CNN's Dana Bash barely suppressed a stunned laugh as she pressed Ramaswamy to explain his claim that the Trump-incited Jan. 6 riot was actually "an inside job."
Anyone who is mad about Biden should consider that Trump’s people are ready and willing to nuke the entire Middle East on the chance that it will start the Rapture.
Like, it’s not even a close call. And I’m still not seeing how biden’s actual record isn’t a factor. He’s done a pretty solid job with the resources he’s got. A good chunk of Congress is a terror cell at this point, the supreme Court is stacked with zealots appointed for life, and he’s still managed to get a lot of good stuff done.
People keep saying this as though presidents in the past get SHIT LOADS done, when in reality most of them don’t do shit and the Republican ones start wars, give money to the rich and crash the economy.
So you can’t even compare him to previous presidents becuase previous Republican presidents have been DISASTERS.
So we can only really compare him to previous Democrat presidents and I’d say he’s gotten more done than most of them.
I mean, that’s kind of been the strategy this whole time and it’s not doing very well. Conservatives are a lost cause, we should be soley focused on driving turnout of Democrat voters and people who don’t vote. Those groups are all saying they want something/someone to vote FOR, not just someone to vote against. Donald Trump is clearly an existential threat to our entire democracy, but these people aren’t worried about that. They’re worried about paying their bills. They want someone to make their day to day lives better and Biden has done a lot of things that help every day Americans, theyve just never heard about it.
The pitch needs to be “here’s what we’ve gotten done even with Republicans fighting against all of it along the way. Send me a solid Democratic majority in Congress and we’ll get X, Y, Z done.” Get Jeffries and Schumer to have legislation prepared and ready to go that the caucus will pass without a single GOP vote if necessary. Then, most importantly, follow through and pass that shit.
You aren’t voting for anyone. No one is. This is a first past the post voting system. You don’t vote FOR people, you vote AGAINST people. And by not voting, you’re saying you won’t vote against either party.
Out of curiosity: does your opposition to genocide extend to you joining protests, contacting your representatives, and encouraging others to do the same?
Or do your principles only extend as far as you not actually doing anything?
I have already contacted my congressman my senators, and wrote the White House. I encourage everyone I can use to fix the system. I do not encourage others to not vote because that is their choice to make.
Oh, I’ve never encourage anyone on here not to vote.
Only thing I am asking for is a candidate who is actually voting for and that does not support genocide.
I really do not think that is asking for too much.
I have already contacted my congressman my senators, and wrote the White House. I encourage everyone I can use to fix the system. I do not encourage others to not vote because that is their choice to make.
Oh, I’ve never encourage anyone on here not to vote.
Only thing I am asking for is a candidate who is actually voting for and that does not support genocide.
I really do not think that is asking for too much.
Let’s establish the situation. There’s only two outcomes of the election. Any other possibilities are so remote we can dismiss then.
Biden wins. The status quo continues.
Trump wins. More Palestinians and innocent children die.
There is a clear outcome here that is going to be worse and kill more people. You have three options on how to act:
A. Vote for Biden
B. Vote for Trump
C. Don’t vote for either of them
If you pick A, 1 becomes more likely. If you pick B, 2 becomes more likely. If you pick C, 2 also becomes more likely because of the electoral college. If you pick A or B, you’ll feel guilty. If you pick C, you’ll (incorrectly) feel like you’re innocent and not complicit.
You say you care about the people dying. That means you want the outcome with the least deaths, 1. If you want to outcome 1, you should pick A. Why are you refusing to?
No one here is delightfully voting for the genocide to continue. We want to stop it, but that isn’t an option. Shouldn’t we then act to minimize the death toll as much as we possibly could?
A child who survives in outcome 1 could die in outcome 2. If you don’t strive for outcome 1, you have blood on your hands. Do you care more about having a falsely clear conscience, or do you want to save lives? It’s very easy to say you want none of them to die. It’s not as easy to take an action that you know will still result in people dying, but it kills fewer people.
If you are genuine in your convictions, and I choose to believe that you are, I am confident that you’ll make the decision to try and save lives, at whatever personal cost to yourself.
It really depends on what a Trump reign will look like, right?
Will he be able to round up tens of millions of people and deport them, as he has promised? Will he institute another Muslim ban, as he has promised? Will he stay in office after his next four year term, as he has said he wants to? Will he use the office of the president to persecute political opponents, as he has promised? Will he “root out” all the “vermin” in the United States, as he had promised? And if yes: who will get declared to be “vermin?” How will they be “rooted out?” Will he make torture legal, as he promised? Will he bring back family separation and child detention camps? Will he threaten nuclear war again? And if yes, will some crazy regime take him up on the offer?
And if all of that or even just a fraction of that comes to pass, will you still sleep well, knowing that you might have been able to stop all of that but voting for the lesser of two evils was just beneath you?
Because ultimately, that’s the decision you’re making.
Yep! People like to try and pretend you can not be neutral but unless I am voting FOR trump then I am not canceling out someone else’s vote.
I won’t help you guys re-elect a genocide supporting president either way.
We keep talking about Israel is not doing enough to stop civilians and wringing our hand while on our knees sucking Netanyahu’s dick and just begging him not to cum on our face because we need to look presentable.
They openly killed journalists, on video, with physical and forensic evidence, right after the journalists switched from recording the Lebanese side to the Israeli side.
While clearly marked as being press.
Defend that, also I am still waiting for those beheaded babies that the IDF used to rile everyone up with.
You know, the one the president you want me to support said he saw and then had to walk back later.
I can support the countries that are not actively supporting genocide.
Btw bad example, as far as I can tell, only the us is actively supporting genocidal actions, but I will reject anyone who is doing so.
I would much rather them do nothing instead of supporting Israel.
Don’t get me twisted, when 10/7 happened I completely supported them and felt grief for them and their suffering, then they decided to kill a bunch of kids.
That’s a pretty juvenile take. Not voting doesn’t mean you disapprove of both candidates. It means they are both equal (equally good or equally bad) to you.
And if you think the two are equal because of one thing that they agree on (as bad as that thing is), you mean all the things they disagree on don’t matter (like peaceful transfer of power, lgbtq rights, fascism). And even on that one thing, the two have very different approaches, and one is far more inclined to change position in the future. But apparently that wouldn’t matter either, because they are both equal right now, because they both support Israel right now.
And in a first past the post voting system, like the one we have, your lack of voting mathematically increases the chances of Trump winning. That’s a fact. You are voting for Trump, even if you say you’re not. I’m sure you’ll sleep fine at night, but all the harm he causes will be because you died on a hill that didn’t even mean anything.
I think most people value aesthetics over pragmatism. If a car ran a red light most people would, in a philosophical sense, say, “Well they’re in the wrong.” and step out in front of the car. It’s better to be right than to do good because one of those things makes us feel good, while the other is just work.
And you are okay with letting Ukraine get genocided as well just to shove it to Biden? Trump will only encourage Israel and Putin to keep going so you hate genocide but want to vote for more of it? That’s fucked up.
If nothing you do matters, then the only thing that matters is what you do.
What I choose to do is to not support genocidal actions in as many ways as possible.
I can’t stop them from doing it, but I can choose not to support it myself.
Don’t worry though, they are increasing the bombings in south Gaza now as well so soon it will just be a bunch of dead people and after that it doesn’t really matter, because people will all forget in time.
Israel is bound by treaty to defend Israel as we are allies.
Biden is mostly trying to prevent a shooting war between Israel, Iran and Saudi Arabia. Which would 100% involve nukes and obliterate the global economy for decades. (Imagine all European - Asian oceanic trade just stopping).
That’s why he’s doing it. Hamas is a proxy agent for Iran they are using against Israel.
So I should support guaranteed genocidal actions now to maybe possibly prevent an event that might theoretically happen?
Also, when someone is committing genocidal acts, maybe it is time to break treaty with them.
Let Israel act however it wants without big daddy USA backing them and then let’s see their actions without the biggest military in the world backing them.
They only walk around wagging their ducks because they have backing.
Let them handle their own problems without us and then see how they act.
It is very easy to be a bully when you have a bigger friend to help.
That is unfortunately less of a social phenomenon and more of a logical result of our combination two-party/first past the post system. After years of having to strategically vote against the worst option instead of for the best, we are only left with a “lesser of two evils” decision.
I still write him at times to encourage some types of things or express disagreement with others. Trump’s existence matters almost nothing in that calculus.
Same would apply to Biden. We can hold people accountable and disagree with decisions while still voting for them.
We need not become unquestioning sheep. And polls matter.
Of course. The comment was probably directed to the bots telling us we are genocidal if we don’t vote third party (thereby allowing Trump to take over and oh by the way nuke Gaza or whatever)
Lemmy needs to stop confusing those two ideas. The strong reactionary misunderstandings that ensue are unhelpful and honestly… Kind of intellectually bankrupt.
Anyone who is mad about Biden should consider that Trump’s people are ready and willing to nuke the entire Middle East on the chance that it will start the Rapture.
Half a loaf is better than getting shot.
Like, it’s not even a close call. And I’m still not seeing how biden’s actual record isn’t a factor. He’s done a pretty solid job with the resources he’s got. A good chunk of Congress is a terror cell at this point, the supreme Court is stacked with zealots appointed for life, and he’s still managed to get a lot of good stuff done.
He’s managed to get a lot of okay stuff done, which was better than expected.
People keep saying this as though presidents in the past get SHIT LOADS done, when in reality most of them don’t do shit and the Republican ones start wars, give money to the rich and crash the economy.
So you can’t even compare him to previous presidents becuase previous Republican presidents have been DISASTERS.
So we can only really compare him to previous Democrat presidents and I’d say he’s gotten more done than most of them.
At this point, lauding Biden is a waste of time, because the GOPs will go straight to ‘whaddabouts’ and sidetrack the discussion with lies.
I don’t talk about voting for Biden, it’s all about stopping Donnie.
I mean, that’s kind of been the strategy this whole time and it’s not doing very well. Conservatives are a lost cause, we should be soley focused on driving turnout of Democrat voters and people who don’t vote. Those groups are all saying they want something/someone to vote FOR, not just someone to vote against. Donald Trump is clearly an existential threat to our entire democracy, but these people aren’t worried about that. They’re worried about paying their bills. They want someone to make their day to day lives better and Biden has done a lot of things that help every day Americans, theyve just never heard about it.
The pitch needs to be “here’s what we’ve gotten done even with Republicans fighting against all of it along the way. Send me a solid Democratic majority in Congress and we’ll get X, Y, Z done.” Get Jeffries and Schumer to have legislation prepared and ready to go that the caucus will pass without a single GOP vote if necessary. Then, most importantly, follow through and pass that shit.
Biden has accomplished more in 3 years than Obama did in 8.
He is still sending weapons to Israel. Run a non genocidal candidate if you want my help.
Otherwise you will get nothing from me.
Oh yes. Trump will certainly not continue that.
At some point you just have to accept that this will happen and you can’t change it. From that point, pick your best future.
I pick the one that will let me sleep best at night, and knowing I didn’t support genocide will let me sleep great.
But you did. You paid taxes and live in this country. Your lack of voting shows apathy, it doesn’t absolve complicity.
If you really want to change it, you participate more, not less.
Rephrase I will sleep fine knowing I am not directly supporting genocide nor the people who enable it.
I will NOT vote for someone who is helping innocent children die.
You’re right about my indirect support, but I can not change that.
You aren’t voting for anyone. No one is. This is a first past the post voting system. You don’t vote FOR people, you vote AGAINST people. And by not voting, you’re saying you won’t vote against either party.
Yep. I voted against trump last time, I got a president who supports genocide.
If genocide and genocide are the only two options then what does it matter who I vote for?
Such a narrow minded take. Would you sleep fine if your not voting gets Trump elected and he ends up bombing the shit out of the middle east because his looney zealot friends want the world to end? What if it came down to one vote? How would your stupid ass sleep then?
I would sleep just fucking fine.
You don’t deserve my vote just because you are the less shitty person.
They have plenty of dick riders like you to take care of it, don’t worry.
Out of curiosity: does your opposition to genocide extend to you joining protests, contacting your representatives, and encouraging others to do the same?
Or do your principles only extend as far as you not actually doing anything?
I have already contacted my congressman my senators, and wrote the White House. I encourage everyone I can use to fix the system. I do not encourage others to not vote because that is their choice to make.
Oh, I’ve never encourage anyone on here not to vote.
Only thing I am asking for is a candidate who is actually voting for and that does not support genocide.
I really do not think that is asking for too much.
I have already contacted my congressman my senators, and wrote the White House.
I can actually tell you the names of my congressman’s assistants who answer his phone, he just hired a new lady even.
I encourage everyone I can use to fix the system. I do not encourage others to not vote because that is their choice to make.
Oh, I’ve never encourage anyone on here not to vote.
Only thing I am asking for is a candidate who is actually voting for and that does not support genocide.
I really do not think that is asking for too much.
I have already contacted my congressman my senators, and wrote the White House.
I can actually tell you the names of my congressman’s assistants who answer his phone, he just hired a new lady even.
I encourage everyone I can use to fix the system. I do not encourage others to not vote because that is their choice to make.
Oh, I’ve never encourage anyone on here not to vote.
Only thing I am asking for is a candidate who is actually voting for and that does not support genocide.
I really do not think that is asking for too much.
I have already contacted my congressman my senators, and wrote the White House.
I can actually tell you the names of my congressman’s assistants who answer his phone, he just hired a new lady even.
I encourage everyone I can use to fix the system. I do not encourage others to not vote because that is their choice to make.
Oh, I’ve never encourage anyone on here not to vote.
Only thing I am asking for is a candidate who is actually voting for and that does not support genocide.
I really do not think that is asking for too much.
I have already contacted my congressman my senators, and wrote the White House. I encourage everyone I can use to fix the system. I do not encourage others to not vote because that is their choice to make.
Oh, I’ve never encourage anyone on here not to vote.
Only thing I am asking for is a candidate who is actually voting for and that does not support genocide.
I really do not think that is asking for too much.
Sorry about the multiple replies, no clue what’s up with that.
When I try to delete them it just says “Error.”
Let’s establish the situation. There’s only two outcomes of the election. Any other possibilities are so remote we can dismiss then.
Biden wins. The status quo continues.
Trump wins. More Palestinians and innocent children die.
There is a clear outcome here that is going to be worse and kill more people. You have three options on how to act:
A. Vote for Biden
B. Vote for Trump
C. Don’t vote for either of them
If you pick A, 1 becomes more likely. If you pick B, 2 becomes more likely. If you pick C, 2 also becomes more likely because of the electoral college. If you pick A or B, you’ll feel guilty. If you pick C, you’ll (incorrectly) feel like you’re innocent and not complicit.
You say you care about the people dying. That means you want the outcome with the least deaths, 1. If you want to outcome 1, you should pick A. Why are you refusing to?
No one here is delightfully voting for the genocide to continue. We want to stop it, but that isn’t an option. Shouldn’t we then act to minimize the death toll as much as we possibly could?
A child who survives in outcome 1 could die in outcome 2. If you don’t strive for outcome 1, you have blood on your hands. Do you care more about having a falsely clear conscience, or do you want to save lives? It’s very easy to say you want none of them to die. It’s not as easy to take an action that you know will still result in people dying, but it kills fewer people.
If you are genuine in your convictions, and I choose to believe that you are, I am confident that you’ll make the decision to try and save lives, at whatever personal cost to yourself.
I care about not supporting the killing of children.
If you actually cared, you wouldn’t give in to the lesser option.
Genocide is genocide is genocide.
Call me complicit if you want.
I will not actively support genocide in any form.
I can not stop it but I can not support it.
It really depends on what a Trump reign will look like, right?
Will he be able to round up tens of millions of people and deport them, as he has promised? Will he institute another Muslim ban, as he has promised? Will he stay in office after his next four year term, as he has said he wants to? Will he use the office of the president to persecute political opponents, as he has promised? Will he “root out” all the “vermin” in the United States, as he had promised? And if yes: who will get declared to be “vermin?” How will they be “rooted out?” Will he make torture legal, as he promised? Will he bring back family separation and child detention camps? Will he threaten nuclear war again? And if yes, will some crazy regime take him up on the offer?
And if all of that or even just a fraction of that comes to pass, will you still sleep well, knowing that you might have been able to stop all of that but voting for the lesser of two evils was just beneath you?
Because ultimately, that’s the decision you’re making.
Yep! People like to try and pretend you can not be neutral but unless I am voting FOR trump then I am not canceling out someone else’s vote.
I won’t help you guys re-elect a genocide supporting president either way.
We keep talking about Israel is not doing enough to stop civilians and wringing our hand while on our knees sucking Netanyahu’s dick and just begging him not to cum on our face because we need to look presentable.
They openly killed journalists, on video, with physical and forensic evidence, right after the journalists switched from recording the Lebanese side to the Israeli side.
While clearly marked as being press.
Defend that, also I am still waiting for those beheaded babies that the IDF used to rile everyone up with.
You know, the one the president you want me to support said he saw and then had to walk back later.
Refusing to participate doesn’t make you neutral. It makes you complacent.
Are you okay with countries that see what’s happening in Gaza and do nothing so that they don’t have to get involved?
I can support the countries that are not actively supporting genocide.
Btw bad example, as far as I can tell, only the us is actively supporting genocidal actions, but I will reject anyone who is doing so.
I would much rather them do nothing instead of supporting Israel.
Don’t get me twisted, when 10/7 happened I completely supported them and felt grief for them and their suffering, then they decided to kill a bunch of kids.
Do you support killing innocent children as well?
That’s a pretty juvenile take. Not voting doesn’t mean you disapprove of both candidates. It means they are both equal (equally good or equally bad) to you.
And if you think the two are equal because of one thing that they agree on (as bad as that thing is), you mean all the things they disagree on don’t matter (like peaceful transfer of power, lgbtq rights, fascism). And even on that one thing, the two have very different approaches, and one is far more inclined to change position in the future. But apparently that wouldn’t matter either, because they are both equal right now, because they both support Israel right now.
So they both support a genocide, seems like a grand reason to vote for neither.
You don’t get a pity vote for not being as bad as the other guy it just means I won’t vote for him either.
And in a first past the post voting system, like the one we have, your lack of voting mathematically increases the chances of Trump winning. That’s a fact. You are voting for Trump, even if you say you’re not. I’m sure you’ll sleep fine at night, but all the harm he causes will be because you died on a hill that didn’t even mean anything.
No friend I am voting for no one. You can try and twist it however you want, but they’re 3 options -1, 0, and +1.
At this point, I am choosing 0, I could pick -1 by voting for trump.
I might as well by your logic, right?
My not voting is the same as just adding to his total and doesn’t cancel one of someone else’s vote for Biden, right?
Idc what the rest of you do, I will not vote for someone who actively supports genocidal actions.
Why bother voting at all? What changes if you vote for a third option?
Congratulations on handing the W to Trump, Russia and Iran.
I’m not handing anyone shit, I’m just not going to vote for genocide.
I think most people value aesthetics over pragmatism. If a car ran a red light most people would, in a philosophical sense, say, “Well they’re in the wrong.” and step out in front of the car. It’s better to be right than to do good because one of those things makes us feel good, while the other is just work.
What a joke.
I know! I can’t believe that some people are cool with voting for genocide.
You can’t believe it because you know it’s not true.
Hmm, let’s see where that gets you.
I will sleep great knowing that I in no way supported genocide.
But you do you
Not sucking up to Israel and Jewish special interests is an even better way to lose an election.
Ok, better to lose than to directly and unequivocally support genocide.
Did not everyone say it would be better for a Russian soldier to go to jail or just kill themselves instead of fighting Ukrainians?
Why should they kill themselves and the rest of us just support a different kind of genocide?
Is Palestinian skin a little too brown for our support?
And you are okay with letting Ukraine get genocided as well just to shove it to Biden? Trump will only encourage Israel and Putin to keep going so you hate genocide but want to vote for more of it? That’s fucked up.
No, I am deliberately not voting for more of it. Feel free to twist it however you want though.
We buy weapons FROM Israel. Like it or not, Israel is a military asset.
Ok, that changes nothing about what I said.
Well you live in a facist leaning and fascist sympathising country. Now what? Apathy doesn’t seem like the best course of action.
So I should vote to support genocide?
If a vote either way supports genocide and no vote does nothing to stop genocide, what’s the tangible difference?
If nothing you do matters, then the only thing that matters is what you do.
What I choose to do is to not support genocidal actions in as many ways as possible.
I can’t stop them from doing it, but I can choose not to support it myself.
Don’t worry though, they are increasing the bombings in south Gaza now as well so soon it will just be a bunch of dead people and after that it doesn’t really matter, because people will all forget in time.
But that’s the plan and it is working so 🤷♂️
Apt username
Israel is bound by treaty to defend Israel as we are allies.
Biden is mostly trying to prevent a shooting war between Israel, Iran and Saudi Arabia. Which would 100% involve nukes and obliterate the global economy for decades. (Imagine all European - Asian oceanic trade just stopping).
That’s why he’s doing it. Hamas is a proxy agent for Iran they are using against Israel.
So I should support guaranteed genocidal actions now to maybe possibly prevent an event that might theoretically happen?
Also, when someone is committing genocidal acts, maybe it is time to break treaty with them.
Let Israel act however it wants without big daddy USA backing them and then let’s see their actions without the biggest military in the world backing them.
They only walk around wagging their ducks because they have backing.
Let them handle their own problems without us and then see how they act.
It is very easy to be a bully when you have a bigger friend to help.
Moving the baseline to “nukes” doesn’t invalidate legitimate concerns around Biden’s handling of events.
Nobody said it did. The point is that Trump’s handling would certainly be worse.
I agree.
So anything done that is better than the worst President in victory should go unchallenged?
We are Lemmings, aren’t we (in the debunked mythological running of a cliff sense)?
There was a ceasefire, that was good. After instructing people not to call for one, it was helpful to see that.
Biden would get my vote in a general. But we have to stop making the worst decision maker the baseline.
That is unfortunately less of a social phenomenon and more of a logical result of our combination two-party/first past the post system. After years of having to strategically vote against the worst option instead of for the best, we are only left with a “lesser of two evils” decision.
I vote for Swalwell, happily. That’s my district.
I still write him at times to encourage some types of things or express disagreement with others. Trump’s existence matters almost nothing in that calculus.
Same would apply to Biden. We can hold people accountable and disagree with decisions while still voting for them.
We need not become unquestioning sheep. And polls matter.
The worst decision maker is literally the other option.
For voting, yes. But for accountability or assessing competence?
No. We have other ways of assessing competence. And those need not lead to lost votes.
Of course. The comment was probably directed to the bots telling us we are genocidal if we don’t vote third party (thereby allowing Trump to take over and oh by the way nuke Gaza or whatever)
Disagreeing with Biden <> vote third party.
Lemmy needs to stop confusing those two ideas. The strong reactionary misunderstandings that ensue are unhelpful and honestly… Kind of intellectually bankrupt.