Both the president and his reelection campaign are going after his coup-attempting predecessor even before the first GOP primary ballots are cast.
A full year out from the 2024 presidential election and nearly two months before Republicans cast their first primary ballots, President Joe Biden and his campaign are assuming that Donald Trump will be his opponent and have already started reminding voters why they threw him out of office in the first place.
Biden personally has stepped up criticism of his coup-attempting predecessor and is framing the likely rematch as one that will determine the survival of American democracy.
“The same man who said we should terminate the rules and regulations and articles of the Constitution — these are things he said — is now running on a plan to end democracy as we know it,” he said last week at a fundraiser in Chicago.
“This next election is different. It’s more important. There’s more at stake. And we all know why: Because our very democracy is at stake,” he told a San Francisco audience on Wednesday.
That would be nice. But we need to live our lives in reality.
It’s been shown using decades of analysis that voting for the lesser evil ALWAYS moves you to the right. We will not vote our way out of this. If Biden gets into office again, he will fulfill his purpose as the political ratchet, preventing leftward movement. Just as he has done now, with his refusal to pick postal governors who will get rid of the definitively election tampering DeJoy. Just as he’s done with his record police funding. Just as he’s done with his ceaseless support of genocide in Palestine. Just as he’s done with his action preventing rail workers from ever again having the right to strike( and don’t hit me with that, they got 4 days of sick time, that’s totally a victory, because it’s not.). Just as he’s done with his refusal to even make a statement on cop city. Just like he’s doing by directing his DOJ to suppress pro-Palestinian protestors in universities and cities.
If you want change, stop acquiescing to their system, and demand it. Change happens in the streets, not the ballot boxes. Vote for harm reduction, I will, but make no illusions about it, you are not in any way making things better, that work is done not by voting, but by acting collectively.
I quickly scanned over this after I saw the words “Decades of analysis.” [Citation needed.]
I will not be reading the rest unless I see a citation for this authoritative abstract you’ve written.
Do you have a researchgate or JSTOR account? It’s not gonna do any good to link you if you can’t read it, because in th is society academic information is locked behind paywalls unfortunately.
Forgive me if I’m not willing to accept an authoritative statement based on data without access to the data. But I’m not willing to take that leap.
The problem, as I see it, is we live in a flawed democracy and the path to change by definition lies with getting the most progressive candidates possible in office unimpeded by regressives. It’s the only reasonable way to get change. It will be slow, it will not always be exciting. But in the meantime, I have to put food on the table and manage my life, so taking to the streets is not a reasonable long term solution for me.
I’ll continue donating to progressive causes, voting, and arguing online. It’s the bandwidth I can spare.
I suspect we agree more than we disagree and our differences are a matter of degrees.
My issue with that, is change has historically happened in this country not through the ballot box, but the soap box. We didn’t vote pro union politicians into office, we literally fought and died by the hundreds against the government and companies until union rights were enshrined into law. We didn’t vote pro-civil rights politicians into office, we rioted in the streets in what was called the “Long Hot Summer”. You know? Like I said, I’ll vote for damage control, but I have no illusions that it will effect change in any of the many ways we need radical change. That will come from the bottom up, not the top down. We will force politicians to do what we will, and since we have NO methods for redressal of grievance through the system (no, someone serving their full term and possibly not getting re-elected is not redressal of grievance), we have to do so outside of the system, through direct action.
Thankfully, we’re seeing that now. People are doing the right things now, like interrupting politicians at dinners and events, and blockading imperialist corporations and preventing movement of weaponry, and sabotaging facilities to prevent their use by the state for oppressive purposes. Make their lives impossible. Make them live in fear of what will happen to them if they reject the will of the voters more than they fear what will happen if they reject the will of their donors.
That’s what wins fights, not saying, “I am gonna vote blue no matter who”, which immediately tells them they have no incentive to change because you’ll vote for them no matter what.
I don’t disagree. I just think everyone should do what they can. I am doing what I can. If you have the capacity to be in the streets, I genuinely applaud you. I would encourage you to continue exercising your civic rights, donating, and getting your point of view out there.
I prefer to give my money directly to causes that help people, rather than helping the charity Industrial complex. So, no, I don’t donate, but I do engage in mutual aid and supply gratis goods to anyone I meet who needs something I can provide. I even raise chickens purely to give away their eggs to people in need, I don’t really eat meat. I’d encourage you to do the same, your money goes a lot farther than when it’s funneled through capitalist institutions. I can feed 50 people breakfast on what a charity needs to feed a couple.
That said, I agree. Do what you can, but don’t discourage others because they don’t share your perspective. For many in this country, conditions definitively do not change regardless of who is in power, and have been declining for decades.
My family and I donate a generous amount of our time and money across a variety of political, environmental, and philanthropic organizations.
Thank you for your generosity, for sure.