politics

I don't like Joe Biden, but this isn't a presidential approval poll, it's an election, and he's clearly better than any of the alternatives. And when it comes down to it, he's been better than I expected. We could have just had an exclusively centrist presidency, and while there's been plenty of centrism, he has been persuadable to progressive action.

And frankly even if you can't bring yourself to express support Biden for some reason, it should be pretty easy to want anyone who willingly associates with Republicans to lose and lose badly, because they're way beyond stealth-mode fascism now. Even the most jaded "they're all neolibs" voter from earlier elections can't possibly ignore that the Republicans are just fash now. There's a real danger if they win that cities end up with federally tasked jackboots kidnapping protesters like Portland.

"Support Joe Biden" - Yes.

"Support particular policies of Joe Biden" - No.

Democrats are not a cult of personality. We can disagree with particular things the president does without wanting to see him defeated.

It's not that I don't support him, it's that I do not support anyone over the age of 65 being in any position of any power anywhere.

His only redeeming quality is not being Donald Trump. He’s otherwise too fucking old and out of touch with the vast majority of the country like most of our government is.

Is it already the time of year to bash progressives in case democrats lose so that they can be blamed for it? The extent of support Joe Biden will get is a vote against the republican party. As a candidate himself, he sucks as does the "democratic" party in general.

In the primaries, I supported progressive candidates like Sanders and Warren because I think their policy prescriptions would make for a better America. In the general, I voted for Biden. That was a harm-reduction vote.

What I don't like to hear, in the primary, is the 'you have to vote for the candidate who can win' line of argument, which begs the question it pretends to answer- if everyone who says "I'd vote for x but x can't possibly win" just voted for x, x would actually win. This gives whoever tells you that "x can't possibly win" the power to get you to give up on voting for what you want, which seems to wag the dog.

In the general, between dem and gop control, it's not a close contest for me; it's between a party afraid to do progressive things the voters want and a party that will do whatever the fuck it wants no matter that nobody wants that.

Yes, our electoral system of first-past-the-post demands that we hedge our bets and compromise in order to avoid the calamity of electing a fascist in this election cycle, but it's hard to support with evidence the idea that what makes a progressive candidate "risky" isn't just a self-fulfilling misperception that causes the party to spend (or not-spend) money to prevent progressives from becoming party nominees. After all, research consistently shows that politicians of both parties routinely overestimate the conservatism of the voters.

I'm glad to see the Biden admin embracing the progressive changes it has been able to get to, but I'm also sooo tired of being told 'we can't nominate a progressive, they'll be called a communist' when no matter who we nominate they'll be called a communist and decades of voting a harm-reduction ticket has rolled back much of the New Deal

Fetterman is 100% right.

He's basically calling out progressives for essentially not wanting power. Those progressives rather sit on the sidelines and complain about everything than ever gaining even a morsel of political power to where they could actually do something.

Falling in-line is what has led conservatives to gain enough control of the government to throw out what most considered a done deal. RvW is gone (as well as any hope for reasonable gun restrictions, as well as a host of other no nonsense laws) because Republicans know about playing the long game and know that collectively they can accomplish far more things.

It's funny that progressives love to push the idea of collective bargaining when it comes to labor relations and yet they can't figure out that collectively if they fell behind the leader of the Democrats, their voices would be much better heard.

Ah yes everything is progressives fault and not establishment dinosaurs pandering to their corporate donors .

I don't get it, either. Unless and until we have something like ranked choice voting, purity ponies that lodge "protest votes" only help the fascists. And these purity ponies seem to revel in creating more division within the left (and create more Republicans in the process), wanting to excommunicate each other over ivory tower orthodoxy, with the Oppression Olympics being one of the more egregious versions of that...

The key to getting progression policies passed is voting for Congress. Having a democratic President, whether it's Biden or someone else, doesn't matter if we only have a razor-thin majority. We just get held hostage by people like Manchin. We need solid majorities in both House and Senate to achieve anything.

Look, I get the Dems are our only vehicle for Progressive policies becoming reality because I know we're never going to move away from FPTP voting any time soon. I just don't like having to go along with the same corporate greed. It feels very two steps forward, one step back.

Cause he's a fuckin mummy John. We are tired of electing boomers that don't understand fuckin computers.

Selling us a tube TV in the year of flat screens.

Primaries are for ideas and ideals. General elections are for harm reduction.

Oh, because i support progressive people, not union busters

Rave Acts of the 90's. Joe is only swimming because his opponents are literal Neanderthals.

Then he's not listening