What's the goal with this post? Not trolling, just curious - I'm not enamored with Biden but if he is the nominee, I'll crawl through a sharknado just to vote for him and get Trump out.

Our system is messed up, I'd love it if we could choose who we like best rather than least worst, and I'm all for holding people to their bad conduct regardless of political party, but what would be the desired outcome here? (Admittedly, I don't understand some of the memes.)

I understand the fundamental concern re: Biden, that all the UBI and universal healthcare and what not is probably just kind of a talking point until he wins the primary and then he’s obviously going to move right to get the centralist voters... then the spiral continues and next election we have (somehow) even a worse Republican. Unless this is just their death rattle.

I like Bernie’s policies. I’m an idealist. Unless something unprecedented happens (say lots of boomers die off and younger people rally to vote in a way that overcomes years of gerrymandering and voter fuckery) Republicans still “own” (lack of a better word) the judiciary and likely one if not two houses. I’m not sure what Bernie is going to realistically do (unless he inspires younger voters (and some of the more folksy voters) to get out. The polls suggest that’s not going to happen (more so for Biden than Bernie). I mean the spectrum of 100 year old candidates usually doesn’t get out the youth vote.

But I get the “Let’s get Trump out of the White House and stop the damage”. and pragmatically I would obviously do that as much as the idealist in me hates that (because that action is a feature of the status quo)

The cynical side in me says that the democrats will maybe win one term, be largely ineffective, (except for cozying up to business/1%/insurance companies blah blah etc and will eventually have the poor economy blamed on them, and then TrumpV2 and republicans will effectively gain power over all they’re branches of government again.

But I legit think America’s days as a superpower are over and the Trump Presidency is the season where America jumped the shark- and will never ever be what it was again. And at that point, I think that’s a good thing. America never experienced loss/real lessons after WW2 (relative to other countries) and some of those old world pre-war quirks still exist in America. Likewise, America had their economies and scientists and markets really handed to them. America clearly has absolutely no idea how to build and maintain a proper infrastructure (vs Europe/Asia) and the lack of an outside threat to the 1% has made them too greedy.

And I don’t know if it’s bots- but I’m legit shocked at how many people defend billionaire and massive corporations. I mean trump just handed out a bailout that could have wiped out all student debt. America really is just a giant boiling crab pot like that.

All I’m saying is John Steward must be rolling in his grave and I’m glad he’s not still on TV having to deal with all this bullshit.

Sorry I rant when I don’t get coffee

Did I type all that? I doth protest too much.

Hey! I'm cynical too. I wanted Bernie or Warren. I think democrats, as usual, outsmarted themselves by voting for the "pragmatic compromise" too early when the primaries are set up to vote for the candidate that excites you.

Even if Biden is so generic and milquetoast that republicans win again in 2024, I don't see an alternative right now. Trump has spent 4 years replacing all opposition with yes-men sycophants. He is following a very real, very urgent authoritarian playbook. In 2016 we were shocked when Trump suggested he may contest the results of the election, and in only 4 years, we are basically all wondering whether any of us will trust it. By 2024 if Trump is in power? We probably will assume it is fully rigged.

My wife is from Mexico. The distrust Mexicans have with their politicians is endemic and overpowers any will to improve things. They believe every politician is correct, and that prophecy is self-fulfilling. Every administration loots public funds, burns their documents at the end, and leaves ashes for the next group of thieves. Only corrupt people eventually run for office, and nobody is surprised. That is the fate of the US if we do not immediately change course from Trump. It is nearly impossible to restore a democracy after it falls into authoritarianism or corruption without a revolution, and a painful rebuild.

I mean it’s the red state democrats that are locking it in for Biden- which annoys me, because they aren’t going to vote blue anyway.

Like why’s the DNC letting them massively sway the primaries if in the end their vote most likely won’t matter for democrats.

I mean I guess that’s the system we have but 🤷🏻‍♀️

Not riffing on you. Biden is an excellent moderate republican. Trump is off the spectrum. (Or perhaps it is I.)

You're still too neoliberal for my taste. ;) I blame california.

It's a dirty state filled with dirty people and when the revolution comes my SE comments will be used against me and I will be churned in the compost factories. What can a guy do tho? Probably end up voting green since CA isn't exactly Trump country. <3

Woo boy! Are you in for a lesson on US elections! Turns out you can't just vote any color. They have to be approved by your peers.

Just wait. We’ll see naked photos of Biden during the primary convention. That should change voters minds about voting for him

Oh, I won't. Y'all can have your squabblefest over which conservative racist rapist would be the lesser evil as if that's a thing, but I'll be voting Green or PSL. Plus if you think the media is going to stay quiet over this during a general you must've slept through 2016. The only thing anyone in the establishment, media or DNC, is concerned with right now is stopping Bernie and protecting the status quo. As soon as Bernie is out of the picture everything will be fair game again, the sexual assault accusations, the questions of senility, every lie told on the campaign trail, basically everything except who's funding them.

But to answer your question, this is cathartic for me because watching them be willing to lie and let people die in order to protect their safe little murderous system enrages me. I despise the ignorance they promote and the consent they manufacture. And that rage doubles when I see people on a site I own promote that same propaganda because they often don't bother with anything outside of cable news or the same corporate media funding the election.

I'm confused, was "people on a site I own promote that same propaganda" directed at me? I was really truly just trying to understand. I've been on SErection and now SEndowment for like two decades, and appreciate everything that you do to maintain the site, so my apologies if I gave any other impression.

My confusion is that I thought Russian propaganda was promoting the Bernie or Bust narrative. Russia's goal is to divide us, and the best possible outcome (and one that I believe they used successfully in 2016) is to weaponize our flawed electoral system to split the vote, discourage voting for democratic candidates, and overall just polarize supporters of both primary and general election candidates to give Trump another term,

The ideal outcome is that we change the system. If someone campaigned purely on moving to ranked choice popular vote, fixing the Senate's gross underrepresentation of populous states, and fixing the stolen Supreme Court seats, I would probably vote for them regardless of strategic concerns. But as it is now, even if I would rather vote for Bernie or Warren, I think in a plurality-takes-all, electoral college system, there are really only two viable parties.
I hate it, but it doesn't matter if you have 30% vote for far left candidate A, and 30% for mid-left candidate B, if far-right candidate C gets 40% and wins, that is a loss for all 60% of A and B voters.

So again, I was just trying to understand, because this seems like it's very vehemently in support of rejecting and polarizing against Biden, but it looks like Biden is going to be the nominee barring a statistically infinitesimal rebound from Bernie. And in that case, psychologically, Biden would appear poisoned as well, and we get the same situation as 2016 - false equivalence between Trump and Hillary, which reduced strategic voting and made it easier to accept a sociopathic narcissist just because he was different.

Personally, I want different. But I'd prioritize better. Do you think Trump is better than Biden?

I'm confused, was "people on a site I own promote that same propaganda" directed at me?

No, that's very much a blanket statement about the site overall. SE is not where I come for political discussions or a grounded understanding of what's going on in the world. The majority of my attempts at political posts are just to try and interject something beyond the typical rhetoric I could find on any other just left of far right site out there. That just is what it is.

Do you think Trump is better than Biden?

I don't know. However, I do think trying to sell Biden as a harm reduction candidate is pretty much impossible unless you're willing to be very selective of his career. You'd even be hard pressed to use the typical Supreme Court argument given that he is largely the reason Clarence Thomas is currently a Justice and Biden is still claiming that he's going to be able to work with Republicans despite being VP at a time when the republicans flat out stole a Justice seat from Obama. Even his climate change platform is barely better than Trump and is straight up dangerous if it becomes the de facto stance of the Democratic Party. Him and the Democratic party will be, as they are now, the biggest obstacles to getting anything of importance done while blaming the Republicans the entire time. Again.

TL;DR?: DNC is complicit in Trump’s first (and second) presidency.

Also the corporate media.💁‍♂️ The amount of hate and ignorance they've helped promote and propagate, rather than the people fighting it, absolutely helped put him in the White House.

edit: lol shit did I blame a massive propaganda machine funded by billionaires? I meant THE RUSSIANS!@!!!

but I'll be voting Green or PSL pretend to not understand how FPTP Two Party System works and take it out on the most vulnerable just to prove my point.

I fully understand how FPTP works.

take it out on the most vulnerable just to prove my point.

Joe Biden is literally going on TV and attacking Single Payer health care while championing a dying system in which millions fall through the cracks in the midst of a Pandemic. He has repeatedly throughout his career attacked medicare and social security. The upcoming student loan collapse can be directly linked to bankruptcy legislation he helped write and pass. Trump's Immigration policy is built on the foundations of a system that Obama's administration helped expand. Throughout his career he has been on the wrong side of almost every progressive battle the US has seen from Civil Rights for people of color to abortion to Gay Rights. Patriot Act, Iraq war, blah, blah, blah.

Joe Biden's entire career has been fucking built on attacking his country's most vulnerable.

I fully understand how FPTP works.

So, it's the two-party system part you apparently don't understand.

The presidential election is not the time to fix that (Article II, Section 1, Clause 2).

lmao, imagine actually thinking vote shaming people holds water when you currently have a president that lost the popular vote.

What?! Losing the popular vote is the fucking point!
When voting for the president, your protest vote doesn't matter. The electoral college assures that.

5% of the popular vote nationwide guarantees a third party recognition as a national party and grants federal funding for the next general election based on the percentage of votes received. It also secures ballot access for the party in a number of states who automatically determine what parties go on the ballot based on party turnout.

Is it likely to happen? For the Greens or the PSL? Nope, but neither is a dem party win at this point. And if I'm going to vote for a losing candidate I might as well at least use my vote towards something that might help while also not voting for a horrible excuse for a human being.

Joe Biden Lied in Last Night’s Debate — Italy’s Public Health Care Is Saving It From Collapse

There are some worries over health care in Italy today — and they owe precisely to the fact that the system has been chipped away over the last twenty-five years — indeed, “Americanized.” In the early 1990s, off the back of Clintonism and the “Third Way,” various legislative measures introduced quasi-market elements into our public health service, greatly weakening its effectiveness while also regionalizing control over it. This had the effect that only the richest regions (although, fortunately enough now, the ones where this epidemic has hit hardest first) could keep guaranteeing the same standards we had all become used to.

This legacy of privatization is weakening our response to coronavirus today. According to the World Health Organization, between 1997 and 2015, the number of intensive care beds in Italy more than halved, from 575 per 100,000 people to 275. Faced with such cuts, the private sector has contributed very little — given the difficulties making money off these particular services. From 2009 to 2017, austerity measures taken as a supposed response to the economic crisis meant that Italy lost 8,000 doctors and 13,000 nurses.

Media saying "media silent" is a perpetual head-scratcher.

"Trust me, baby, I'm not like those other medias."

Not if you can compartmentalize.

I lot of usually newsworthy things are placed in the back-burner.

There are at least 20 cruise ships still adrift that they are not allowing to dock. They have dead bodies still on some of these ships to this day and people are continuing to get infected.

What morons are still getting onboard cruise ships?

No. These ships were already out on their tour schedule before the mandated quarantines were called for their return docks. They have people with confirmed COVID-19 and the authorities refused to let them dock.

Most of the ships we heard on the news already returned, but these 20+ ships are still not allowed back.

The latest info I could find is there are at 10 ships that remains adrift.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/27/stranded-at-sea-cruise-ships-around-the-world-are-adrift-as-ports-turn-them-away

The Zaandam was on a South America cruise that departed from Buenos Aires, Argentina, on 7 March. That was after the media was already widely reporting that there were already cruise ships stranded due to the coronavirus. The only reason that I can think that people are still getting on cruise ships, and going on other vacations, is that they didn't want to lose the money they had spent.

Argentina reported its first case of coronavirus that day. (3/7)

Many countries pretty much ignored global news and took action only after it hit their country.

Even with 5 cases in the US in February at the time, people were still going to their scheduled cruise. I had relatives that were still able to go on their Caribbean cruise in mid February. Federal government announced restricted travel and isolation guidelines the day after they returned from the cruise.

I know people were going on cruises, that doesn't mean it's a good idea, even if the government hadn't put restrictions on it.

Right. Me and several other relatives were just glad nothing bad happened with them, but it was really stupid and risky. They had a baby and a toddler with them during the cruise and it's a good thing nobody on the ship got sick or was carrying covid-19.

Media are not reporting on this.

When my ship goes from being The Love Boat to The Dearly Beloved Boat I'll be getting Julie, our Cruise Director, to place the bodies on the back burner, as per Doc's instructions.

Then? It's time for a game of coits on the poop deck!

Norwegian Cruise Line, Julie Cruise Director?

lmao. Thanks, The View.

🤔🤔🤔