During the last year of that, Obama was denied the ability to nominate a Supreme Court Justice on an Election Year. Then, Trump got 2 nominees appointed to the SCOTUS, one of which was on an election year.
Ahh okay. When the President wants to nominate a new federal judge the Senate has to approve them. At the time the other party controlled the Senate. The effect was to leave the Supreme Court with an even number of Judges for a while, making tie decisions possible. They also broke their own rule once they had the Senate and Presidency. So they aren't making arguments in good faith.
The Senate has to confirm the president's picks. The Republicans controlled the Senate during Obama's last years in office. So they just didn't confirm his pick. Their reasoning was that it was an election year. When Trump faced the same situation (supreme court vacancy in an election year), the Republicans still controlled the senate and confirmed his pick.
You had the first 2 years of Obama. Obama's thanks for the ACA was voters not showing up and losing the house of representatives for year 3 and 4. And again for year 5 and 6. And then both the house and Senate in years 7 and 8. So no you didn't have 8 years with Obama, you had 2 years with Obama because voters did not show up. Congress is what passes laws and has power. They even shut down the freaking government under Obama.
Only Congress can increase the number of Justices on the Supreme Court. We had two years of congressional majority in the last twenty. They focused on healthcare.
How could they have possibly predicted that they’d need to expand and pack the Supreme Court to prevent the next President from becoming a dictator?
And even that was a monumental task. One vote away in the Senate, and that one guy got rid of the single payer option for the cost of his vote. Joe Lieberman if you want to look him up, the guy who started no labels political party (without a platform).
More people (as a percentage of the eligible voting population) voted in 2016 than 2012, and more in 2020 than in 2016.
Finger wagging at people for criticizing the current ruling party (which is sending weapons to a country that is using them to commit genocide) instead of recognizing that we live in an undemocratic system is taking it out on the wrong people. Clinton literally won more votes in the election you're saying people didn't vote hard enough in. It's spitting in the face of everyone whose votes were shat on by the Electoral College to turn around and blame the people who were disenfranchised.
You should know what’s at stake by now. But If you want a list of reasons, there’s something called Project 2025 that has all the reasons you’ll need to vote for Biden in nice and handy, and easy to understand place.
I’m not seeing where in those links it says only 48% of registered Democrats voted? If I’m missing it please point it out. The overall turnout was about 60% of eligible voters, so Democrats pulling in less than that and STILL getting more votes would be shocking.
Getting angry at voters for not voting hard enough after turnout increases every election cycle should illustrate that yelling at people to vote harder isn’t a solution, it’s a stopgap. It doesn’t change that it’s an intentionally undemocratic system, and it doesn’t prevent the exact same “the person with less votes wins” result from happening again.
Not sure who's downvoting you for asking for clarification. I think the person you responded to misinterpreted the first figure in their second link. It says among validated voters, 48% voted for Clinton and 45% for Trump.
Nowhere in those links does it say the percentage of voters by party registration that voted, and I can't find it in any other searching either. Your 60% turnout of voting-eligible population comes up all over the place though.
I don’t see the downvotes since I’m on Blahaj, that’s funny though. Sorry for reading the sources I guess? The 60% figure was straight from one of the linked articles!
Not just voter abstention, but ineffective voting too. Voting 3rd in this election is a surefire way to get trump back in office. If you wanted to stick it to Biden and get someone else, your chance was 4 years ago during the primary.
You're not voting Biden because you like him, you're voting Biden because you want to be able to vote for someone else in 2028. That is literally what is at stake here, and it can't be said loud enough or often enough.
Before the "real left" quisling trolls respond, please tell us two things...
Who is the 3rd party candidate you are supporting instead?
What are their chances of winning this election?
Biden is very much the Democrat presumptive nominee. The time to select someone else was before he was President. The acting president is usually the nominee for their respective party. Also note that the DNC primary nomination is not the presidency.
We have absolutely aborted the campaigns of incumbent presidents before. The DNC and White House however worked very hard to shut down any criticism during the primary timeframe, refused to have debates, disburse money, etc
So if they're going to treat this full election as a preference poll on Biden, then so will the people. And his approval numbers are bad.
How bad do you want to roll those odds on trump getting elected again?
Also, who are you supporting for president this time round, and what do you figure their chances are of winning?
Are you talking about Truman? One guy who started to seek the presidency, after serving 1.5 terms, and then pulling out before being the presumptive nominee? I don't think history is on your side for this one.
Also, answer the questions please.
Edit: You actually said "We have absolutely aborted the campaigns of incumbent presidents before." Implying that the candidate did not win their nomination. Let's go ahead and put those goalposts back where they were initially.
That’s great. She’s an idealist. How do we abolish the Supreme Court when we can’t even get congressional majority for more than two years every twenty?