He turned out to be a decent president, except for the massive, glaring failure to build any sort of meaningful bulwark against fascism. He had, like, the absolute best justification and mandate to aggressively crack down on the neofascists with Jan 6, but he pussyfooted around and dragged his feet on fucking everything so much that basically nothing has been dealt with or constructively changed since the coup attempt occurred.
I would vote for any viable candidate not Trump. I would prefer not Biden and not Harris. In fact I’d prefer a sane Republican… but there seems to be a distinct lack of them.
I’d vote for AOC though. She reminds me of the principled republicans of yore, albeit with different views
In fact I’d prefer a sane Republican… but there seems to be a distinct lack of them.
The three I can remember from the Trump years (Kinzinger, Cheney, and Romney) have pretty much been run out on a rail haven't they? Republicans don't want sane Republicans, and anyone who appears to be one is going to get ostracized within the party, or turn out to be just like all the rest.
They are walking around with bandages on their ears in solidarity with a man who immediately rushed to sell shitty Chinese shoes to commemorate and make a profit off of the assassination attempt which killed one of his own supporters. There are no sane Republicans. There are crazy Republicans, cowardly Republicans, and probably a few with Stockholm Syndrome. They let the inmates take over the asylum and there is no cleaning house now.
Moderate Democrats like Harris are like broccoli. Nobody really wants it, it's not the highlight of the meal, but you need your veggies to get the proper nutrients to fight fascism. (Plus, if your diet has too little fiber you end up full of shit.)
I never would have picked her. But the excitement and unity she's inspiring in like 2 days time is undeniable. It almost feels like a bad tv show plot twist.
Bernie is too old, she'd be my top pick in Congress by far.
But the Party probably wants to go maximum hail corporate neoliberal, especially when there isn't a pesky primary to deal with, because thats what they're paid to do.
You know, someone who will come to continue to protect our beloved economy... from our society and the needs of our people. Better than fascism, but just extending the meaningless subsistence in service to the owner class.
The fact that she’s a conservative bogeyman is kind of besides the point. The neoliberal, corporate-friendly leadership of the DNC would NEVER let her get close to the nomination. They did the same thing to Bernie 8 and 4 years ago.
Wha...what do you mean not in the conversation, you are literally conversing with someone about her, on a front page post about her. She is popular, and no presidential candidate has ever not been divisive. Not being trump is divisive.
So what if she’s divisive? Trumps running mate called him hitler at one point. No one wanted Trump, he came in and won the voters hearts with his vision, grotesque as it may be for other people. People want certainty and vision in uncertain times.
@LibertyLizard@pearsaltchocolatebar
Lol, it's what happens when you speak truth to power.
I'd vote for her because of a myriad of reasons though.
She is the future of the party.
She gets labeled as "divisive" because she's a woman and she's not a centrist. Name one woman who gets listed as a potential candidate and isn't under this same garbage rhetoric.
To be clear, women can and should still be scrutinized, but not to the point where the only woman who would be a great presidential candidate is the most perfect candidate who ever lived.
She'd be the best populist candidate, since Bernie is too close in age to Biden. I also think she could really drum up support with her charisma. The only way to fight a populist like Trump is with another populist. Remember how far Bernie got with his campaigns that refused to take corporate money?
Honestly, the only people that would get in her way are the same DINO Democrats who didn't get behind Bernie. Funny how the progressives in the Democratic party are always the ones who are told to compromise and vote for the centrist and never the other way around.
I don't think she could win even though I think she's perfect. The US isn't ready for a woman president, and a non-white one on top of that. I think that'd be pretty cool if Adam Schiff ran with her as his VP.
Exactly. Like yeah girl spit your facts, but we will take what we can get and the age and health resilience are legitimate concerns we've been having. Kamala solves the age issue, that's progress to me. I don't want the president to be a puppet of someone who no one voted for.
The courts are bad now people think, wait till more seats are replaced.
People don’t understand what a big deal this is. Corrupting the trusted-by-tradition institutions like the courts is one way fascists can get the whole country in a chokehold.
Gunned down a bunch of BLM protestors? Eh, they were asking for it. Probation.
Climate change demonstration? 10 years
We’re already about 60% of the way there. It’s already happening that people are committing really major crimes and it’s okay if they’re on the right team.
Please don't just spray "VOTE" on the Internet. Everyone reading these is already almost certainly going to vote. If you really want to do something, go knock on doors with your local Dems, and in the fall, go talk to college kids.
Ugh. I agree that Kamala sucks, but I think it’d be a mistake to try to go with anyone else at this point. She has a pulse, a functional brain, lots of political experience, a long life ahead of her, and yeah, she’s made some terrible decisions and gaffs in her career, just like Joe Biden.
I don’t like that she was a cop, but Joe Biden chaired the Senate Judiciary committee for like 100 years, and got us Clarence Thomas, so…nobody has the moral high ground here.
We just need to win, and frankly I think if we try to go with someone new and untested, we’ll lose. We’ve been in a “lesser of two evils” situation for some time now.
Ideally, yeah, but think about the logistics of pulling something like that off. And would it be a full primary redo? Like fresh ballots sent out to all dems? Or do you mean a mini primary just with the existing delegates? Because we already voted in the Democratic primary election…
I’m just really trying to be pragmatic about this, I can’t imagine a scenario where we pull this off and come out stronger. I would love to be wrong.
As with other things e.g. Bernie Sanders as the nominee, there actually is a sensible option here, which is running a contested convention… it is highly notable to me that a lot of the people offering such constructive criticism on this topic are so studiously avoiding those sensible strategies when they are trying to “help”
Consider working towards passing electoral reform in your state so you can vote for something that is not evil, secure in the knowledge that your vote would still count for the lesser evil.
Yep, I really do not like Harris, but in this context she's the most realistic option and she's slightly better than Biden on basically everything. Otherwise it becomes a battle against right-wing establishment democrats, and we have no more time for that really. Getting Biden out is hard enough.
I think someone like Newsom would be a better sell. Fact is, it's a dangerous election and getting Republicans that don't like trump very much to actually jump the fence a bit is going to be easier with a white man in his 50's who isn't too "extreme" of a leftist Democrat.
They could also choose someone from a swing state, too.
VPs have no job except to succeed the president and break ties in the Senate, along with presiding for a few ritualistic things. That's really it. What do expect want her to do?
First Past The Post voting ensures that a good portion of the people voting for her do not want her. Same for Joe biden. Same for the Republican and democratic parties.
first past the post isn't responsible for that. it's a tactic called "strategic voting" and it results in the consolidation of parties under fptp. the solution is not to vote for people you don't want to win.
I'm worried black voters will not turn out in the needed numbers if they interpret skipping Kamala as the presumptive nominee to be a betrayal. I'm very concerned about a damned if you do, damned if you don't scenario.
Biden has done a good job as President. I don't love him as the nominee, but I'm afraid the chaos of him stepping down is going to create a no win scenario. Some folks think he is the no win scenario. If it's truly impossible for us to put forward a candidate who can win, that's not a problem we can pin on the other side - we did that to ourselves. And at the worst possible time for it.
Your concerns are valid, but the supreme court is being actively used for lawfare & some Washington backroom deal for the doner class outside of the norm for anyone else besides the republican party has double ungood chances for the switched candidate to succeed.
There is so much about donald's project 2025 that isn't known by average people. There will be no election for the democrats come 2028, only for MAGA if they get their way.
Ever wonder why it's rich media companies who are screeching from the rooftops that Biden is old and needs to step down, while AOC, Bernie, and all the actual progressives are standing behind him?
This is a revolt of the ownership class against Biden's proposed tax hikes. Nothing more. And Leftists are falling for it hook line and sinker.
That might be the catalyst, but it's very much more than that: it's a power grab. The ruling class has amassed so much wealth that they want to do away with some limits to what they can do with it and Trump will let them if they help pay his bills or just agree that he doesn't need to pay any bills.
Ask yourself why we have hundreds of articles on Biden yet none talking about the convicted felon, rapist, nuclear secret stealing, insurrection inciting traitor.
A lot of people on the left disagree with his policy on supporting Isreal on Gaza.
He's acts like a senile old man when he's communicating. Yes maybe he's still clear headed. But the low information voter who doesn't really pay attention to politics will see his saying "I trust my VP Trump" and automatically just vote for the person who doesn't seem like they belong in a nursing home.
Harris has done so little I had to think for a second to remember what her name was. Other VP have really gotten coverage, like Pence or Gore. But Harris has really stayed mostly on the sidelines.
I’m not in the US, so I might not always be aware of every political thing happening… but Harris feels completely invisible to me.
Biden was very visible as VP, and I actually have memories of Cheney, Gore, even Pence had some notable things.
Gun to my head, I couldn’t tell you one notable or controversial thing Harris did. So I’m reallllllly hoping US voters have a more positive mental picture in regards to her VP tenure. Being ‘not Biden’ only gets you so far…
Nothing from being VP... But before she was VP she was the worst kind of cop... So not a lot of love there from the left, and of course the right hates her just because... Technically she was the first woman to ever hold the power of the presidency though... For like an hour when Joe had a colonoscopy or something.
Cheney was an outlier as he basically ran things from the VP office. Dude claimed (successfully I believe) that the office of the Vice President is a separate branch of government that was independent of the other three. And somehow it allowed him to do whatever he wanted? Shit was weird.
Kamala and AOC would be a lit ticket. I still think we're barreling towards another Reagan era victory by doing this. But that "medical emergency" + instant COVID was almost a sign from the universe.
VPs are usually picked to shore up an electoral weakness of the candidate in question. I don’t think adding a second brown woman to the ticket would make sense, much as I would personally love this.
And just imagine the optics of old, orange felon vs. this guy.
I think he also ticks the box for people that want "normalcy." He is just very much an articulate, succinct, polished communicator/politician. And he's a white guy, which, sadly, gains him free extra votes automatically.
Lots of Christian conservatives have turned away from Trump and have a chance of voting couch over him. Now if there's a chance a gay man might be president it may motivate a lot of people to get up and keep the gay man from being in charge. Nothing motivates voters like fear or hate. The left would have to be 100% behind him and foaming at the mouth to go out and vote, or else it'd be a win for the Rs. That being said, a black woman carries a slightly less chance of that. The racists are already 100% behind trump and motivated to get Mr. Very Fine People on Both Sides back in the oval office.
I'd vote Pete though... I was hoping he'd get the 2020 nomination.
There has been some gurgling from (very few) faith leaders, but polling show an increase in conservative Christian support for Trump.
The bigger concern might be minority voters. Polling suggests a gay candidate could lose some support from some minority communities, namely African Americans.
That being said, it's a problem anyway. Biden has lost a lot of black voters. Polling shows Trump has more support from likely black voters than any republican candidate in the last 60 years.
It's not just that everyone hates her, it's that people from different demographics hate her for different reasons.
Republicans hate her because brown+woman+democrat, left-leaning people don't like her because cop; democrats don't give a fuck as long as it's not trump (is the lettuce that outlasted truss still available?), but if given a clean slate the DNC would probably try Hillary again as a token "first female president", rather than do an actual primary.
Wide distaste does not a successful campaign make.
Ohio is Trump country. Deep, deep Trump country. From end-to-end (with maybe the exception of Columbus?). Even Cleveland loves Trump.Trump is so popular here, there are permanent Trump signs. Local businesses use Trump to advertise. One recent roadside ad said "Biden is more confused than Michelle Obama's gynecologist."
This was a sign put up by a prominent construction company on a main road. The company is doing great.
The whole "Michelle Obama is a crossdresser" myth again? What even be the point of that in a world where being trans is only controversial to your Uncle who brings a red hat
As damning as it is to the US, the best bet for winning is a good-looking, smooth-talking white guy who will look presidential when compared with Trump.
Jon Stewart. He adamantly opposes the suggestion he run, which is exactly what we need. He's got decades of experience in global politics, he's likeable, got name recognition. And to your suggestion he's a smooth talking attractive white man
Well it's risky either way. That said Kamala as vp was supposed to represent the "in case of emergency break glass" younger democrat - not too left, just neolib enough for the party, yet younger - that would step in if Biden's age became an issue.
It's now an issue and she didn't play a role in reassuring the public, so...
Honestly, a Harris ticket could be interesting, if for no other reason than to play into the "prosecutor vs. literal convicted felon" narrative that would inevitably be born out of it.
Just replacing one corporate puppet with another one won't win them the election, so they won't be putting anyone "in power". Definitely feels like they're trying to get Trump elected. And I mean, if Trump is elected then the oligarchy gets everything they ever wanted (project 2025), and the Dems work for the oligarchy. Makes sense they'd do what's best for their corporate overlords.
Reading these comments here, it's obvious either 1. This thread is filled with shills or 2. Democrats have learned NOTHING from Hillary and are ready to score an own goal at the 89th minute.
I'll admit it, I don't want her, either (not that someone like me has any influence). But she'd be a better option than Joe.
Especially if she picks the right VP. And please, for fucks sake, I hope they do a good job picking a VP. Don't rule out cishet white males, as a for instance, FFS. The Democrats love to play stupid identity political games and constantly do these self-owns. Although if AOC has a clone they could choose as a VP, that would be fantastic. But that's not because they tick some arbitrary set of diversity checkboxes....it's about policies.
I cannot stand her or the dems. Literally have voted 3rd party all my life, but I have family in Ukraine and the EU and I'll be damned if my need to hate on the dems and repubs is stronger than letting that fascist turnip into power just to let russia kill my family members.
Bypassing her could have a powerful effect on black voters, who we need if we're going to win. If Harris can't win because no one likes her, and no one else can win because black voters are affronted by skipping her when it's her turn, we're just well and truly fucked.
Black voters aren't a monolithic block and they aren't as identity focused as people accuse them of being (well outside of Obama being the first black president). If the candidate has a solid track record of helping minority communities we'd likely see a pretty good turn out.
This summary from the Independent necessarily cuts out a lot of the nuance of AOC's points - I say "necessarily" because she spoke on Instagram for a full hour - and one thing that she seemed to emphasize - more than the "They don't 100% support Harris either" point - is there there is very little time remaining in the election year to make any changes to the ticket. There are just weeks until the Democratic convention, and Ohio requires the names to be finalized even before that. She also emphasized that any change to the ticket, especially any late change, increases the chance that the presidency will ultimately be decided - if not by the bureaucracy of a swing state, many of which, like Ohio, are Republican-controlled - then by a legal case that goes before the (corrupt, she didn't need to explain, although there were arch eyebrows at this point) Supreme Court, which is just not an ideal situation for democracy.
I'm interested in botany too, but will eagerly vote for a Harris-(anyone) ticket over a Trump-Vance ticket. But for real I want to learn how to keep orchids alive.
Oh man, such a chore. You have to make sure they get enough water but not too much water, and then they just sit there doing nothing but suddenly have this brilliant display and you think “yes, all this support was worth it!” And then nothing, for months.
But I’ll still vote Biden in the end, or whoever they offer, even though I’m above the rich people threshold - the social contract must be honored or society falls apart.
For orchids give them some nice roomy medium, I read once about a wiffle ball technique where you put a wiffle ball underneath the stem to ensure airflow at the roots. I don't have any wiffle balls whenever I've repotted, so I usually just do a bark "core" and then a slim wrap around the roots with wet sphagnam moss, and fill in any extra room in the pot with more bark. I soak the orchids in water to the base of their leaves like once every two weeks for 15 minutes in lukewarm to warm water, and put a tiny bit of orchid fertilizer in the mix every few months or so. I put them somewhere that is warm with a lot of indirect light. My oldest ones are I think 5 now, so it's been working alright for me. I've also stopped trying to make them be upright because they naturally lean over, so I just put them however they look comfortable in the pot.
She acts like that's a bad thing. It's the truth, and it's not the "elites," it's most democratic voters, donors, and a sizeable percentage of political elites, i.e. senators and congress people. Don't look now, AOC, but you are one of the elites.
Trading Biden for Harris is just allowing Trump to campaign against the same administration and trading a guy too old to effectively communicate for someone who is just ineffective at communicating.
I don't want Harris only slightly less than I don't want Biden. They're both losers, but not in the vague insulting sense: in the sense that they're both likely to lose to Trump.
Literally no one wanted Kamala in the primaries. Everyone knows she got picked as a token diversity VP and not because she was actually popular or anything.
She has a higher chance of losing than Biden. If we're gonna axe the incubent, then you better open up some serious candidates, otherwise this will be a repeat of 2016 and no one will vote.
lol, token diversity VP! Racism and/or misogyny is so funny! let me guess, do you pretend to care about palestine too?? i bet you do! lol, what a comedian
I mean nobody really wants Kamala but it sounds like that may be the best path. It’s one thing to have the president step down for health reasons, but it’s another to unilaterally replace the candidate after the primary as a response to bad polling.
If the second case happens you’ll see a bunch of pushback from democrats who don’t like the pick, donors who backed Biden, and virtually every Republican trying to portray the democrats in a negative light. That’s just the PR angle ignoring that there will also be legal questions around using Bidens donation money and getting a different candidate on the ballot in all 50 states.
It really depends on how they do it. It will get challenged regardless, but I think Harris still has the best chance there too.
If Biden stepped down because of health reasons, Harris is his VP, her job is literally to step into the presidency in that case. It's her and Biden's ticket that got elected, so there can't be any talk about it being undemocratic. The people who were allowed to vote in the primary voted for Biden-Harris.
It sounds like AOC is freaked out by all these incompetent idiots around her talking about what their donors want, when really they should be coming up with a plan that has the best chance of running the gauntlet of legal challenges. The obstacle to success will be donor interference by rich idiots trying to handpick their own random people.
Because if the whole problem is “RED RED RED RED RED RED” overwhelming anything useful then “RED RED NO IT’S BLUE RED RED BLUE RED NO BLUE NO RED” is not really an improvement
But yes I did feel like both of mine were factually relevant and the minority report should be presented, and I anyway couldn’t produce any real percentagewise increase in the tide if I made it into a full time job and hired assistants
Then don't post them, post things you think others want to see, and propagate relevant information that might be new or important. One is enough for one topic.
New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez went on Instagram Live early on Friday morning to share her thoughts on Joe Biden’s floundering re-election campaign - and warning that many of those who want the President to drop out of the race, also want Vice President Kamala Harris off the ticket too.
“If you think that there is consensus among the people who want Joe Biden to leave ... that they will support, Vice President Harris, you would be mistaken,” she told viewers.
She slammed her colleagues for giving anonymous quotes to the press, calling it “bull****” and urged those resigned to a loss to Donald Trump to give up their seats.
This comes amid mounting pressure on Biden to leave the race.
While he remains publicly committed to staying in the race, Axios reports that in private, the president has resigned himself to increasing calls from lawmakers for him to drop out amid bad polling and mounting scrutiny of his age and mental acuity.
“I’m here to tell you that a huge amount of the donor class and a huge amount of these elites and a huge amount of these folks in these rooms that I see that are pushing for President Biden to not be the nominee also are not interested in seeing the Vice President being the nominee,” she added.
The original article contains 335 words, the summary contains 221 words. Saved 34%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
I don't really care what happens as long as the Republicans don't win. If AOC's only problem is that Kamala won't be on the ticket, then is that problem really worth risking putting the fascists in power?
I think that’s fair though? If you bring in a new candidate for president, it’s only fair that they get to bring in their own team. I don’t mind Kamala, the ticket should be whoever makes the strongest pair and would want to work together
You legitimately think the Democratic party will get behind any of these nominations enough to defeat Trump? I'd say most are considered more controversial than fuckin Hillary was.
Harris/AOC. I'm not stoked that Harris is a cop, but she is a centrist and that's what the owners want. AOC as the VP pick to actually motivate real people to vote, and to give her experience to run for President in the future.
And, ideally, every bigot's head would explode simultaneously upon electing two women of color into the highest offices in the land.
I think so. This attack is coming from a higher income bracket than Biden.
I believe the doner class has spoken and the democratic leadership is tripping over their own balls to remove them both.
Glad she had this livestream and she shared her insight. The fact the people calling for Joe to step down have no plan is stunning -- and how the same people aren't even considering Harris is equally shocking. I'll stick with Joe.
@mozz Everybody needs to stop untitling the Vice President. It does not help move us toward a society that doesn’t discriminate in hiring for senior positions if we keep talking about women (especially if they’re women of color) as if they’re children while simultaneously referring to male peers by last names and/or titles.
I use it just because it’s more distinctive than her last name and “Harris” takes a second to figure out, for me. I do the same with “Bernie”. It’s not a gender thing, it’s just an informal internet speech thing. Calling someone by only their last name is usually worse than calling them by their first name, and far worse than the titled version, in terms of respect engendered, but I say “Biden” and “Trump” all the time.
Idk, you might have a point + maybe it’s something I should not be doing. There’s probably some subtle level of shade that exists with it even if it’s not intended. Maybe “Harris” is the equivalent? I feel weird typing “Kamala Harris” every time, let alone using her title like some kind of press release.
@mozz I don’t think everyone intends for it to be sexist at all, it’s just that it takes places within a context in which female professors and medical doctors frequently report being on conference panels or introduced at meetings and have someone doing the introductions talk about, ‘Dr. This, Dr. That [both male], and Amy.’ It’s just one of many subtle ways women’s professional expertise and authority are quietly diminished.
@volkris@mozz Centrist/Third Way/DLC/No Labels Democrats, the folks behind this push, don't want to win. They want the campaign cash to keep flowing so they and their buddies can continue to grift.
Ugh, id probably vote for kamala for being younger. But shes got a very low approval rating and has a lot of the same baggage Biden has, over the gaza situation and the border.
I just thought of a pretty optimistic angle though, if Biden drops out and a new candidate runs, its their first term. With someone younger winning gives them a better chance at using whats supposed to be a huge incumbency advantage for 8 more years of dems controlling the whitehouse at least.
VP Harris was there to do Biden's bidding. Candidate Harris can say she has different ideals and policies. Not as clean a break as someone from outside the administration, but a lot of Democrats are eager to put those things behind them and will take a wishy washy statement as enough to focus on all the other stuff they're worried about.
Even the Uncommitted campaigns about actual genocide happening were extremely reasonable in their demands. They weren't requesting the US to sanction Israel or put peacekeepers in Gaza, just stop sending them weapons. They want to focus on the danger Trump represents to their community, they just can't do that while there's an active genocide being meaningfully supported by the guy they'd be trying to get people to volunteer for.
We have a similar problem in Canada. Our "far left" is the NDP and they've run the same guy since 2017. He's not going to win, every election he's done worse. But there's no other candidates or something.