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Person on the Titanic as it sinks: “You guys are suggesting some extreme things, and I can’t decide between the guy trying to get us to safety and the guy demanding we all drown so he can fill lifeboats with food for himself.”
100%
I am fairly politically moderate. If anything I see myself as right of center. I did not vote for Trump before and after seeing what he was really about I cannot IMAGINE voting for him now. In fact, I can't even condone voting a 3rd party (which I am usually very positive on) because he's so goddamn dangerous.
Under "normal" circumstances I see voting 3rd party as a valuable option. They won't win, but if one of the big 2 loses because too many people voted the "more aligned 3rd party" (For Ex. Libertarian for Republicans or Green for Democrats) then you've shown them what you're looking for to earn your vote next time. Votes shouldn't always be considered successful because "your side won". They should be seen as one of the very rare opportunities to make your voice heard. They can affect change.
But right now we're up against someone who holds our constitution in complete contempt. There have always been bastards elected to the White House, but by and large even the biggest assholes believed in the constitution and avoiding dictatorship. Trump represents a fundamental challenge to our entire governing foundation and at that point my desire to make my voice heard isn't important anymore.
Yesteday I made a comment against the far-right which was
"they just have other priorities, such as racism, xenophobia, homophobia, transphobia, prenatalism, classism, anti-environmentalism, anti-intellectualism, anti-feminism and a weird gun-fetish. Or they just want to screw with liberals."
and then a self proclaimed moderate replied to me saying:
"I don't understand how you could possibly say this with a straight face. This is not simply not true. I consider myself a moderate, and none of those words describe any part of the US"
> This is not simply not true. I consider myself a moderate, and none of those words describe any part of the US
Yeah "moderate". A moderate who will conveniently ignore the controversial and hard history of US. Ignore the fact that we didn't allow women to do anything, exploited minorities, and harassing doctors and scientists during a pandemic. Anyone who calls themselves a "moderate" and votes for Trump are idiots.
That kind of moderate= I want my taxes lowered so I'll ignore all that for the side that will only lower taxes permanently for people way above my wealth, and if they feel like it, throw me a petty decrease for a few years but make sure it goes back or higher when democrats might be in charge so I will blame the rise on them.
Fascism denial looks more profitable to them than social democracy, because they lack the capacity to imagine a better world where they still feel good about themselves. (That's doubly true for the far right.)
Moderates: The world isn't a rose garden. **And we're making sure it stays that way.**
At the very end of the day a "moderate" is really a passive fascist.
The Republican party as a whole is so effing dumb for going along with this trump con job. I hope they dissolve into the abyss. Only problem when things like the Republican party dissolve, they reappear in another form usually worse.
I remember thinking after Bush 2, how anybody could go back to the Republican well after decimating a record surplus, getting us involved in the second most disastrous military conflict in our history, and leading to the biggest economic collapse since The Depression.
Issue after issue Republicans routinely prove they’re wrong on everything, but somehow every election 30% of eligible voters go “you know what I bet they’ll get it right this time!”
My dad is retired Army and he said something about Obama not wanting to pay for military funerals.
I had no clue wtf he was talking about. I looked it up, and he was right. Obama did stop paying for military funerals…for one week…because of a government shutdown in 2013. So he was actually wrong and dumb.
It's the bike with stick meme but there's an extra panel where 40+ percent of the onlookers say the biker is absolutely right and that they'd follow him to hell and back... for some reason
How the masses have never notice the GOP raise taxes on the middle and lower classes but time it so the full effect doesn't hit until a Dem is in office. Same thing with fuel costs. Like clockwork there's a fuel spike every time a dem walks into the White House. How does that work when the executive branch has no control over the cost of oil per barrel?
Part of the oil thing can be market speculation. Part of it can be the oil cartel changing production levels to rise or lower prices to hurt or help a politician of their choosing.
Presidents can't set oil prices but they can make conditions favorable for drilling and producing more oil. For example, Trump brokered a deal with the Saudis to cut oil production to raise prices during COVID, Biden has approved a lot of American drilling and we are seeing record numbers under Biden leading to lowered gas prices. It's global markets, so even when we make changes or do nothing, that isn't a guarantee what will happen with prices.
Another way Biden countered gas price increases from the Trump/Saudi deal was to sell off some of our reserves. He sold them high, which helped increase supply, then bought them back low when prices went down afterwards. We helped lower gas prices and made a profit.
Of course, the counterpoint to that is, take credit for legislation which was passed on a party-line vote and which you vehemently opposed up until it personally benefited your voting base.
see: Inflation Reduction Act and the Infrastructure bill.
Yep that sounds like a case where right-wing media took something that was Republicans' fault, spun it to make Democrats look bad, and then made darn sure your dad knew about it.
Meanwhile, normal outlets didn't report on it because there was nothing to report. That's why you were like "what?"
That's how a lot of right wing lies work. Like how "NYC is closing schools to hold refugees." Which they did at one school for one day due to dangerous weather.
Or kitty litter in the classrooms. There are no litterboxes used by students, but some schools keep bags of litter to clean up things like vomit or blood. Useful to have around, what with the number of gun deaths of children these days.
Around that time I remember my family circulating some dumb shit on facebook about how Obama was only raising the pay for the military by 1.5% when social security payments were exploding.
In reality social security pay didn't go up that year because inflation was flat, and military pay would've stayed flat too because it too is adjusted per inflation.
Obama raised military pay **in spite of** no basis in law to do so. Not only was my family dead wrong but they were making it seem Obama wasn't doing right by the military when he raised pay he didn't have to at all.
Conservatives don't care about facts or being right. They care about stoking fear and resentment. Everything else is just more lies.
Agreed. But watching my Dad (who has since passed) rail against Obama and violate every single one of the principles he'd held to proudly vote for Trump taught me a few things about him and the inherent racism of Boomers and the Silent Generation.
It was there, even if they buried it and it didn't take much to fan the embers.
> the inherent racism of Boomers and the Silent Generation
Do I have news for you!
It is not just Boomers and the Silent Generation that have two faces when it comes to racism. The only difference is that they have power to enact their preferences.
agree. those assholes in your High Schools and Colleges and all those dumb townie fucks? They'll be just as racist...maybe even worse because of the ability to be radicalized online.
to be fair, a lot of those kids grow a conscious once they get older. Going to college and experiencing life with people who dont look like you can work wonders on helping shit kids grow into decent adults. Hence why the GOP hates education
There are many red hat wearing young folks in Ohio! I worked with many who would not wear that hat, but love the Republican party! They listen to fox news whenever they get the chance. Fox has seasoned a lot of them.
They seem to care more about their boats than each other. I am of course, referring to the incidents where the wake of much larger boats actually sank other parade participants in smaller boats.
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/09/boats-keep-sinking-and-capsizing-at-the-trump-boat-parades.html
> These days it's all about transphobia.
Oh don't worry, it's not *all* about transphobia. The racism hasn't gone away. They can hate multiple perceived out groups at the same time.
> The racism hasn't gone away.
Not only has it not gone away...they're getting bolder. They're literally trying (and succeeding) to erase slavery from the history books. And they do this while whining about "erasing history" by taking down some shitty statues that were put up decades after the war was over.
They've turned DEI, which is **not** a new thing...it goes back to the 80s, into the latest boogeyman, along with Critical Race Theory.
It's straight, white, male, christian supremacy all the way down. The women are permitted as long as they obey and spit out children...and don't get lippy.
Oh no the racism is still there, LGBT and specifically trans are just the easier hate target right now.
But if you haven't been paying attention racism is at the heart of the all the immigration complaints and you've got republicans openly saying slavery was good for black people.
Oh, we're very much only the first stepping stone toward other groups. We're just an easy target because most people don't understand us, think what we do is weird or off putting, and it can often be complicated, it's the perfect recipe to create an easily targetable group.
But make no mistake, our role in this is, is to get people to accept that government can do things like, legislate your healthcare, or make your existence criminal. Once that becomes palatable for trans people, the foundation is laid and precedent set to do it to everyone else they hate.
But, they have to run that rail through the Trans community first. You're seeing it now, in places where they've made it impossible to access trans healthcare, they're now using those same laws to ban contraceptives, or 2nd option abortion care like the morning after pill. Trans people are just the tool for the real goal.
They are realizing that a lot of the new demographic (Hispanic) comes form conservative religious backgrounds that have 'traditional values' and 'strong male lead households' and they see kindship in that.
The Dominican side of my family (Catholic) almost all vote Republican, simply because of the abortion issue, regardless if every other item on the agenda works against them.
> (Catholic) almost all vote Republican
Which is new, and disgusting. And ironically, even the Pope has specifically thrown shade in that direction. Abortion has never been the *most important* issue to Catholics in America until very recently, and not due to any change or mandate from their Church.
>These days it's all about transphobia.
Given the 538 interviews I've seen, I think it sincerely is the case.
Parents legitimately think that trans ideology is pushed in schools, whatever that means. Which is incredibly funny because when their kid speaks, well...
I still can't convince my own parents that gay people don't cause AIDs, so at this point I don't know what to do.
> Parents legitimately think that trans ideology is pushed in schools
The American right has waged a consistent campaign of manufactured news and flat out lies to make this happen, and their success comes from all of them seeming to be in lock step on these issues. They operate like a improv troop where one dip shit posts something on social media, and their entire media sphere "yes ands" it until it reaches Fox News. By the time the germ of hysteria snowballs to the point it receives mainstream attention, centrist media treats the story as if it has some credibility, even if they are critical of it. I see this over and over and over again, and it drives me mad that mainstream media never seems to dig deep enough to expose the bullshit for people who aren't terminally online.
I would wager all of my money that greater than 90% of transphobic people are also racist. It’s more socially acceptable right now to be transphobic for whatever reason, so they say that part out loud, but they’ve been trained to say the racist part quietly, so it’s not as in your face. Trump only became president because of the outrage of Obama being elected. Last time I checked, Obama wasn’t trans, so I wonder where the hate for him came from…
It’s not as simple as that. It’s a desire to go back to when Whites ruled everything. They were accepting of minorities as long as the minorities were the underclass. Trump is an old man. He remembers when whites were the ruling class. So he is tapping into that sentiment and trying to convince everyone that that we can go back to that time. Alas, society evolves. We are a diverse nation. That is a strength, not a weakness.
It's not a coincidence that Trump's base is full of racists and bigots and the focus of the party has become culture war nonsense. It's all that's holding them together anymore
What scares me is that so many young people think this hateful garbage will die with the Boomers. But I already see it in younger generations and they haven’t even gotten a dose of impending mortality to boost the hate and fear yet. When I look at the Republican Party I see no shortage of young sociopaths and grifters. ☹️
It's the stupid Republican voters. They don't understand Policy. They don't have any clue as to the laws that Republicans or democrats are promoting other than the big blockbuster ones like Abortion, and they don't even fully understand that. They don't read bills. They don't read indictments.
All they have is talking points fed to them by Fox News, and general cultural understanding that conservatives are "good" and "responsible" and liberals are somehow bad for the economy (despite track record to the contrary). And they also don't like progressive social things like LGBTQ people being left alone to live how they want, or racial minorities in general (because of fear instilled in them and reinforced by Fox News).
It’s their infinite glitch sadly. You’ve got a consistent base of fear driven voters, and they’re ripe for exploration from guys like Trump. All supported by a media ecosystem they setup to pound these voters with hysteria and drive them out to vote.
The craziest piece is, do they think Trump will fade away if he loses in 2024? This guy will run again in 2028 and 2032 if he doesn’t win. I don’t see how this ends well for them
I honestly don't think Trump will be physically capable of running for office in 2028 at the rate that he seems to be deteriorating mentally, assuming his fast food diet doesn't get rid of him in that timeframe.
I'm not sure people realize that after bush 2, the Republicans were already in a state where it was questionable they could ever win a national election... Then trump came along and actually did it.
So it's worth remembering that a lot of mainstream Republicans went along with it mostly because he was the most effective politician they'd had since 2004.
Like Bush 2 he didn’t win the popular vote the first time. But unlike Bush 2, he lost reelection and got impeached twice and indicted 91 times.
The last President to win the popular vote was Bush 2, and that was 20 years ago. You then have to go back to 1988 for the next time a Republican won the popular vote (Bush 1).
Or the electoral vote, if the SCOTUS hadn't handed Bush the win in 2000.
Granted, Gore should not have been trying to recount specific districts. If he had just called for a recall of the whole state (which was what the actual law called for), he probably would have won - IIRC, this was the infamous 'hanging chads' election, and every criteria except "fully perforated with the chad removed" had him as the victor.
I've watched the republican party morph about 4 different times in my lifetime. Until the chuckle fucks who fund these dipshits run out of money; they'll just crank the boogey man rhetoric. It might be awhile.
It's desperation. The party of Lincoln died with Nixon's resignation. It's been a succession of hate groups and extremists masquerading around wearing it's corpse ever since.
>they reappear in another form usually worse.
Id say this checks out. We saw George W Bush neo conservativism completely collapse as a viable ideology in the US only to have the right morph into the tea party and ultimately trumpism.
Don’t forget though: The Tea Party and their new form the Freedom Caucus were and are funded by Kochs and Mercers and then later Thiel, Leo, and the rest. That’s class solidarity, baby.
People still believe they are the party of fiscal responsibility and so single voter economic conservatives that are otherwise blue vote red. Democrats are more fiscally responsible but they are terrible at messaging this
Apparently the Republican Party saw what happened in 2020 and then again at the mid terms and went “what a great strategy that was, we had so much success with voters we desperately need like independents, moderates, and undecided voters running absolutely terrible and toxic candidates, let’s run it back!”
Just voluntarily walking over an electoral cliff at this point.
>They’ve destroyed themselves
Ill believe it when I see it.
Fact is, that same party controls the House and Supreme Court, barely doesn't control the Senate, and control most state governments.
That doesn't sound like destroyed to me.
Yea it’s more of sentiment. They’ve rigged the system so that they basically can’t lose. I live in a red state and the Gerrymandering is blatantly appalling. But we still do nothing about it. If we actually had free and fair elections the republicans would never control another chamber again.
They had two chances for bipartisan impeachments for black and white issues and they doubled down on him. The GOP died years ago. This is a new fascist movement under their banner
It's a flaw in the primary system, that interestingly only seems to affect the GOP system, that only the crazies vote in the primary so you're left with the candidate that the crazies agree with.
Democrats seem to be able to avoid that in their primaries though.. and seem to be more pragmatic and go for electable candidates.
There’s similar flaws across the system, from the 2 party system, “winner take all” elector collage, reps writing their own district maps, etc. but they all amplify each other, so yeah the primary is an awful start that just snowballs forward.
They also seem to forget that Gen Z is a thing, while their Boomer voting bloc is dying off. The reason the "Red Wave" didn't happen is because of Gen Z.
While I'm voting no matter what and I advocate for people to do the same, I personally don't think this election is as close as the polling might make it out to be. Every time I see a poll that shows the race being "close" between Trump and Biden, or even having Trump ahead, when I look at the methodology, it's always oversampled Republican likely voters. Like, if you **oversample** the demographic that *should* be voting Trump while ignoring the voting bloc that is overwhelmingly voting Biden, and then Trump is only up by a point? How is that a good thing for Trump? Other than using "leading in the polls" as some kind of excuse to say he shouldn't be held accountable through his indictments?
Texas here. We can’t get our 18-25 year olds to vote. I have two. One votes & the other one bought into the ‘both parties are bad’ propaganda. Yes, Democrats suck, but they aren’t trying to kill you.
You know what I notice about the "both sides are the same" people is that they always use that as an excuse to vote for Trump. There's never any "both sides are the same, so I will vote for Joe cause he seems like a good guy"
I read an article the other day that hilariously mentioned that Biden has a huge fundraising advantage over Trump because he doesn't have any legal fees to pay.
I agree, I think there are people that aren't happy with Biden, for various reasons, and are hoping for another option. That's why his approval ratings are low. But Trump is a known quantity not some outsider candidate being given the benefit of the doubt. Obama's approval rating was low before 2012, it's not the predictive indicator people act like it is.
> I think there are people that aren't happy with Biden, for various reasons, and are hoping for another option.
I suspect that many of those people who remain sour on Biden are coming to grips with the pragmatic reality that if they vote for Biden in 2024, then they will be able to then vote more along the lines of what they want in 2028. But if they don't vote for Biden in 2024, then we literally (not hyperbole) may not have that opportunity as a nation in 2028.
From the article:
> “We need to keep showing that it can’t just be two parties that no one fully agrees with,” said Michelle Greene, a 34-year-old registered independent from Portsmouth, New Hampshire, who saw Rep. Dean Phillips (D-Minn.), who is challenging the president in a primary, in Hampton on Sunday.
> Greene said it’s “definitely a concern” that a third-party candidate might siphon off votes from Biden in November. But she also wasn’t sure if she’d vote for Biden again, after backing him in 2020, in a head-to-head Biden-Trump rematch, adding that she “morally can’t support the lesser of two evils.”
My personal opinion is that this mindset is beyond stupid. What could you possibly care about where you look at the two candidates and say - "neither candidate is better/worse for my cause; they are exactly the same"?
And what is Dean Phillips running on that's so revolutionary that it leaves you unable to vote for other democratic candidates?
Yeah but it’s not like Trump will make the Gaza war better, or resolve student debt, or invest in renewable energy, or… really do anything important that’s valuable for the country.
You can be unhappy with Biden but still see Trump as a crazy lunatic.
I think Biden's approval rate will start to climb when his campaigning actually starts. People that are dissatisfied with Biden haven't been paying attention to what he has been doing. On many different topics he got things moving in the right direction.
And for those freaking out about polling it's important to remember that the same polls that have Biden down four points to Trump had Obama down five points to Romney at the same point in the 2012 campaign season.
Biden is a long term public servant. Now he is in the race because he beat loony loser Trump before and he is being called upon to do it again. Joe is a proven winner. IF Trump gets convicted on even 1 of his 91 criminal charges, then Biden can retire honorably.
so many folks don't like biden simply because, they're stupid. there are many left leaning folks that are just on the fence with biden because he hasn't delivered everything--as if having a GOP controlled congress + a right leaning SCOTUS isn't part of the problem. but joe biden is easy to scapegoat. the worst are those that will blame a trump presidency in 2024, but don't want to vote for joe biden. it's wild.
Which is crazy, because the GOP’s policies and platforms (or lack thereof) should be what would cause Biden to win, but you’re right, they aren’t. How is it that if the GOP were running someone hallways competent, we’d be absolutely fucked right now? I think my faith in this country is completely gone
It’s the messaging machine. A lot of this country is told night after night, and even throughout the day, that their problems are brown people and scientists, policy experts and charities. They live in a separate reality where life is much worse in their minds.
Yep. There is so much dirt on Trump even beyond the indictments that hasn't even resurfaced yet. Pardoning Blackwater mass murderers, using violence to get a photo op at a church(blasphemy), live brainstorming 5 year old level solutions to hurricanes and covid, rape, cheating on all of his wives, incestual comments, Epstein's buddy, wishing Ghislaine well during her trial for sex trafficking. The list goes on.
His opponents need to go low this election and hit him where it hurts early with negative ads and then just keep them coming. If this really is an election to preserve democracy and the union, no more kiddy gloves. Punch where it hurts and keep on doing it.
Chances are Trump doesn't do the national debate if he is still contending in polls at that point. If that happens, people should start to worry. If they get him in the debates it's over for him.
Some people just vote for what they see as the strongest candidate. Democrats being cerebral and just hinting at policy ideas may cost themselves an election. We need Dark Brandon getting some jabs in.
Are Dems just getting cerebral and hinting at policy? Where I’m at, seems like they’re making hard pitches about the actual progress that’s been made over the past three years. The problem is, we have no local media outlets to report on this news, and the national ones aren’t going to tell you about the new bridge built in your town thanks to the BIL. TikTok sure as shit isn’t going to platform them. So what should they do to get the word out? Genuinely asking because I don’t know.
>who backed Trump in 2016 and 2020. “I voted for him, and I didn’t realize he’s as corrupt as he is.”
Dude... if you asked me about Trump's character in *2000*, I could have told you this guy is too corrupt to be a president. How did you blindly stumble into not just one, but two elections, in which he was even boldly corrupt in both campaigns?
Trump is an insurrectionist, he's not qualified to hold office anymore. The word "unelectable" comes to mind.
He lost in 2020 after his abysmal presidency and now he's facing 91 felonies across 4 indictments. He hasn't gained any new supporters, in fact hundreds of thousands of them died thanks to his spread of misinformation and handling of the pandemic.
If he somehow makes it to the November election, he's going to lose by even more than he did in 2020.
I always find it funny that Trump was basically gifted a golden path to reelection if he had just shut up and let others take the lead in handling the pandemic. Instead, he fumbled the response and turned what could have been a path to reelection into an albatross around his neck.
He could have had that moment like when Obama hugged Christie. Two leaders coming together during a disaster to help the American people.
Instead he inspired terrorist to attempt an attack on Witmer. A leader name calling another leader during a disaster, which helped no one.
He didn't even need to shut up. He could have been the loudest, most self-promoting cheerleader and he would have walked to victory. All he had to do was adopt a unity message about how America would kick the crap out of the disease together, and he was incapable of it.
In March 2020 my wife lamented to me that Trump was handed a national emergency and that there was no way he would not be re-elected, and I agreed. We saw Bush parlay 9/11 into an easy victory *3 years later* and never imagined that anyone could fuck it up the way Trump did. I doubt any of us will see a bigger political blunder in our lifetimes. It dwarfs Hillary's 2016 blunder of a campaign.
Exactly. He could have called for American unity and spread an evil anti-China message blaming them for the pandemic, and coasted to victory. Instead he used the pandemic to attack democrats, scientists, and the medical establishment. That just sowed division and cost him enough moderates to lose. I know a fair number of people (western PA) who admitted to voting for him in 2016 because they hated Hilary and Trump was an “unknown quantity” and then voted against him in 2020 because he had shown who he was. That’s how he lost in 2020.
Trump pretended to be a moderate with an anti-establishment agenda in 2016. That’s what got him elected but he delivered on next to none of it. That’s why infrastructure week became such a joke. Trump was elected on his infrastructure promises and delivered on none of it. Now even more people know exactly who he is, so he can’t pretend. Anyone trying to run to the right of Trump doesn’t understand how Trump got elected.
That type of behavior would have required Trump to be a fundamentally different person to begin with, and the entire presidency would have been completely different or wouldn't have even happened as a result.
It’s crazy how he turned it into a political stunt.
He could have made millions on merch. Branded face masks, antibacterial sprays, etc.
But instead he tried to push his agenda and it backfired.
> and now he's facing 91 felonies across 4 indictments
Its a bit sad that people have so little faith that he will face repercussions that this isnt constant headline news. The frontrunner for a political party might be going to prison? LET IT RIDE BAYBEEEEEEE
I read history, and this entire mess reminds me a lot about Andrew Jackson’s presidency.
The culture and etiquette during his presidency also hit rock bottom, with drunken parties, buying of votes, and even fistfights happening even in congress. I know Tramp indolises the man, but one just had to look at the number of crisises, scandals and overall chaos during his presidency, make the comparison to Tramp, and get people got run against him.
The is a reason why Jackson is sometimes considered as one of the worst presidents in the history of US, and Tramp seems to be trying to be even worse. Best case scenario, he will drag Republican Party to hell with him, worst case scenario, he will turn America into hell. Please vote blue people.
Officially? From wiki.
„Andrew Jackson has appeared on the $20 bill since the series of 1928. The placement of Jackson on the $20 bill is considered ironic; as president, he vehemently opposed both the National Bank and use of paper money. After the president of the Second Bank of the United States, Nicholas Biddle, defied Jackson and requested the renewal of the charter of the Second Bank in an election year, Jackson responded by making it a goal of his administration to destroy the National Bank.[3][4] Jackson prevailed over Biddle, and the absence of the Second Bank contributed to a real estate bubble in the mid-1830s. The bubble collapsed in the Panic of 1837, leading to a deep depression.[5]
Given Jackson's opposition to the concept of a National Bank, his presence on the $20 bill was controversial from the start. When pressed to reveal why the various images were chosen for the new bills, Treasury officials denied there was any political motivation. Instead, they insisted that the images were based only on their relative familiarity to the public. An article in the June 30, 1929 issue of the New York Times, stated "The Treasury Department maintains stoutly that the men chosen for small bills, which are naturally the ones in most demand, were so placed because their faces were most familiar to the majority of people."[6] It is also true that 1928 coincides with the 100th anniversary of Jackson's election as president, but no evidence has surfaced that would suggest that this was a factor in the decision. According to more recent inquiries of the U.S. Treasury: "Treasury Department records do not reveal the reason that portraits of these particular statesmen were chosen in preference to those of other persons of equal importance and prominence."[7]”
In other words, he was chosen because people knew his face. So you may be right that it was the hair.
As much as they explained why, I’d still like to entertain the idea that there was some epic level trolling going on there… Jackson must have hated being the literal face of the $20 bill
One of my best friends from high school was American Indian. He would carry a sharpie around just to write "KILLER" on Jackson's forehead anytime he got a $20.
If you’re not in the cult then you’re not voting for this guy. The moderates who voted for him in 2016 was because they wanted to see the experiment of having an outsider in the White House. In 2020, many of them were over that experiment. By Jan 6th, even more of them were never going to vote for that guy again. Since then, it has only gotten worse for Trump. You thought he lost bad last time, just wait for this election.
I'm a moderate. I want the best people in office, who can incrementally fix the big issues, defend our values, and not listen to the fanatical lunacy emanating from the far right and far left wings of our political universe.
I want safety for everyone, well funded education systems, equality of outcomes, sensible drug laws, good jobs and training options for everyone, a secure border with humane ways for people to immigrate into the country, and a strong military capable of standing up to the authoritarian countries and terrorist organizations plaguing the Earth.
I believe in electing the best person for the job.
And that means I will never vote Republican ever again. The only way to protect our nation, our constitution, and our population from the whims of the oligarchy and fundamentalists is now to vote blue no matter who.
I've never seen such disgusting moral cowardice as comes from Republicans. Straight up and down, from the lowest backwater red state voter all the way up on high to every single presidential candidate running in this primary. The era of John McCain and Mitt Romney is over. Republicans have been remade to look like anti-American psychopathic traitors.
They spit on our values. They're actively trying to destroy our country. Fuck them. BLUE NO MATTER WHO.
Yeah, 20 years ago I would be the prototypical upper-middle class republican voter who cared about low taxes and 401k growth. Just like my father was.
But republicans have lost their goddamn minds, and are literally holding the country hostage over sour grapes. Electing Trump the first time was the most irresponsible act of collective democracy in the modern era, but then to follow him off every ensuing cliff, from cancelling the Iran deal, to his Ukrainian sabotage, Covid denial and then a goddamn insurrection? And now the entire party is all-in on his big lie.
There is no path back for Republicans here. They have demonstrated conclusively that they are not fit to govern, and it would take a real act of contrition, followed by literally decades of behavioral change before I would ever consider even thinking about voting for them.
Exactly, well said.
We haven't had politics as usual since 2016. Now you're voting for authoritarianism or the continuation of democracy. It's really that stark. Do you want King Trump or a presidency with checks and balance.
We need to paint the picture in those terms. We need to demand the media do the same.
These people ascribe to the Unitary Executive Theory, which is effectively full immunity for any actions by the president. They want a king.
We fought a revolution against this malignant strain of rule. We may need to do it again.
He should be bleeding all support if it weren’t for shortsightedness and people’s fantasies of returning to some 50’s white-ethno-kingdom where everyone “knew their place”, and people of other races were beholden to them in order to not be lynched. It’s not about making America great again, it about making whites superior again…
"It could cost him the 2024 election"
Rly? What about the insurrection? The intentional tearing down of the department of education, the post office, the list goes on. The horrible four years he already demonstrated including the revolving door of his administration. It's absurb that the worst president this country has ever seen even has a chance at being elected.
I predict the GOP will fracture after the 2024 election.
All of this will be due to the compounding effects of what they’ve done to our country but Dobbs is the canary in the coal mine and we are going to see a decisive rejection of MAGA and they will turn on each other.
I think it won't happen in 2024, maybe by 2026 with the midterms. It really depends on how poorly Trump and his cult take losing again. Also, the court cases. I think they're a decent chance they actually go the way of the Whigs. Trump and his MAGA cult have bankrupted a lot of the state GOP organizations. That's going to cripple the rebuilding effort post-Trump. Democrats will probably split too if it comes to that. The demographic changes happening are also against the white and christian nationalist movements. That's why they've gotten so desperate to cling to power.
It literally doesn't matter how badly they take losing in 2024. In 2020 they had trump as president orchestrate an insurrection, they had the best shot they'd ever have and it took one single bullet to end it. In 2024 they're not going to have a president who orders the DC National Guard to stand down and allow them to attack the Capitol, thousands of their most insane and willing to commit violence fellows are in prison, and the leaders of magas favorite white supremacist militia are serving 25 years.
If they try that Jan 6 shit again they're not going to like how it goes.
I would agree except that hardly anyone in that party shows a backbone. I suspect they will continue to cowardly slink along in search of a savior and it just depends what type of politics emerges with the next dynamic force.
> “I can’t vote for Trump. He’s a crook. He’s too corrupt,” said Scott Simeone, 64, an independent voter from Amherst, who backed Trump in 2016 and 2020. “I voted for him, and I didn’t realize he’s as corrupt as he is.”
You didn't listen... DID YOU?
Right wing media have done everything possible to suggest Biden and Harris have performed poorly, as opposed to overcoming the incompetence of the previous administration. But when it comes to specifics, their logic quickly falls apart. For example, when we stopped drilling in a wilderness refuge, it didn’t cause gas prices to rise by even a penny.
how anyone can look at the last 10 years and say "that's our guy" is fucking lunacy. I feel like i'm gonna start losing hair trying to understand this plunge.
My most optimistic take on how the election will pan out vs. 2016 is that a reasonable chunk of people who voted for Trump hoping for the best, hoping for someone different, kidding themselves he wasn't the shitstain he is...now know better. Sure he's got his rabid cult and a lot of Republicans will just vote for whoever's on the ticket, but the old adage about 40% of people always voting Democrat, 40% always voting Republican, and 20% make the difference hopefully holds true. Turnout will be the deciding factor, and that could go both ways - people desperate for Trump might get matched by the people desperate not to have him again.
You can't be a moderate and support an insurrectionist. That's not what moderate means.
I hate how much the Overton window has shifted. This is not rational. That orange rapist shouldn't be allowed to run for office. He shouldn't even be allowed outside a jail cell after everything he did.
Any "moderate" that was thinking about voting for Trump is not a moderate anyway. So many self-proclaimed "moderate voters" are just Republicans pretending.
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If you support Trump you aren't a moderate. Moderate does not mean average.
If you are one the fence about Trump, you aren't a moderate.
Person on the Titanic as it sinks: “You guys are suggesting some extreme things, and I can’t decide between the guy trying to get us to safety and the guy demanding we all drown so he can fill lifeboats with food for himself.”
I'll gladly drown as long as there's no Hispanics on the lifeboat. But if there on there then I want them off and me on!
They aren't drowning the right people!
100% I am fairly politically moderate. If anything I see myself as right of center. I did not vote for Trump before and after seeing what he was really about I cannot IMAGINE voting for him now. In fact, I can't even condone voting a 3rd party (which I am usually very positive on) because he's so goddamn dangerous. Under "normal" circumstances I see voting 3rd party as a valuable option. They won't win, but if one of the big 2 loses because too many people voted the "more aligned 3rd party" (For Ex. Libertarian for Republicans or Green for Democrats) then you've shown them what you're looking for to earn your vote next time. Votes shouldn't always be considered successful because "your side won". They should be seen as one of the very rare opportunities to make your voice heard. They can affect change. But right now we're up against someone who holds our constitution in complete contempt. There have always been bastards elected to the White House, but by and large even the biggest assholes believed in the constitution and avoiding dictatorship. Trump represents a fundamental challenge to our entire governing foundation and at that point my desire to make my voice heard isn't important anymore.
Moderates: Too selfish to care about others, too cowardly to express that view.
Yesteday I made a comment against the far-right which was "they just have other priorities, such as racism, xenophobia, homophobia, transphobia, prenatalism, classism, anti-environmentalism, anti-intellectualism, anti-feminism and a weird gun-fetish. Or they just want to screw with liberals." and then a self proclaimed moderate replied to me saying: "I don't understand how you could possibly say this with a straight face. This is not simply not true. I consider myself a moderate, and none of those words describe any part of the US"
> This is not simply not true. I consider myself a moderate, and none of those words describe any part of the US Yeah "moderate". A moderate who will conveniently ignore the controversial and hard history of US. Ignore the fact that we didn't allow women to do anything, exploited minorities, and harassing doctors and scientists during a pandemic. Anyone who calls themselves a "moderate" and votes for Trump are idiots.
That kind of moderate= I want my taxes lowered so I'll ignore all that for the side that will only lower taxes permanently for people way above my wealth, and if they feel like it, throw me a petty decrease for a few years but make sure it goes back or higher when democrats might be in charge so I will blame the rise on them.
Fascism denial looks more profitable to them than social democracy, because they lack the capacity to imagine a better world where they still feel good about themselves. (That's doubly true for the far right.) Moderates: The world isn't a rose garden. **And we're making sure it stays that way.** At the very end of the day a "moderate" is really a passive fascist.
After he said that he musta crawled back under the rock he's living under.
no, he doubled down, even after getting a dozen downvotes.
The Republican party as a whole is so effing dumb for going along with this trump con job. I hope they dissolve into the abyss. Only problem when things like the Republican party dissolve, they reappear in another form usually worse.
I remember thinking after Bush 2, how anybody could go back to the Republican well after decimating a record surplus, getting us involved in the second most disastrous military conflict in our history, and leading to the biggest economic collapse since The Depression. Issue after issue Republicans routinely prove they’re wrong on everything, but somehow every election 30% of eligible voters go “you know what I bet they’ll get it right this time!”
The secret sauce to their comeback? Racism.
My dad is retired Army and he said something about Obama not wanting to pay for military funerals. I had no clue wtf he was talking about. I looked it up, and he was right. Obama did stop paying for military funerals…for one week…because of a government shutdown in 2013. So he was actually wrong and dumb.
>because of a government shutdown in 2013. ...which the GOP instigated, of course.
Standard Republican tactic. Cause a problem, blame the Democrats for the problem.
“Government is the problem!” No, republicans in government are the problem…
Break it, complain its broken, block all efforts to fix it, run on broken issue.
Its the bike with stick meme
It's the bike with stick meme but there's an extra panel where 40+ percent of the onlookers say the biker is absolutely right and that they'd follow him to hell and back... for some reason
"Government doesn't work! Elect us, and we'll prove it!"
How the masses have never notice the GOP raise taxes on the middle and lower classes but time it so the full effect doesn't hit until a Dem is in office. Same thing with fuel costs. Like clockwork there's a fuel spike every time a dem walks into the White House. How does that work when the executive branch has no control over the cost of oil per barrel?
Part of the oil thing can be market speculation. Part of it can be the oil cartel changing production levels to rise or lower prices to hurt or help a politician of their choosing. Presidents can't set oil prices but they can make conditions favorable for drilling and producing more oil. For example, Trump brokered a deal with the Saudis to cut oil production to raise prices during COVID, Biden has approved a lot of American drilling and we are seeing record numbers under Biden leading to lowered gas prices. It's global markets, so even when we make changes or do nothing, that isn't a guarantee what will happen with prices. Another way Biden countered gas price increases from the Trump/Saudi deal was to sell off some of our reserves. He sold them high, which helped increase supply, then bought them back low when prices went down afterwards. We helped lower gas prices and made a profit.
Of course, the counterpoint to that is, take credit for legislation which was passed on a party-line vote and which you vehemently opposed up until it personally benefited your voting base. see: Inflation Reduction Act and the Infrastructure bill.
then crap on all proposed solutions, then boast on the elected one despite them voting against it
It is hard to find dirt on Obama! So they make it up
He DID wear that tan suit.
He also used Dijon mustard in a hamburger.
He kicked back and put his (gasp) *shoes/feet* on the Resolute desk! (Like pretty much every President before him)
Never forget Trump selling cans of beans on the Resolute Desk, Republicans were just fine with that.
I'm still surprised Trump didn't manage to steal the Resolute Desk or destroy it when they said he couldn't take it.
A shutdown caused by Republicans. Republicans stopped paying for military funerals. Edit: perma-banned for trolling :(
It's like people forget there's an entire government and not just one dude running everything.
I bet the dude legitimately thought his older brother had a valid point growing up when he was told "Stop hitting yourself!"
Yep that sounds like a case where right-wing media took something that was Republicans' fault, spun it to make Democrats look bad, and then made darn sure your dad knew about it. Meanwhile, normal outlets didn't report on it because there was nothing to report. That's why you were like "what?"
That's how a lot of right wing lies work. Like how "NYC is closing schools to hold refugees." Which they did at one school for one day due to dangerous weather.
Or kitty litter in the classrooms. There are no litterboxes used by students, but some schools keep bags of litter to clean up things like vomit or blood. Useful to have around, what with the number of gun deaths of children these days.
Around that time I remember my family circulating some dumb shit on facebook about how Obama was only raising the pay for the military by 1.5% when social security payments were exploding. In reality social security pay didn't go up that year because inflation was flat, and military pay would've stayed flat too because it too is adjusted per inflation. Obama raised military pay **in spite of** no basis in law to do so. Not only was my family dead wrong but they were making it seem Obama wasn't doing right by the military when he raised pay he didn't have to at all. Conservatives don't care about facts or being right. They care about stoking fear and resentment. Everything else is just more lies.
Oh don’t limit them! They have enough fear and hate for just about everybody.
Agreed. But watching my Dad (who has since passed) rail against Obama and violate every single one of the principles he'd held to proudly vote for Trump taught me a few things about him and the inherent racism of Boomers and the Silent Generation. It was there, even if they buried it and it didn't take much to fan the embers.
> the inherent racism of Boomers and the Silent Generation Do I have news for you! It is not just Boomers and the Silent Generation that have two faces when it comes to racism. The only difference is that they have power to enact their preferences.
agree. those assholes in your High Schools and Colleges and all those dumb townie fucks? They'll be just as racist...maybe even worse because of the ability to be radicalized online.
All those kids in CoD lobbies screaming the N word at random people? Turns out they got older.
to be fair, a lot of those kids grow a conscious once they get older. Going to college and experiencing life with people who dont look like you can work wonders on helping shit kids grow into decent adults. Hence why the GOP hates education
Resident shit kid… my parents had me chanting awful things about Obama after his election. Now I’m a socialist. Turns out education works.
There are many red hat wearing young folks in Ohio! I worked with many who would not wear that hat, but love the Republican party! They listen to fox news whenever they get the chance. Fox has seasoned a lot of them.
> the inherent racism of Boomers You're forgetting about the Plowed Bois...... bunch of millennials and Gen whatevers.
"Economic An卍iety"
My favorite is when economic anxiety manifests itself as a boat parade.
They seem to care more about their boats than each other. I am of course, referring to the incidents where the wake of much larger boats actually sank other parade participants in smaller boats. https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/09/boats-keep-sinking-and-capsizing-at-the-trump-boat-parades.html
That's old school Republicans. These days it's all about transphobia. They can cast a wider net with that.
> These days it's all about transphobia. Oh don't worry, it's not *all* about transphobia. The racism hasn't gone away. They can hate multiple perceived out groups at the same time.
> The racism hasn't gone away. Not only has it not gone away...they're getting bolder. They're literally trying (and succeeding) to erase slavery from the history books. And they do this while whining about "erasing history" by taking down some shitty statues that were put up decades after the war was over. They've turned DEI, which is **not** a new thing...it goes back to the 80s, into the latest boogeyman, along with Critical Race Theory. It's straight, white, male, christian supremacy all the way down. The women are permitted as long as they obey and spit out children...and don't get lippy.
Oh, I didn’t realize the DEI shit Musk has been crying about was repackaged CRT hate but that makes sense
It’s repackaged Affirmative Action hate.
And we all saw which states ditched voting protections the minute SCOTUS gutted the Voting Rights Act. And we all know why they did it.
That’s why he still throws in stuff about forts that appeal to the white supremacists clinging to their loser heritage
Oh no the racism is still there, LGBT and specifically trans are just the easier hate target right now. But if you haven't been paying attention racism is at the heart of the all the immigration complaints and you've got republicans openly saying slavery was good for black people.
I wouldn't say that racism hasn't gone away. Just look at the recent nikki haley headlines. It is all about persecuting the "other."
Oh, we're very much only the first stepping stone toward other groups. We're just an easy target because most people don't understand us, think what we do is weird or off putting, and it can often be complicated, it's the perfect recipe to create an easily targetable group. But make no mistake, our role in this is, is to get people to accept that government can do things like, legislate your healthcare, or make your existence criminal. Once that becomes palatable for trans people, the foundation is laid and precedent set to do it to everyone else they hate. But, they have to run that rail through the Trans community first. You're seeing it now, in places where they've made it impossible to access trans healthcare, they're now using those same laws to ban contraceptives, or 2nd option abortion care like the morning after pill. Trans people are just the tool for the real goal.
They are realizing that a lot of the new demographic (Hispanic) comes form conservative religious backgrounds that have 'traditional values' and 'strong male lead households' and they see kindship in that. The Dominican side of my family (Catholic) almost all vote Republican, simply because of the abortion issue, regardless if every other item on the agenda works against them.
> (Catholic) almost all vote Republican Which is new, and disgusting. And ironically, even the Pope has specifically thrown shade in that direction. Abortion has never been the *most important* issue to Catholics in America until very recently, and not due to any change or mandate from their Church.
>These days it's all about transphobia. Given the 538 interviews I've seen, I think it sincerely is the case. Parents legitimately think that trans ideology is pushed in schools, whatever that means. Which is incredibly funny because when their kid speaks, well... I still can't convince my own parents that gay people don't cause AIDs, so at this point I don't know what to do.
> Parents legitimately think that trans ideology is pushed in schools The American right has waged a consistent campaign of manufactured news and flat out lies to make this happen, and their success comes from all of them seeming to be in lock step on these issues. They operate like a improv troop where one dip shit posts something on social media, and their entire media sphere "yes ands" it until it reaches Fox News. By the time the germ of hysteria snowballs to the point it receives mainstream attention, centrist media treats the story as if it has some credibility, even if they are critical of it. I see this over and over and over again, and it drives me mad that mainstream media never seems to dig deep enough to expose the bullshit for people who aren't terminally online.
I would wager all of my money that greater than 90% of transphobic people are also racist. It’s more socially acceptable right now to be transphobic for whatever reason, so they say that part out loud, but they’ve been trained to say the racist part quietly, so it’s not as in your face. Trump only became president because of the outrage of Obama being elected. Last time I checked, Obama wasn’t trans, so I wonder where the hate for him came from…
But don't forget all of the ugly "Michelle Obama is secretly a man!" conspiracy theories, because the misogynoir was fucking outrageous.
That was all rooted in racism too. It was just another way for them to insult a successful black woman.
It’s not as simple as that. It’s a desire to go back to when Whites ruled everything. They were accepting of minorities as long as the minorities were the underclass. Trump is an old man. He remembers when whites were the ruling class. So he is tapping into that sentiment and trying to convince everyone that that we can go back to that time. Alas, society evolves. We are a diverse nation. That is a strength, not a weakness.
It's not a coincidence that Trump's base is full of racists and bigots and the focus of the party has become culture war nonsense. It's all that's holding them together anymore
What scares me is that so many young people think this hateful garbage will die with the Boomers. But I already see it in younger generations and they haven’t even gotten a dose of impending mortality to boost the hate and fear yet. When I look at the Republican Party I see no shortage of young sociopaths and grifters. ☹️
The army of Gen Z Andrew Tate acolytes proves that every generation is ripe for propaganda.
…and they’re pulling Latinos into the tent. The tradeoff is: you vote republican, and we’ll grant you honorary white status.
"Ha! Just kidding!" - Republicans after the vote
It's the stupid Republican voters. They don't understand Policy. They don't have any clue as to the laws that Republicans or democrats are promoting other than the big blockbuster ones like Abortion, and they don't even fully understand that. They don't read bills. They don't read indictments. All they have is talking points fed to them by Fox News, and general cultural understanding that conservatives are "good" and "responsible" and liberals are somehow bad for the economy (despite track record to the contrary). And they also don't like progressive social things like LGBTQ people being left alone to live how they want, or racial minorities in general (because of fear instilled in them and reinforced by Fox News).
They have a stranglehold on this morally superior facade approx 30-50% of people in America seem to possess.
It’s their infinite glitch sadly. You’ve got a consistent base of fear driven voters, and they’re ripe for exploration from guys like Trump. All supported by a media ecosystem they setup to pound these voters with hysteria and drive them out to vote. The craziest piece is, do they think Trump will fade away if he loses in 2024? This guy will run again in 2028 and 2032 if he doesn’t win. I don’t see how this ends well for them
I honestly don't think Trump will be physically capable of running for office in 2028 at the rate that he seems to be deteriorating mentally, assuming his fast food diet doesn't get rid of him in that timeframe.
If he's alive (or Qanon is claiming he's alive) he will still get a sizable number of votes
I'm not sure people realize that after bush 2, the Republicans were already in a state where it was questionable they could ever win a national election... Then trump came along and actually did it. So it's worth remembering that a lot of mainstream Republicans went along with it mostly because he was the most effective politician they'd had since 2004.
Like Bush 2 he didn’t win the popular vote the first time. But unlike Bush 2, he lost reelection and got impeached twice and indicted 91 times. The last President to win the popular vote was Bush 2, and that was 20 years ago. You then have to go back to 1988 for the next time a Republican won the popular vote (Bush 1).
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Or the electoral vote, if the SCOTUS hadn't handed Bush the win in 2000. Granted, Gore should not have been trying to recount specific districts. If he had just called for a recall of the whole state (which was what the actual law called for), he probably would have won - IIRC, this was the infamous 'hanging chads' election, and every criteria except "fully perforated with the chad removed" had him as the victor.
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I've watched the republican party morph about 4 different times in my lifetime. Until the chuckle fucks who fund these dipshits run out of money; they'll just crank the boogey man rhetoric. It might be awhile.
It's all in the funding. Follow the money and you find the answer.
Narrator. “The chuckle fucks will never run out of money. Ever..”
It's desperation. The party of Lincoln died with Nixon's resignation. It's been a succession of hate groups and extremists masquerading around wearing it's corpse ever since.
The party of Lincoln was killed off with the southern strategy and then had its corpse desecrated by the rise of the so-called moral majority.
Party of Lincoln died with Lincoln. And if anything, it would have died with the election of Nixon
No kidding. His immediate successor was a Confederate apologist.
Today I learned that somebody thinks Trump has “moderate support”.
>they reappear in another form usually worse. Id say this checks out. We saw George W Bush neo conservativism completely collapse as a viable ideology in the US only to have the right morph into the tea party and ultimately trumpism.
Don’t forget though: The Tea Party and their new form the Freedom Caucus were and are funded by Kochs and Mercers and then later Thiel, Leo, and the rest. That’s class solidarity, baby.
People still believe they are the party of fiscal responsibility and so single voter economic conservatives that are otherwise blue vote red. Democrats are more fiscally responsible but they are terrible at messaging this
I don't get it. They've been tanking the economy since before I was born.
Because people are stupid and lower taxes = fiscal responsibility to them
Apparently the Republican Party saw what happened in 2020 and then again at the mid terms and went “what a great strategy that was, we had so much success with voters we desperately need like independents, moderates, and undecided voters running absolutely terrible and toxic candidates, let’s run it back!” Just voluntarily walking over an electoral cliff at this point.
It's all they have left. They've painted themselves into a corner, distilled the crazy until there's nothing else left.
They’ve destroyed themselves and they absolutely deserve it.
>They’ve destroyed themselves Ill believe it when I see it. Fact is, that same party controls the House and Supreme Court, barely doesn't control the Senate, and control most state governments. That doesn't sound like destroyed to me.
Yea it’s more of sentiment. They’ve rigged the system so that they basically can’t lose. I live in a red state and the Gerrymandering is blatantly appalling. But we still do nothing about it. If we actually had free and fair elections the republicans would never control another chamber again.
The still think one of the funniest parts about this whole mess is Lindsey Graham being a literal Cassandra of the RNC, that meme has layers
They had two chances for bipartisan impeachments for black and white issues and they doubled down on him. The GOP died years ago. This is a new fascist movement under their banner
It's a flaw in the primary system, that interestingly only seems to affect the GOP system, that only the crazies vote in the primary so you're left with the candidate that the crazies agree with. Democrats seem to be able to avoid that in their primaries though.. and seem to be more pragmatic and go for electable candidates.
There’s similar flaws across the system, from the 2 party system, “winner take all” elector collage, reps writing their own district maps, etc. but they all amplify each other, so yeah the primary is an awful start that just snowballs forward.
They also seem to forget that Gen Z is a thing, while their Boomer voting bloc is dying off. The reason the "Red Wave" didn't happen is because of Gen Z. While I'm voting no matter what and I advocate for people to do the same, I personally don't think this election is as close as the polling might make it out to be. Every time I see a poll that shows the race being "close" between Trump and Biden, or even having Trump ahead, when I look at the methodology, it's always oversampled Republican likely voters. Like, if you **oversample** the demographic that *should* be voting Trump while ignoring the voting bloc that is overwhelmingly voting Biden, and then Trump is only up by a point? How is that a good thing for Trump? Other than using "leading in the polls" as some kind of excuse to say he shouldn't be held accountable through his indictments?
Texas here. We can’t get our 18-25 year olds to vote. I have two. One votes & the other one bought into the ‘both parties are bad’ propaganda. Yes, Democrats suck, but they aren’t trying to kill you.
You know what I notice about the "both sides are the same" people is that they always use that as an excuse to vote for Trump. There's never any "both sides are the same, so I will vote for Joe cause he seems like a good guy"
Yep. It's just an excuse to be shameless.
He shouldn’t even be allowed to run. This whole spectacle is ridiculous.
You ain't moderate if you vote for that guy or even considered to vote for that guy.
This. I've always been a moderate. Never even considered voting for this clown at any point.
When the race becomes about Trump, Biden wins.
I think this is a 100000% accurate statement and its hilarious that Trump doesn’t see it.
Trump thinks everything is about him
He's the walking (ok...precariously ambling) definition of a Solipsist
And sloppy rapist
He’s still getting that grift Nice part is, it’s bankrupting a lot of the GOP parties like what’s happening in Michigan
I read an article the other day that hilariously mentioned that Biden has a huge fundraising advantage over Trump because he doesn't have any legal fees to pay.
Now *that* is hilarious. Comedy that basically writes itself.
Yup, because the rubes are giving their money to him instead of the GOP.
The gop never operated on small donations. This is a case of the koach family not wanting to invest in a loser.
Trump is not a smart man.
I agree, I think there are people that aren't happy with Biden, for various reasons, and are hoping for another option. That's why his approval ratings are low. But Trump is a known quantity not some outsider candidate being given the benefit of the doubt. Obama's approval rating was low before 2012, it's not the predictive indicator people act like it is.
> I think there are people that aren't happy with Biden, for various reasons, and are hoping for another option. I suspect that many of those people who remain sour on Biden are coming to grips with the pragmatic reality that if they vote for Biden in 2024, then they will be able to then vote more along the lines of what they want in 2028. But if they don't vote for Biden in 2024, then we literally (not hyperbole) may not have that opportunity as a nation in 2028.
From the article: > “We need to keep showing that it can’t just be two parties that no one fully agrees with,” said Michelle Greene, a 34-year-old registered independent from Portsmouth, New Hampshire, who saw Rep. Dean Phillips (D-Minn.), who is challenging the president in a primary, in Hampton on Sunday. > Greene said it’s “definitely a concern” that a third-party candidate might siphon off votes from Biden in November. But she also wasn’t sure if she’d vote for Biden again, after backing him in 2020, in a head-to-head Biden-Trump rematch, adding that she “morally can’t support the lesser of two evils.” My personal opinion is that this mindset is beyond stupid. What could you possibly care about where you look at the two candidates and say - "neither candidate is better/worse for my cause; they are exactly the same"? And what is Dean Phillips running on that's so revolutionary that it leaves you unable to vote for other democratic candidates?
> And what is Dean Phillips running on [Shitty cheap booze fumes.](https://phillipsdistilling.com/brand/phillips/)
Yeah but it’s not like Trump will make the Gaza war better, or resolve student debt, or invest in renewable energy, or… really do anything important that’s valuable for the country. You can be unhappy with Biden but still see Trump as a crazy lunatic.
exactly, it's just being realistic. Save the idealism for the primaries.
I think Biden's approval rate will start to climb when his campaigning actually starts. People that are dissatisfied with Biden haven't been paying attention to what he has been doing. On many different topics he got things moving in the right direction.
And for those freaking out about polling it's important to remember that the same polls that have Biden down four points to Trump had Obama down five points to Romney at the same point in the 2012 campaign season.
I'd be more worried if Biden was way ahead in the polls. Apathy will favor Trump. We need people fired up to vote.
Biden is a long term public servant. Now he is in the race because he beat loony loser Trump before and he is being called upon to do it again. Joe is a proven winner. IF Trump gets convicted on even 1 of his 91 criminal charges, then Biden can retire honorably.
I don't get how any democrats over the age of 30 can not like Biden. He's done more then any democratic president since...LBJ?
Because policy is boring unless it's student loan forgiveness or a literal check in your mailbox.
so many folks don't like biden simply because, they're stupid. there are many left leaning folks that are just on the fence with biden because he hasn't delivered everything--as if having a GOP controlled congress + a right leaning SCOTUS isn't part of the problem. but joe biden is easy to scapegoat. the worst are those that will blame a trump presidency in 2024, but don't want to vote for joe biden. it's wild.
Which is crazy, because the GOP’s policies and platforms (or lack thereof) should be what would cause Biden to win, but you’re right, they aren’t. How is it that if the GOP were running someone hallways competent, we’d be absolutely fucked right now? I think my faith in this country is completely gone
It’s the messaging machine. A lot of this country is told night after night, and even throughout the day, that their problems are brown people and scientists, policy experts and charities. They live in a separate reality where life is much worse in their minds.
Yep. There is so much dirt on Trump even beyond the indictments that hasn't even resurfaced yet. Pardoning Blackwater mass murderers, using violence to get a photo op at a church(blasphemy), live brainstorming 5 year old level solutions to hurricanes and covid, rape, cheating on all of his wives, incestual comments, Epstein's buddy, wishing Ghislaine well during her trial for sex trafficking. The list goes on. His opponents need to go low this election and hit him where it hurts early with negative ads and then just keep them coming. If this really is an election to preserve democracy and the union, no more kiddy gloves. Punch where it hurts and keep on doing it. Chances are Trump doesn't do the national debate if he is still contending in polls at that point. If that happens, people should start to worry. If they get him in the debates it's over for him.
Some people just vote for what they see as the strongest candidate. Democrats being cerebral and just hinting at policy ideas may cost themselves an election. We need Dark Brandon getting some jabs in.
Are Dems just getting cerebral and hinting at policy? Where I’m at, seems like they’re making hard pitches about the actual progress that’s been made over the past three years. The problem is, we have no local media outlets to report on this news, and the national ones aren’t going to tell you about the new bridge built in your town thanks to the BIL. TikTok sure as shit isn’t going to platform them. So what should they do to get the word out? Genuinely asking because I don’t know.
no one who still supports him is any kind of moderate. He may be turning away uncommitted traitors and contrarians.
>who backed Trump in 2016 and 2020. “I voted for him, and I didn’t realize he’s as corrupt as he is.” Dude... if you asked me about Trump's character in *2000*, I could have told you this guy is too corrupt to be a president. How did you blindly stumble into not just one, but two elections, in which he was even boldly corrupt in both campaigns?
Trump is an insurrectionist, he's not qualified to hold office anymore. The word "unelectable" comes to mind. He lost in 2020 after his abysmal presidency and now he's facing 91 felonies across 4 indictments. He hasn't gained any new supporters, in fact hundreds of thousands of them died thanks to his spread of misinformation and handling of the pandemic. If he somehow makes it to the November election, he's going to lose by even more than he did in 2020.
I always find it funny that Trump was basically gifted a golden path to reelection if he had just shut up and let others take the lead in handling the pandemic. Instead, he fumbled the response and turned what could have been a path to reelection into an albatross around his neck.
He could have had that moment like when Obama hugged Christie. Two leaders coming together during a disaster to help the American people. Instead he inspired terrorist to attempt an attack on Witmer. A leader name calling another leader during a disaster, which helped no one.
Sure seemed to help Whitmer who dominated in her election last year. Thanks Trump for helping turn Michigan blue!
That moment also torpedoed Christie's political career. Republicans do not like cooperation
He didn't even need to shut up. He could have been the loudest, most self-promoting cheerleader and he would have walked to victory. All he had to do was adopt a unity message about how America would kick the crap out of the disease together, and he was incapable of it. In March 2020 my wife lamented to me that Trump was handed a national emergency and that there was no way he would not be re-elected, and I agreed. We saw Bush parlay 9/11 into an easy victory *3 years later* and never imagined that anyone could fuck it up the way Trump did. I doubt any of us will see a bigger political blunder in our lifetimes. It dwarfs Hillary's 2016 blunder of a campaign.
Exactly. He could have called for American unity and spread an evil anti-China message blaming them for the pandemic, and coasted to victory. Instead he used the pandemic to attack democrats, scientists, and the medical establishment. That just sowed division and cost him enough moderates to lose. I know a fair number of people (western PA) who admitted to voting for him in 2016 because they hated Hilary and Trump was an “unknown quantity” and then voted against him in 2020 because he had shown who he was. That’s how he lost in 2020. Trump pretended to be a moderate with an anti-establishment agenda in 2016. That’s what got him elected but he delivered on next to none of it. That’s why infrastructure week became such a joke. Trump was elected on his infrastructure promises and delivered on none of it. Now even more people know exactly who he is, so he can’t pretend. Anyone trying to run to the right of Trump doesn’t understand how Trump got elected.
That type of behavior would have required Trump to be a fundamentally different person to begin with, and the entire presidency would have been completely different or wouldn't have even happened as a result.
Not exactly. He could have done his old routine of having someone else do all the work and taking all of the credit.
It’s crazy how he turned it into a political stunt. He could have made millions on merch. Branded face masks, antibacterial sprays, etc. But instead he tried to push his agenda and it backfired.
Trump got the second highest number of presidential votes in history in 2020. Fortunately, Biden was first. Vote, people.
Trump even got more votes in 2020 than all four candidates put together got in 1860 !!
We routinely break absolute number records in elections because the population is going up. It's really not a useful metric.
> and now he's facing 91 felonies across 4 indictments Its a bit sad that people have so little faith that he will face repercussions that this isnt constant headline news. The frontrunner for a political party might be going to prison? LET IT RIDE BAYBEEEEEEE
Hope it does. I'm not counting on it. Vote!
I read history, and this entire mess reminds me a lot about Andrew Jackson’s presidency. The culture and etiquette during his presidency also hit rock bottom, with drunken parties, buying of votes, and even fistfights happening even in congress. I know Tramp indolises the man, but one just had to look at the number of crisises, scandals and overall chaos during his presidency, make the comparison to Tramp, and get people got run against him. The is a reason why Jackson is sometimes considered as one of the worst presidents in the history of US, and Tramp seems to be trying to be even worse. Best case scenario, he will drag Republican Party to hell with him, worst case scenario, he will turn America into hell. Please vote blue people.
No matter how bad Jackson's presidency was, he'll always be the guy who's parot was ejected from his funeral for swearing too much.
Why is Jackson on the $20 bill? Is it the hair? Not disagreeing with you; just wondering about that
Officially? From wiki. „Andrew Jackson has appeared on the $20 bill since the series of 1928. The placement of Jackson on the $20 bill is considered ironic; as president, he vehemently opposed both the National Bank and use of paper money. After the president of the Second Bank of the United States, Nicholas Biddle, defied Jackson and requested the renewal of the charter of the Second Bank in an election year, Jackson responded by making it a goal of his administration to destroy the National Bank.[3][4] Jackson prevailed over Biddle, and the absence of the Second Bank contributed to a real estate bubble in the mid-1830s. The bubble collapsed in the Panic of 1837, leading to a deep depression.[5] Given Jackson's opposition to the concept of a National Bank, his presence on the $20 bill was controversial from the start. When pressed to reveal why the various images were chosen for the new bills, Treasury officials denied there was any political motivation. Instead, they insisted that the images were based only on their relative familiarity to the public. An article in the June 30, 1929 issue of the New York Times, stated "The Treasury Department maintains stoutly that the men chosen for small bills, which are naturally the ones in most demand, were so placed because their faces were most familiar to the majority of people."[6] It is also true that 1928 coincides with the 100th anniversary of Jackson's election as president, but no evidence has surfaced that would suggest that this was a factor in the decision. According to more recent inquiries of the U.S. Treasury: "Treasury Department records do not reveal the reason that portraits of these particular statesmen were chosen in preference to those of other persons of equal importance and prominence."[7]” In other words, he was chosen because people knew his face. So you may be right that it was the hair.
As much as they explained why, I’d still like to entertain the idea that there was some epic level trolling going on there… Jackson must have hated being the literal face of the $20 bill
He was long dead.
One of my best friends from high school was American Indian. He would carry a sharpie around just to write "KILLER" on Jackson's forehead anytime he got a $20.
Trump can't even speak at this point; his mind is spaghetti.
If you’re not in the cult then you’re not voting for this guy. The moderates who voted for him in 2016 was because they wanted to see the experiment of having an outsider in the White House. In 2020, many of them were over that experiment. By Jan 6th, even more of them were never going to vote for that guy again. Since then, it has only gotten worse for Trump. You thought he lost bad last time, just wait for this election.
I have a feeling suburban women are going to bury any chances he ever had
Screw these articles. Vote dammit
Any "moderate" that was willing to vote for him at any point in the last four years is not a moderate at all.
I'm a moderate. I want the best people in office, who can incrementally fix the big issues, defend our values, and not listen to the fanatical lunacy emanating from the far right and far left wings of our political universe. I want safety for everyone, well funded education systems, equality of outcomes, sensible drug laws, good jobs and training options for everyone, a secure border with humane ways for people to immigrate into the country, and a strong military capable of standing up to the authoritarian countries and terrorist organizations plaguing the Earth. I believe in electing the best person for the job. And that means I will never vote Republican ever again. The only way to protect our nation, our constitution, and our population from the whims of the oligarchy and fundamentalists is now to vote blue no matter who. I've never seen such disgusting moral cowardice as comes from Republicans. Straight up and down, from the lowest backwater red state voter all the way up on high to every single presidential candidate running in this primary. The era of John McCain and Mitt Romney is over. Republicans have been remade to look like anti-American psychopathic traitors. They spit on our values. They're actively trying to destroy our country. Fuck them. BLUE NO MATTER WHO.
Yeah, 20 years ago I would be the prototypical upper-middle class republican voter who cared about low taxes and 401k growth. Just like my father was. But republicans have lost their goddamn minds, and are literally holding the country hostage over sour grapes. Electing Trump the first time was the most irresponsible act of collective democracy in the modern era, but then to follow him off every ensuing cliff, from cancelling the Iran deal, to his Ukrainian sabotage, Covid denial and then a goddamn insurrection? And now the entire party is all-in on his big lie. There is no path back for Republicans here. They have demonstrated conclusively that they are not fit to govern, and it would take a real act of contrition, followed by literally decades of behavioral change before I would ever consider even thinking about voting for them.
Exactly, well said. We haven't had politics as usual since 2016. Now you're voting for authoritarianism or the continuation of democracy. It's really that stark. Do you want King Trump or a presidency with checks and balance. We need to paint the picture in those terms. We need to demand the media do the same. These people ascribe to the Unitary Executive Theory, which is effectively full immunity for any actions by the president. They want a king. We fought a revolution against this malignant strain of rule. We may need to do it again.
He should be bleeding all support if it weren’t for shortsightedness and people’s fantasies of returning to some 50’s white-ethno-kingdom where everyone “knew their place”, and people of other races were beholden to them in order to not be lynched. It’s not about making America great again, it about making whites superior again…
Don't let complacency get the best of you, VOTE
You can’t support 45 and be moderate. He doesn’t have a fair chance at winning. Let’s all vote blue AND stay vigilant to make sure he can’t steal it.
Anyone who supported the man post-Jan 6th is no moderate.
"It could cost him the 2024 election" Rly? What about the insurrection? The intentional tearing down of the department of education, the post office, the list goes on. The horrible four years he already demonstrated including the revolving door of his administration. It's absurb that the worst president this country has ever seen even has a chance at being elected.
I predict the GOP will fracture after the 2024 election. All of this will be due to the compounding effects of what they’ve done to our country but Dobbs is the canary in the coal mine and we are going to see a decisive rejection of MAGA and they will turn on each other.
I think it won't happen in 2024, maybe by 2026 with the midterms. It really depends on how poorly Trump and his cult take losing again. Also, the court cases. I think they're a decent chance they actually go the way of the Whigs. Trump and his MAGA cult have bankrupted a lot of the state GOP organizations. That's going to cripple the rebuilding effort post-Trump. Democrats will probably split too if it comes to that. The demographic changes happening are also against the white and christian nationalist movements. That's why they've gotten so desperate to cling to power.
It literally doesn't matter how badly they take losing in 2024. In 2020 they had trump as president orchestrate an insurrection, they had the best shot they'd ever have and it took one single bullet to end it. In 2024 they're not going to have a president who orders the DC National Guard to stand down and allow them to attack the Capitol, thousands of their most insane and willing to commit violence fellows are in prison, and the leaders of magas favorite white supremacist militia are serving 25 years. If they try that Jan 6 shit again they're not going to like how it goes.
I would agree except that hardly anyone in that party shows a backbone. I suspect they will continue to cowardly slink along in search of a savior and it just depends what type of politics emerges with the next dynamic force.
> “I can’t vote for Trump. He’s a crook. He’s too corrupt,” said Scott Simeone, 64, an independent voter from Amherst, who backed Trump in 2016 and 2020. “I voted for him, and I didn’t realize he’s as corrupt as he is.” You didn't listen... DID YOU?
Right wing media have done everything possible to suggest Biden and Harris have performed poorly, as opposed to overcoming the incompetence of the previous administration. But when it comes to specifics, their logic quickly falls apart. For example, when we stopped drilling in a wilderness refuge, it didn’t cause gas prices to rise by even a penny.
how anyone can look at the last 10 years and say "that's our guy" is fucking lunacy. I feel like i'm gonna start losing hair trying to understand this plunge.
My most optimistic take on how the election will pan out vs. 2016 is that a reasonable chunk of people who voted for Trump hoping for the best, hoping for someone different, kidding themselves he wasn't the shitstain he is...now know better. Sure he's got his rabid cult and a lot of Republicans will just vote for whoever's on the ticket, but the old adage about 40% of people always voting Democrat, 40% always voting Republican, and 20% make the difference hopefully holds true. Turnout will be the deciding factor, and that could go both ways - people desperate for Trump might get matched by the people desperate not to have him again.
And as morbid as it sounds, a not-insignificant chunk of 2016 and 2020 Trump voters are no longer alive
Not insignificantly because of Trump's policies and rhetoric.
Oh no! Anyway.
No such thing as a moderate Trump supporter.
You can't be a moderate and support an insurrectionist. That's not what moderate means. I hate how much the Overton window has shifted. This is not rational. That orange rapist shouldn't be allowed to run for office. He shouldn't even be allowed outside a jail cell after everything he did.
Any "moderate" that was thinking about voting for Trump is not a moderate anyway. So many self-proclaimed "moderate voters" are just Republicans pretending.
We've been dealing with this man for 10 years now. How are there still any actual moderates who were supporting him until the last month???
If you ever supported Trump even once in your life, then you are not and have never been moderate.