“Barack Obama is the best speaker in the Democratic party and the second best speaker in his family.”
Crowd sizes lol
Both Obamas had fine speeches tonight, but Reverend Warnock was superlative.
Chaff post
The Obama’s were right on point by Obama standards. They delivered extremely well crafted rousing speeches, positively dripping with charisma in a way that almost papers over how shallow their sentiments are. The thing I dislike about the Obamas more than anything, is that they are determined to channel a tremendous amount of talent and good will toward preserving the entrenched power structure that is ultimately the main thing that’s rotting out this country. They are feel-good oligarchs.
You don’t seem to know what an oligarch is, which kind of devalues your whole comment.
Also I think you are just straight up wrong about their motivations.
I went and looked up definitions of ‘oligarch’ to make sure I didn’t misspeak. Nearly everything I found lines up perfectly with the point I was expressing.
Your focus on motivations isn’t a useful way to evaluate figures like the Obamas. It doesn’t matter what’s in their hearts, only their actions. What difference do their beliefs make, if their actions are harmful?
Obama’s entire administration was filled to the brim with actions and inactions that had the effect of protecting and preserving entrenched power structures. Here’s several examples:
Obama chose to let the individuals and organizations directly responsible for the 2008 economic collapse to avoid criminal accountability. Obama massively increased the use of lethal unmanned drones and instituted a policy of retroactively classifying civilians killed by them as combatants because of those individuals proximity to the resulting explosions. Obama sacrificed the Supreme Court seat that would lead to Roe’s overturning by choosing to not challenge McConnell’s unprecedented months long stalling. Michelle Obama’s misguided “when they go low, we go high” sentiment perfectly characterized the ineffective, elitist political strategy that enabled trump to win in ‘16. I can go on and on with examples.
What about them embodies an oligarch? What about them is insincere?
Do you have anything to support your assertions, or was this just a random ass rant to try and sound cool and like your know what you’re taking about? Because it doesn’t feel like you know what you’re taking about.
Nothing you’ve said has been accurate or made sense yet.
Made sense to me. “DO SOMETHING!”
Like what?
It gets the crowd fired up without providing any productive outlet for that energy.
Barak appealed to our shared humanity. As a trans woman, he asked me to understand the views of people that wish I was dead.
Maybe it’s good politics, but I don’t have to like it.
By oligarch, I am referring to a small, exclusive group of rulers that hoard power.
I have already said that their ‘sincerity’ is irrelevant to my point and a useless way to assess people like this.
To address the specific examples I raised:
Providing legal cover to white collar criminals protects the ruling class that Obama served as president.
Crafting the legal framework to indiscriminately kill civilians protects the enforcement mechanism that the ruling class needs to project power.
Failing to defend an open Supreme Court seat opened the door to removing rights to bodily autonomy and moved us closer to a theocratic autocracy.
Celebrating a strategy of rhetorical weakness against racists and fascist, made it easier for them to win the White House in 2016.
Do you have anything to support your assertions, or was this just some pedantic, contrarian troll posting?
I’m sorry, I need to support my assertions?
Which assertions did I make?
I asked for your sources, and you just gave rhetoric back in response. I’ve asserted nothing, other than without you providing proof of assertions, you sound like a teenager trying to be edgy with a weak grasp of politics and world /American history.
Your claim to try and whataboutism me on asking for supporting assertions continues to support the narrative that you don’t really understand the terms and topics you’re throwing around. Your heart is in the right place I think, but you’re coming across in a way that’s damaging to your argument or point because of some simple mistakes and erroneous assumptions you’re making and continuing to defend (like Obama is an oligarch, which he absolutely is not, and if you ever lived or visited a country or met a real oligarch, you would understand that. This de-legitimizes much of your argument to many people.)
Of course Obama screwed up and made mistakes with things like the supreme court position. He, wrongly, assumed Republicans would play fair and the voters would hold them accountable if they didn’t.
He was brutally wrong. He addresses that issue, and others you’ve called out in his book and there are numerous witnesses and sources to back him up.
But do go ahead and try to demonize him, without acknowledging that pretty much every other president in modern history did much worse. That’s not to excuse the mistakes he did make, but much of what you’re claiming is just rhetoric.
It’s interesting to me that I keep running into some version of the following argument: Yeah, Obama kinda sucked as president, but he had a heart of gold and there have been worse, so we should celebrate him! If you keep holding these people to such low standards, you’re going to keep getting such mediocre leaders.
yep. I loved the obamas-- still do. I’d vote for M Obama in a heartbeat over Harris. But I wanted so much more out of them. There was No work on justice or cop problems and a continued erosion of civil liberties under Obama. And picking Biden as his vp was cynical and gifted Biden tremendous soft power that he didnt earn. The price for that turned out to be a whole lot of brown mans’ blood spilled, and a terrible erosion of the western rules based order and the concept of democracy, and its not over yet. I guess I’m happy Obama was as good as he was, but man, what a missed opportunity for Obama to brand away from the dem centrism that increasingly is simply republican-light. If you had suggested in 2010 that Bdien being president would result in a lot of dead non-whites, closed border, and Roe going down in flames, it would have been spot on 5x5 Bidens stated policy choices. He’s always been anti choice, pro-police-thuggery, and anti minority for 50 years, but so many dems are pretending he’s jesus christ returned.
We are doing something, refusing to support another war mongering neoliberal.
So instead support a felonious warmongering rerun fascist billionaire Wall Street cock holster?
We play the cards we are dealt and put pressure where we can to force their hands. If every pork chop were perfect, we wouldn’t have hotdogs.
This. Cornel west and Jill Stein are not options in this. If you live in a safely blue state, go ahead vote your heart out.
But just know that there is no scenario where West or Stein win. If that doesn’t happen and Trump wins, we will not have another election. Trump is literally going to put the most evil anti democracy zealots into very powerful roles. And with a Republican scotus, we will be fucked. That is the outcome here. So you can be pragmatic or vote your conscience but the risk is that we will be fucked.
If there’s one thing that 2016/2020 should have taught us is; presidential elections matter not just because of who is leading the country but who is selecting judges and filling very important roles in the government. Ultimately, our lesson should be that things can always get worse.
One of Jill Stein’s major international positions is that the US should immediately withdraw from NATO.
Now, let’s ask ourselves: which parties on the world geopolitical stage would massively benefit from that happening?
TL;DR: don’t vote for Stein, under any circumstances.
I know hardly anything about West, though. But I agree that everyone pushing 3rd parties as a valid choice in the general has their head firmly up their ass.
That’s considered a positive outcome if you are on .ml.
our lesson should be that things can always get worse.
If you haven’t noticed things have been getting worse. And electing Democrats again and again hoping things will change isn’t working out so well. Their role is to protect that status quo, to ensure things DONT change for the better.
Trump is literally going to put the most evil anti democracy zealots into very powerful roles.
And if Harris continues to support what Israel is doing in Gaza, then we already have evil anti-democracy zealots in our most powerful roles, so what’s the difference?
Equating the Israel-Gaza conflict with anti-democracy is absurd. One side literally wants to end voting, destroy the Constitution, and install a fascist regime that would be far worse for everyone, including Palestinians. If you can’t see the difference, then you’re part of the problem. Go ahead and pretend a hockey puck is an ice cream sandwich if you want, but don’t drag the rest of us into your delusions. Either you’re being intentionally deceitful, or you’ve got the cognitive capacity of an empty bucket.
One side literally wants to end voting, destroy the Constitution, and install a fascist regime
And the other side just supports that in occupied Palestine.
See the difference yet?
No.
“Nuh uh, you”
Fucking child. Go back to the fucking playground.
You should just admit you don’t care about Gaza.
I didn’t realize Trump supports the Palestinians!
Dude. Take the time to read and comprehend. Things can always get worse. Do you think Trump will help Palestinians?
Removed by mod
We really need you to pull your head out of your ass. The extremely simple reality follows, and I am speaking for every reasonable person:
The situation in Gaza is not supported by us. It’s evil. It should not be happening. We condemn it. However, we also recognize that around our elections some war or conflict occurs. Moreover, possibly more than any other time in modern history, we are educated.
It is precisely the idea of malicious and evil persons intent on causing as much harm as possible why we must turn inward and focus on stopping more damage from occurring. Harris, Walz, Biden, they are not the same. We need you to back up and look at the larger picture. In fact, traditionally Republicans have used wars and conflict to distract the Left leaning voting bases. They know their supporters will, quite literally if you let them, go in guns blazing in support of war, all of them yelling some false patriotic zing of a bad battle cry. Meanwhile, the rest of us condemn it in various ways and that breaks us apart.
Look, I understand your frustration. To you it must appear as if we are okay with people dying. We’re not. We just accept that if Trump, and more importantly the people who coerce their way into certain positions, are allowed to take the Presidency that it will get worse. Much worse. We aren’t willing to let that happen due to ethical or moral quandaries. As gross as it is to have to turn inward and focus here when people are being killed. We have a job to do.
Fail that and we may as well apologize to the entire world.
The situation in Gaza is not supported by us.
But it is. It is supported by Biden. Biden is protecting Netanyahu at the United Nations, as well as supplying money and weapons.
Biden could stop what’s happening with a phone call.
But he won’t do anything unless there are electoral consequences. That’s politics, and Biden is a politician.
It works both ways and they know that. They’re aware that those of us that do care also know we need to beat Trump. Our consequences are greater than theirs. The push for Harris-Walz is in acknowledgement of this and an opportunity for us to have a voice.
Trump enters THE seat of power and your words won’t only fall on deaf ears, there may be provisions created to silence you as well. You obviously don’t like it, this is how it is. We have to do it one step at a time. That is the current limit of our voice, and the step is pointing towards stopping Trump and dissolving the modern Republican Party.
Right now it’s either help support the people who may listen, or let in those that have literally said they will make it worse. Stubborn as you are I’m sure you can weigh the odds on this one.
Vote for Superman if you must, but he won’t do anything for Gazans because he is not real. You can’t punish the people asking Israel nicely to stop killing people by withholding your support and allowing people into power that want more death and destruction.
The message that sends is they need to move further right, send more weapons, start killing more people directly, withhold aid, give cart blache to the IDF because the only people that vote are the people that want the Palestinians dead.
the people asking Israel nicely to stop killing people
The Democrats are not asking Israel to stop. The Democrats are proving Israel with war funding and weapons, and protecting Israel from consequences at the United Nations.
They’re politicians. You can’t judge them by their words. Only by their actions.
Yeah, that’s basically what they want. They are fine with the new rabid brand of GOP fascism ruining the country and the western world.
Many of these people are the ones who chant “death to America.” They just want to burn it down on the chance that something better might replace it someday in the future. Never mind the fascism and death that would result in the meantime. They’re not shy of violence anyway, but it’d be easier for them if it’s someone else doing it. It’s why they support leaders like Putin and Kim - they may be objectively shit, but they’re against the west, so…
The naive idealism is just a means to manipulate otherwise well-meaning people into supporting their cause. I don’t like choosing the lesser evil either, but when full-blown fascism is on the ballot, along with even worse outcomes for Palestinians, it’s obvious what needs to be done.
If every pork chop were perfect, we wouldn’t have hotdogs
Lmao I’ve never heard this saying before, love it
Point to where I said I would support trump
Then who ya voting for there buddy? An intentional vote splitter? Captain Brainworm? Or the Russian plant Jill? 40k votes in 3 states was all that was between the death of democracy with trump term 2. Attempting to siphon off votes to 3rd party runs is at best hurting the country, at worst condemning it to collapse.
Then I suppose Democrats should have listened to leftists and not supported a candidate that had no chance of winning. But instead insisted that ‘it was her turn’ and that you did t need our vote to win
Splitting the vote implies that we would have supported your right-wing warmongering candidates If there were no other third party candidates on the ballot, we would not.
There’s a better chance of you finding something in Donald Trump to support than a leftist supporting either one of your hand-picked corporate installed political candidates
What is your opinion of the idea that this position may make you indistinguishable from a Trump supporter?
I’m not that guy, but my two cents:
Both the fascists and the communists want to overturn the liberal system, it’s about the only thing they actually genuinely agree on. Fortunately the actual full-on seize-the-means-of-production sorts are a vanishingly tiny percentage of the American population, and the two factions are otherwise completely antithetical to each other, with fascism being pure hierarchy and communism being no hierarchy. Liberalism in all its forms sits between these two extremes.
Lemmy, being international and non-corporate, is a small hub for the community though, with .ml (the more moderate ones) and .grad (the full-on tankies) being their homes.
I’m generally not worried about them. They know full well the fascists would literally try to eradicate them, that’s a primary component of fascist philosophy going back to Hitler. They also won’t be able to gain much of a foothold in the US until they can demonstrate a large-scale example of success somewhere, which is difficult when even China of all places has moved away from communist economic principles in recent decades. They will never stop hating liberals unfortunately, since we’re clearly not communist and stand in their way. We at least permit them to exist though, when there’s no McCarthyites running things anyway.
WHAT COMMUNISTS??
Dude what the fuck are you even talking about?
Check out .grad and you’ll see pretty quick.
Lmfao paint brush nonsense, maybe you should take your two cents and invest it
Bold of you to support the warmongering fascist instead.
At this point in the game, you either support Kamala, or you’re a fascist. Sorry, but the stakes are very high and very obvious, and anyone voting against Kamala is asking for tyranny.
Get with the problem, or else.
They’re an .ml, of course they want the full fascist dictatorship in America. They want their preferred economic system, state capitalism under authoritarian management, to gain influence globally.
Dude just say you’re a fascist. You aren’t fooling anybody here.
I’m not the one supporting blue or red fascists
Lmao you aren’t fooling anyone.
By definition, fascism is a right wing movement. You can’t be both blue and fascist.
Fascism is a right wing ideology, as is the entire DNC.
The DNC is not “right wing” by any stretch of the imagination.
The Overton window in America is a bit fucked
Compared to international politics the DNC is very right wing. The Overton Window wouldn’t exist without the DNC pushing their party and the country to the right.
Obama acknowledged his policies would be viewed as moderate Republican in the 80s. Enabling right wing policies with their ratchet effect helps push the party further to the right.
He also acknowledged Richard Nixon was more liberal than he was.
We aren’t talking about international politcs, we’re talking about the DNC and when the right wing is carrying tiki torches and chanting “Jews will not replace us”, NO, the DNC is NOT “right wing”.
A good modern definition is 1. belief in inequality 2. based on a mythological identity.
Unfortunately the marxist-leninists have their own definitions and basically speak a different language.
Removed by mod
Removed, civility.
Republicans probably don’t see themselves as fascist either
Removed by mod
Do not attack other users, that includes bot accusations.
So if I see a bot, I should treat it like a real person, because calling out bots is an “attack”?
What else is an attack? Calling out trolls? Do we need to act like they’re acting in good faith?
What about disagreement? Am I going to get in trouble for telling you that you’re doing a bad job as a mod for running protection for bots and trolls?
If you see what you think is a bot, report it and let the mods handle it.
So if I see propaganda, and my peers are falling for it, you expect me to say nothing and delegate power to you, so you can sanitize your community. But my peers? They can stay fooled…
No. If I see something, I’m going to say something, because people should share with the community (not just its leaders) when they see something suspicious.
Propaganda only works if we don’t call it out. Bots are run by people with agendas, and everyone here is target.
You can counter something without accusing them of being a bot or a foreign agent, but yes, also report it.
So if I see a bot, I should treat it like a real person, because calling out bots is an “attack”?
The problem is that a lot of people cry “bot” or “troll” anytime they disagree with what a poster has posted. I’ve been accused of being a bot too. And a troll. Many, many times.
But I’m not a bot. Or a troll. And that’s why it’s uncool.
When you do a hundred posts and comment a day it’s understandable that people would confuse you for a bot.
I’m not a troll
That’s actually not for you to decide. If your behavior is constantly inflaming the community, people will brand you a troll and it doesn’t matter how “uncool” you find the label.
As for “bots” that’s a pretty generic term inorganic content. A bot could be an LLM, or some guy in a cubicle posting from a script. If you’re constantly wandering from thread to thread pushing the same agenda, regardless of the thread topic, people will call that out as suspicious.
Tl;Dr: Bots and trolls have recognizable patterns, so avoid doing things that make you look like a bot or a troll.
(And no, I’m not calling you specifically out as a bot or troll, I’m just explaining where the suspicion might come from)
That’s actually not for you to decide. If your behavior is constantly inflaming the community
That actually IS for me to decide. If my intentions are pure, and some people in the community get inflamed, that’s on them. Doesn’t make me a troll.
Tl;Dr: Bots and trolls have recognizable patterns, so avoid doing things that make you look like a bot or a troll.
That’s not for you to decide. Your air of superiority in your post could def lead some people so say you sound like a troll or a bot. Does that mean you are one?
refusing to support
I think Ms Obama did mention the ‘goldilocks complex’. I feel she was speaking to the “I can’t support an imperfect option so I’ll avoid voting and ensure the conservatives win even though that’s the worst option” crowd.
If liberals want our vote then they need to provide better options with candidates that will earn our vote, and not demand it. But the better option would be for liberals to abandon their party which keeps shifting further and further to the right and embraise other options
That’s not how this works. That’s not how any of this works.
So your solution is never hold them accountable for their actions despite it leading to the murder of brown people? Is that how it’s supposed to work?
How is splitting the left-leaning voting bloc and allowing a more unified group of fascist to roll into power going to hold anyone accountable? Making it so one set of politicians don’t get what the jobs they want isn’t holding the warmongers among them accountable in any meaningful sense.
The liberal myth of splitting the vote is exactly that a myth. even if there were no 3rd party candidates on the ballot, we would not vote for your piece of shit fascists.
Democrat voters may be left leaning, but the politicians that they’re supporting or not.
You sound a lot like the German communists in 1932, refusing to support the liberals even though they had more seats in the Reichstag than the conservatives or the fascists. How did that work out for them?
It was the liberals electing someone that capitulated to Hitler that was the problem. How did that work out for them?
The liberals did not elect Hitler. The conservatives did. The liberals failed to form a government because the next 3 largest parties, the conservatives, fascists, and the communists, refused to form a coalition with them.
Then the opportunity arrose for the next largest party, the conservatives, to form a government, and they did so with the fascists.
Liberals elected Hindenburg, as the lesser evil, who gave us Hitler.
The lesson here is there is no such thing as a lesser evil, only evil
I seem to remember Trump making a little call recently, a couple of them in fact.
Nah, imma say it. The biiig spooky:
Fuck off.
Zzzzzzzz…
