The line Joe Biden used to put into nearly every big speech — “I’ve never been more optimistic about America’s future” — is a long way from what he says in private now.The line Joe Biden used to put into nearly every big speech — “I’ve never been more optimistic about America’s future” — is a long way from what he says in private now.
These days, multiple people who’ve spoken to him over the last year say, Biden often punctuates conversations with: “You think we can actually come back from this?”
The 83-year-old Biden continues to feel out a post-presidency that may prove to be one of the shortest in history and is already one of the most complicated.
There are days when Biden is heartbroken, indignant or in disbelief about what is happening as President Donald Trump — the man he defeated in 2020 — returned and moved not just to tear down his accomplishments, but to dig in with petty insults like the autopen photograph he put in Biden’s spot in the “Presidential Walk of Fame” installed at the White House.
Yes it’s definitely not the people who voted for Trump or that decided not to vote at all.
It was your party
Two things can be true.
People shouldn’t have abstained from voting to protest the DNC’s position on a genocide that is still happening under Trump (a guy who wants to turn Gaza into a resort town once the Palestinians have been exterminated) alongside everything else he’s doing domestically as well as the trade and diplomatic clusterfucks. They let perfection be the enemy of progress and that was clearly a mistake.
But Biden also should have released the Epstein files, he should’ve stepped down as a one term president and allowed a primary to decide the next candidate, the DNC and Biden/Harris campaigns should’ve ran much stronger campaigns rather than assume “we’re not Trump” would do enough of the work for them. They did nothing to rally the base and motivate people to go vote.
There’s plenty of blame to go around. It’s no one group or individuals fault.
If a persons red line wasn’t genocide they don’t deserve support, they deserve to lose
Frankly, they deserve a trial at the Hague
You gave them the option between genocide and genocide. We told you that this would lose the election for the Democrats. You got the outcome you advocated for.
Genocides are horrible things that should never happen but too many people are using the word as critical-thought terminating cliches.
It’s like trying to talk to an anti-abortionist and the only thing they can do is call you a baby killer.
You have to decide if you wanted to win the election or not, and its never been clear to me that you ever actually wanted to win. What its always appeared to be, is that you wanted to mantain ideological control of the party (which you did do, and have continued to: the party is still pro-genocide).
But what is clear, is that the party could not win with the general election with a Democratic candidate supporting a genocide.
How many house and senate democrats support Israel and how many don’t?
Did you want to win the election or not? The only path to winning was to get Harris to change her stance on Gaza.
Are you able to answer the question or are you dodging it because the answer doesn’t line up with the narrative you’re pushing?
They said, as they dodged the question.
Did you want to win the election or not?
The world now recognizes that the only path to winning was to get Harris to change her stance on Gaza. Do you?
I asked you a question and you dodged it.
Answer it and I’ll answer yours but there’s no reason to engage with you until you do.
God that argument is so disengenuous. It basically comes to “cater to us a vocal minority or we won’t play.”
You leftists scream about the genocide but what exactly did you accomish? Smugness? Superiority? I haven’t heard a single leftist give a shit about South Sudan or Myanmar. Leftists are quiet when it comes to Ukraine. But you’re incredibly loud about Gaza… you know, the crater where a people used to live because the crap candidate didn’t capitulate to your demands.
Well now everything is fucked, the US has zero creditability, our allies hate us, ICE is officially the Gestapo, and concentration camps are being built.
But hey. Continue the tired ass line about “well we should have had a candidate who was against the genocide.”
Fun fact. Historically, when fascists take control, the first ones they try to stamp out is leftists.
But at least you can sleep at night now knowing that because you didn’t vote for genocide, you now allowed one to be completed with impunity.
Well done tankies.
Edit: Joe Biden was a fucking pussy who didn’t do what needed to be done.
If this was any normal election, then I would have supported the protest voters.
The problem was that it wasn’t. Trump is trying to ethnically cleanse Latinos out of America. I knew this was going to happen and I wanted to avoid it.
Immigrants were pleading with protest voters during the election. There are Latinos who protested with them from the beginning that have now gone into hiding. I talked to an immigrant that was begging leftists to care, and they accused them of being for genocide just for wanting their family to survive.
It’s not that I hate leftism. But a lot of leftists are unsafe for POC and women. They are privileged enough to prioritize ideals over safety. I only trust leftists that are intersectional, not those who champion some mythical homogeneous global working class.
This guy gets it. And I’m still waiting for a leftist to acknowledge South Sudan.
I don’t really expect leftists to show the exact amount of empathy for every crisis around the world. Most people focus on issues that matter to them. Leftists are no exception.
My problem is that many assume they are the absolute moral authority. They don’t view their preferences for issues as being biased, just like that of liberals.
Like, it was pretty clear they cared more about Palestine than immigrants. Fair enough. The problem I had was the way they reacted to those who cared more about immigrants than Palestine.
They told immigrants they were crazy for worrying about Trump. They told them “it would have been the same” under a liberal, which goes against a lot of people’s lived experience. And when all else fails, they just blame the democrats for their failures.
I would have respected Uncommitted a lot more if they admitted they took a gamble that failed. Even though I’m against protest voting, I can at least admire that they stood up for what they believed in. They simultaneously want to be trusted with all the power, and use liberals as an eternal scapegoat for any failures.
Here I am, you can stop waiting fool
And…? So let’s see the same amount of Gaza energy on that.
You seem upset people are worked up about wanting a Genocide to stop in Gaza and it is confusing.
Yes cool, lets get some more energy, why would I not be in favor of more awareness about human rights crisises?..?
For being a minority we seem to hold all the power
Schrödinger’s anti-genocide vote. Simultaneously able to have determined the outcome of an entire election, but also not important enough of a coalition to address their concerns and bring them (back) into the tent.
Glad you think a slide into fascism is a joke.
I think DNC centrist clownshow leadership and constant failure at everything they touch is a joke. A sad one, but a joke nonetheless. At least they got paid by the zionists for selling us all out. Taking bribes sure wasnt a joke, was it u/Devolution?
The only joke jokier that that is your continued warpath in support of them.
This country has been fascist. Liberals bury their heads in the sand when it’s their team doing it
AP News 6 hours ago: Americans’ sympathies in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict have shifted dramatically, new poll shows
You’re heads in the sand thinking this is a minority extremist position. The people advocating for this saw where the winds were blowing and your ego still can’t acknowledge it.
I’m sure they appreciate the change in sympathies from the world.
Oh wait.
Wait is the point you are trying to make right now that less Palestinians would have died under Harris?
It is denial, it is shocking to these people that what they had minimized as annoying whiny leftist nitpicking was the largest geopolitical event happening on earth in terms of impact.
Would you want to be in their shoes? That isn’t just a marker of cluelessness and intellectual incompetence, it is damning to their very soul.
Going to war with Iran today and still the Democratic leadership is in lock step with Trump. This was something they all wanted and they are giddy Trump will take the heat for it.
Going to take away their staggering momentum going into midterms and it will some how be leftists fault again lol.
What did you reactionary centrists accomplish? You handed us Trump. We gave you the path to winning and you chose not to take it. Its on you.
Yeah, your fucking fault dude.
You couldn’t win the election otherwise. Did you actually want to win the election or not? Because it follows that if you defended the candidate while they held an unelectable policy position, you were doing the work to get Trump elected.
Leftists rarely show up anyways. But hey. Continue to shift the blame. Whining and doing nothing is what you do best.
Source your evidence liar
Not my burden. Show yours that they do.
I’m not shifting the blame. I’ve always blamed fake “centrists” (read: reactionary rightwing voters who wear a blue hat) for losing the election. Its your fault.
Did you want to win the election or not? Because there was a path to doing so: The candidate needed to change their policy on Gaza.
We show up, we just don’t vote for POS parties
So you don’t show up. Got it.
Didnt show up for you, that’s what you are upset about. Liberals hate leftists because we refuse to drag ourselves to the right with you, you want the confirmation that what you are doing is right and we won’t give it to you, because what you are doing is wrong
Its interesting how “we told you this would lose” equates to "you will lose because you alienate leftists.
The reality is voter apathy and a majority of the population choosing not to vote because they see no difference between the outcome regardless of who wins.
Democrats will do the same shit to appease Their donor bosses, they just feel a little bit of shame about the means they think justify those ends. Thats why youll never hear libs talking about somthing like abolishing ice, only better training them so they have less collateral damage.
The people who don’t see a difference are fucking morons. Biden never invaded any US cities.
Yes, dude the majority of American voters are morons. The people in this thread you are arguing against are not the same group, we are trying to advocate how to engage that moronic majority.
Advocate for policies that impact their life. Spending billions on Isreal, to fund their genocide or not, instead of domestically is a huge issue that people care about. Pointing out the genocide was pointing to the way the wind was blowing for public support.
ml is full of people who were advocating not voting because Harris wouldn’t condemn Israel loudly enough. Yes, it would be great to focus on improving the lives of Americans but there’s zero chance of that while republicans have a trifecta. Democrats can at least be pressured into doing the right thing sometimes.
Your comment reads like you think I’m a DNC strategist or something. I can’t directly control their messaging, but I can try to point out to people that by the time November comes around there are only two possible outcomes and having a hissy fit about Gaza is only going to make the world a worse place and that “I can’t vote for genocide” just helped the guy who is gleefully embracing all the genocides.
No I don’t think you’re an operative, but what I see (not just from you but plenty of people in online discourse) is excusing the actions of the Democratic party solely because Trump is bad.
The point that I will continue to shout from the top of the mountains, is that lesser evilism as a political strategy only enables fascism. We cannot counter its rise and current prevalence by just being slightly better. It takes bold impactful direction on how to improve people’s lives to energize and engage the population.
The average voter doesn’t care if a leader gleefully embraces genocide or just tactically enables genocide to fuel the military industrial complex. The outcome of wasted tax dollars to kill children is still the same. When we enable fascism abroad it always comes back to be used against us. We can see that with local police forces training with the IDF. Imperial Boomerang.
“Well at least democrats aren’t killing Americans” inevitably is the next step of justification. But here’s the thing, democrats don’t use their opportunities to de-miltarize domestic law enforcement. They are responsible for co-opting and killing 2020 BLM demands. They are responsible for folding during the 2025 government shut down and fully funding ICE.
We deserve better. It’s okay to say so. It’s necessary for us to demand it. You and I are not ideological enemies (I would hope).
.ml thinks Russia is liberating Ukraine they don’t mind that genocide.
Stop lazily gesturing towards a stereotype of someone to avoid engaging with them.
True, but they like to complain about it. If Harris had pledged to defend Gaza they would have just found some other excuse.
You are wasting your time my friend, these people will endlessly perform mental gymnastics to overcomplicate this into being something more than harm reduction.
Obama was the one who started building some of the camps both biden and trump use to imprison migrants. Tell that to all the people whos relatives they deported.
This is what i mean by no differnce in outcome, because yeah sure the dems are more sly about it, they dont “invade” cities, they let the state governments handle delpoying cops against protests, but they still fund the same agencies with the same agendas, they just have more competency about how to do it without making as much noise.
Here it is. Not pretending that this is about anything beyond your ability to claim the high ground. How has that worked out for Gaza?
Tankies cry about Gaza but don’t give a shit about Ukraine, South Sudan, or Myanmar. That lack of discussion there not only undermines their creditability, but it makes them look as antisemitic as MAGA.
Take a breather mate, you have lost the plot completely.
Still silent…
Single issue voters are one of the biggest problems with US politics. They’re willing to ignore everything else about reality. Doesn’t matter if it’s Genocide, LGBTQ issues, or Abortion, it’s the same outcome.
The worst option overall becomes the most likely.
You don’t control the electorate. You don’t have to like the way people are to recognize that they are in-fact that way. Stop confusing how you want the world to be with how the world is.
Candidates can either address the issues of those single issue voters or they lose the election.
Crickets regarding South Sudan and Ukraine…
Are we participating in those genocides like we participated in the genocide of Palestine? Are we the worlds police?
The answer is No to both questions. So the question becomes, why are you running interfernce for the genocide of Palestine? Personal for you, is it?
You’re right. This is personal for me. To know that dipshits like you with your “moral high ground” is why everything is so fucked.
But since your privileged white ass doesn’t have to suffer the consequences, oh well.
Oh wait, even white people aren’t immune to it. Just ask Alex Pretti and Renee Good. You can’t can you. Because they are dead and fucking ignorant tankies like you are the reason why.
Yeah it’s personal. People like you make me sick.
Nope, not at all.
Who’s “we”?
gestures vaguely at all the independent media coverage from 2023-2024
So you didn’t vote for Harris and you’re part of the Independent media?
I’m torn. Do you think what you are doing is more like the ‘Tu quoque’ fallacy or more of a ‘red herring’?
‘Tu quoque’ would be like, because we think you did thing X, your argument about A or B is invalid.
‘red herring’ would be like, instead of engaging the actual claim (that the campaign lost for strategic reasons), you’re trying to drag the conversation onto something about personal preference, which doesn’t answer the strategy argument at all.
Or it could just be an appeal to hypocrisy / circumstantial ad hominem, where you’re implying I don’t have standing to make the argument (or that my argument should be discounted) because of what you assume about my personal behavior.
Any which way, it doesn’t do anything to detract from my claims.
You said basically, “We told you so!” and I wanted to know who the “we” was. You said the “we” was independent media. So from that, I took it that you are included in the independent media. You’re also complaining about Harris a lot, so that lead me to believe that you didn’t vote for her as well. It could be that you voted for her, but you can see why others didn’t, that’s why I’m asking. I’m not pulling anything, just trying to see where you’re coming from and if you’re an American.
The perspective that Biden/ Harris needed to shift her position on Gaza, and as we approached November 24, that they needed to shift this position to win the election was in practically every political comment for almost 2 years before the election, and not just on Lemmy. Youtube, reddit, instagram, and especially tiktok; wherever you went on the internet, this argument was being made, consistently and regularly, on political content.
This was especially true for more left-ish media, where almost all of the Democratic or leftist aligned media, recognized and covered the tragedy which was Israels genocide in Gaza much more extensively than other media. If you were a potential Democratic voter, you were assuredly far more exposed to the recognition that there was a genocide in Gaza, that it needed to be stopped, that the administration wasn’t doing anything to stop it, and that neither the Biden nor Harris campaign made even the slighted overture that they would stop it in a future administration.
“We” is anyone, commenter or content creator (or journalist, if you aren’t into the whole brevity thing). People were ringing the bell that if Biden/ Harris, and later Harris/ Walz didn’t change their positions on the genocide in Gaza, they would lose the election. I consider myself to be a part of that contingent.
As long as people continue to blame voters for something that was a controllable mistake on the part of Harris, which was well known and well communicated for being a mistake at the time it was being made. Its important to keep bringing the focus back to the only party with sufficient agency to have made a different choice.
Only Harris had the agency, as an individual, to make a different choice to change the outcome of the election. It was clear they were losing the election by continuing to support Israel over Palestine. My comment history is right there. I was full blown coconut-pilled as soon as Biden stepped down. And as it became clear that Harris wasn’t going to take the opportunity to shift on Gaza, it was urgency to move the candidate became paramount. It was obvious that the Democrats would lose the election on the issue of Gaza as early as November of 2023.
Whether you or I personally did or didn’t do is beside the point. I’m making a claim about how incentives and strategic choices produced an outcome, and that claim stands or falls on the evidence about the system, the candidates, the actual election that happened, not on any individual behavior (with the exception of individuals in explicit positions of power). When you make it about individual behavior, your whole ass is showing. You are trying to distract from actually valuable conversation about what it would have taken to win the 2024 election for Democrats.
The argument was made in social media areas that are tailored specifically for you. This is going to sound snarky, but I sincerely don’t mean it that way. Even a 5 years ago, algorithms were tailoring your feeds.
For me personally, trump was a huge threat and he’s turning out to be worse than I imagined. I wasn’t seeing any Gaza stuff, because I kind of thought we would be more concerned about not having nazis in the white house.
The USA is a democracy; every one of us is responsible individually for what we do with our votes.
You, I infer, decided that the best thing to do with your vote was endorse the rapist who promised to do absolutely nothing to stop the genocide in Gaza over the candidate who at the least would have protested.
Which sure as fuck was your right, but it’s kinda weird that you’re trying to argue that this isn’t exactly what you voted for.
In a single-ballot plurality-wins-all election anything but a vote for the runner up is an endorsement of the eventual winner.
But the system we vote for isn’t responsible for enforcing laws like… *checks notes… putting 34 time felons in prison, preventing insurrectionists for running for office, and letting people who commit treason of stealing and selling state secrets to the highest bidder run for office? It’s all our fault huh? The system didn’t fail us first, huh?
You’re trying to place blame on an individual instead of a party that encourages policies that creates voter disenfranchisement.
Why is critical analysis attacked?
This is what I hear when people blame the voters: “Instead of one candidate changing their stance, millions of voters should instead change their stances!”
No. I’m recognizing the actual system we have pointing out that anti-genocide non-voters made a deliberate choice.
This isn’t a disenfeanchisement issue so much as it is a disengagement problem. There citizens had the sane franchise as everyone else, and chose not to go vote against a rapist.
There’s plenty of blame to slap on the Democratic party from the former president and candidate all the way down. But Biden not standing by his purported morals and Harris not breaking with him when he didnt compel non-voters not to cast a vote. They’re adults and citizens and should either stand by their choice and argure that it was correct or else concede that they made a mistake and would change it if they could
IF you are going to make that argument, you also have to provide a mechanism which can change the minds or engage the millions of voters necessary for Harris to win, otherwise its irrelevant.
Harris could have changed her policy to win the election. She’s a single individual, in the exact position of power to do precisely this.
If you can’t offer a credible mechanism for changing the minds of 6 million plus voters on the issue of genocide over the course of approximately 4 months (July/August 24 to November 24), you must cede that the only path to Harris winning was to change their policy.