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On September 22 2025 17:42 Razyda wrote:Show nested quote +On September 22 2025 09:29 WombaT wrote:
ICE are not operating under those conditions. They are meant to enforce the law of the land, in a nation that doesn’t have an active terrorist campaign operating.
Tell it to Charlie Kirk kids, people whose Teslas were burned, business owners whose shops were burned. Show nested quote +On September 22 2025 10:59 KwarK wrote:On September 22 2025 07:29 Razyda wrote:On September 22 2025 07:15 WombaT wrote:On September 22 2025 06:57 Razyda wrote:On September 21 2025 09:08 WombaT wrote:That’s a good move. Smart politics if I dare say. It’s not going to be popular amongst the ‘no humans are illegal’ or ‘I hate foreigners’ crowd, but realistically nothing Gavin Newsom is likely to do is going to appeal to either of those. He’s not giving illegal immigrants a free pass, which like it or not is obviously a big issue for many. I’d assume the average, middle of the road person is pro deporting illegal migrants, but not some of the processes we’ve seen lately. Anyone arguing against what Newsom’s bringing in has to make the argument that ICE need to be able to pick up people without warrants, and obscure their identity Outside of MAGA land, I don’t think that’s a winning argument, unless the US is even more fucked than I think it is. I mean I can see an argument for ICE agents obscuring themselves if they’re part of a raid on like a genuinely big, dangerous drug racket or something, but not for random immigration sweeps. Oh ffs. In other and even more breaking news I signed the bill making California Polish colony... What’s wrong with that? Newsom hasn’t declared anything like sanctuary cities or anything like that. Hasn’t said illegal migrants have any kind of immunity from deportation, simply: 1. ICE can’t just hang around in various locales and scoop up non-white folks and sort their status after the fact. They need to do the paperwork and get warrants. 2. ICE can’t obscure their identity Throw a bone to some who are concerned with how ICE is operating, for others who are concerned with illegal immigration, he’s also not ruling out enforcement. People who oppose this move have to make the argument that ICE don’t need warrants or probable cause to operate, and also should be allowed to obscure their identity. Which isn’t a winning argument for all but the further reaches of the right. Who aren’t going to vote for Newsom anyway, even if Jesus decided to pop back and endorse him. I think it’s pretty smart politics from him. I think he’s also engaged in some dumb politics in recent times but not on this one IMO. From what I gather ICE is a "FEDERAL" law enforcement agency, hence Newsom may as well cede Russia to China and it will be of the same significance. As for obscure identity - really?? Come on Wombat you are not stupid. Kirk had security team and I guess he was not a poor guy, how much did it help him? The only reason people want ICE agent to not wear masks is so they can dox them and threat them and their families. Why else would you want to see their faces? If your job involves dragging people off the street into unmarked vans and those people can’t subsequently be found then maybe it’s not the worst idea that people can see your face. So you think their superiors dont know who they are? That if served judge warrant they wont reveal their identity to a judge/ appropriate law enforcement? Like I said, the only reason "people" would want to see their faces, is so they can threaten them/their families.
You people have a fetish for wanting families to be harmed so you can be justifiably enraged. Do you know the power of anonymity and the psychological effects of feeling completely anonymous when holding guns and authorized to use violence? Do you think that they should be able to abuse with impunity because they cannot be held accountable by the public? There is little accountability for regular cops, with the paramilitary secret police, it's even worse.
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The majority of billionaires donated to republicans pre-election. Bill Gates, who didn‘t, probably just gave up on society, so he‘s donating his wealth to Africa allegedly.
I‘m not sure what the EU‘s going to do if and when Putin is repelled, but probably looking for some kind of autarky and cooperation with countries other than the US.
What else is there to do when you are in a position to choose between a Russia and another?
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On September 22 2025 18:51 Vivax wrote:
The majority of billionaires donated to republicans pre-election. Bill Gates, who didn‘t, probably just gave up on society, so he‘s donating his wealth to Africa allegedly.
I‘m not sure what the EU‘s going to do if and when Putin is repelled, but probably looking for some kind of autarky and cooperation with countries other than the US.
What else is there to do when you are in a position to choose between a Russia and another?
A little public flattery from Putin will get Trump to sign off on pretty much any stopping point. Once Russia eventually gets tired they will start floating peace talks, and with enough pressure from the EU and US Zelensky will agree or be replaced. Might end up like Korea where the war never technically ends, but everyone knows it's over. But don't expect any kind of push back from the US. If Germany gets an AfD chancellor expect both countries to roll out the red carpet for Vlad.
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On September 22 2025 18:29 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:Show nested quote +On September 22 2025 17:42 Razyda wrote:On September 22 2025 09:29 WombaT wrote:
ICE are not operating under those conditions. They are meant to enforce the law of the land, in a nation that doesn’t have an active terrorist campaign operating.
Tell it to Charlie Kirk kids, people whose Teslas were burned, business owners whose shops were burned. What does ICE have to do with Charlie Kirk's assassination?
??
I said that ICE agents wear mask to protect their identity, so people wont dox them and threat them and their families.
Wombat argument was essentially that there is no ongoing terrorist campaign in US. (implying that they have nothing to worry about)
Me mentioning Kirk was pointing out that even though there isnt ongoing terror campaign, bad shit happens.
Kirk was killed because "some hatred cannot be negotiated with"
Are we sure that there arent any deranged individuals, who will find out on the internet that there is - check notes - "gestapo" member living in the area and decide to take action?
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On September 22 2025 17:19 Uldridge wrote:+ Show Spoiler +There comes a point in time where you'll have to ask yourself: do you take part in that systematic destruction of a democratic society, which has a very chroncled playbook (last iteration I know of were The Philippines and Brazil) by either supporting it or passively letting it happen or do you stand up and counter this erosion, followed by destruction? I'm asking the people here who staunchly vote D, what their arbitrary line is. There is a point where your party, which I commend that you follow for lesser evilism sake, does become unredemptionable + Show Spoiler +(irredeemable is correct but I speak Dutch so I can make that word and you know what it means anyway so whatever) ? I don't think anyone here has spoken out for what their own limit would be + Show Spoiler +and am interested in taking the temperature on what it actually is.
Democracy can be a legitimately difficult to navigate landscape because you have an eniterly opposed ideology that always wants to revert to "the good times" where there were less rights and society was less liberal so you can't cry out: fascism every single time a cabinet can do its thing with the support of half the population, but still, there should be a better way then losing control this fast, no?
They don't have one. There's no evil they couldn't vote for and don't understand the problem with that.
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On September 22 2025 19:09 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On September 22 2025 17:19 Uldridge wrote:+ Show Spoiler +There comes a point in time where you'll have to ask yourself: do you take part in that systematic destruction of a democratic society, which has a very chroncled playbook (last iteration I know of were The Philippines and Brazil) by either supporting it or passively letting it happen or do you stand up and counter this erosion, followed by destruction? I'm asking the people here who staunchly vote D, what their arbitrary line is. There is a point where your party, which I commend that you follow for lesser evilism sake, does become unredemptionable + Show Spoiler +(irredeemable is correct but I speak Dutch so I can make that word and you know what it means anyway so whatever) ? I don't think anyone here has spoken out for what their own limit would be + Show Spoiler +and am interested in taking the temperature on what it actually is.
Democracy can be a legitimately difficult to navigate landscape because you have an eniterly opposed ideology that always wants to revert to "the good times" where there were less rights and society was less liberal so you can't cry out: fascism every single time a cabinet can do its thing with the support of half the population, but still, there should be a better way then losing control this fast, no? They don't have one. There's no evil they couldn't vote for and don't understand the problem with that.
This is definitely true.
If the Republicans promised to build enough gas chambers to kill 100% of the Mexicans in America, so the Democrats, as they would, decided to try and wrestle some of the vote from them by building enough gas chambers to kill 99% of the Mexicans in America, we would be getting told by seemingly intelligent people that it is absolutely unconscionable to refuse to vote for the party that wants to kill 99% of Mexicans in America.
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I think it's a hard exercise as many people here grew uo extremely priviliged and so haven't been in contact with truly (prolonged) dire situations. Not like family members dying, but like parts of the community being deconstructed and reshaped into hell.
Your line has been crossed many times over, people should start actively digging into themselves and ask where theirs is.
When do we start giving up on every day comfort and stable income (i.e. food and shelter) to resist the destruction of this carefully built society? It's not easy to amswer that.
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On September 22 2025 18:57 Phyanketto wrote:Show nested quote +On September 22 2025 18:51 Vivax wrote:
The majority of billionaires donated to republicans pre-election. Bill Gates, who didn‘t, probably just gave up on society, so he‘s donating his wealth to Africa allegedly.
I‘m not sure what the EU‘s going to do if and when Putin is repelled, but probably looking for some kind of autarky and cooperation with countries other than the US.
What else is there to do when you are in a position to choose between a Russia and another? A little public flattery from Putin will get Trump to sign off on pretty much any stopping point. Once Russia eventually gets tired they will start floating peace talks, and with enough pressure from the EU and US Zelensky will agree or be replaced. Might end up like Korea where the war never technically ends, but everyone knows it's over. But don't expect any kind of push back from the US. If Germany gets an AfD chancellor expect both countries to roll out the red carpet for Vlad.
That‘s a good take.
I like the cut of your jib when it comes to most of your posts.
Trump attached a lot of conditions to delivering help to Ukraine, I believe he‘s not really interested in interfering but he has to in order to not completely lose support.
I don‘t even think he‘s evil per say, but he might be a bit out of touch with reality and thinks he can turn back the country in time instead of having it adapt to the changes it faced.
His clientele are the super wealthy, no doubt.
If he doesn‘t preserve the living standard the rest of the population is used to, they will turn on those.
A progressive wealth tax for super wealthy people isn‘t something he‘d be interested in though.
It would mesh well with the isolationist policies if used for public infrastructure.
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On September 22 2025 14:49 EnDeR_ wrote:Show nested quote +On September 22 2025 07:20 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On September 22 2025 07:04 WombaT wrote:On September 22 2025 05:48 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On September 22 2025 04:05 WombaT wrote:On September 22 2025 03:35 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On September 21 2025 21:54 Gorsameth wrote:On September 21 2025 21:13 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On September 21 2025 14:21 Zambrah wrote:On September 21 2025 12:12 Phyanketto wrote:
[quote]
I think it's difficult for democrats to craft a message because they're obviously a coalition with completely more diverse factions than Republicans, who are broadly split into free-market pro-business anti-financial regulation types and the Christian right. The rich and those who harbor fantasies of becoming rich, and those who don't mind being poor because they believe they're in for a windfall upon death, and who have a cultural distaste for queer people/cultural minorities. Democrats are made up of irreligious educated professionals, urban poor, racial minorities, and more. Republicans have a far easier time selling literally any narrative. I think theyre far too invested in trying to find the perfect message frankly, I dont think you need a perfect message to drive turnout and enthusiasm (which are the primary things that win Democrats their elections) you need a message that you appear to care about and are enthusiastic about and you believe in. The real difficulty is Democrats have spent so long not appearing to really care about anything (beyond their donors and decorum) or be enthusiastic about anything or believe in anything that they just dont have the trust of their electorate. Part of the appeal of Bernie was that he absolutely and authentically believed what he was saying, he had a long history of saying it, everything about him said that his beliefs were real. Other Democrats dont have that, they're wafflers, waiting for their team of mediocre pollsters to assign them their believes as is (perceived to be) electorally convenient. Hypothetical: We're back in 2016. Hillary Clinton just became the Democratic nominee for the presidential election. Instead of choosing her runningmate to be Tim Kaine, she chooses Bernie Sanders. Does the Clinton/Sanders ticket beat the Trump/Pence ticket? (I know that Sanders sincerely campaigned for Clinton after their primary was decided, but I wonder if the progressive/left wing would have been even more galvanized if Clinton had thrown them the giant bone of directly adding Sanders for vice president. Surely it's worth considering combining the two Democratic candidates who received the most votes in the primary.) I'd like to think that a Clinton/Sanders ticket would have won. By extension, I wonder if creating the next Democratic P/VP ticket by simply combining the top two primary candidates is a decent default strategy, especially if one of them is more moderate and the other is more progressive. Literally anything could (and did) change the Trump/Clinton election because it simply was that close. Yeah that's fair. I don't even think Tim Kaine is a particularly bad person, and I wouldn't blame him for the 2016 loss. On September 21 2025 22:07 WombaT wrote:On September 21 2025 21:13 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On September 21 2025 14:21 Zambrah wrote:On September 21 2025 12:12 Phyanketto wrote:
[quote]
I think it's difficult for democrats to craft a message because they're obviously a coalition with completely more diverse factions than Republicans, who are broadly split into free-market pro-business anti-financial regulation types and the Christian right. The rich and those who harbor fantasies of becoming rich, and those who don't mind being poor because they believe they're in for a windfall upon death, and who have a cultural distaste for queer people/cultural minorities. Democrats are made up of irreligious educated professionals, urban poor, racial minorities, and more. Republicans have a far easier time selling literally any narrative. I think theyre far too invested in trying to find the perfect message frankly, I dont think you need a perfect message to drive turnout and enthusiasm (which are the primary things that win Democrats their elections) you need a message that you appear to care about and are enthusiastic about and you believe in. The real difficulty is Democrats have spent so long not appearing to really care about anything (beyond their donors and decorum) or be enthusiastic about anything or believe in anything that they just dont have the trust of their electorate. Part of the appeal of Bernie was that he absolutely and authentically believed what he was saying, he had a long history of saying it, everything about him said that his beliefs were real. Other Democrats dont have that, they're wafflers, waiting for their team of mediocre pollsters to assign them their believes as is (perceived to be) electorally convenient. Hypothetical: We're back in 2016. Hillary Clinton just became the Democratic nominee for the presidential election. Instead of choosing her runningmate to be Tim Kaine, she chooses Bernie Sanders. Does the Clinton/Sanders ticket beat the Trump/Pence ticket? (I know that Sanders sincerely campaigned for Clinton after their primary was decided, but I wonder if the progressive/left wing would have been even more galvanized if Clinton had thrown them the giant bone of directly adding Sanders for vice president. Surely it's worth considering combining the two Democratic candidates who received the most votes in the primary.) I'd like to think that a Clinton/Sanders ticket would have won. By extension, I wonder if creating the next Democratic P/VP ticket by simply combining the top two primary candidates is a decent default strategy, especially if one of them is more moderate and the other is more progressive. I guess there’s maybe an argument it also dilutes your messaging a bit? Like ‘hey I’m Ms competency and centrist stability, but if I die my deputy with completely different politics will have my job’ in the Clinton/Sanders I mean I still think it’s a good idea overall, just playing devil’s advocate for a second. It does confuse me they don’t do more of this kinda thing. Throw the auld bone out. I had suggested that, if not the VP ticket, why not promise to appoint Sanders (in this example) to a position they’re strong and have bona fides in. And have Sanders on the campaign trail, doing their thing there. Healthcare, could be one such area for Sanders, financial regulation for an Elizabeth Warren was another hypothetical one I think there are bonuses in such an approach, aside from broadening the church a bit, you also stick people in roles they’re known to be strong in, and ideally, where their stances are also popular. Bernie may be too left for many in totality, as a VP, next in line kinda guy. But damn, that boy speaks sense on (insert topic here) Some may not especially like Warren, or mock her as Pocahontas or whatever, but darn it if she doesn’t talk sense on banking. Obama did actually kind of do this in a notable case. He’s pretty inexperienced right? Let’s put his main primary rivalry in one of the big, important prestige diplomatic roles. That’s a good move as well. If it’s a broad church, reflect it in how you staff your administration. Although I myself rather notably skew left, I don’t think that’s the sole direction you go as the Democratic Party. Some areas, the more centrist positions will be more popular, or maybe you really need a greasy, seasoned operator to get shit done. Just pick accordingly, that’s fine! Obviously there are actual people involved, they may not want x position for whatever reason, that’s going to be a factor. Overall it seems absolutely blindingly obvious to moi to do something in that general spirit. I understand that it could dilute the nominee's message of having the best positions on issues, and maybe that's not the ideal message to begin with? Perhaps a better and more appealing message could be that you're willing to work with those who are in slight disagreement but still have the same overarching goals; this alternative message could be made more credible if a liberal/moderate nominee selected a progressive/left-wing runningmate (and vice-versa). As far as assigning Cabinet positions is concerned, I definitely agree with you that those with expertise in the field should be chosen. I think Democrats do a decent job of picking experienced members in that way (certainly better than the laughingstocks from both of Trump's presidencies). Regardless, the potential Cabinet appointees probably aren't super important for winning votes before the election is even decided. My rationale here is twofold. The VP pick is to round out a ticket, and the VP pick tends to be rather subservient and unobtrusive generally, they’re meant to dovetail with the main ticket, smooth out a few edges. Even though, yes if the President dies, they are the President. But they’re not really actually treated like that is the case. Aside from perhaps mixed messaging if you put a real prominent, popular politician as VP who’s quite different from you politically, so let’s go with Clinton/Sanders as the hypothetical, the alternative is kinda neutering the potency of Sanders, if he’s obviously the junior partner and doesn’t get to do his thing. So he’s less of an asset in a kinda generalised, junior partner role. I don’t think you have to go ‘here is my cabinet’ ahead of time, you can coordinate campaigning so that your envisaged cabinet, centre their assistance on their strong areas. Let’s take Sanders for example. Let’s completely arbitrarily say across 6 policy areas, the left of the country agree with him on 6, the centre left it’s maybe 4, the centre 2. The centre right, 1. If you have Sanders out campaigning, and on message in the 1 category that basically everyone agrees on, that’s a big asset. Especially if you rinse and repeat that process with other individuals. We saw illustrated in a non-ideal way with Luigi, or indeed consistent polling for years that healthcare reform is extremely popular among Americans. In a way perhaps the totality of Sander’s prescriptions are not across the board I think those are fair points. If you have powerful and popular allies who want to support your candidacy, then you should definitely use them in whatever capacity would make them most effective on the campaign trail! Appalling analogy inc, unlike me. Kid Wombat once competed in a Pokémon Red/Blue tournament/event. I grinded my Pokémon the fuck, I beat the Elite Four literally hundreds of times. To get like 8 legit level 100 Pokémon. I’m stubborn like that. The first dude I played was like genuinely smirking at me (11), he was probably like late teens early 20. My (beloved) Articuno flapped around, breathed some ice and destroyed his entire roster solo. Not only was it a hard counter to like, 4 of his roster, because I’d skipped using steroids (the rare candy cheat to boost your level), doing it the legit way gave you better stat bonuses for every legit level up, so Artosisuno just outclassed the head to heads that were even on type. Rest the time I had to dig deep, rely on a pretty balanced roster, but scraped a bunch of tight wins. Barack Obama is my Articuno in the debut match. He just outclassed the opposition. Whether one likes his values, or approves of his tenure, as a politician (or at least candidate), as a likeable guy who could strike the right note, a very gifted politician, If you lack such an individual, you gotta dig deep and smartly employ your roster, place them in matchups they’re good at. Bernie Sanders on healthcare … ‘it’s super effective!’ Even sidestepping the whole Biden farago, the last campaign was just kinda, not that. It was a bit odd to me. Policy was clearly better than the alternative (I mean, not just to me, but to a hypothetical moderate). Then they push Walz into VP, and I’m like not alone in going ‘who the fuck is that?’, but he does well almost out the blocks. He’s your decent, ‘average Joe’ type, hard to plausibly claim he’s some radical Marxist or whatever. Additionally, whether by genius political instinct, or complete fluke, he stumbles across a line of attack that works. Just call various GOP luminaries weird, which they are. For, whatever reason various folks would struggle to recognise racism or whatever outside literal Hitler returning, but there’s much less resistance to ‘hm that guy’s a bit weird’. But then after that strong start, it felt Walz kinda got somewhat sidelined and wasn’t doing a huge amount in the latter stages. You know what’s the strangest part of it? I’ve quite a high opinion of myself, as may sometimes come across, but I shouldn’t be right here. Or at least, have some plausible arguments. If one feels I’m full of shit, that is also allowed :p This shouldn’t be the case. Even if I’m not an idiot and perhaps have some decent intuition on such things (again, dissenting opinions are allowed), I should be left in the dust by the Democratic machine. One of, if not the most well-funded, resourced political parties on the planet. That can grab shitloads of data, count on people who can crunch that, and a lot of talented, ambitious people working on these things. In terms of the binary goal of winning an election, let’s exclude what we’d like to see politically, nobody here should have any ideas that even on face value sound you know, better than how the actual campaign was run. It’s quite bizarre really Yeah, Walz was criminally underused leading up to the final stretch of the election. I think Harris's campaign was more focused on reaching across the aisle and the optics of being supported by people like Liz Cheney. At the time, I wasn't necessarily against Harris trying to also appeal to moderates, but it turned out that time spent appealing to the center/right ended up being wasted, whereas it would have been better spent hyper-focused on using Walz and Sanders and AOC and everyone else who was left of - or at least in true solidarity with - Harris's positions. Also, I very much am a fan of your Pokemon Gen 1 analogy  I think there's a much simpler explanation, they just didn't get along that well. Kamala Harris tells of dismay as Tim Walz ‘fumbled’ debate answer in bookTim wasn't her first choice and they probably clashed hard after that debate. It's kind of sad that the reason she didn't pick who she thought would be the best pick (Pete buttigeg) was because it was already 'asking too much' of the American people to pick a black woman for president, so the VP had to be an old white (straight) dude. I mean, accurate, but still sad.
I think Tim Walz did a decent job during his debate, although he accidentally helped sanewash JD Vance and Donald Trump. Pete Buttigieg would have absolutely annihilated JD Vance, which would have been marvelous to see.
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On September 22 2025 19:09 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On September 22 2025 17:19 Uldridge wrote:+ Show Spoiler +There comes a point in time where you'll have to ask yourself: do you take part in that systematic destruction of a democratic society, which has a very chroncled playbook (last iteration I know of were The Philippines and Brazil) by either supporting it or passively letting it happen or do you stand up and counter this erosion, followed by destruction? I'm asking the people here who staunchly vote D, what their arbitrary line is. There is a point where your party, which I commend that you follow for lesser evilism sake, does become unredemptionable + Show Spoiler +(irredeemable is correct but I speak Dutch so I can make that word and you know what it means anyway so whatever) ? I don't think anyone here has spoken out for what their own limit would be + Show Spoiler +and am interested in taking the temperature on what it actually is.
Democracy can be a legitimately difficult to navigate landscape because you have an eniterly opposed ideology that always wants to revert to "the good times" where there were less rights and society was less liberal so you can't cry out: fascism every single time a cabinet can do its thing with the support of half the population, but still, there should be a better way then losing control this fast, no? They don't have one. There's no evil they couldn't vote for and don't understand the problem with that.
What evil do you (or others) see in Kamalas campaign program?
You and others love to meme about lesser evilism... But if I look at what Kamala actually wanted to do according to her program, i don't see how you can call it lesser evilism? I see plenty of decent/good policy for "normal" people, same for Biden.
Too bad the american electorate is not actually interested in policy but instead complains about "lesser evilism" or the "uniparty".
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On September 22 2025 20:55 Velr wrote:Show nested quote +On September 22 2025 19:09 GreenHorizons wrote:On September 22 2025 17:19 Uldridge wrote:+ Show Spoiler +There comes a point in time where you'll have to ask yourself: do you take part in that systematic destruction of a democratic society, which has a very chroncled playbook (last iteration I know of were The Philippines and Brazil) by either supporting it or passively letting it happen or do you stand up and counter this erosion, followed by destruction? I'm asking the people here who staunchly vote D, what their arbitrary line is. There is a point where your party, which I commend that you follow for lesser evilism sake, does become unredemptionable + Show Spoiler +(irredeemable is correct but I speak Dutch so I can make that word and you know what it means anyway so whatever) ? I don't think anyone here has spoken out for what their own limit would be + Show Spoiler +and am interested in taking the temperature on what it actually is.
Democracy can be a legitimately difficult to navigate landscape because you have an eniterly opposed ideology that always wants to revert to "the good times" where there were less rights and society was less liberal so you can't cry out: fascism every single time a cabinet can do its thing with the support of half the population, but still, there should be a better way then losing control this fast, no? They don't have one. There's no evil they couldn't vote for and don't understand the problem with that. What evil do you (or others) see in Kamalas campaign program? You and others love to meme about lesser evilism... But if I look at what Kamala actually wanted to do according to her program, i don't see how you can call it lesser evilism? I see plenty of decent/good policy for "normal" people.
That's the point where I strongly deviate from GH. I don't think Harris has proven herself to be evil. She didn't have the opportunity to walk the walk (unlike Biden, who was shown to be a lesser evil), and her promises were fairly good.
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Biden had a pletora of good policies.
Just because it wasn't "everything I want" doesn't mean it was just "lesser evil". There were issues, especially when bringing the "good" policies actually on the ground but most of the stuff Biden got blamed for, wasn't really in his control. At least if you think the president shouldn't constantly break/test the law and the courts.
And well, in the end you still need the support of the american people, a people that is fine with electing Donald Trump... TWICE.
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On September 22 2025 20:55 Velr wrote:Show nested quote +On September 22 2025 19:09 GreenHorizons wrote:On September 22 2025 17:19 Uldridge wrote:+ Show Spoiler +There comes a point in time where you'll have to ask yourself: do you take part in that systematic destruction of a democratic society, which has a very chroncled playbook (last iteration I know of were The Philippines and Brazil) by either supporting it or passively letting it happen or do you stand up and counter this erosion, followed by destruction? I'm asking the people here who staunchly vote D, what their arbitrary line is. There is a point where your party, which I commend that you follow for lesser evilism sake, does become unredemptionable + Show Spoiler +(irredeemable is correct but I speak Dutch so I can make that word and you know what it means anyway so whatever) ? I don't think anyone here has spoken out for what their own limit would be + Show Spoiler +and am interested in taking the temperature on what it actually is.
Democracy can be a legitimately difficult to navigate landscape because you have an eniterly opposed ideology that always wants to revert to "the good times" where there were less rights and society was less liberal so you can't cry out: fascism every single time a cabinet can do its thing with the support of half the population, but still, there should be a better way then losing control this fast, no? They don't have one. There's no evil they couldn't vote for and don't understand the problem with that. What evil do you (or others) see in Kamalas campaign program? You and others love to meme about lesser evilism... But if I look at what Kamala actually wanted to do according to her program, i don't see how you can call it lesser evilism? I see plenty of decent/good policy for "normal" people, same for Biden. Too bad the american electorate is not actually interested in policy but instead complains about "lesser evilism" or the "uniparty". She didn't openly advocate for war with Israel to save Palastine.
That is what GH's position basically comes down to.
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On September 22 2025 20:22 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:Show nested quote +On September 22 2025 14:49 EnDeR_ wrote:On September 22 2025 07:20 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On September 22 2025 07:04 WombaT wrote:On September 22 2025 05:48 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On September 22 2025 04:05 WombaT wrote:On September 22 2025 03:35 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On September 21 2025 21:54 Gorsameth wrote:On September 21 2025 21:13 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On September 21 2025 14:21 Zambrah wrote:
[quote]
I think theyre far too invested in trying to find the perfect message frankly, I dont think you need a perfect message to drive turnout and enthusiasm (which are the primary things that win Democrats their elections) you need a message that you appear to care about and are enthusiastic about and you believe in.
The real difficulty is Democrats have spent so long not appearing to really care about anything (beyond their donors and decorum) or be enthusiastic about anything or believe in anything that they just dont have the trust of their electorate.
Part of the appeal of Bernie was that he absolutely and authentically believed what he was saying, he had a long history of saying it, everything about him said that his beliefs were real. Other Democrats dont have that, they're wafflers, waiting for their team of mediocre pollsters to assign them their believes as is (perceived to be) electorally convenient.
Hypothetical: We're back in 2016. Hillary Clinton just became the Democratic nominee for the presidential election. Instead of choosing her runningmate to be Tim Kaine, she chooses Bernie Sanders. Does the Clinton/Sanders ticket beat the Trump/Pence ticket? (I know that Sanders sincerely campaigned for Clinton after their primary was decided, but I wonder if the progressive/left wing would have been even more galvanized if Clinton had thrown them the giant bone of directly adding Sanders for vice president. Surely it's worth considering combining the two Democratic candidates who received the most votes in the primary.) I'd like to think that a Clinton/Sanders ticket would have won. By extension, I wonder if creating the next Democratic P/VP ticket by simply combining the top two primary candidates is a decent default strategy, especially if one of them is more moderate and the other is more progressive. Literally anything could (and did) change the Trump/Clinton election because it simply was that close. Yeah that's fair. I don't even think Tim Kaine is a particularly bad person, and I wouldn't blame him for the 2016 loss. On September 21 2025 22:07 WombaT wrote:On September 21 2025 21:13 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On September 21 2025 14:21 Zambrah wrote:
[quote]
I think theyre far too invested in trying to find the perfect message frankly, I dont think you need a perfect message to drive turnout and enthusiasm (which are the primary things that win Democrats their elections) you need a message that you appear to care about and are enthusiastic about and you believe in.
The real difficulty is Democrats have spent so long not appearing to really care about anything (beyond their donors and decorum) or be enthusiastic about anything or believe in anything that they just dont have the trust of their electorate.
Part of the appeal of Bernie was that he absolutely and authentically believed what he was saying, he had a long history of saying it, everything about him said that his beliefs were real. Other Democrats dont have that, they're wafflers, waiting for their team of mediocre pollsters to assign them their believes as is (perceived to be) electorally convenient.
Hypothetical: We're back in 2016. Hillary Clinton just became the Democratic nominee for the presidential election. Instead of choosing her runningmate to be Tim Kaine, she chooses Bernie Sanders. Does the Clinton/Sanders ticket beat the Trump/Pence ticket? (I know that Sanders sincerely campaigned for Clinton after their primary was decided, but I wonder if the progressive/left wing would have been even more galvanized if Clinton had thrown them the giant bone of directly adding Sanders for vice president. Surely it's worth considering combining the two Democratic candidates who received the most votes in the primary.) I'd like to think that a Clinton/Sanders ticket would have won. By extension, I wonder if creating the next Democratic P/VP ticket by simply combining the top two primary candidates is a decent default strategy, especially if one of them is more moderate and the other is more progressive. I guess there’s maybe an argument it also dilutes your messaging a bit? Like ‘hey I’m Ms competency and centrist stability, but if I die my deputy with completely different politics will have my job’ in the Clinton/Sanders I mean I still think it’s a good idea overall, just playing devil’s advocate for a second. It does confuse me they don’t do more of this kinda thing. Throw the auld bone out. I had suggested that, if not the VP ticket, why not promise to appoint Sanders (in this example) to a position they’re strong and have bona fides in. And have Sanders on the campaign trail, doing their thing there. Healthcare, could be one such area for Sanders, financial regulation for an Elizabeth Warren was another hypothetical one I think there are bonuses in such an approach, aside from broadening the church a bit, you also stick people in roles they’re known to be strong in, and ideally, where their stances are also popular. Bernie may be too left for many in totality, as a VP, next in line kinda guy. But damn, that boy speaks sense on (insert topic here) Some may not especially like Warren, or mock her as Pocahontas or whatever, but darn it if she doesn’t talk sense on banking. Obama did actually kind of do this in a notable case. He’s pretty inexperienced right? Let’s put his main primary rivalry in one of the big, important prestige diplomatic roles. That’s a good move as well. If it’s a broad church, reflect it in how you staff your administration. Although I myself rather notably skew left, I don’t think that’s the sole direction you go as the Democratic Party. Some areas, the more centrist positions will be more popular, or maybe you really need a greasy, seasoned operator to get shit done. Just pick accordingly, that’s fine! Obviously there are actual people involved, they may not want x position for whatever reason, that’s going to be a factor. Overall it seems absolutely blindingly obvious to moi to do something in that general spirit. I understand that it could dilute the nominee's message of having the best positions on issues, and maybe that's not the ideal message to begin with? Perhaps a better and more appealing message could be that you're willing to work with those who are in slight disagreement but still have the same overarching goals; this alternative message could be made more credible if a liberal/moderate nominee selected a progressive/left-wing runningmate (and vice-versa). As far as assigning Cabinet positions is concerned, I definitely agree with you that those with expertise in the field should be chosen. I think Democrats do a decent job of picking experienced members in that way (certainly better than the laughingstocks from both of Trump's presidencies). Regardless, the potential Cabinet appointees probably aren't super important for winning votes before the election is even decided. My rationale here is twofold. The VP pick is to round out a ticket, and the VP pick tends to be rather subservient and unobtrusive generally, they’re meant to dovetail with the main ticket, smooth out a few edges. Even though, yes if the President dies, they are the President. But they’re not really actually treated like that is the case. Aside from perhaps mixed messaging if you put a real prominent, popular politician as VP who’s quite different from you politically, so let’s go with Clinton/Sanders as the hypothetical, the alternative is kinda neutering the potency of Sanders, if he’s obviously the junior partner and doesn’t get to do his thing. So he’s less of an asset in a kinda generalised, junior partner role. I don’t think you have to go ‘here is my cabinet’ ahead of time, you can coordinate campaigning so that your envisaged cabinet, centre their assistance on their strong areas. Let’s take Sanders for example. Let’s completely arbitrarily say across 6 policy areas, the left of the country agree with him on 6, the centre left it’s maybe 4, the centre 2. The centre right, 1. If you have Sanders out campaigning, and on message in the 1 category that basically everyone agrees on, that’s a big asset. Especially if you rinse and repeat that process with other individuals. We saw illustrated in a non-ideal way with Luigi, or indeed consistent polling for years that healthcare reform is extremely popular among Americans. In a way perhaps the totality of Sander’s prescriptions are not across the board I think those are fair points. If you have powerful and popular allies who want to support your candidacy, then you should definitely use them in whatever capacity would make them most effective on the campaign trail! Appalling analogy inc, unlike me. Kid Wombat once competed in a Pokémon Red/Blue tournament/event. I grinded my Pokémon the fuck, I beat the Elite Four literally hundreds of times. To get like 8 legit level 100 Pokémon. I’m stubborn like that. The first dude I played was like genuinely smirking at me (11), he was probably like late teens early 20. My (beloved) Articuno flapped around, breathed some ice and destroyed his entire roster solo. Not only was it a hard counter to like, 4 of his roster, because I’d skipped using steroids (the rare candy cheat to boost your level), doing it the legit way gave you better stat bonuses for every legit level up, so Artosisuno just outclassed the head to heads that were even on type. Rest the time I had to dig deep, rely on a pretty balanced roster, but scraped a bunch of tight wins. Barack Obama is my Articuno in the debut match. He just outclassed the opposition. Whether one likes his values, or approves of his tenure, as a politician (or at least candidate), as a likeable guy who could strike the right note, a very gifted politician, If you lack such an individual, you gotta dig deep and smartly employ your roster, place them in matchups they’re good at. Bernie Sanders on healthcare … ‘it’s super effective!’ Even sidestepping the whole Biden farago, the last campaign was just kinda, not that. It was a bit odd to me. Policy was clearly better than the alternative (I mean, not just to me, but to a hypothetical moderate). Then they push Walz into VP, and I’m like not alone in going ‘who the fuck is that?’, but he does well almost out the blocks. He’s your decent, ‘average Joe’ type, hard to plausibly claim he’s some radical Marxist or whatever. Additionally, whether by genius political instinct, or complete fluke, he stumbles across a line of attack that works. Just call various GOP luminaries weird, which they are. For, whatever reason various folks would struggle to recognise racism or whatever outside literal Hitler returning, but there’s much less resistance to ‘hm that guy’s a bit weird’. But then after that strong start, it felt Walz kinda got somewhat sidelined and wasn’t doing a huge amount in the latter stages. You know what’s the strangest part of it? I’ve quite a high opinion of myself, as may sometimes come across, but I shouldn’t be right here. Or at least, have some plausible arguments. If one feels I’m full of shit, that is also allowed :p This shouldn’t be the case. Even if I’m not an idiot and perhaps have some decent intuition on such things (again, dissenting opinions are allowed), I should be left in the dust by the Democratic machine. One of, if not the most well-funded, resourced political parties on the planet. That can grab shitloads of data, count on people who can crunch that, and a lot of talented, ambitious people working on these things. In terms of the binary goal of winning an election, let’s exclude what we’d like to see politically, nobody here should have any ideas that even on face value sound you know, better than how the actual campaign was run. It’s quite bizarre really Yeah, Walz was criminally underused leading up to the final stretch of the election. I think Harris's campaign was more focused on reaching across the aisle and the optics of being supported by people like Liz Cheney. At the time, I wasn't necessarily against Harris trying to also appeal to moderates, but it turned out that time spent appealing to the center/right ended up being wasted, whereas it would have been better spent hyper-focused on using Walz and Sanders and AOC and everyone else who was left of - or at least in true solidarity with - Harris's positions. Also, I very much am a fan of your Pokemon Gen 1 analogy I think there's a much simpler explanation, they just didn't get along that well. Kamala Harris tells of dismay as Tim Walz ‘fumbled’ debate answer in bookTim wasn't her first choice and they probably clashed hard after that debate. It's kind of sad that the reason she didn't pick who she thought would be the best pick (Pete buttigeg) was because it was already 'asking too much' of the American people to pick a black woman for president, so the VP had to be an old white (straight) dude. I mean, accurate, but still sad. I think Tim Walz did a decent job during his debate, although he accidentally helped sanewash JD Vance and Donald Trump. Pete Buttigieg would have absolutely annihilated JD Vance, which would have been marvelous to see.
I thought similarly.
However, when asked about her running mate during an interview about her book, she chose to say something about how he flopped the debate and that he wasn't her first choice instead of something positive. Clearly she wasn't happy with him which to me implies that they were clashing, which I think explains why they reduced his exposure towards the end.
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On September 22 2025 19:13 Jockmcplop wrote:Show nested quote +On September 22 2025 19:09 GreenHorizons wrote:On September 22 2025 17:19 Uldridge wrote:+ Show Spoiler +There comes a point in time where you'll have to ask yourself: do you take part in that systematic destruction of a democratic society, which has a very chroncled playbook (last iteration I know of were The Philippines and Brazil) by either supporting it or passively letting it happen or do you stand up and counter this erosion, followed by destruction? I'm asking the people here who staunchly vote D, what their arbitrary line is. There is a point where your party, which I commend that you follow for lesser evilism sake, does become unredemptionable + Show Spoiler +(irredeemable is correct but I speak Dutch so I can make that word and you know what it means anyway so whatever) ? I don't think anyone here has spoken out for what their own limit would be + Show Spoiler +and am interested in taking the temperature on what it actually is.
Democracy can be a legitimately difficult to navigate landscape because you have an eniterly opposed ideology that always wants to revert to "the good times" where there were less rights and society was less liberal so you can't cry out: fascism every single time a cabinet can do its thing with the support of half the population, but still, there should be a better way then losing control this fast, no? They don't have one. There's no evil they couldn't vote for and don't understand the problem with that. This is definitely true. If the Republicans promised to build enough gas chambers to kill 100% of the Mexicans in America, so the Democrats, as they would, decided to try and wrestle some of the vote from them by building enough gas chambers to kill 99% of the Mexicans in America, we would be getting told by seemingly intelligent people that it is absolutely unconscionable to refuse to vote for the party that wants to kill 99% of Mexicans in America.
Do you genuinely (you and GH both) believe that we would vote for someone building death chambers for Mexicans? Really?
We are talking about candidates that we may not agree with on everything, but in general we are fairly supportive of their agenda -- both Clinton's and Harris' agenda had a lot of stuff that I was on board with.
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On September 22 2025 21:11 EnDeR_ wrote:Show nested quote +On September 22 2025 20:22 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On September 22 2025 14:49 EnDeR_ wrote:On September 22 2025 07:20 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On September 22 2025 07:04 WombaT wrote:On September 22 2025 05:48 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On September 22 2025 04:05 WombaT wrote:On September 22 2025 03:35 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On September 21 2025 21:54 Gorsameth wrote:On September 21 2025 21:13 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:
[quote]
Hypothetical: We're back in 2016. Hillary Clinton just became the Democratic nominee for the presidential election. Instead of choosing her runningmate to be Tim Kaine, she chooses Bernie Sanders. Does the Clinton/Sanders ticket beat the Trump/Pence ticket?
(I know that Sanders sincerely campaigned for Clinton after their primary was decided, but I wonder if the progressive/left wing would have been even more galvanized if Clinton had thrown them the giant bone of directly adding Sanders for vice president. Surely it's worth considering combining the two Democratic candidates who received the most votes in the primary.)
I'd like to think that a Clinton/Sanders ticket would have won. By extension, I wonder if creating the next Democratic P/VP ticket by simply combining the top two primary candidates is a decent default strategy, especially if one of them is more moderate and the other is more progressive. Literally anything could (and did) change the Trump/Clinton election because it simply was that close. Yeah that's fair. I don't even think Tim Kaine is a particularly bad person, and I wouldn't blame him for the 2016 loss. On September 21 2025 22:07 WombaT wrote:On September 21 2025 21:13 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:
[quote]
Hypothetical: We're back in 2016. Hillary Clinton just became the Democratic nominee for the presidential election. Instead of choosing her runningmate to be Tim Kaine, she chooses Bernie Sanders. Does the Clinton/Sanders ticket beat the Trump/Pence ticket?
(I know that Sanders sincerely campaigned for Clinton after their primary was decided, but I wonder if the progressive/left wing would have been even more galvanized if Clinton had thrown them the giant bone of directly adding Sanders for vice president. Surely it's worth considering combining the two Democratic candidates who received the most votes in the primary.)
I'd like to think that a Clinton/Sanders ticket would have won. By extension, I wonder if creating the next Democratic P/VP ticket by simply combining the top two primary candidates is a decent default strategy, especially if one of them is more moderate and the other is more progressive. I guess there’s maybe an argument it also dilutes your messaging a bit? Like ‘hey I’m Ms competency and centrist stability, but if I die my deputy with completely different politics will have my job’ in the Clinton/Sanders I mean I still think it’s a good idea overall, just playing devil’s advocate for a second. It does confuse me they don’t do more of this kinda thing. Throw the auld bone out. I had suggested that, if not the VP ticket, why not promise to appoint Sanders (in this example) to a position they’re strong and have bona fides in. And have Sanders on the campaign trail, doing their thing there. Healthcare, could be one such area for Sanders, financial regulation for an Elizabeth Warren was another hypothetical one I think there are bonuses in such an approach, aside from broadening the church a bit, you also stick people in roles they’re known to be strong in, and ideally, where their stances are also popular. Bernie may be too left for many in totality, as a VP, next in line kinda guy. But damn, that boy speaks sense on (insert topic here) Some may not especially like Warren, or mock her as Pocahontas or whatever, but darn it if she doesn’t talk sense on banking. Obama did actually kind of do this in a notable case. He’s pretty inexperienced right? Let’s put his main primary rivalry in one of the big, important prestige diplomatic roles. That’s a good move as well. If it’s a broad church, reflect it in how you staff your administration. Although I myself rather notably skew left, I don’t think that’s the sole direction you go as the Democratic Party. Some areas, the more centrist positions will be more popular, or maybe you really need a greasy, seasoned operator to get shit done. Just pick accordingly, that’s fine! Obviously there are actual people involved, they may not want x position for whatever reason, that’s going to be a factor. Overall it seems absolutely blindingly obvious to moi to do something in that general spirit. I understand that it could dilute the nominee's message of having the best positions on issues, and maybe that's not the ideal message to begin with? Perhaps a better and more appealing message could be that you're willing to work with those who are in slight disagreement but still have the same overarching goals; this alternative message could be made more credible if a liberal/moderate nominee selected a progressive/left-wing runningmate (and vice-versa). As far as assigning Cabinet positions is concerned, I definitely agree with you that those with expertise in the field should be chosen. I think Democrats do a decent job of picking experienced members in that way (certainly better than the laughingstocks from both of Trump's presidencies). Regardless, the potential Cabinet appointees probably aren't super important for winning votes before the election is even decided. My rationale here is twofold. The VP pick is to round out a ticket, and the VP pick tends to be rather subservient and unobtrusive generally, they’re meant to dovetail with the main ticket, smooth out a few edges. Even though, yes if the President dies, they are the President. But they’re not really actually treated like that is the case. Aside from perhaps mixed messaging if you put a real prominent, popular politician as VP who’s quite different from you politically, so let’s go with Clinton/Sanders as the hypothetical, the alternative is kinda neutering the potency of Sanders, if he’s obviously the junior partner and doesn’t get to do his thing. So he’s less of an asset in a kinda generalised, junior partner role. I don’t think you have to go ‘here is my cabinet’ ahead of time, you can coordinate campaigning so that your envisaged cabinet, centre their assistance on their strong areas. Let’s take Sanders for example. Let’s completely arbitrarily say across 6 policy areas, the left of the country agree with him on 6, the centre left it’s maybe 4, the centre 2. The centre right, 1. If you have Sanders out campaigning, and on message in the 1 category that basically everyone agrees on, that’s a big asset. Especially if you rinse and repeat that process with other individuals. We saw illustrated in a non-ideal way with Luigi, or indeed consistent polling for years that healthcare reform is extremely popular among Americans. In a way perhaps the totality of Sander’s prescriptions are not across the board I think those are fair points. If you have powerful and popular allies who want to support your candidacy, then you should definitely use them in whatever capacity would make them most effective on the campaign trail! Appalling analogy inc, unlike me. Kid Wombat once competed in a Pokémon Red/Blue tournament/event. I grinded my Pokémon the fuck, I beat the Elite Four literally hundreds of times. To get like 8 legit level 100 Pokémon. I’m stubborn like that. The first dude I played was like genuinely smirking at me (11), he was probably like late teens early 20. My (beloved) Articuno flapped around, breathed some ice and destroyed his entire roster solo. Not only was it a hard counter to like, 4 of his roster, because I’d skipped using steroids (the rare candy cheat to boost your level), doing it the legit way gave you better stat bonuses for every legit level up, so Artosisuno just outclassed the head to heads that were even on type. Rest the time I had to dig deep, rely on a pretty balanced roster, but scraped a bunch of tight wins. Barack Obama is my Articuno in the debut match. He just outclassed the opposition. Whether one likes his values, or approves of his tenure, as a politician (or at least candidate), as a likeable guy who could strike the right note, a very gifted politician, If you lack such an individual, you gotta dig deep and smartly employ your roster, place them in matchups they’re good at. Bernie Sanders on healthcare … ‘it’s super effective!’ Even sidestepping the whole Biden farago, the last campaign was just kinda, not that. It was a bit odd to me. Policy was clearly better than the alternative (I mean, not just to me, but to a hypothetical moderate). Then they push Walz into VP, and I’m like not alone in going ‘who the fuck is that?’, but he does well almost out the blocks. He’s your decent, ‘average Joe’ type, hard to plausibly claim he’s some radical Marxist or whatever. Additionally, whether by genius political instinct, or complete fluke, he stumbles across a line of attack that works. Just call various GOP luminaries weird, which they are. For, whatever reason various folks would struggle to recognise racism or whatever outside literal Hitler returning, but there’s much less resistance to ‘hm that guy’s a bit weird’. But then after that strong start, it felt Walz kinda got somewhat sidelined and wasn’t doing a huge amount in the latter stages. You know what’s the strangest part of it? I’ve quite a high opinion of myself, as may sometimes come across, but I shouldn’t be right here. Or at least, have some plausible arguments. If one feels I’m full of shit, that is also allowed :p This shouldn’t be the case. Even if I’m not an idiot and perhaps have some decent intuition on such things (again, dissenting opinions are allowed), I should be left in the dust by the Democratic machine. One of, if not the most well-funded, resourced political parties on the planet. That can grab shitloads of data, count on people who can crunch that, and a lot of talented, ambitious people working on these things. In terms of the binary goal of winning an election, let’s exclude what we’d like to see politically, nobody here should have any ideas that even on face value sound you know, better than how the actual campaign was run. It’s quite bizarre really Yeah, Walz was criminally underused leading up to the final stretch of the election. I think Harris's campaign was more focused on reaching across the aisle and the optics of being supported by people like Liz Cheney. At the time, I wasn't necessarily against Harris trying to also appeal to moderates, but it turned out that time spent appealing to the center/right ended up being wasted, whereas it would have been better spent hyper-focused on using Walz and Sanders and AOC and everyone else who was left of - or at least in true solidarity with - Harris's positions. Also, I very much am a fan of your Pokemon Gen 1 analogy I think there's a much simpler explanation, they just didn't get along that well. Kamala Harris tells of dismay as Tim Walz ‘fumbled’ debate answer in bookTim wasn't her first choice and they probably clashed hard after that debate. It's kind of sad that the reason she didn't pick who she thought would be the best pick (Pete buttigeg) was because it was already 'asking too much' of the American people to pick a black woman for president, so the VP had to be an old white (straight) dude. I mean, accurate, but still sad. I think Tim Walz did a decent job during his debate, although he accidentally helped sanewash JD Vance and Donald Trump. Pete Buttigieg would have absolutely annihilated JD Vance, which would have been marvelous to see. I thought similarly. However, when asked about her running mate during an interview about her book, she chose to say something about how he flopped the debate and that he wasn't her first choice instead of something positive. Clearly she wasn't happy with him which to me implies that they were clashing, which I think explains why they reduced his exposure towards the end.
That's tragic to hear 
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On September 22 2025 21:04 Velr wrote:
Biden had a pletora of good policies.
Just because it wasn't "everything I want" doesn't mean it was just "lesser evil". There were issues, especially when bringing the "good" policies actually on the ground but most of the stuff Biden got blamed for, wasn't really in his control. At least if you think the president shouldn't constantly break/test the law and the courts.
And well, in the end you still need the support of the american people, a people that is fine with electing Donald Trump... TWICE.
Biden was the lesser evil according to the idea that Israel's actions can't be tolerated. Biden tolerated Israel's actions. He kept wagging his finger but never did anything to follow up on his finger wagging. That makes him the lesser evil compared to Trump.
GH assumes Harris wouldn't have been different. Which is possible, but we'll never know.
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On September 22 2025 21:12 EnDeR_ wrote:Show nested quote +On September 22 2025 19:13 Jockmcplop wrote:On September 22 2025 19:09 GreenHorizons wrote:On September 22 2025 17:19 Uldridge wrote:+ Show Spoiler +There comes a point in time where you'll have to ask yourself: do you take part in that systematic destruction of a democratic society, which has a very chroncled playbook (last iteration I know of were The Philippines and Brazil) by either supporting it or passively letting it happen or do you stand up and counter this erosion, followed by destruction? I'm asking the people here who staunchly vote D, what their arbitrary line is. There is a point where your party, which I commend that you follow for lesser evilism sake, does become unredemptionable + Show Spoiler +(irredeemable is correct but I speak Dutch so I can make that word and you know what it means anyway so whatever) ? I don't think anyone here has spoken out for what their own limit would be + Show Spoiler +and am interested in taking the temperature on what it actually is.
Democracy can be a legitimately difficult to navigate landscape because you have an eniterly opposed ideology that always wants to revert to "the good times" where there were less rights and society was less liberal so you can't cry out: fascism every single time a cabinet can do its thing with the support of half the population, but still, there should be a better way then losing control this fast, no? They don't have one. There's no evil they couldn't vote for and don't understand the problem with that. This is definitely true. If the Republicans promised to build enough gas chambers to kill 100% of the Mexicans in America, so the Democrats, as they would, decided to try and wrestle some of the vote from them by building enough gas chambers to kill 99% of the Mexicans in America, we would be getting told by seemingly intelligent people that it is absolutely unconscionable to refuse to vote for the party that wants to kill 99% of Mexicans in America. Do you genuinely (you and GH both) believe that we would vote for someone building death chambers for Mexicans? Really? We are talking about candidates that we may not agree with on everything, but in general we are fairly supportive of their agenda -- both Clinton's and Harris' agenda had a lot of stuff that I was on board with.
Well when the question was Trump's more extreme genocide in Gaza or the Dems less extreme genocide we were left in absolutely no doubt what you guys think.
I think we'd be debating numbers, just like last time.
This is based entirely on conversations we've had in this very thread, so please don't take offence, I don't know you as a human being, or anyone else here.
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On September 22 2025 19:13 Jockmcplop wrote:Show nested quote +On September 22 2025 19:09 GreenHorizons wrote:On September 22 2025 17:19 Uldridge wrote:+ Show Spoiler +There comes a point in time where you'll have to ask yourself: do you take part in that systematic destruction of a democratic society, which has a very chroncled playbook (last iteration I know of were The Philippines and Brazil) by either supporting it or passively letting it happen or do you stand up and counter this erosion, followed by destruction? I'm asking the people here who staunchly vote D, what their arbitrary line is. There is a point where your party, which I commend that you follow for lesser evilism sake, does become unredemptionable + Show Spoiler +(irredeemable is correct but I speak Dutch so I can make that word and you know what it means anyway so whatever) ? I don't think anyone here has spoken out for what their own limit would be + Show Spoiler +and am interested in taking the temperature on what it actually is.
Democracy can be a legitimately difficult to navigate landscape because you have an eniterly opposed ideology that always wants to revert to "the good times" where there were less rights and society was less liberal so you can't cry out: fascism every single time a cabinet can do its thing with the support of half the population, but still, there should be a better way then losing control this fast, no? They don't have one. There's no evil they couldn't vote for and don't understand the problem with that. This is definitely true. If the Republicans promised to build enough gas chambers to kill 100% of the Mexicans in America, so the Democrats, as they would, decided to try and wrestle some of the vote from them by building enough gas chambers to kill 99% of the Mexicans in America, we would be getting told by seemingly intelligent people that it is absolutely unconscionable to refuse to vote for the party that wants to kill 99% of Mexicans in America.
Are these "seemingly intelligent people" in the room with us right now?
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On September 22 2025 21:29 LightSpectra wrote:Show nested quote +On September 22 2025 19:13 Jockmcplop wrote:On September 22 2025 19:09 GreenHorizons wrote:On September 22 2025 17:19 Uldridge wrote:+ Show Spoiler +There comes a point in time where you'll have to ask yourself: do you take part in that systematic destruction of a democratic society, which has a very chroncled playbook (last iteration I know of were The Philippines and Brazil) by either supporting it or passively letting it happen or do you stand up and counter this erosion, followed by destruction? I'm asking the people here who staunchly vote D, what their arbitrary line is. There is a point where your party, which I commend that you follow for lesser evilism sake, does become unredemptionable + Show Spoiler +(irredeemable is correct but I speak Dutch so I can make that word and you know what it means anyway so whatever) ? I don't think anyone here has spoken out for what their own limit would be + Show Spoiler +and am interested in taking the temperature on what it actually is.
Democracy can be a legitimately difficult to navigate landscape because you have an eniterly opposed ideology that always wants to revert to "the good times" where there were less rights and society was less liberal so you can't cry out: fascism every single time a cabinet can do its thing with the support of half the population, but still, there should be a better way then losing control this fast, no? They don't have one. There's no evil they couldn't vote for and don't understand the problem with that. This is definitely true. If the Republicans promised to build enough gas chambers to kill 100% of the Mexicans in America, so the Democrats, as they would, decided to try and wrestle some of the vote from them by building enough gas chambers to kill 99% of the Mexicans in America, we would be getting told by seemingly intelligent people that it is absolutely unconscionable to refuse to vote for the party that wants to kill 99% of Mexicans in America. Are these "seemingly intelligent people" in the room with us right now?
Answered in the post above yours. This already happened once with Gaza and if anyone can be arsed to go back trawling through a couple of years of posts (I can't) they'll see it right there.
Trump's genocide in Gaza is worse/faster than the Dems would have wanted, therefore the Dems genocide is what we (I'm not American, but that's how the discussion turned out) should have voted for, because it isn't as bad.
I was told this multiple times.
You always, always, always vote for the not as bad party, no matter the circumstances, otherwise you get the worse one.
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EPT
