The Defending Joe Biden Mega-Thread

Eacaraxe

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Right, but you're approaching this purely as a question of who to vote for.
I'll add to this.

"Swing voters" are a fictitious demographic in US politics. They no longer exist, least of all as capable of influencing election outcome. What replaced it are voters with partisan affiliation, whose decision point is whether or not to vote in the first place. 2020 was no different as it was a turnout battle, like every federal election since 2006.

The only faction in US politics right now with vested interest in preserving the myth of "the undecided 8%" are neoconservatives whose chickens came home to roost with Trump's ascent to power, and in the wake of it looking to influence the Democratic party further rightward rather than clean up their own mess.

The strategic goal of negative campaigning isn't to mobilize voters out of anger or fear. At least, not any more. It's now to demobilize voters who might cast a ballot for an opponent.

As far as positive messaging, here's where Democrats and Republicans differ. Trump is a credible source for "positive" messaging, at least in terms of how the majority of Republican voters see the world. Policy-wise, he's the same cloud of apartisan, imperialist, neoliberal miasma every president or presidential candidate has been since Reagan, but if we should all agree on one thing, it's that policy has nothing to do with US elections any more.

Meanwhile, Democrats fight tooth and nail to keep anyone who could credibly deliver positive messaging from so much as a nomination on any level of government.
 
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crimson5pheonix

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Across the US there's people sitting on warehouses and stores full of "Fuck Joe biden" merch and they are having a terrible week.
Admittedly, conservatives are still upset about Obama, people will buy and wear that merch long after anybody else cares.
 

Dirty Hipsters

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Across the US there's people sitting on warehouses and stores full of "Fuck Joe biden" merch and they are having a terrible week.
A lot of Brandons out there are going to be getting positive affirmation merch telling them "let's go!"
 
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Trunkage

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He's since gone on to make things worse. But again, the complaint here isn't really my complaints about Biden, it's about dem messaging. This whole chain of responses started with me happy Biden isn't the candidate anymore since now dem messaging might make sense finally.
You started to realise that the debate was organised by Pelosi et al to give Biden a last chance to prove his ability
 

Gergar12

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As opposed to seeing the election as "Republican" versus "not Republican"? What phoenix is doing, is judging the candidates and officers for what they actually did in office -- before becoming president and during -- and judging them on that basis, as opposed to pure aesthetics and kneejerk media response.

Frankly, Biden did far more damage to this country during his 36 years in the Senate than Trump ever has done or would do -- or for that matter, is even capable. His senatorial track record is that of support for every single piece of legislation that's systemically undermined and harmed this country since Nixon. You name it, he sponsored it, he whipped votes for it, he manufactured consent for it, or in some cases, his office authored or helped author it. The dire socioeconomic circumstances that gave rise to the tea party, and Trump, in the first place can be credited to Joe Biden more than any other senator over the past fifty years.

Biden couldn't even be arsed to reverse Trump's most toxic policies in office, just deliver increasingly-large piles of pork in the name of cutting inflation. Inflation that, lest we forget, is largely artificial and driven by shareholder avarice unleashed (and rewarded with lavish bailouts but no prosecution or re-regulation) by Biden's own senatorial votes in the '80s and '90s. I really wish I could say the Biden administration could have been bothered to try hiding their continuation of Trump's policies, but they didn't -- the media simply chose to not report upon it.

If you look (or looked) at Biden and saw "not Trump", you're an aesthetics voter. Which is far worse, in my opinion, than "enlightened centrism" for whatever that's supposed to mean now. Because with Biden, you got Trump's policies and worse, less transparency, less accountability, and eminently less public attention. At least with Trump, "moderate" (those don't really exist, the conflict is between hard-right paleocons and neocons) Republicans and corporate media had to walk a tightrope of appearing to not support Trump, as the actual policy positions and goals he furthered were very much supported by them.

And Harris will be no better; in fact, she'll be worse as we'll see an inglorious return of "everyone who doesn't support the policies is racist/sexist" as seen between Obama and Clinton as a smoke screen to manufacture consent for...Trump's policies.


I'ma just head you off on that. One wonders why Tulsi would be spontaneously and strangely name-dropped here...


Might the moment the moonbat also-ran single-handedly torpedoed Harris' entire political career (but for the smoke-filled backroom ratfuck lifeline) in a debate be why?

Seriously, y'all planning to vote blue come November should be shitting your pants at the prospect of this woman having to debate Trump. Harris is one of the worst debaters to take a presidential candidate stage since...shit, Dukakis? I think she may actually be worse, in fact.
They are both Russian plants that never attack the GOP.
 

Gordon_4

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In a world where people are paying $400 for gold-spray-painted Trump sneakers, what even is reality anymore?
Never have I more appreciated the opening verse of Bohemian Rhapsody so much:

Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy?
Caught in a landslide, no escape from reality
Open your eyes, look up to the skies and see
I'm just a poor boy, I need no sympathy
Because I'm easy come, easy go, little high, little low
Any way the wind blows doesn't really matter to me, to me
 

Satinavian

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The strategic goal of negative campaigning isn't to mobilize voters out of anger or fear. At least, not any more. It's now to demobilize voters who might cast a ballot for an opponent.
That is also very often the goal of people talking about how "both sides are not worth voting for" when they assume their audience might favor the other side.
 

Agema

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My understanding is that it is fake
It may as well be true, given the tidal wave of litigation that's going to flow.

If there's one thing that the USA has truly achieved greatness in, it's making work for lawyers.
 
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Seanchaidh

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That is also very often the goal of people talking about how "both sides are not worth voting for" when they assume their audience might favor the other side.
negative campaigning is the meta of American politics because it doesn't require lying. People might (and do) lie anyway, but it's important that it isn't required. 'Both' sides really are awful. The way to change this is to ditch 'the' two sides in favor of that which is not awful. This requires building a coalition outside the duopoly because the duopoly is committed in various ways to being awful.
 
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Phoenixmgs

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My stats were 3.7% of cities that had a BLM march also had some form of looting. So yes, there would be more than one city. The SIZE of the BLM protest means that's 3.7% is over 100 cities. Just I've already stated. That's over 100 instances of looting. (I'm pretty sure you could come up with 200 cases of looting over the 200 days.)

Looting here can mean only one instance of looting in that city over the 200+ days of BLM. Some of these are protestors stealing bricks from construction sites. Some of this was the destructive first day. Some looting was done by protestors. Some looting was done by right-wingers when they realised that BLM wasn't looting as regularly as FOX News pretended and wanted to get them in trouble. Many were done by opportunities that were for or against BLM. Some of these were just average looting that would have happened regardless of BLM because criminals need loot. Because that's how these statistics work. ANY looting was counted against BLM

Anyway, let's pretend that BLM did looting in all of the 3.7% of cities. Unless you think that 3.7% actually means most, you just provided more anecdotal evidence pretending it was a trend. And it isn't. Statistics remove made up connections, particularly from Fox. BTW, Jan 6 looted at 50% of cities they protested, if you include California protestors. Otherwise, it's 100%

And I probably wouldn't bring up the fact that the National Guard wasn't called up on an event organised by Donald. That was by design
So what you are saying is that I just happened to live in an outlier area where the city I lived in had looting and also the 2 the cities adjacent to my city also had looting? Or maybe your stat isn't super accurate (like people posting crime numbers and saying how great everything is). Now you're complaining that normal looting is tainting BLM looting numbers? Come the fuck on. At no time in my life were mall entrances and expressway exit/on ramps blocked nor was there ever the National Guard stationed at the Walmart. A group of random people shoplifting on an average Tuesday was not contributing to BLM looting numbers.
 

dreng3

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So what you are saying is that I just happened to live in an outlier area where the city I lived in had looting and also the 2 the cities adjacent to my city also had looting? Or maybe your stat isn't super accurate (like people posting crime numbers and saying how great everything is).
Phoenix admitting they don't know how statistics and outliers work, never thought I'd live to see the day.
 

tstorm823

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negative campaigning is the meta of American politics because it doesn't require lying.
You only think that because you hate everyone. I don't think any of these people are really so terrible that you could run an entire campaign on only the true things wrong with them.
 

Seanchaidh

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You only think that because you hate everyone. I don't think any of these people are really so terrible that you could run an entire campaign on only the true things wrong with them.
That says more about you than anything else.