I love how all of lemmy and many other places on the internet bitched and moaned about people calling for Biden to drop out. Then he did and the party is more energized than it has been in years, and actually has a chance to, ya know, defeat American fascism.
I was one of those people. It seemed incredibly stupid to me.
I thought we’d fracture, and infighting would eat up our next three months. I thought it would squander our remaining chances. I thought the same people who didn’t want Biden also didn’t want Kamala, and I didn’t know of anyone else.
I thought it would open us up to litigation, and because I don’t trust our judicial branch, I thought that would let Republicans strangle a candidate in courts. Most importantly, I thought Republicans actually had a plan and a strategy.
I was very wrong and it doesn’t bother me at all to admit it. In fact, I’m relieved.
100% felt the same way as you. Now my sister and l are going to volunteer.
Respect you for saying that
Hell yeah! Looks like someone got some ass today!
I will admit I was wrong.
At first I was like noooooo, then when he endorsed Kamala I was like, oh god nooooooo...but I'll eat my words. I'm excited and happy with the outcome so far and, regardless, was voting dem anyway.
Like, maybe I'm speaking too soon, but I almost feel...a modicum of hope again?
Okay, I rarely comment on political posts on Lemmy, because I value my time, and my sanity. And I agree with you. This is our best chance. But I just want to say that Kamala does not represent a way to defeat American fascism. She represents a way to buy some time until we can form a movement that goes so far beyond neo liberal policies it's unreal. It's still unlikely, but she's hopefully buying us 4 years.
Maybe I'm just being pedantic, but it genuinely worries me when people think that Kamala or really any major politician in the US can defeat fascism. Normal got us here, normal will send us right back.
Again, not trying to be an ass, and perhaps you also meant she buys us time, but this shit scares me. If she wins in November, and even I, as a filthy commie, I hope she does, it isn't a victory in the war against American fascism. It's a bandaid, a canteen of water, and a chance to regroup.
Need to shift the Overton window to the left again before we can even look at the really liberal ideas.
I agree with you, but Kamala will probably still be the most left leaning president the USA ever had by quite a bit (AFAIK), and has a good chance to start shifting the Overton Window; if only by showing the Democratic Party that choosing more left leaning candidates actually gives them better chances of winning.
Kamala will probably still be the most left leaning president the USA ever had by quite a bit
Maybe in the last 50 years. FDR was closer to an actual socialist than any politician who's had that label applied to them in America since. Kennedy was far enough left that he got shot for it. Kamala could have a chance to do some real good but let's not get ahead of ourselves.
Yeah what I mean is the trump admin would shepherd in full fledged fascism. Especially considering sotomayor's age. It's critically important to the entire world that he doesn't win. Certainly more work to do after he's defeated.
Yep. I was very wrong. I completely misread the pulse of the Democratic party.
The pulse of the Democratic Party was supposed to be measured during the primaries. Obviously they are broken.
I'm extremely happy to admit I was wrong. I did bitch and moan, but it didn't fracture the party at all.
Yeah, I really don't understand the people that were against Biden dropping out. It was so very obvious after that debate. Just no way he was going to beat that narrative.
I didn't expect the party to so quickly coalesce around Harris honestly. I thought if Biden dropped out, it would be chaos and the Republicans would sail to victory.
It almost seems possible the democratic leadership might have potentially possibly maybe learned something perhaps and came up with a strategy for how to deal with trump that doesn't hinge on trying to do the same things that worked in 2020 (and then failed miserably in 2022). Good for them! Maybe next they'll learn they don't have to court moderate republican voters to switch sides, and instead focus on the vast swath of Americans who feel so disenchanted with American Politics that they don't vote, or even really pay attention to politics, because the Democrats are, globally, conservative, and the Republicans are, globally, insane
I agree with pretty much everything you say here except one thing:
failed miserably in 2022
2022 was an unmitigated success for Democrats. Not only did we keep the senate but we kept the Republican majority in the House razor thin. That was in defiance of polling and historical precedent.
Do you remember how the right went from talking about a "red wave" to bitter complaining and damage control in the span of about 12 hours? How we damn near ousted Boebert? How Michigan became a blue trifecta for the first time since 1984?
2022 was far from a miserable failure. It was far, far better than we had any reasonable hope for.
I was absolutely baffled at how many downvotes I got for saying I didn’t think Biden had his head in the game after he was like “I’ll do my best but if I lose oh well 🤷♂️”. Like… holy fuck. That was perhaps the most catastrophically tone-deaf thing I’ve ever heard an otherwise fairly skilled politician say - and I’ve heard a LOT of politicians say a LOT of stupid things.
Hey, stop focusing so much on "I told ya so" to people who are definitely on your side. I was torn on it as well, but out of consideration for the potential impact being unknown. Hindsight is 20/20 and we're all better served by not gloating if we were right and instead focusing on the future path we are now on. Let's just keep it positive and build this victory through positivity instead of potential fractures with people who likely agree with you on the issues.
I don’t know about “all of Lemmy.”
After the debate, most of the top comments were pro-dropout.
I swapped from calling for Biden to stay to calling for Biden to go once sitting Congresscritters spoke out in public asking him to step down, since the main advantage of incumbency is supposed to be the ability to preserve party unity, but I was still expecting a lot more "DEMS IN DISARRAY HOW CAN THEY EVER WIN" style narrative to take root. There's still time for me to be disappointed, but as of right now I'm pleasantly surprised.
I remember a week or two ago, the same crowd calling Biden to quit also bitch about how Harris would be a horrible replacement with absolutely zero chance gaining any support.
It turns out sending in a human instead of a vegetable might work out. That said, many complaints about her past as a "law and order" piece of shit are very valid.
Be certain you are still registered! Florida cancelled me (years ago) because I hadn't voted in a certain time frame.
Not calling you out because I've been guilty of this before, but this is a great reason to vote in every election, local all the way up to presidential!
Not only will your vote have more impact in local elections (due to even worse turnout), but you know you won't be unfairly purged from voter rolls. Probably...
Also local governments have a greater impact on your day to day life.
The cancel culture we should be worried about
Vote in your local elections! Even those stupid one issue ballots. Everything matters locally!
That's more people than Taylor Swift got to register.
Young people respond when they feel like they're being listened to. They don't respond to boomers lecturing them about what to do, because they've heard job hunting advice from boomers.
kudos to everyone who thought Biden stepping down was a bad idea but admit they were wrong now. i understand why some people thought it would lead to uncertainty and chaos, might look weak, etc. it's an understandable concern.
and now it's in the past. if you can see that it's helping your side by energizing people who might have checked out before, it's severely hurting the other side who only had prepared attacks on biden and have nothing to say but whine that this isn't fair, and most importantly her willingness to talk about project 2025 unlike biden is raising awareness and distaste for the republicans... and think "hey this went better than I expected and I'm glad that it happened"... then I salute you. i hope this inspires you to talk to more people and get more people to vote.
"hey this went better than I expected and I'm glad that it happened" you just described me exactly lol. I figured Biden dropping out would be bad for our democracy and Trump would be more likely to win.
A day after he dropped out I knew I was wrong given the absolute excitement from pretty much everyone except Republicans, happy it happened now.
Me. I was one of those people.
Never been happier to have been wrong though
LFG! Vote!
What's your level and class? We are looking for more healers.
So good news and all, and I guess we kinda already know this, but this also means there are at least 40k fucking morons out there...
If I'm to be polite I should probably say "politically uninformed." But seriously wtf? They'd sit back and take fascism if it were old man vs old man, but now it's time to vote because one old man is out?
People are like that sometimes.
Unless you want to take the conservative approach of attempting to eliminate anyone who stands against you, then you unfortunately have to learn to understand and work with these people. We do not exist on our own. We exist with many, many other people who have different views than our own, who react and think differently than we do.
Part of life is learning how to work with these people, how to get them to do what needs to be done. You can sit there and scream at them for being stupid or you can figure out how to get them to do what you want.
Elections in the past all over the US and Canada have been decided by margins of less than 100. Every vote counts!
Check your registration status, vote early if you are eligible, make a plan to vote.
I know all this irrational exuberance over the good news Democrats have been getting since Biden dropped out is going to come with a hangover, but fuck it, I'm having a blast!
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