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A message to wavering Democrats
(lemmy.sdf.org)
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this post was submitted on 18 Jul 2024
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Lemmy is a lot older than you'd expect, look at the popularity of the Antique Memes Roadshow community.
Was Ted Kennedy punished in any way for that, or did he continue on with a long and illustrious career? The DNC has no punishment paradigm for people who act on their own. The candidate will, however, very likely be saddled with the memory of defeat, which will harm them in future elections unless they're very strong in their home region.
Additionally, Reagan won in a historic landslide, he was one of the most popular presidents in American history. I don't think we can pin that on Jimmy Carter refusing to debate his primary opponent, that is a real reach the strains belief.
That was before they knew they'd need to keep primary challengers from threatening incumbents.
Though he did have a long dead-end career where his presidential ambitions were totally destroyed.
You can blame his "memory of defeat" for that, but what about the Party's memory of defeat? They saw the worst defeat in history and you don't think they associate that, in part, with a primary that dinged their incumbent? Primarying the incumbent is terrifying to the Party and they will always do whatever they can to discourage and prevent it. The Party learned from history.
And if Biden stays on the ticket we might see a fucking repeat with Trump this time, and that would be a nightmare.
I think you're really straining a narrative here, kinda contorting it to make it fit this enduring unfair conspiracy. I just apply Occam's Razor to it, it's too convoluted, and there is a much simpler, at least as likely, explanation.
Additionally, I think people would have come out and made statements about being threatened, and would not be deterred by some assumption of punishment. An actual threat would be required to quell someone who thinks they can help run the country, these are not naturally fearful, anxiety-prone individuals.
Lastly, Jimmy Carter was overseeing one of the most brutal economic situations in the past century, that was the era of stagflation. He had to deal with Three Mile Island and the Iran Hostage Crisis. At the time, he was unbelievably unpopular, which triggered the primary challenge in the first place. He was then challenged by one of the most charismatic men to ever run, a former Hollywood star, winning the popular vote 44 million to 35 million and getting almost 500 electoral college votes.
If you just want to go "oh, that was the primary challenge!" I think that's just not very smart thinking.
I think you keep calling this a conspiracy to discredit normal party politics and I think I'm tired of telling you it's not a conspiracy. The simple explanation is the Party doesn't want incumbent challenges and so it does what it can to prevent them, so it doesn't do debates and doesn't help candidates get their name out and openly supports the incumbent.
Look, whether you think political parties do anything or not doesn't matter anyway. We're about to see if Biden is going to be forced out of the race, and maybe if he is you'll see that party pressure exists and that it doesn't all come down to individual free agents acting of the own will without outside pressure changing their decisions.
And if he's forced out I'm sure you'll handwave it as just being a personal choice between him and his family, and the Party had little to do with it. ๐
No, it's a conspiracy. People coordinating secretively, in your assertion applying behind the scenes pressure to prevent people who may want to run from running for a government seat, without admitting to it. If it's not a conspiracy, show me some evidence of where people have talked openly about it.
Without evidence, it is not just a conspiracy, it's a conspiracy theory.
It does not matter if it makes sense to you, we do not simply try to apply "sense" to what we see, we look at evidence. Because what makes sense to one individual may not make sense to another, this is just a basic challenge of life. Qanon makes sense to Trump fans for instance. Evidence goes beyond individual sense, though.
And again, I already said, twice that yes, influence exists. Sway, lobbying, convincing, etc. This is distinct from control, command, force. This fine line is the difference between reality, with things like money and polls and convincing arguments, and imaginary conspiracy theories like yours or Qanon.
Unless, you can present evidence of someone receiving this pressure not to run? At any point in the past 30 years? It'd be news to me, I would be very interested in hearing about this. But I want evidence, not supposition from random internet people.
edit: Significant pressure too, please. Not just a quote from some random official saying "don't run pls". People are entitled to have their own opinions, and this is distinct from a pattern of coercion. You've mentioned people's careers being ruined, for instance.
edit2: You know, they would have blocked Katie Porter if they could've blocked anyone. Instead they had a drag-out, brutal primary contest with her and a moderate, that she lost. If they stopped people, they'd have stopped her instead of having to win a bruising election at the cost of millions.
Now that he's been forced out, do you feel ridiculous for twisting yourself into a pretzel trying to support him?
And, like I predicted, will you deny he was forced out and just claim this was a personal decision?
Remember when I said I'd put $20 on him dropping out within a week? :) And he decided. He honestly, truly could've told them all to screw off and ran again, but chose to listen to them instead. I think he could've beat Trump too, had he stayed.
I wasn't defending him incidentally, though I am a supporter. I was fighting a conspiracy theory that the DNC and not Biden had the final decision. I hate DNC-controls-who-runs conspiracy theories with a passion.
And you still don't think the DNC ultimately decided Biden needed to drop out?
He was forced out by donors. That's pretty clearly a party decision.
There is no shadowy secretive DNC group that made some united decision, no. Most donors wanted him to go, along with a lot of legislators and even Obama. Others like the Clintons and the more progressive wing were supporting him.
However, even if 100% of all democrats on Earth, including leaders, decided he needed to leave, but one man named Joe Biden disagreed and refused, he would still be running.
You understand how that works?
What you seem to refuse to accept is Republicans want him to leave.
Yes, Trump can beat him and he's a weak candidate, but the Republican base thinks he stole the election and Hunter Biden is a kingpin of an international criminal enterprise and he's a radical socialist that's flooding the country with """illegals""" and other such bullshit. Democrats could join the Republican witch hunt against Hunter Biden or invoke the 25th Amendment and enough Republicans would be willing to work with Democrats because it would satisfy their electoral base.
You reject the idea that Republicans would ever work with Democrats on literally anything, but I think the one thing they could agree on is destroying Biden.
Also? One Republican decided Trump needed to leave and he almost succeeded. I'm just saying, if 100% of Democrats decided Biden needed to leave...
I find it pretty laughable that republicans need to satisfy their base. Their base wants immigration control more than anything, when McConnell put a bill forward with the strongest immigration control in decades, Trump killed it to avoid giving Biden the win.
They believe whatever Trump and Fox tell them to believe, so what actually happens doesn't matter. Their voters' wants are 100% irrelevant, so long as they talk tough and own some libs. That's the soul of MAGA. So no, they would never remove Biden at this point, they'd protect him just like Dems protected Mike Johnson earlier this year despite hating him. Politics are complicated, not simple. Trying to make them fit simple explanations causes problems.
edit: Oh, and I never rejected that repubs and dems can work together, that must've been someone else. They worked together to get aid to Ukraine earlier this year.
The Republican base has grown far beyond Fox these days, they're all across the internet and streaming services now.
I will say that Trump and Trump alone could maybe keep Republicans from joining Democrats in their campaign against Biden. I just don't think he would. I think he'd delight at the chaos it was causing and present himself as the reason Biden was forced out.
You sorely overestimate how much they hate Biden. It's all show, blather, style with no substance, messaging, whatever you want to call it. They could all flip on a dime, like a school of fish or something.
They've been fucking over their voters for yeeears now. Their voters don't exactly love tax cuts for the rich, according to polling anyway. But that's all they get, over and over...
They're not stupid enough to harm their actual chances at winning and seizing govt just to keep a promise or have some lols.
You underestimate how beholden Republicans are to their base. The Party wanted Trump gone after 2020, but they couldn't afford to piss off their base.
The base doesn't love tax cuts for the rich, but they don't hate it either. They're pretty neutral to class politics, if tax cuts supposedly create jobs then they'll support tax cuts.
But the base really does hate Biden, because he stole the election from their godking. That's why I think Trump would be the only one that could save Biden. If their idol told them he needs to stay president then they'd obey, but if Trump poured fuel on the fire (like I think he would) there'd be a frenzy of people demanding Biden was executed.
I've seen them spin too many things around to think they don't have control over their base's perceptions.
Also, "the party" did not want Trump gone. Only a small portion of them really came out against him, many others made their pilgrimages to Mar a Lago. Parties are not monoliths, they're not entities that have single desires and move in unified directions like some sort of organism. They're fractious, with different people wanting different things, rivalries, differing opinions, etc. We saw this dramatically with the purging of the Never Trumpers like Liz Cheney. Even now, their party is not actually unified, despite trying to portray that illusion.
Humans just aren't that good at all cooperating in numbers that large.
Trump and co have already made tons of statements about how Biden was their preferred opponent. I don't think your guess is the equal to that.
No offense, I have nothing against you personally, but you clearly don't really follow politics or political history at any kind of detailed level. I very much do, for the record. I listen to the speeches, research the people, etc, it's been a lifelong hobby. I am not just spouting random opinions based on some assumptions or things I've read online. This is why I just remembered things like where Obama was from and what the 2020 dem debates were like. You seem much more new to this.
Anyways, by all means, believe whatever you like, you are entitled to your own opinion. I will continue to shoot down conspiracy theories when I see them though. There's enough of that in MAGA, we don't need that crap fucking up the left too. The left is cool, usually. Should stay that way.