Joe Biden, Senator from Citibank (oops, DELAWARE), to Run for President

he has glasses!

amazing how smug people pour acid in their eyes to show off how poorly they can see

I put jelly on my shoulder and kiss culprits.

glasses!

Surprised ILX libs are going to leapfrog democratic socialism straight into Khmer nationalism.

icmi, Pareene:

"The nomination of Biden will ensure that, for the foreseeable future, the party will be run by people who haven’t had a new idea since 1992."

https://newrepublic.com/article/157265/democrats-decide-again-not-try-anything-new

no glasses or facial hair at this here message board

I suggest you give up revolutionary hero worship

revolutionary lol

should be xyzzzz’s new dn

ilxor revolution lol hero = LBJ

yeah he was no stalin

hysterical meltdowns over this on one generally reasonable FB political group I'm in from Bernie supporters who previously never posted a single thing, including statements like "biden is worse than trump" and "I don't want to trump to win but I want biden to lose catastrophically". THe worst 5-10% of Bernie bros are having a day.

― akm

can i just say how much i dislike the word "hysterical"?

yep it’s time for that word to die

Sorry, I can't stop this feeling. Can't stop this fire.

agreed with rusho re: "hysterical"

This had me in hysterics tho'

I’m seeing way too many of my peers proudly claim that they won’t be voting for Biden in November, so I made this TikTok in response.

There is far too much at stake to vote based on what makes us feel good inside. We have lives to save — and an egomaniac to beat. #Biden2020 pic.twitter.com/wkCpcvAdy8

— Ziad Ahmed (@ziadtheactivist) April 11, 2020

(tries to imagine xyzzz "in hysterics" over that -- fails to imagine anything that does not resemble a cross between a grimace and a bad coughing fit)

(that's actually correct)

For some crazy reason no one can understand, it seems that young Ziad Ahmed has taken the same crazy position on this election that Senator Bernard Sanders (I - VT) has taken.

The young don't vote and Biden doesn't need them. Leave them to their weird hand gestures and lectures.

"No, no, I have no empathy for it, give me a break."

She’s right. https://t.co/VtJweo9Q7N

— Briahna Joy Gray (@briebriejoy) April 15, 2020

Are people really debating, now, whether they're going to vote in November?

If you think it's worth debating at all, why not leave it 6 months?

Performative handwringing in the hopes of extracting concessions from the party of Michael Bloomberg.

pic.twitter.com/h9CIRElchr

— Margaret Kimberley (@freedomrideblog) April 14, 2020

Setting aside that having to choose the least of two evils is a shitty situation to be in (but is very often the situation voters find themselves), and not wishing to downplay the seriousness of the sexual assault accusations that are dogging Biden, is he a bad enough candidate that another four years of Trump would be a better option? Is having, as you say, "the party of Michael Bloomberg" in power worse for the country, for its vulnerable people, for the world at large, than another four years of the Republicans? Is there any sense that a Democratic government would be easier to nudge in a progressive direction and hold to account than a Republican government, and would act in a less malign way? Is there or has there been any evidence in the last four years, and especially in the light of how the Coronavirus has been mishandled in the US, that the lesser of two evils might actually be substantially lesser of those two evils?

I realise this overwrought paragraph isn't as fun as a zingy tweet cut'n'pasted into the thread.

I don't think anyone believes that. It's a way of shootin' the shit during dark times.

Okay. I mean, I guess that's what it is, and I don't mean to "progressive-shame" anyone here. My own politics are progressive, and Biden definitely wouldn't have been my choice of candidate. But the choice seems quite stark, and I'm terrified of another four years of this.

And I guess for me the party of Biden is also the party of AOC and a thousand other bright lights who can take the government in a positive direction.

^Alfred otm and I may be very wrong but I highly doubt anyone here who lives in a swing state isn’t going to pull the lever for Joe.

he party of Biden is also the party of AOC

^^^ THIS. What I said last week about the Dems existing as a genuine coalition party at this point.

stevie, fine post but in

having to choose the least of two evils is a shitty situation to be in (but is very often the situation voters find themselves)

I think that "very often" needs to be "always."

Until we're actually voting up-or-down on a wish list that includes single-payer health care, universal basic income, abolition of private prisons, and (of course) firing billionaires into the sun? EVERY election will be lesser-of-evils for most people here.

Of course there will occasionally be candidates that we broadly like, and can happily vote FOR. But until they can attain and use real power, we will - all of us, pretty much always - be choosing among sucky options.

I hate the portion of tHe dIsCoUrsE that sometimes appears to equate "being okay with voting for Biden" as agreeing with the premise "better things aren't possible."

And I guess for me the party of Biden is also the party of AOC...

AFAICT there are way, way more Bidens than AOCs in the party.

^also v true. going to be wild as hell watching the party $$$ back conservative primary challengers to “squad” members/ justice dems etc

I can't imagine a scenario in which I don't "choose" between two evils. That's politics. It's like my complaining that hamburger meat is too fatty or something.

"Is there or has there been any evidence in the last four years, and especially in the light of how the Coronavirus has been mishandled in the US, that the lesser of two evils might actually be substantially lesser of those two evils?"

Saying things are evil is unnecessary. Look at the statements, and look at it coldly with no illusions and I see similar levels of arrogance, sleeping on the watch, China-phobia and racism, a reluctance to close business and in the call to get America to re-open Biden clearly doesn't get it.

What you'd get less off: less tweets and those bizarre conferences. That's optics.

A lot of people are going to die and starve and in both cases there are no calls for change in the number of people covered by healthcare and the kinds of investment so that, should a pandemic occur again, that people would feel the state has their back.

so... you're saying both are equally as bad as the other?

there are no calls for change in the number of people covered by healthcare and the kinds of investment so that, should a pandemic occur again, that people would feel the state has their back

I don't know what media market you live in but I started seeing a Biden TV ad yesterday that addressed exactly these points. Of course, he's Joe Biden, corporate sellout hack and serial sex abuser, so he's obviously lying and is every bit as cavalier about the lives of Americans as Trump, but you know, they made the gesture.

Oh good an ad

Then there's the whole Trotskyite thing where the worse things get, the better, because it will provoke a greater uprising from the masses, blah blah pendulum thingy.

It's not about the person, but about what they will and won't do and ultimately it's about outcomes.

Biden has yet to give an indication this might end less badly. And of course this is a pandemic today but next time it might be a climate related event. Has he even tried to dangle a carrot to the left on that one? xps to Stevie

temporarily breaking my self-imposed ban from politics threads to say don’t waste your breath arguing with someone who can’t tell the difference between Biden and Trump and who also cannot vote here

and who also cannot vote here

My ignorance about who most posters are/where they're located strikes again.

Biden is better than Trump but the difference is less stark than many would like to think.

It’s pretty fucking stark

yeah this is dumb

The problem with the 'differences are stark' 'vote for the lesser evil this time' yada yada yada is that it repeats the same cycle over and over. Every four years the can of anything getting better gets kicked down the road and we wind up with fifty years of declining real wages, rising inequality, mass incarceration, a student debt crisis drowning 1-2 generations, a looming climate change catastrophe, 20 years of brutal and criminal global war. Faced directly with a pandemic, the liberal party is as hamstrung with austerity and deficit hawking as the conservative party. The lesser evil doesn't just have no answer for any of that, he was a primary force in getting us to this place.

From a political angle, lesser evilism just makes things worse because the candidates are prone to losing anyway.

At some point, it becomes reasonable to ask when we're going to lesser evil ourselves into oblivion and when it's okay to dig your heels in and take the L this time in the hope of improving things in the future.

You can scream that this is not that point - but Donald Trump remains only the third or fourth most evil Republican President of my lifetime. (Which, obviously, still earns him a place hung upside by a lamp-post with his mistress, but he's not even the worst of the last 15 years.)

At some point, it becomes reasonable to ask when we're going to lesser evil ourselves into oblivion and when it's okay to dig your heels in and take the L this time in the hope of improving things in the future.

what are the best examples of "take the L this time in the hope of improving things in the future"? examples in which that worked and led to better things, i mean

Donald Trump remains only the third or fourth most evil Republican President of my lifetime

Show your work.