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2024 US Election Megathread ๐Ÿ‡บ๐Ÿ‡ธ๐Ÿ›๏ธ


khalyan
Lee!!
Message added by Lee!!,

It was decided based on feedback from the spring 2023 town hall to transition this thread back to being election specific. With the Civics section being able to house specific threads on many issues, we think having a generalized politics thread is not completely necessarily anymore.ย 
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With that said, please continue to be respectful and remember that you do not always need to respond to everyone.ย 

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3 minutes ago, anti-***** said:

I was thinking about this the other day, how Bernie is still the only formidable progressive out there. I think he was more fiery in 2016 but got a bit shaken by people blaming him for the election loss, so he tried to be more friendly in 2020 but that also failed. AOC has potential for sure but she needs a lot more experience in DC. I guess Stacey Abrams could be a big deal in the future though. I hope she becomes the governor of GA this year.

Stacey Abrams is an establishment politician. She endorsed BLOOMBERG. I-...... :skull:

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Like... honestly, if you want to say she's as progressive as a state like Georgia would be willing to allow, then fine. But... she's basically a Jim Clyburn Democrat at best. You're in for a very rude awakening if you think that will suffice outside of the Deep South.ย :skull:

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7 minutes ago, anti-bitch said:

I was thinking about this the other day, how Bernie is still the only formidable progressive out there. I think he was more fiery in 2016 but got a bit shaken by people blaming him for the election loss, so he tried to be more friendly in 2020 but that also failed. AOC has potential for sure but she needs a lot more experience in DC. I guess Stacey Abrams could be a big deal in the future though. I hope she becomes the governor of GA this year.

Experience in DC isnโ€™t good, in my opinion. When youโ€™re elected as president, you have an entire team of people (your administration) that help you navigate the executive power bestowed upon you and to make sure youโ€™re briefed on foreign happenings. Joe Biden has had decades of experience, and is pretty objectively the most DC-experienced president in history, yet heโ€™s completely ineffective.ย 
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As for Stacey Abrams, sheโ€™s not a progressive. As mentioned already, she was perfectly happy with the idea of a Michael Bloomberg presidency because he gave her some money.

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5 minutes ago, ClashAndBurn said:

Stacey Abrams is an establishment politician. She endorsed BLOOMBERG. I-...... :skull:

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Like... honestly, if you want to say she's as progressive as a state like Georgia would be willing to allow, then fine. But... she's basically a Jim Clyburn Democrat at best. You're in for a very rude awakening if you think that will suffice outside of the Deep South.ย :skull:

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Just now, Bloo said:

Experience in DC isnโ€™t good, in my opinion. When youโ€™re elected as president, you have an entire team of people (your administration) that help you navigate the executive power bestowed upon you and to make sure youโ€™re briefed on foreign happenings. Joe Biden has had decades of experience, and is pretty objectively the most DC-experienced president in history, yet heโ€™s completely ineffective.ย 
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As for Stacey Abrams, sheโ€™s not a progressive. As mentioned already, she was perfectly happy with the idea of a Michael Bloomberg presidency because he gave her some money.

Ok, sorry guys. I don't really know Stacey that well, so this is a bummer to learn.

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10 minutes ago, anti-bitch said:

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Ok, sorry guys. I don't really know Stacey that well, so this is a bummer to learn.

No need to apologize. Sheโ€™s kind of under the radar for many (cause she hasnโ€™t won an election) so a lot of people just associate her with her advocacy for voting rights.ย 

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5 minutes ago, anti-***** said:

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Ok, sorry guys. I don't really know Stacey that well, so this is a bummer to learn.

You donโ€™t have to apologize. Just letting you know: the progressive label has been misused, to the point that incrementalist neoliberals have declared themselves the real progressives because โ€œthey get things done,โ€ hence Shontel Brown being embraced and endorsed enthusiastically by the Congressional Progressive Caucus even though sheโ€™s extremely well-funded by interest groups like AIPAC and Big Pharma.

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Kamala Harris is claimed to be a progressive, even though the only thing progressive about her is her status as a racial/gender minority. Her prosecutorial record speaks for itself, and as a Senator, she only really voted along party lines as part of the opposing party against the sitting administration.

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Joe Biden campaigned as โ€œthe most progressive presidential candidate ever,โ€ and has achieved nothing, even though he positioned himself in the primary as the big bipartisan deal maker that would reach across the aisle and magically get Republicans to work with him. In reality, heโ€™s achieved basically little more than what he claimed โ€œBread Line Bernieโ€ would.

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12 minutes ago, anti-***** said:

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Ok, sorry guys. I don't really know Stacey that well, so this is a bummer to learn.

Don't be silly and don't worry. You're still navigating the political landscape.ย 

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Brilliant obfuscation and muddying the waters by DeSantis and his team here, who get the anti-vax cred and also get to claim Biden lied.ย 

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It's Trump's culture wars on steroids but with the stealth of Dick Cheney. He's such a ******* sociopath.ย 

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If this is any indication of what his time as President will look like, I think I'm gonna tap out of following politics entirely.

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We're close to finished as a country anyways so it's just as well.

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3 hours ago, Harrier said:

Broadly I agree.

Were I find difference with the leftist take on this, though, is I don't think its that all those progressives are corrupted by the niceties of DC or the allure of being in the elite. More so, I think, its that they come into contact with all these Democratic figures that the left (including me at times!) often paint as boogey men, only to discover that they're not in fact horrible people, they're not ghouls - they are (mostly) well intentioned people.ย I genuinely think the Joe Biden is a decent person, and so does Bernie. Most moderate democrats, unlike Republicans, are not evil. They are just misguided, and genuinely believe that their milquetoast policy, dodgy fundraising, and careful politicking is the only way to win power from the unbelievably dangerous right. That is what the judgement of all these good progressives is, and I am inclined to believe them over twitter denizens.

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That makes it very hard to be extremely harsh on them in a way that might sometimes be necessary. For me, the system itself - and also the electorate - is at the core of the issue. Milquetoast corporate democrats are a product of a party constantly in fear of a right wing that simply is more powerful and has an easier time getting elected due to the ways the system favors them.

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This will always be my personal issue with liberalism because it just directs people away from a material analysis of how power actually exists in a society; I can maybe understand how defeatism directs people to hope for the best and be coerced to think everyone's trying their best and I get why that's such an alluring mindset.......

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....but I think that largely misses the entire reality of what inequality is. Even the language is wrong. Whether someone is good or bad of a person is ambiguous and a poor articulation of inequality.ย 

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I don't care if Amy Klobuchar is somehow a good person or not (pregnant women not fast enough to dodge office supplies may say otherwise ddd), because whether she is doesn't change the material reality that there is immense inequality in our society and she's actively contributed to it, not solving it. And she knows that.

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And to then shield powerful politicians from criticism while also trying to dog on the electorate aka normal people is.... I don't know, I just think it misses the mark and fails to recognize how actual inequality is experienced.

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I don't care if the senators from Delaware have favorite pets and hobbies and love their kids. What I care about is that they want to force poor people to kill themselves by using their power to keep people poor.

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And maybe people think that language is unfair, but I think we'd be in a different place if the politico-media complex spent more time covering something like the below than they did Beto's jeans or Kamala's recipes:

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Edited by Communion
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Edited by Communion
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Amy Klobuchar is OBJECTIVELY a bad person, just ask her staffers :gaycat4:.ย 

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One thing that's very interesting to me is that the racial makeup of USA is changing fast. According to the 2020 Census, 61.6% of the people were white, while in 2010 that figure was 72.4. So by 2030 there could be a situation that white people are less than half of the population. And most of the children being born are POC too. So, when you think about the political implications of that, it should be raining in Democrat's bucket. Although there's signs that more and more latino voters are going for GOP but still mostly Dem, and black people, women in particular, very much go for Dem. And then, there's also more and more queer people in the country and they also vote mostly Dem. I'm not saying that people should vote blue just because they are POC or queer, but it should be very possible for Democrats to get more blue waves in the future with this ever growing non-white and non-straight constituency.ย  I know the GOP will try to gerrymander and block voting rights even more, but there has to be a breaking point to that strategy too, when the aforementioned communities get bigger and bigger. And it's gonna look ridiculous when most of the country is non-white eventually but the GOP representatives are 99% white still.

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34 minutes ago, anti-***** said:

And most of the children being born are POC too. So, when you think about the political implications of that, it should be raining in Democrat's bucket.ย 

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6 hours ago, Communion said:

This will always be my personal issue with liberalism because it just directs people away from a material analysis of how power actually exists in a society; I can maybe understand how defeatism directs people to hope for the best and be coerced to think everyone's trying their best and I get why that's such an alluring mindset.......

ย 

....but I think that largely misses the entire reality of what inequality is. Even the language is wrong. Whether someone is good or bad of a person is ambiguous and a poor articulation of inequality.ย 

ย 

I don't care if Amy Klobuchar is somehow a good person or not (pregnant women not fast enough to dodge office supplies may say otherwise ddd), because whether she is doesn't change the material reality that there is immense inequality in our society and she's actively contributed to it, not solving it. And she knows that.

ย 

And to then shield powerful politicians from criticism while also trying to dog on the electorate aka normal people is.... I don't know, I just think it misses the mark and fails to recognize how actual inequality is experienced.

ย 

I don't care if the senators from Delaware have favorite pets and hobbies and love their kids. What I care about is that they want to force poor people to kill themselves by using their power to keep people poor.

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And maybe people think that language is unfair, but I think we'd be in a different place if the politico-media complex spent more time covering something like the below than they did Beto's jeans or Kamala's recipes

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And this is where I disagree with leftism. If we designate people as either for or against working class people - as was done in China, in the Soviet Union to bloody results - we are denying their humanity and the complex psychological reality of their decision making. It is relevant to me if someone is a kind, well intentioned person, because that means they might be open to change. You say they want poor people to kill themselves by using their power to keep poor people poor - but do they?

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Sometimes it absolutely is about the material reality. But I would argue that there is more to what is going on in Washington than it just being about wealth. It's about identity, fear, ideology, hatred, defensive politics. Many other things. Material analysis should be one part of a political world view, not its entirety.

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I also (maybe controversially) want to say, that poor people or leftists are in no way inherently different to middle or upper class people in their moral virtue, and for me that is the fundamental flaw with the ideological far left. Inequality is not solved by simply handing the power and wealth of one group of people to another - in the case of leftist revolution, to leftist political figures. For me, It's about creating a system where there is not the level of inequality we have now - not, as it is for you, about poor people simply seizing power from the rich. I'm a historian and I have read many books about China; I'll never be on board with that kind of politics.

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6 hours ago, Communion said:

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@rihannabiggestfan

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Miss Eunisses slaying right now.ย ย :WAP:ย  ย Those ballot drops are helping her.ย 

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12 minutes ago, Mellark said:

@rihannabiggestfan

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Miss Eunisses slaying right now.ย ย :WAP:ย  ย Those ballot drops are helping her.ย 

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We love that :clap3:

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and I'm noticing Gina's % going up and up the more votes come in, not everyone can relate :clap3:. Not my underdog queen MURDERING the COP Buscaino like that, she has 10 times more votes than him (in Communion's post)ย :bibliahh:

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Edited by rihannabiggestfan
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Regarding this talk about leftism, I think it's possible to be both pro-business and pro-workers rights. E.g. Bernie saying that he would give small businesses a tax break in exchange for implementing the $15 minimum wage. Also, I don't think that most billionaires are bad people at all. Many of them have had great business ideas and employ millions of people as a whole. But I would remove the ability to tax deduct your donations to charities. You can basically transfer-donate money to yourself if you have a charity running now, avoiding taxes.

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If this already posted, whatever. Apartheid jokes are always classy! /s

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And if anyone needed a reminder,ย Elon's fam owned and operated an emerald mining business during that time period. Before the US government showered him with subsidies, he was getting rich off of the labour of black people.ย Ironies abound.

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Every Representative and Senator who voted for the 2002 AUMF should be tried as a war criminal. That includes Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton :gaycat3:

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1 hour ago, ClashAndBurn said:


Every Representative and Senator who voted for the 2002 AUMF should be tried as a war criminal. That includes Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton :gaycat3:

Queen made POINTS

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