Merged 2024 Election Thread

[lobosrul5]

Doesn't that mean you can't vote at all if you are not registered??

No. I'm a registered independent in fact. As far as the general election, anyone can vote. As far as the primaries we have a myriad number of rules. At last check only 7 states have completely closed primaries, which means you must be a member of the party to vote in the primary. Though, you can generally only vote in one primary. I think a few states are 100% open though.

Although a handful aren't considered closed only because you can re-register at the primary.

Then there's a few states, like California and Alaska, that don't really have party primaries. You just vote for whatever candidate and the top two go to the general.

We're actually more open than most other countries in how the parties choose their candidates. Our problem right now is, that turnout for primaries is much lower than the general. Only the hardcore members vote for the most part... so we get lots of super crazy right wing candidates on the GOP side.

ETA: we are a de facto two party state, we are however, not a de jure two party state.

 

[lobosrul5]

I'm not sure which "word" you are referring to but no matter. Here are your 2 preceding posts in the exchange.

If it's ideology and not intelligence then you are saying young voters can't recognize the danger their vote would pose if it allows Trump to get elected.

It is true, intelligence and ideology are not synonymous. But a voter would need a certain amount of intelligence to not let their ideology interfere with risking Trump getting back in office.

Your post reads like you are saying young voters wouldn't recognize the threat Trump poses, or, they wouldn't recognize voting for Stein or not voting could contribute to Trump getting elected. Or you are claiming their ideology would override their intelligence/common sense.

I think most younger voters are smarter than that.



I'm well aware of past trends. Are you aware of current trends or the fact the 2024 election is not going to be like any other election?

I'm sorry but I am seeing this attitude by the youngins on social media: Biden isn't perfect therefore I'm not voting for him, what did he do for me anyway, my life sucks under Biden. I don't know how prevalent it will be next November, or how many people spout BS on social media, then vote for the completely obviously superior candidate.

I'll also add, pretty much every candidate that I would prefer over Biden would also face some of the same issues. They are not tear down the system and start over type super progressives.

 

[Norman Alexander]

No. I'm a registered independent in fact. As far as the general election, anyone can vote. As far as the primaries we have a myriad number of rules. At last check only 7 states have completely closed primaries, which means you must be a member of the party to vote in the primary. Though, you can generally only vote in one primary. I think a few states are 100% open though.

Although a handful aren't considered closed only because you can re-register at the primary.

Then there's a few states, like California and Alaska, that don't really have party primaries. You just vote for whatever candidate and the top two go to the general.

We're actually more open than most other countries in how the parties choose their candidates. Our problem right now is, that turnout for primaries is much lower than the general. Only the hardcore members vote for the most part... so we get lots of super crazy right wing candidates on the GOP side.

ETA: we are a de facto two party state, we are however, not a de jure two party state.

I think the difference I am referring to is that what the US calls "primaries" are, to us, the equivalent of party-specific candidate selection. Here, this is completely separate and independent from any voter enrollment process.

 

[Stacyhs]

Having posted them leading up to the last election I'm not going through searching for them again.

The subject is dead.

Uh huh. Yeah. Sure. You betcha.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Having posted them leading up to the last election I'm not going through searching for them again.

The subject is dead.

You posted pics of Biden feeling little girls' nipples* up?

*Or whatever.

That shouldn't be too hard to find if said pics actually exist. I call BS on this claim.

 

[Tero]

Guy tries to explain Trump voters and the economic state we are in.

https://www.theissue.io/untitled-4/

So there's the median income, plummeting. Meanwhile, what level of income does it take to make people feel "comfortable," aka, safe? Over $200K, or almost three times the median income. That's an astronomical amount, in global terms, as we're going to discuss, and it tells us something is badly wrong at the heart of not just the American, but its social contract, too, or lack thereof.

OK, so far standard Robert Reich stuff. Where does Trump come in?

But while it's not Joe Biden's fault, it's also startlingly tone-deaf to go on trumpeting the message that the economy's doing fantastically well, which is what the Democrats are doing.

You can think of the way, too, that elderly people feel. Disheartened. Troubled. What happened to my nation? My society? The future?

I qualify as elderly. I know what happened: Trump. Before that: Fox News.
Trump enters:

. When holes exist where a functioning social contract should be, then a contest between demagogues emerges. Who's the most seductive Big Liar? Who can point the finger at the most powerless scapegoats, the most angrily? Who can alternate between coddling people savaged by the trauma of the feelings of abandonment and betrayal, and thundering at them in violence and rage and murderous fury?

More Reichian stuff (solution: tax the rich)

So why isn't the economy shrinking as a whole? The answer to that's that the rich have gotten mega-richer. The only reason, really, that the economy as a whole isn't shrinking is that the rich have gained while the average person's lost.

All this is a portrait of a dramatically failed economy. An economy that's failed in simple, literal terms: to produce enough prosperity for people to enjoy modernity's basic bargain—you get a life of relative comfort, plenitude, and upward mobility...and you leave everyone else alone to enjoy the same thing, too.

OK, tax the rich!

.... their old paradigms, they rarely acknowledge how deep a society's troubles really are, particularly its economic ones, which, left to rot, lead down into the abyss of scapegoating, violence, hate, and ruin. Instead, they tend to think that by just championing a cheery kind of false optimism, they can somehow fool or trick or just persuade people into going along with them. It almost never works.

But that was what Reagan did when his inflation was 13%.

....and 80% think the future's only going to get worse. Those are shocking levels to see in any society, but in a "rich" one? They're breathtaking.

Bidenomics won't fix that. It can't fix that, because it's not about that. Only a proper, full-blooded, robust attempt at even a rudimentary level of social democracy can.

So the solution is we want social democracy? The Trumpsters dismissed "marxism" and socialism. All we have left from his plans is Reich and "tax the rich." My personal solution of preventing the 1% owning even more? Inheritance tax. 20% at all property over 10 million.

 

[Delvo]

Guy tries to explain Trump voters and the economic state we are in...

But while it's not Joe Biden's fault, it's also startlingly tone-deaf to go on trumpeting the message that the economy's doing fantastically well

A big part of the Democrats' role in how we got into this mess is not just their usually going along with the policies that put us here, but also their insistence on campaigning with the philosophy "I don't care what the people actually think; I'll just respond to what I think they should think".

they tend to think that by just championing a cheery kind of false optimism, they can somehow fool or trick or just persuade people into going along with them. It almost never works.

But that was what Reagan did when his inflation was 13%.

As he said, it rarely works, but sometimes can. And the current trend we're on just got started in the 1970s, so it hadn't gotten nearly as bad yet as it has since then. And Reagan hadn't been an active participant in causing the problem, and was arguing to change things, not keep them the same. "Everything will be fine" lands differently when it's coming from an outsider talking about fixing things, from how "Everything's already fine" lands coming from one of the people who've been making it not-fine all along and are only promising to keep going the same old way.

Bidenomics won't fix that. It can't fix that, because it's not about that. Only a proper, full-blooded, robust attempt at even a rudimentary level of social democracy can.

So the solution is we want social democracy... My personal solution of preventing the 1% owning even more? Inheritance tax. 20% at all property over 10 million.

Practically everybody in the country wants that, including in red territory, and here we are with an election between two candidates who won't even talk about it, nevermind actually push for it.

 

[The Don]

The right wing media has somehow convinced people that a tax on estates over $10m is an attack on the middle classes. It's the same here in the UK where around 4% of estates are subject to inheritance tax but the government seems determined to cut or abolish it rather than, say, attempting to reduce child poverty.

 

[The Great Zaganza]

The right wing media has somehow convinced people that a tax on estates over $10m is an attack on the middle classes. It's the same here in the UK where around 4% of estates are subject to inheritance tax but the government seems determined to cut or abolish it rather than, say, attempting to reduce child poverty.

If children didn't want to live in poverty, they could form lobbying groups and bribe politicians - clearly, the millionaires just want it more.

 

[The Don]

If children didn't want to live in poverty, they could form lobbying groups and bribe politicians - clearly, the millionaires just want it more.

Fair point

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

....
Practically everybody in the country wants that, including in red territory, and here we are with an election between two candidates who won't even talk about it, nevermind actually push for it.

You mean they won't talk about the Bernie Bros solution you prefer? Because I don't see Biden not talking about one solution, invest in the working class.

The right wing media has somehow convinced people that a tax on estates over $10m is an attack on the middle classes. It's the same here in the UK where around 4% of estates are subject to inheritance tax but the government seems determined to cut or abolish it rather than, say, attempting to reduce child poverty.

The media does a piss-poor job over here explaining the capital gains taxes that are erased with inheritance. I take it there is a similar problem with the EU media?

 

[The Don]

The media does a piss-poor job over here explaining the capital gains taxes that are erased with inheritance. I take it there is a similar problem with the EU media?

The UK media does a very poor job but that makes sense because it's owned by people who want to avoid all taxes and inheritance taxes in particular.

I can't speak for the EU but anecdotally they seem less obsessed about inheritance.

 

[uke2se]

From a foreigner's POV, here's my take on the 2024 election:

Biden represents a standard US foreign policy, drifting towards dovish. This is something the rest of the world can work with. It's predictable and won't exacerbate global stability. The US remains the top global player. Conflicts will come primarily from actors who want to muscle in on this arrangement, namely China and Russia. It would be more or less status quo.

In the US, Biden represents a gradual shift towards - to me - common sense progressive policies. Free health care or college probably aren't on the table for his presidency, but opinion keeps shifting towards those, and Biden won't actively hold those sentiments back. Basically, we're talking about a gradual shift in the right (as in, left) direction.

Trump is predictable in a different way than Biden. Trump will predictably always take the side of the worst major actors in the world, the authoritarians. We can expect a much more isolated US, with a retreat from NATO and probably the UN. This will leave room for authoritarians to grab what they want. It will play into Putin's hands, allowing him a much more aggressive stance in Europe, possibly leading to more continental wars and/or an escalation of the conflict in Ukraine. China will probably also take the opportunity to move towards Taiwan. Furthermore, a Trump presidency will likely completely scupper any chance we have to mitigate climate change, over time leading to massive migration waves crashing into Europe and North America. In summary, a Trump presidency (just based on what he's said and done in the past) would completely alter global power balances and be a major boon for autocracy over democracy world wide.

In the US, basic rights for anyone not in the major in group (straight and white) will be worse off. It's likely that the US justice system - imperfect as it is today - will be completely broken, administering justice according to who you are as opposed to what you've done. Basic rights such as bodily autonomy will go away. Moreover, the system of government will change. It will be much more difficult, if not impossible, to change the government. Loyalists will inhabit all important positions and they will act to preserve the administration. The opposition will find itself scrutinized by a weaponized DOJ. Poor people will have it much worse, and the rich will get much richer. In short, a Trump presidency will mark a massive, quite possibly irrevocable shift towards autocracy.

So, that's why you'de better not **** this one up. It kinda looks bleak right now, so start working harder.

 

[The Great Zaganza]

From a foreigner's POV, here's my take on the 2024 election:

Biden represents a standard US foreign policy, drifting towards dovish. This is something the rest of the world can work with. It's predictable and won't exacerbate global stability. The US remains the top global player. Conflicts will come primarily from actors who want to muscle in on this arrangement, namely China and Russia. It would be more or less status quo.

In the US, Biden represents a gradual shift towards - to me - common sense progressive policies. Free health care or college probably aren't on the table for his presidency, but opinion keeps shifting towards those, and Biden won't actively hold those sentiments back. Basically, we're talking about a gradual shift in the right (as in, left) direction.

Trump is predictable in a different way than Biden. Trump will predictably always take the side of the worst major actors in the world, the authoritarians. We can expect a much more isolated US, with a retreat from NATO and probably the UN. This will leave room for authoritarians to grab what they want. It will play into Putin's hands, allowing him a much more aggressive stance in Europe, possibly leading to more continental wars and/or an escalation of the conflict in Ukraine. China will probably also take the opportunity to move towards Taiwan. Furthermore, a Trump presidency will likely completely scupper any chance we have to mitigate climate change, over time leading to massive migration waves crashing into Europe and North America. In summary, a Trump presidency (just based on what he's said and done in the past) would completely alter global power balances and be a major boon for autocracy over democracy world wide.

In the US, basic rights for anyone not in the major in group (straight and white) will be worse off. It's likely that the US justice system - imperfect as it is today - will be completely broken, administering justice according to who you are as opposed to what you've done. Basic rights such as bodily autonomy will go away. Moreover, the system of government will change. It will be much more difficult, if not impossible, to change the government. Loyalists will inhabit all important positions and they will act to preserve the administration. The opposition will find itself scrutinized by a weaponized DOJ. Poor people will have it much worse, and the rich will get much richer. In short, a Trump presidency will mark a massive, quite possibly irrevocable shift towards autocracy.

So, that's why you'de better not **** this one up. It kinda looks bleak right now, so start working harder.

only one of those outcome guarantees the maximum amount of Librul tears, so that's what many people will be voting for.

 

[uke2se]

only one of those outcome guarantees the maximum amount of Librul tears, so that's what many people will be voting for.

Defeatism isn't good enough. By hook or by crook sane Americans need to pull this off, or it's not just you who are ******.

 

[Beelzebuddy]

Defeatism isn't good enough. By hook or by crook sane Americans need to pull this off, or it's not just you who are ******.

Sadly they've got all the crooks, and we can't keep them on the hook.

 

[The Atheist]

only one of those outcome guarantees the maximum amount of Librul tears, so that's what many people will be voting for.

While I agree that's a driving factor for a lot of votes, there's a definite international trend of voters shifting right.

Italy has the furthest right government they've had for some time, and Netherlands looks like going a bit further than Italy with a very hard right party winning the most seats. Even NZ has seen a shift to the furthest right we've had for several elections. I'm not even going to put Argentina on that list - they've jumped straight down the rabbit hole.

 

[Venom]

Western European leaders' permissive attitude towards mass immigration I think is the biggest reason for the rightward shift in Europe. Which is sad because I think they do have a better argument for restricting or closing their borders than the U.S. and other established diaspora nations.

It doesn't help that the American left's general attitude is to prove how not liberal they are, so they deny Biden's accomplishments and proposals that a Real Leftist leader would otherwise be praised for getting done in this political landscape. He could do more yes, but we can't get everything. One little slipup and he's put on equal ground with Donald Trump. It's insanity.

 

[The Great Zaganza]

No such thing as "Western European leaders' permissive attitude towards mass immigration".

The EU is not even fully complying with UN laws about migrants and asylum seekers.
And EU companies know that they need workers, especially in low paying Jobs.
But there is a big industry of right wing media and politicians who thrive on blaming "The Other" for everything.

 

[Stacyhs]

From a foreigner's POV, here's my take on the 2024 election:

Biden represents a standard US foreign policy, drifting towards dovish. This is something the rest of the world can work with. It's predictable and won't exacerbate global stability. The US remains the top global player. Conflicts will come primarily from actors who want to muscle in on this arrangement, namely China and Russia. It would be more or less status quo.

In the US, Biden represents a gradual shift towards - to me - common sense progressive policies. Free health care or college probably aren't on the table for his presidency, but opinion keeps shifting towards those, and Biden won't actively hold those sentiments back. Basically, we're talking about a gradual shift in the right (as in, left) direction.

Trump is predictable in a different way than Biden. Trump will predictably always take the side of the worst major actors in the world, the authoritarians. We can expect a much more isolated US, with a retreat from NATO and probably the UN. This will leave room for authoritarians to grab what they want. It will play into Putin's hands, allowing him a much more aggressive stance in Europe, possibly leading to more continental wars and/or an escalation of the conflict in Ukraine. China will probably also take the opportunity to move towards Taiwan. Furthermore, a Trump presidency will likely completely scupper any chance we have to mitigate climate change, over time leading to massive migration waves crashing into Europe and North America. In summary, a Trump presidency (just based on what he's said and done in the past) would completely alter global power balances and be a major boon for autocracy over democracy world wide.

In the US, basic rights for anyone not in the major in group (straight and white) will be worse off. It's likely that the US justice system - imperfect as it is today - will be completely broken, administering justice according to who you are as opposed to what you've done. Basic rights such as bodily autonomy will go away. Moreover, the system of government will change. It will be much more difficult, if not impossible, to change the government. Loyalists will inhabit all important positions and they will act to preserve the administration. The opposition will find itself scrutinized by a weaponized DOJ. Poor people will have it much worse, and the rich will get much richer. In short, a Trump presidency will mark a massive, quite possibly irrevocable shift towards autocracy.

So, that's why you'de better not **** this one up. It kinda looks bleak right now, so start working harder.

Well said. I suspect that people, often subconsciously, tend to look for a 'Daddy" figure to fix things like when they were children. This draws them to an authoritarian figure like Trump who tells them that "only I can fix this". The problem is that authoritarians, by their very nature, are narcissistic control freaks more interested in gaining and retaining power than anything else.