• retrospectology@lemmy.world
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    3 days ago

    The winners in any debate, if there must be any, are the people who use what they see and hear to inform their voting choices.

    This thinking is part of what lost Biden the debate. He thought he was attending a debate in the traditional sense, but that’s not what political debates are. A political debate is about communicating your platfotm and hammering on the other person’s weaknesses (ex. Abortion, him being a convicted felon etc.).

    Biden lost because he sat there like a dope and tried to answer the questions, instead of doing what he claimed was his strategy for taking the debate in the first place; exposing Donald Trump as worse.

    As usual, neoliberals fail to understand the moment and meet it, which is why they’re losers.

    • LengAwaits@lemmy.world
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      3 days ago

      From my point of view Biden didn’t have to lift a finger to expose Donald Trump as worse. Trump seemed happy to do that himself. But then, as I said, I’m a moron.

      Stupid as I am, though, I don’t have to lower myself to calling people “losers”. I retired that word from my vocabulary when I graduated from elementary school.

      • retrospectology@lemmy.world
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        3 days ago

        I don’t mean it as a pejorative, I mean it as a description of one of neoliberal dems defining characteristics; they lose, chronically, when it counts.

        They got a supermajority and they still fumbled. And it’s deliberate losing, that’s their role in the duopoly set-up; to promise progressive change and fail to deliver because of those “wascally wepublicans”. What they are failing to understand is that the Republican party is no longer playing the “one hand washes the other” game to maintain the corporate status quo – the Republican party has been taken over by literal fascists who are out for blood and the neoliberal democrats still think they’re playing the status quo game. They don’t understand that losing comes with real consequences now, but it’s all they know how to do.

        • LengAwaits@lemmy.world
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          3 days ago

          I see. In that case, I think you may fundamentally misunderstand the world. You seem to want to frame it up as though there’s some master plan or conspiracy, instead of a bunch of individuals working in hotly contested fields, just trying to keep their jobs by doing what they perceive as best at any given moment.

          • retrospectology@lemmy.world
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            3 days ago

            No. If I misunderstood then campaign finance and lobbying money wouldn’t be the rock solid predictor of how a politician will vote. But money remains one of the most reliable predictors of politician behavior, and most democrats take huge amounts of corporate money to obstruct any real progress.

            • LengAwaits@lemmy.world
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              3 days ago

              That doesn’t seem particularly at odds with what I said, but I guess I’m glad you’ve got it all figured out. I’m hoping your plans to change the system work out. Genuinely. If you have actionable, realistic, achievable ideas for removing the corrupting influence of money from the world at large, I’m all ears.

              In the meantime I’ll to continue to vote for whichever candidate (that stands a realistic chance at winning) I feel will do the least harm to the people I love and the institutions I begrudgingly tolerate.

              I’ve already mentioned that I’m a moron, this should reinforce that.

              • retrospectology@lemmy.world
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                3 days ago

                Not voting for the corporate obstructionists would be the most basic starting point. Its not about having everything figured out, it’s about the urgent need for people to understand that what you percieve as harm reduction isn’t working, that thinking is why we’re here to begin with. It’s not even actually harm reduction, it is soft-selling fascism and acclimating the Democratic base to it which increases the potency of the GOP’s fascism by helping normalize it in increments. It can’t be allowed to become the new normal.

                  • retrospectology@lemmy.world
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                    3 days ago

                    What are you talking about? We’re funding a genocide.

                    I’m saying critical reform of the Democratic party is not possible if you keep supporting fascist-lite candidates and letting them get away with their pied piper bullshit. Ever. People are already dying and suffering due to the lesser of two evils politics, both in Gaza and here in the US. What you’re afraid of is that you will suddenly start to feel the consequences of your politics. People are already getting screwed over, it’s just acceptable to you because you’re not part of those effected groups. You’re allowing them to suffer for our collective political sins.

                    It has to sink in sooner or later that neoliberalism is politically bankrupt, it can’t deliver what we need to stop the slide into fascism and the more energy you put into trying to convince everyone that voting for the Bidens and Clintons of the party will save us, the more acclimated the general public becomes to fascism until one day nothing Trump or the next christo-fascist does will elicit any shock or outrage, there will be nothing you can do to get the majority to care or resist because they’re comfortable and all the bad stuff is out of their sight.

                    That’s the attitude that made the gas chambers possible.