• Ninmi
    link
    fedilink
    4811 months ago

    I remember watching V for Vendetta when Obama was president and I actually can’t believe the US went from the Obama era to being on the brink of becoming a christofascist nation.

    • mommykink
      link
      -811 months ago

      For as long as Democrats continue to run lukewarm candidates and Republicans populists with actual support, this will continue to be the case.

      Do you blame the scorpion or the toad for trusting it? It is entirely the Democrats fault that things are as bad as they are.

      • @Darorad
        link
        2811 months ago

        Do you blame the scorpion or the toad for trusting it?

        Victim blaming is bad, blame the scorpion.

      • PugJesus
        link
        fedilink
        2011 months ago

        Do you blame the scorpion or the toad for trusting it?

        … the fucking scorpion. How is that a question?

      • @rdyoung
        link
        17
        edit-2
        11 months ago

        Don’t forget the republicans gerry mandering districts to keep local and federal control.

        I’d also argue about the republicans having actual support. It’s been decades since a republican won the popular vote. They win because of the aforementioned gerry mandering to give them enough of the electoral votes to win. Plus the shit they are pulling locally with their majority where they are passing laws that let them ignore the will of the people even if 90% of people are for something.

        Yes, the dems need to get their shit together but we as a country need to be do and be better. We need to do more of the district lines being drawn by an outside group instead of local interests. We need to get rid of the electoral college and much much more.

      • @Lauchs
        link
        1111 months ago

        Until young voters vote in primaries at rates approaching the elderly rates, the Deomcratic party will not be able to run progressive candidates.

        Every progressive Democrat candidate who banked on youth turnout has turned out to have misplaced their faith in our ability to translate internet snark to action.

        • Semi-Hemi-Demigod
          link
          fedilink
          -111 months ago

          Until young voters vote in primaries at rates approaching the elderly rates, the Deomcratic party will not be able to run progressive candidates.

          So never. Fantastic.

        • @Ensign_Crab
          link
          English
          -111 months ago

          Until young voters vote in primaries at rates approaching the elderly rates, the Deomcratic party will not be able to run progressive candidates.

          When all the boomers have died, Democrats will have to come up with a new excuse for opposing progressives.

          • @Lauchs
            link
            211 months ago

            What was progressive now will be seen as obvious. Just the same way as things that are happening now would have been considered progressive for the previous generation.

        • @chuckleslord
          link
          -211 months ago

          Democrats don’t run progressives because progressives are bad for fundraising. The powers that be (the wealth elite) like to be able to rob our coffers at their leisure, so they won’t give money to candidates that might turn off (or even slow down) the tap of our resources.

          • @Lauchs
            link
            211 months ago

            Bernie would have won if the youth had come out to vote at a rate comparable to the elderly.

            It’s easier to blame the elite than to act but it’s not a huge conspiracy it’s simply down to who shows up to the goddamn primaries.

      • @MindSkipperBro12
        link
        711 months ago

        Any attempt by the Democrats to do anything tends to be blocked by the Republicans. Anything more serious starts threatening their party support.

        • @lennybird
          link
          English
          1
          edit-2
          11 months ago

          The problem is the following loop:

          • With lies, grifting, and general ignorance easier to spread than the complexity of truth, Republicans always hold an inherent advantage by appealing to the lowest common denominator.

          • Democrats make a mistake of trying to appeal to these special “centrists” and conservatives as if resurrecting Reagan himself under the D label would ever pull them over.

          • Because of watering down their policy (and thus effficacy) they ostracize their own grassroots base that does the groundwork in phonebanking, protesting, canvassing, and perhaps most importantly – pushing back against nutjobs on social media and pushing back against their parents, aunts, uncles at Thanksgiving dinner.

          And Democrats wonder why Democrat voter enthusiasm is always so low.

          If Democrats for once campaigned on a platform they believed in; if they actually wholeheartedly backed a candidate who had a science-based, equality-based platform from a position of sincerity – that would be contagious.

          Republicans win by fear and hatred; Democrats can’t win by that. It needs to be surrounded by love, vision, and solidarity.

          • Semi-Hemi-Demigod
            link
            fedilink
            211 months ago

            The problem is that we have a country that can support three to five political parties and a voting system that can only support two. So a plurality of people will almost always be unhappy.

        • @Ensign_Crab
          link
          English
          111 months ago

          Any attempt by the Democrats to do anything tends to be blocked by the Republicans.

          If it makes it that far. BBB never came up for a vote. The public option was killed without a single Republican vote.

      • @agitatedpotato
        link
        511 months ago

        The Democrats spent years giving prolonged benefit of the doubt to the Republicans who used that space to instal their own government via judges. They saw it happening but I’d bet you a million bucks their donors told them not to worry, because guess what, fascism is GREAT for buisness if you’re the one who already has the business.

  • @Lauchs
    link
    2211 months ago

    I’m sure they’ve focus tested this and yes it is the most important issue, I think they have too much faith in the American voter.

    I can easily see Independents or frustrated Democrats thinking “we were warned ad nauseum about a fascist takeover by trump last time and it didn’t happen and inflation is killing me…”

    I think trump’s threats to democracy is the most serious issue but I can’t see this winning many new voters. Maybe the hope is to increase turnout on our side…

    • @Nudding
      link
      011 months ago

      What about climate change lol?

      • @Lauchs
        link
        111 months ago

        Donald subverting democracy would be a much more immediate threat and make climate change almost impossible to deal with. One has to be avoided to deal with the other and is thus the higher priority.

        • @Nudding
          link
          011 months ago

          No matter who wins, the US will pump and burn more oil than the year before. It’s far too late for lesser of two evils politics, my friend.

          • @Lauchs
            link
            111 months ago

            the US will pump and burn more oil than the year before.

            Possibly. But, the US will also be on a course to lower emissions in the long term.

            The Inflation Reduction Act was the most significant piece of climate change legislation in American history. If that goes uninterrupted, so many new battery, solar and other green projects will continue. It’s imperfect but we have a chance (not a guarantee) with the Democrats and none with trump.

            And frankly, in North America, most of climate change for the foreseeable future is more inconvenience than it is “societal collapse.”

            • @Nudding
              link
              011 months ago

              We’ll see, I spose

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      011 months ago

      They don’t have anything else, because the other platforms are related (don’t genocide minorities) or anti-disaster-capitalist.

      Actual liberal policies could fix some of the problems neoliberalism has created by going back to certain New Deal era policies and regulations but that simply will not happen in post Citizens United world.

  • Semi-Hemi-Demigod
    link
    fedilink
    511 months ago

    I watched the ad and I saw Trump’s name a lot more than Biden’s. Other than that it feels like a bunch of stock footage trying to make me feel like being an American isn’t shameful.

    Not a good ad. But what I expected.

  • AutoTL;DRB
    link
    fedilink
    English
    311 months ago

    This is the best summary I could come up with:


    Joe Biden’s first campaign ad of the year focuses on threats to US democracy, timed for release on the anniversary of the 6 January insurrection at the US Capitol.

    As footage of political violence and rioting shows on screen, the president notes that “there’s an extremist movement that does not share the basic beliefs in our democracy”.

    Donald Trump is the overwhelming favorite to win the Republican nomination for November’s presidential election, despite his multitude of legal woes, which include charges linked to the Jan 6 attack.

    The former president has also struck a notably more extremist tone during his campaign, raising fears he aims to deliberately erode US democratic institutions.

    The Biden attack ad will run nationally and in local markets in swing states such as Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, as well as online.

    The spot highlights how Trump and his followers are continually working to undermine elections, the Biden-Harris campaign manager, Julie Chavez Rodriguez, said in a news release.“Over the last three years, Maga Republicans haven’t shied away from the Big Lie – they’ve doubled down.


    The original article contains 338 words, the summary contains 183 words. Saved 46%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!

  • @TheJims
    link
    2
    edit-2
    11 months ago

    Everything Trump says and does is a campaign ad for Biden.

  • blazera
    link
    fedilink
    -311 months ago

    This a lob ball for republicans who just have to point out democrats are the ones taking opposition off the ballots.

    • @chuckleslord
      link
      1311 months ago

      It’s so fucking stupid that Jan 6 was a cut-and-dried insurrection, that the 14th amendment should obviously bar Trump from office, and yet it might be better, politically speaking, to let him run anyway. All because there’s a giant segment of the population that receives all their news information from sources that scrub it for anything politically detrimental to their party/ point of view.

      I fucking hate it here. Fuck Nixon and Reagan, giant pieces of shit, for bringing this horrible reality to us.

      • blazera
        link
        fedilink
        -911 months ago

        Problem is its not cut and dried without a conviction. And im blaming Bidens DoJ for that taking this long, they didnt even begin charging him until last august, its 2024 and the trial hasnt even started.

        • Blackbeard
          link
          English
          811 months ago

          And im blaming Bidens DoJ for that taking this long, they didnt even begin charging him until last august, its 2024 and the trial hasnt even started.

          Tell me you have no idea how the criminal justice system works without telling me you have no idea how the criminal justice system works.

          • blazera
            link
            fedilink
            -411 months ago

            The DoJ has the authority to charge, arrest, and prosecute for federal crimes.

            • Blackbeard
              link
              English
              511 months ago

              Not without due process, they don’t.

              • @shalafi
                link
                English
                011 months ago

                The due process part comes after the prosecution part.

                “the institution and conducting of legal proceedings against someone in respect of a criminal charge”

    • andyburke
      link
      fedilink
      211 months ago

      How do you mean? The people challenging Trump being on the ballots are Republicans with standing in those jurisdictions.

      I am not offering my opinion on these cases, but I think it’s important to make sure we understand who the plaintiffs are.

      • blazera
        link
        fedilink
        -211 months ago

        the two states that have removed Trump from their ballots are Colorado and Maine, Colorado’s entirely democrat appointed supreme court, and Maine’s democratic secretary of state.

        • andyburke
          link
          fedilink
          111 months ago

          You are saying their rulings go against written law in preference to their party affiliation? If so, I’d be interested in understanding how.

          • blazera
            link
            fedilink
            -211 months ago

            I am saying they are democrats that have removed republican opposition from the next election. This is what republican voters are going to see and its gonna be hard to campaign on democracy itself while setting this precedent.

            • andyburke
              link
              fedilink
              211 months ago

              Do our laws matter or not? The guy has been found by courts to have participated in an insurrection. He lost last time, we all know that. He tried to make it so he stayed in power, we all know that. We are just supposed to pretend that didn’t happen because some people still like him?

              Sorry, not how our county works.

              • blazera
                link
                fedilink
                211 months ago

                The way it’s supposed to go is he gets arrested immediately after the crime by the DoJ and brought to federal trial. But that didnt happen, for several years.

                This is like someone being charged with illegally possessing a firearm as a felon, but without ever being convicted as a felon. No matter how much you believe they committed a felony, they still have to be found guilty first. In this case it’s someone being barred from running for office as an insurrectionist, without ever being convicted as one.

                • Blackbeard
                  link
                  English
                  411 months ago

                  The way it’s supposed to go is he gets arrested immediately after the crime by the DoJ and brought to federal trial

                  No. The way it’s supposed to go is the DoJ gathers evidence and decides whether there’s enough of it to charge someone with a crime, and then that person is presumed innocent and has a right to an attorney who builds a case for their defense, using a process called “discovery” which grants them access to evidence and witnesses, and then they are entitled to a jury of their peers, which takes time to select from the general population. Where the fuck did you learn how prosecution works? Pyongyang?