ask him, if you’d like…

                  Let me just pull out my Ouija board, though I’ve never been the best with it…

                  The working theory is that he was part of Project 2025, and felt betrayed (as all of Trump’s former supporters have been) when he disavowed himself of involvement in it (as he pretty much had to since it was terrorism).

                  A 20 year old community college student was “part of” Project 2025? In what context do you mean here?

                  Like I said, I suspect the 20 year old community college student that had voted as a Republican in exactly one election and made exactly one small donation to a Democrat PAC was probably not stewed into a murderous rage against the presidential candidate that is the de facto cult leader of the party he was registered as for political reasons.

                  Supposedly his final social media post was a message on Steam reading: “July 13th will be my debut, watch how it goes” That feels much more like chasing notoriety than a political manifesto.

    • Qwazpoi@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      Exactly. Those in the highest positions of power should damn well have criticism. The argument otherwise seems to imply that accountability and transparency have no place in American politics

      • Aceticon@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        It’s funny how the tribalism of those demanding unwavering support of The Chief is very much a walk back from the spirit of Democracy (“they represent us”) and into Monarchy (“we owe fealty to them”).

        The less Democratic a country is - and hence the less representative its leaders are - the worse this shit is.

    • jj4211@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      The reality of the situation is the time for that is November 6th and later (or during the primaries or the last 4 years).

      For the months between the primary concluding and the general election concluding, if you support the candidate, then criticism is a distraction that undermines the goal of getting them elected.

      So you are free to criticize of course, but it’s a practical concern to be aware of that you are convincing others to not vote at all or vote against the candidate.

  • blazera@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    I was a major biden naysayer. Id always love more but this was a huge ask that was answered. Lets kick republican ass

  • Blackmist@feddit.uk
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    3 months ago

    Probably, but misogyny and racism is easier to call out than defending an old man who shouldn’t be behind the wheel of a car, let alone a country.

    And Trump is still too damn old, even ignoring the fact that he’s a repugnant human being to boot.

    • zik@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      Trump’s very obviously much less mentally competent than Biden. Biden rambled a couple of times. Trump rarely forms a coherent sentence at all.

      • jj4211@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        I’ll say that Biden sounds less competent at a glance. Like if you watch and go through his mental process, you understand how the mistake he made happened but you know the substance of what he was trying to say.

        Usually Trump says stuff that, on the surface, sounds like maybe something but if you try to think about it it makes no sense.

  • Aceticon@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    The positive take would be to start with the “Trump is too old for 4 more years as a President” memes.

    Instead we have these “those who don’t instantly bend the knee are against us” memes that, frankly, have quite the wiff of the typical Far-Right/Foreign Propaganda Op purposefully sowing division on the Left.