Saw this today, and … well, I’m not going to be so forgiving to people suggesting to vote Third Party rather than vote for Biden. If Trump wants me to do something, and you want me to do that same something, that tells me you’re aligned with Trump.

  • kescusay@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    Stupid hot-take. Israel has been an ally of the United States for decades. Biden is trying to walk a fine line between maintaining relations with them (despite their current despicable right-wing government, which might not last long, given the huge calls for a new election in Israel) and pressuring them to stop. Trump would gladly suggest paving Gaza over and turning it into a parking lot, and voting for any third-party candidate is identical in result to voting for Trump.

      • kescusay@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        Will you address the fact that Trump is much, much worse for Palestinians? You and the rest of your ilk have been dodging that. Address it directly, or GTFO.

        • wildbus8979@sh.itjust.works
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          8 months ago

          Threatening people is never a good look.

          I didn’t like Biden in the 80s when he voted on a constitutional amendment for states to over turn Roe v Wade. I didn’t like Biden in the 90s when he reinforced the war on drugs and drastically increased the prison population. I didn’t like Biden in the 2000s when he supported the Patriot Act, the Iraq war, and removed the ability to default on student loans. And I still don’t like him today when he claims he’ll undo some of the awful shit he did if we vote for him just one more time, all while supporting a genocide and inching us closer and closer to an all out war in the middle east.

          So no, I won’t be bullied. If your candidate sucks, and you parties policies suck, that’s on you.

          • kescusay@lemmy.world
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            8 months ago

            OK, filing you away under “textbook example of what the article is about.”

            Have a nice life.

          • pivot_root@lemmy.world
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            8 months ago

            Yes, Biden sucks. Nobody disagrees. But that’s still not addressing the problem of the only other viable candidate—Trump—being considerably worse.

            • TheHiddenCatboy@lemmy.worldOP
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              8 months ago

              I’m actually going to disagree that Biden sucks. Biden did the best he could with what he was given. Let’s remember:

              • Biden was handed an epic shitshow of a situation when he took office.
              • He was given ZERO help by the previous administration. They did everything in their power to gimp Biden out the gate. That he managed to handle COVID so well is a testament to his skills and determination.
              • Inflation was beginning before COVID, and thus before Biden. It started with electronics, where combinations of chip shortages and tariffs on Chinese imports saw prices of GPUs and game machines and so on skyrocket. I remember the ridiculous costs of the 30x0 GPUs thanks to bitcoin mining and then Trump went Tariff Happy. ** No plans at all on how we were supposed to buy stuff that didn’t have the Chinese Import Tariff on it. No plans, at least, until Biden took office and passed the Chips Act.
              • Biden actually DID implement Student Loan forgiveness. Between my wife and I, we’d have saved 40k USD on our loans, but the Trump Supreme Court, brought on by people voting Stein in 2016 (and Nader in 2000) ensured we got zip. Biden’s trying to work around the Supreme Court, even now, but of course, Republicans know the court is their friend. They knew that the Court was NOT their friend in 2000 and 2016, but we forgot that the court was our friend during those elections and now the Court is most definitely NOT our friend, but Biden is doing the best he can with what we gave him.
              • The Chips and Infrastructure Acts, and the various COVID era funding helped pull a LOT of people out of the fire.

              I see jerks who come in and complain they didn’t get what they want to be akin to staying home on the election because they didn’t get the shiny rainbow unicorn they SWORE they were promised. Like a petulant child stomping his feet because he didn’t get the Christmas gift he begged Santa for, just before he threw a screaming temper tantrum in the Mall when his parents were warning him that Santa knows when he’s been naughty. An immature git that deserves to be taken over a knee and swatted, or just outright ignored, rather than indulged.

              Inflation sucks. These last 4 years have been difficult, and not everybody has gotten out in one piece. But it was worse for a whole hell of a lot of people when Trump was in office, and he promises to make it hard for those people again if he gets in office. We can’t reach out to the Trumpers, but let’s NOT do their dirty work for them!

              • pivot_root@lemmy.world
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                8 months ago

                By all means, abstain. Just don’t expect to have earned the right to complain when one of those two candidates still wins and does something you don’t like.

          • TheHiddenCatboy@lemmy.worldOP
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            8 months ago

            Wow. You did a good job illustrating exactly why I’m not going to play nice with you people anymore. You’re lying and distorting the truth in order to make it more likely that people like my wife are ground under the bootheel of Team Pepe authoritarianism this time next year. Let’s break this down a bit, shall we?

            Your claim that Biden voted for a constitutional amendment for States to overturn Roe v Wade omits the fact that he voted against it the next time Shithead Hatch presented it. Why don’t you explain to the class why you felt it necessary to distort Biden’s record, holding him accountable for a vote he has already acknowledged he got wrong by voting against it the second time it was presented, eh?

            And the Iraq War? Yes, Biden got that vote wrong. He bought Bush’s lies that this was about bringing Hussein to the negotiation table, like a lot of us did in that time. The guy even admitted he got it wrong as early as 2005. What more can you ask? The guy can’t go back in time and fix his mistake. He can just own up to it. And let me tell you, I was on the same page as Biden back in 2003, when it seemed that Hussein was holding onto weapons and helping the people that attacked us on 9/11. I hoped we would use the same things that Biden hoped we would use – diplomacy and the threat of the big stick to convince Hussein to let the weapons inspectors back in and comply with the mandates the UN put on him.

            The Patriot Act was indeed one of the darkest moments of American history, a knee-jerk reaction to 9/11 that we should have gotten rid of far sooner than we did. Biden was instrumental in getting it passed, for sure. But it expired in 2020…and despite Biden being in office for 4 years, it has not been reauthorised. Again, are we not to give him credit for what he’s done since these horrible things he did? Is he to be held accountable for everything he’s ever done, with no chance of redemption? I think that’s really damn stupid, or a plot by a really evil person to try to eat away at Biden’s voter base in order to get somebody far worse elected.

            Let me remind you who is on the other side of the equation – a man who bragged he could grab any woman he wanted by the privates, who ran the country headfirst off the cliff of Covid because he thought it was some Democratic Party plot, who pulled us out of Kyoto AND scrubbed any mention of climate change from the website, who got into a trade war with China without any plans for how to deal with our reliance on cheap Chinese manufacturing (causing the inflation we are dealing with, in part), and who referred to the shitheads that killed minorities, gays, and liberals as ‘good people’. I also remind you that he plans on being “Dictator for a Day” should he win in 2024, and will implement Project 2025, a nightmarish scenario for gays, minorities, transgender folk, environmentalists, scientific thinkers, and liberals of all stripes. And need I remind you that Roe v. Wade went down thanks to Trump.

            One of two people will win the election in 2024. You can’t change this. Either the guy who may not be liberal enough for you wins, and we make slow and halting progress on all Left-Wing priorities, or the guy who is an utter shithead gets into office and everything we’ve worked for in the past 100 years gets torn down. Gay marriage? Gone. Minority rights? Gone. Freedom to worship or not worship according to one’s desires? Gone. Freedom to protest our government? Remember the white vans that disappeared people during the George Floyd protests? Yeah, gone too. Oh, yeah, and IVF and contraception is gone, and women’s rights are gone. It’s very likely that your 2028 election will look like the one Putin just ‘won’, corrupted and replaced with ‘vote for Master Trump or suffer’. We aren’t kidding when we say that this is the most important election ever. It’s a rehash of 2020, which was the most important election ever (prompting me to donate money to a politician for the first time in my goddamn life…) at that time.

            So. There’s one of two things you could be. Either you are…

            • Somebody so stupidly obstinate that you’d vote against your best interests because you’re blinded for your hatred of Biden and can’t see the fucking blindingly obvious truth that Trump is 100 times fucking worse than even your stupid caricature of Biden
            • Somebody who is an evil sack of shit that would rather see Trump win so he’s here trying to convince us we should not vote for Biden, despite the blindingly fucking obvious truth that Trump is 1000 times fucking worse than Biden.

            So, which is it? Are you a moron, or are you an asshole? Either way…this article wasn’t meant for you. It was meant for the people you and your fellow sockpuppets full of excrement are trying to convince to let Trump win the fucking election.

            Per Rule 6, I am not allowed to call you what I really want to call you, nor use the strength of language I feel you and your fellow … ahem, ‘dissidents’ deserve. Therefore, I’ll just say it this way. You can buzz off, pal. You aren’t convincing me of your nonsense, and the only reason I’m here is to tell people who might fall for your … BS…yeah, I’ll call it that…is that this person trying to convince you to vote third party or stay home is full of nonsense and will lead this country into ruin. So, do us all a favour and piss off, would ya?

    • wildbus8979@sh.itjust.works
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      8 months ago

      Biden, who once said “I’m a Zionist, if Israel didn’t exist, we’d have to create it” is walking a fine line? Give me a break.

    • TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      I just want to make you aware that your argument is that Biden is basically not responsible for his position on Israel. Like I really want you to actually notice what that does rhetorically, because you are effectively ceding the position that Biden is bad, but Trump would be worse (maybe).

      So is Biden the President or is he not? Like, the fucking point is that Biden can do better right now and is choosing not to. Is he the President and capable of such a thing or is he not? With whom does the buck stop?

      You need to start understanding that the consequence of the “Any blue will do argument” is the recognition that Biden is a weak, unfit leader that doesn’t have accountability, and that this rhetorical structure is what is losing Biden this election. Making excuses for Biden on this policy position weakens him as a candidate, and further ensures a Trump victory.

      • kescusay@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        That’s a blatant misreading. He is fully responsible for his position, but due to the circumstances of this situation, his position is necessarily nuanced. It has to be, to avoid destabilizing the entire Middle East.

        Imagine he just declares Israel no longer an ally, and tells them they’re on their own. How long before Iran attacks? How long before other Muslim-majority countries are dragged into it? How long before it becomes a broader conflict, with Israel fighting basically everyone?

        How long before we end up dragged into it anyway?

        Biden is trying to pressure Netanyahu with what leverage he has, and he is trying to prevent it from become a large regional conflict. I’m sure he wishes BiBi wasn’t the one in charge there - most Israeli citizens certainly seem to want him gone, too - but wish in one hand, shit in the other, and see which one fills up faster.

        With Biden, we have someone in the White House who actually gives a shit whether Palestinians get to live. That’s a hell of a lot better than anything Trump has to offer.

        • TheHiddenCatboy@lemmy.worldOP
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          8 months ago

          Man, there’s a bajillion angles to this. We’re talking global politics here.

          Israel under Netanyahu has said that it will extinguish Hamas even if the entire world turns against them. And you can go down many paths looking at what happens if the US abandons Israel.

          First, some facts.

          • Israel has not imposed sanctions on Russia.
          • Israel maintains diplomatic relations with Russia.
          • Israel has not backed Ukraine in the war.
          • Russian is the third most-widely spoken language in Israel
          • Israel has the third largest Russian-Speaking population outside of Russia and other post-Soviet states.
          • Israel took a neutral stance on the Crimea invasion.
          • Netanyahu and Putin have a particularly close relationship.

          Now, just think for a moment what Russia might do if the US were to end its special relationship with Israel? I’m sure that’s weighing on Biden’s mind as he navigates the waters of reining in Israel’s attack on Palestinians. Putin is looking for ways to erode American influence world-wide, and this might well be an own goal if we just blindly drop Israel like so many of these…ahem, ‘dissenters’ seem to want us to do.

          Besides. Trump says Israel should ‘finish the job’ in regards to the Palestinians so I’m not sure how the … person below you thinks Biden is to the right of Trump on this matter. Unless ‘the right’ means letting SOME Palestinians live, and ‘the left’ means ‘invade their countries, kill their leaders, and convert them to Christianity.’ I mean, it’s not like some rightwing shithead ever said anything like that, amirite? Lol.

        • TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world
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          8 months ago

          With Biden, we have someone in the White House who actually gives a shit whether Palestinians get to live.

          Biden is, and always has been, a full throat-ed Zionist. He’s maybe the furthest right Democrat on this issue from his cohort/ demographic of senators. He’s hard right in this way. Further right than Trump. You are projecting nuance and your own desire to belief that Biden is good on Israel onto Biden beliefs. But by Biden’s own words and his stated beliefs, he is doing pretty much exactly what we would expect him to do in support of Zionism. If you map current actions onto his previously stated beliefs, nothing is out of order. The only change has bee some lip-service sound byte level saber rattling. There is no need to project deep nuance onto the situation if you just look at Biden’s words and policy positions and map them to what he does. He lines up as a squarely Neo-conservative Zionist in rhetoric (preter Israels advancement of the genocide of the Palestinian people post October) and has lined up squarely as a Neo-conservative Zionist in action. He makes decisions and acts like the person he said he is.

              • pivot_root@lemmy.world
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                8 months ago

                His point is that Trump’s position is to absolutely flatten Palestine, and that would be far worse than Biden continuing his half-assed pussyfooting.

                When the only viable options for president are Trump or Biden, why would anybody who actually cares about Palestinian lives not do what they could to prevent Trump from turning them into glass and ash?

                • TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world
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                  8 months ago

                  His point is that Trump’s position is to absolutely flatten Palestine, and that would be far worse than Biden continuing his half-assed pussyfooting.

                  No fucking shit. Every idiot talking head is parroting the identical argument. And its not working, which is my point.

                  Trump isn’t president, Biden is. So Trump being better or worse is irrelevant and the argument is worthless. And that’s what they and (perhaps?) you don’t seem to get. The rhetorical approach of blaming Trump/ claiming Trump is worse, is having the opposite effect that I assume you think it should have. The argument they and you are making isn’t gaining Biden support, it is weakening support for Biden, and the insistence on this failed rhetorical approach is currently costing us the general.

                  Fucking stop. Stop apologizing for Biden. Stop defending it. Stop excusing it. Start demanding Biden do better or we’re fucked and you’ve guaranteed us Trump.

                  • pivot_root@lemmy.world
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                    8 months ago

                    You can both demand Biden do better and still meaningfully vote against Trump. These are not mutually exclusive actions.

                    By all means, threaten to not vote for him. Write him a letter saying why you refuse to donate to his campaign. Hold him accountable for his part in not condemning Israel and withdrawing support for them. But when the time comes in this election year, if you don’t actually vote for the Democrat candidate, you are undeniably tipping the scale in favor of the more genocidal candidate.

                    It’s not that anybody arguing to vote for Biden wants him to win. It’s just that nobody here wants Trump to win instead.

                    If you can’t understand the cost of Trump winning, good luck to you, and thanks for ruining it for the rest of the country.

              • Blue_Morpho@lemmy.world
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                8 months ago

                I’m doing what again? I asked about Trump for the first time.

                When you vote for candidates you compare and contrast their positions on the same topic.

                I read your long post about Biden is a Zionist so how does that compare to Trump’s ideas on Palestine?

                • TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world
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                  8 months ago

                  Its irrelevant because right now, Trump isn’t president. Biden is.

                  You apologetics are costing us this election. Stop.

                  • pivot_root@lemmy.world
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                    8 months ago

                    If you mean “us” as a third-party voter, you will never win the election as long as the system is still first past the post.

                    If you mean “us” as a Republican, then all I can say is that you’re the problem for not taking the trash out and letting him run again in 2024.