U.S. Presidential Election 2020 Discussion - Politics & Religion

travelful
BEA's Official Florida Man

Age: 27
Location: Davenport, Florida

baystateoftheart wrote:

I'm not a Biden fan, but there are massive differences between them lol. So many people cherry-pick the several areas in which they aren't super different and pretend that all the differences in other areas don't exist.

Meh.

I'll give a Tom Woods quote I found pretty funny

"No matter which candidate you vote for, you always wind up with John McCain"
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Skinny
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America is wild, to be fair. Lots of fun. As happy as I am about the result, it has made me laugh hearing people bleat about the potential death of democracy as though they genuinely believe they're living in one. Being more democratic than non-democratic states is a low bar to pass. Any society - and I include ours in this - that allows for unfettered press manipulation and loaded voting systems needs to take a long, hard look at itself before it starts proclaiming its (false) democracy as the cornerstone of its very raison d'être.

Anyway, good news overall. Getting rid of a self-serving, incompetent, fascist charlatan is very rarely a bad thing. Replacing him with a self-serving, fairly competent, capitalist opportunist, whilst not ideal, is about as good as most English-speaking nations can hope for, unfortunately.

But I am genuinely chuffed about the result. I am celebrating with beer and good whiskey. Well done, Joe and Kamala. You can't be any worse than the current shitshow, and this is undeniably a good thing.
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baystateoftheart
Neil Young as a butternut squash

Age: 29
Location: Massachusetts

Skinny wrote:

America is wild, to be fair. Lots of fun. As happy as I am about the result, it has made me laugh hearing people bleat about the potential death of democracy as though they genuinely believe they're living in one. Being more democratic than non-democratic states is a low bar to pass. Any society - and I include ours in this - that allows for unfettered press manipulation and loaded voting systems needs to take a long, hard look at itself before it starts proclaiming its (false) democracy as the cornerstone of its very raison d'être.

Anyway, good news overall. Getting rid of a self-serving, incompetent, fascist charlatan is very rarely a bad thing. Replacing him with a self-serving, fairly competent, capitalist opportunist, whilst not ideal, is about as good as most English-speaking nations can hope for, unfortunately.

But I am genuinely chuffed about the result. I am celebrating with beer and good whiskey. Well done, Joe and Kamala. You can't be any worse than the current shitshow, and this is undeniably a good thing.

I mostly agree, but not the part where you say it's not actually democracy without restrictions on freedom of the press.

Also, democracy is a spectrum, and the U.S. is on it, however flawed.
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Skinny
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baystateoftheart wrote:

Skinny wrote:

America is wild, to be fair. Lots of fun. As happy as I am about the result, it has made me laugh hearing people bleat about the potential death of democracy as though they genuinely believe they're living in one. Being more democratic than non-democratic states is a low bar to pass. Any society - and I include ours in this - that allows for unfettered press manipulation and loaded voting systems needs to take a long, hard look at itself before it starts proclaiming its (false) democracy as the cornerstone of its very raison d'être.

Anyway, good news overall. Getting rid of a self-serving, incompetent, fascist charlatan is very rarely a bad thing. Replacing him with a self-serving, fairly competent, capitalist opportunist, whilst not ideal, is about as good as most English-speaking nations can hope for, unfortunately.

But I am genuinely chuffed about the result. I am celebrating with beer and good whiskey. Well done, Joe and Kamala. You can't be any worse than the current shitshow, and this is undeniably a good thing.

I mostly agree, but not the part where you say it's not actually democracy without restrictions on freedom of the press.

Also, democracy is a spectrum, and the U.S. is on it, however flawed.

Freedom of the press is a given in a democracy; packaging partisan opinion as "news" is not the same thing, however anybody wants to spin it.

Also, and I know you're not accusing me of this (but), I wasn't trying to take some imaginary high ground and shit on America. Democracy is a spectrum. What we both have is on said spectrum, though not necessarily where we'd like either of us to be. The world we live in is a tyre fire waiting to spread. C'est la vie.
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Tha1ChiefRocka
Yeah, well hey, I'm really sorry.

Location: Kansas

"Democracy is the worst form of government. Except for all the others."

RoundTheBend
I miss the comfort in being sad

Location: Ground Control

Much celebrating. I agree that I'm not excited that Biden won, rather than any sane adult took the toddler out. Goddamn that was just painful. I had to just stop paying attention. Glad America can go back to at least back door nonsense it's had since the beginning of time instead of the in your face shit show 24/7 we had to endure the past 4 years. Have to agree with baystate on that... no... not at all the same.

PurpleHazel

Skinny wrote:

As happy as I am about the result, it has made me laugh hearing people bleat about the potential death of democracy as though they genuinely believe they're living in one. Being more democratic than non-democratic states is a low bar to pass. Any society - and I include ours in this - that allows for unfettered press manipulation and loaded voting systems needs to take a long, hard look at itself before it starts proclaiming its (false) democracy as the cornerstone of its very raison d'être.

Another four years under that orange tinhat clown would've brought us a lot closer to the death of democracy than we are now, so dodging that's worth "bleating" about. We don't live in a false democracy, though it is definitely a badly broken representative one. Trump's shown us how fragile democracy is, so it's worth celebrating being more democratic than non-democratic; that bar can slip down a few holes a lot easier than we had thought. We're certainly not in any position to proclaim our democracy as any kind of example for others to follow.

Quote:

Well done, Joe and Kamala. You can't be any worse than the current shitshow, and this is undeniably a good thing.

If it weren't for the fact that a 1000 people are dying every day from COVID, I could get behind the "can't get any worse..." line a little more.

Quote:

Getting rid of a self-serving, incompetent, fascist charlatan is very rarely a bad thing.

When is a getting rid of an incompetent leader ever a bad thing?

RoundTheBend wrote:

I agree that I'm not excited that Biden won

It's sorry to say, but based on the results, he might've been the only Democratic primary candidate who could've won. If after four years of Trump and eight months of COVID, it took an old white man who was a popular ex-president's Veep to eke out an electoral college victory, we're not doing so hot.

NewsFromHome

PurpleHazel wrote:

It's sorry to say, but based on the results, he might've been the only Democratic primary candidate who could've won. If after four years of Trump and eight months of COVID, it took an old white man who was a popular ex-president's Veep to eke out an electoral college victory, we're not doing so hot.

Interesting, I tend to agree with this with some caveats. I think voters are tired of the democrats and the democrats don’t really have a plea to moral consciousness as strong as republicans do to get their voter base into the polls. Biden 2020 was essentially a run back of the Clinton 2016 campaign in a world where minor to pertinent bureaucratic scandals don’t really matter anymore cause everything is loud and swirling all the time. The DNC this year, felt subsumed by Raeganist “you have to vote for the good of your nation” moral pleas without actually really addressing any of the issues on the table. The DNC once again refuses to engage with the rust belt and their culpability with the depression there while trying to focus attention in getting minority votes from Virginia down in states that have issues with voter suppression in minority counties. Etc. there’s many reasons, and you’re right Biden is the VP of a popular president. With the pandemic combined he wins barely (I can’t see Pete pulling this shit off). But I do think an actual progressive could have perhaps tied up the rust belt and not lost Ohio. I wouldn’t go as far to say as Bernie could have won (though I think he would have in 2016) partially because his name has been dragged through the mud by the press. For uh *checks notes* not being a feminist enough, in spite of having one of the strongest women’s rights/bodily autonomy/health care records. As an aside, don’t really know how you disagree with Skinny on this one purple, non functioning media integrity is a huge part of a democracies worth and we haven’t had that in a second. Depending on who you ask here Benghazi is either a far right wing Michael Bay style diplomatic tragedy which Hillary should be hung for or a nonsense misogynistic right wing ploy to discredit a perfectly serviceable candidate. Meanwhile the left wing journalist who reported the actual story (that embassy sold weapons from Libya directly to Al Qaeda and what would eventually become isis) spends his days writing book reviews because he lost all his media credentials for breaking that report. That’s not free press to me.

BARDAMU

Skinny wrote:

Well done, Joe and Kamala. You can't be any worse than the current shitshow, and this is undeniably a good thing.

Tell that to the people of Venezuela after Biden drops a coup on their asses. Unlike Trump, who was a disaster, Biden won't drop the ball on that kind of shit. Undeniably Korean reunification is now totally off the table as I'm sure Biden will recommit to alienating North Korea, probably beefing up sanctions, etc. But we can all sleep peacefully because at least tyranny abroad isn't tyranny at home, right?

baystateoftheart
Neil Young as a butternut squash

Age: 29
Location: Massachusetts

BARDAMU wrote:

Tell that to the people of Venezuela after Biden drops a coup on their asses. Unlike Trump, who was a disaster, Biden won't drop the ball on that kind of shit. Undeniably Korean reunification is now totally off the table as I'm sure Biden will recommit to alienating North Korea, probably beefing up sanctions, etc. But we can all sleep peacefully because at least tyranny abroad isn't tyranny at home, right?

Trump was itching for a hot war with Iran and absolutely obliterated Obama's record for most civilians killed with drone strikes, and yet there are still people who think he's more dovish than Biden will be. Trump made a few rhetorical flourishes toward anti-interventionism, but did as he was told and stacked his staff with neo-cons who did neo-con stuff. Within the Obama White House, Clinton was in favor of more interventionism and Biden was opposed, while Obama came down in the middle of the two.

And "alienating North Korea" is tyranny? Lol
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