It makes peace with voting for the Biden

- I'm going to copy /u/kiniz0r's comment from a few months ago because I think it's extremely perceptive and accurate:
  People have a fucked-up understanding of voting in the US. You are not voting for the person you agree with. You are voting for the person you’d rather negotiate with.
  If you actually care beyond the aesthetics of whether you did the cool thing or not, you have to think about the function of what you’re doing and not just whether it feels good.
  original comment
  Your political choices shouldn't be performative, they should be as effective as possible in the present.
  You do the best you can with what you have.
  
  My favorite analogy is that voting is like taking the bus, just because it doesn't drop you off in front of your house, doesn't mean you're better off walking.
  
  Idk why people think negotiation starts after voting happens
  We're negotiating right now, this is the negotiation.
  
  A most poignant and apt critique.
  I have observed that a lot of us treat the enormous good luck of democratic participation as a team sport, and it's depressing.
  
  I’ve talked to a bunch of people who were barely of voting age in 2016 and who treated their first voting experience as an edgy popularity contest, who didn’t think about anything other than the presidential race.
  Then Roe was overturned and they were like ‘Ohhh. I get it now.’ And then it was too late.
  I also hear from people who are just coming into voting age saying similar things. Biden isn’t doing enough about Isreal (as if he has the power to unilaterally stop the fighting), and they seem completely unaware that Congress, not the president, controls most things. This is not (yet) a dictatorship.
  But they’re planning to vote like it’s a horse race. Sorry Buttercup, but that’s not how this works. Biden is at least sane. The entire right is not. Please for the love of humanity, please don’t lock us into fascism because you think Biden is too old or whatever. I agree, we should have better candidates – nobody seems to be mentioning that trump is only 3 years younger than Biden, which at their age is nothing – the fact is these are the two we will be choosing from. There is no third option in this system, and no amount of protest votes will change that. It’s just a fact.
  I would vote for Biden’s corpse before trump and the fascism he openly calls for. If you wouldn’t, you need to learn more about this system and processes before casting your vote. It shouldn’t even be a question.
  
  I'll have to keep that in mind. That's very well put.
  
  The bigger issue is the whole system behind voting, not the symptoms that we call our candidates.
- That’s the nice thing about the two political party system: Who else are you going to vote for? Abstain or third party? You’d run the risk of having democracy end, when the other party wins, and getting thrown into a camp for your “Unamerican” beliefs.
- You understand the president you vote for is only part of this right? We could elect Bernie and we still wouldn't have healthcare in 4 years without a blue congress.
  What is Biden supposed to have done in the last 4 years about healthcare on his own? The changes on requirements for prior authorizations is a big help for many but things like that are about as much as he can do without Congress.
  
  You understand the president you vote for is only part of this right?
  I'll point you to Henry Cuellar down in the Texas Valley. He's one of the most consistently right-wing Democrats in the House, he's in a Safe Dem seat and has been since the district was packed with Dem voters during the 2006 Tom DeLay lead redistricting ratfuck, and every time a progressive primary opponent sticks a head up he gets millions of dollars in party to support to bail him out.
  This is the fundamental struggle with "You just have to support Biden and then figure shit out downstream". Guys like Biden and Clinton and even Kerry and Gore have created this perpetual undercurrent of conservativism in the party, such that every election becomes a "Bad Democrat v Worse Republican" all up and down the ballot election after election after election.
  And because they can command these enormous sums of money and vast media influence campaigns from their position as leaders of the party, we keep getting these turds jammed up in our plumbing for decades - Manchins and Sinemas and Feinsteins and Gillibrands - who actively undermine everything in the official party platform with their concern trolling.
  Even if Biden wins, another four years of a glorified insurance lobbyist who gave Strom Thurmond's fucking eulogy is not going to benefit anyone young, colored, or queer who still cling to faith in the party. He and his team are going to keep putting up these turds like Merrick Garland and Anthony Blinken in the bureaucracy and backing a team of mummies for the next Congressional election and doing everything they can to kneecap anyone under 40 with the gall to challenge someone in a primary.
- I'd fuck me?

We don't get to vote for "better" in the US. We get to vote for "less worse" or "more worse." But not "better."
Better takes ages. Massive organizing. And probably some violence on someone's part. But you don't get to vote for "better" in this country.
As evidence: We're the only country that needed a war to decide that slavery was wrong.
- And voting in LOCAL elections, which way, way too many people ignore as not important. We can actually have "better" in a lot of those elections, if people would pay attention. People started paying a lot more attention where I live after a council member skipped 3 straight months of meetings but still had time to go to campaign events, and we realized that there were serious issues with several council members who all voted for conservative bs in lockstep. We managed to flip enough seats that it's now a 5-4 Democrat majority so the mayor can't just force through her pro-oil & gas nonsense at every turn, and the new members actually give a shit about the community.
  
  My dad is a local official and he couldn't stop some giant, ugly, car-brained development from going in. He could only vote for the least bad one. Which is still terrible.
  So, no, I don't think even local elections get us "better." But "less worse" is still worth voting for because it honestly doesn't take that much time.
- As evidence: We're the only country that needed a war to decide that slavery was wrong.
  Uh. Pretty sure that's not even close to true.
  
  Okay, Haiti, too. But I don't really count that because it was a slave revolt.
  But most of Europe just passed a law saying it was illegal.
- Goddamn if this ain't the truest thing I've read in weeks. Just an addendum, slavery has never gone away. It built the foundation of this country and continues to be the reliable and cheaply paid engine that drives it. Slavery exists, it just has been frosted in corpo speak and glitter to fool the masses.
  
  Where do you believe slavery still exists in the US? Can you give an example of humans being owned by an individual or company and forced to work for no wages in 2024?
- We don't get to vote for the best option because we don't have ranked choice voting.
  We will always be voting for the lesser of two evils because we are afraid of throwing our vote away on a third party or lesser known candidate.
  If we had ranked choice voting, we could actually vote for people we like instead of voting against people we don't like.
  It would open the doors for so many new politicians to stand a chance against the ones who simply have the most name recognition.
- This is the most bullshit comment I’ve read in this thread

I'll go further: actually bothering to talk about some of the positive things that happened under his presidency will be necessary for him to win.
If progressives, leftists, antifascists, etc. can only manage to offer a "I guess he's not a literal pile of shit so maybe I'll consider holding my nose and voting," there's no permission structure for Enlightened Centrists™, Never-Trumpers, or even tired Democrats, to turn out. Trump voters are mad as hell. Lots of them really think the election was stolen from him. They're going to turn out.
We need more than holding your nose.
The child tax credit cut child poverty by possibly as much as 46%. Biden's campaigning on bringing it back to stimulus levels. That's money in the pockets of people who need it the most.
Biden tried to forgive student loan debt. Conservative judges blocked him. Re-elect him so he can keep appointing judges and finding new ways to fight against more bad decisions like this.
Biden's Inflation Reduction Act may include some of the most impactful climate policies ever enacted by any American congress since the creation of the EPA.
There are "yes, but"s for each of those points I made but my argument is simple: you don't get to make more accomplishments if you don't talk about the ones you made already.
This hasn't been a perfect administration, we've never had one. But he damn sure hasn't done nothing when it comes to some of the most important political issues of our time.
- LGBTQ+ rights
  Climate action
  Student loan forgiveness
  Protect reproductive healthcare
- It's weird that there's been so much accomplished but so little talk about it. I only ever hear them listed at the end of a Brian Tyler Cohen video.
  
  To me the issue stems from DNCs reluctance to whole heartedly accepting a progressive platform. They think skating by sipping progressive lite is appeasing the "moderates." When really there are no moderates left to think of. If you are even considering Trump you are full right. No question.
  It's hard to give credit to a party that will trip over its own dick to compromise on every single policy.
- Can you please list something he actually did rather than "try"? Because otherwise people should just "try" to vote for him.
  The only thing I remember is breaking the back of the railroad strike (most pro union president btw).
  
  I listed two already and others have listed more, but I'll take your comment as if it's in good faith anyway and link to:
  more information about the Inflation Reduction Act
  Which is both a huge investment in infrastructure and climate initiatives and also pretty poorly understood by most people.
  And to make a bigger point: on the left we have an intrinsically harder job than the right does, since their argument is that government sucks and then they prove it by working in it and doing a shitty job.
  It's hard for government programs to work effectively, even when they have huge popular support. People with money and power always want them to fail. It means our results sometimes aren't pretty, and aren't perfect. But if even we shit all over them at every possible turn, how do you expect average voters to think any different?
- https://itep.org/lapse-of-expanded-child-tax-credit-led-to-unprecedented-rise-in-child-poverty-2023/
  
  https://www.povertycenter.columbia.edu/publication/2022/child-tax-credit-and-relative-poverty
  
  Biden has forgiven $136 billion in student debt. More relief is on the way

Shameless plug for ranked voting.
- Score voting is better, but any voting system that allows you to express preference in a way that doesn't flush your ballot down the toilet is infinitely better than the garbage we have.
  
  STAR voting is peak. And shoutout to approval voting.
- Absolutely no shame in it.

Not wrong
- What I like most about this meme is that it implies that supporting the Biden won't exactly lead to a good outcome for you either, but at least it's not as immediate as getting the Trump again.
  
  Biden is the lotion you apply to soften your skin so it can, once removed, make capitalism pretty.
  
  That's just voting

You want to change the system, I am literally 100% behind you. Until then, any registered voter that stays home is a vote for Trump. That is the greater evil...
- If not voting for Biden is a vote for Trump, by the same logic not voting for Trump is a vote for Biden
  
  If you can convince a Trump supporter to stay home, sure. More likely, they'll just vote when your back is turned and try to drop in you're ballot for Trump.
- Don't worry, third party voters are still wearing crowns.
- That's not how voting works but hyperbole does.
  
  Any government in power doesn't care about your concerns if you're not participating in the decision-making.
  And when I say not caring about your concerns, I mean not fixing old lead pipes that are poisoning an entire town because it couldn't give enough of a damn
  
  It literally is, at its core.
- only a vote for trump is a vote for trump
- The greatest evil is America though, so if you’re telling me Trump is going to destroy America…… He’s looking pretty fuckin’ awesome.
  
  Before you set the house on fire, consider all the people locked in the attic.
  
  Have fun at the middle school dance tonight
  
  Trump isn't going to destroy America, just the parts of it he doesn't like. The parts that are democratic and tolerant will be his primary targets.
  
  Trump destroying America doesn't mean he'd make it better. He would make it worse. Even if you think it's the "greatest" evil, that doesn't mean it is at maximum evil.
  
  I miss old Lemmy, when this would have been the upvotes comment instead. Redditors need to look in the mirror before posting here.
  
  I can think of about 200 other countries that are worse than America. Hell, in Germany, they have far right nationalists becoming popular again.

Lol
I like the implication that in this scenario, the actual threat of getting the trump again is coming from the same person that's instructing to put the Biden on its skin. Also that in the end, 'it' gets made into a skin suit either way
I also like the flexibility: it could just as easily be leftists threatening the DNC with getting the trump again
If this is a bit it's absolutely perfect, 10/10

@hydroptic
Okay but I've watched that film: Either way, whether you conform and put the lotion on or you get the hose again, either way you're still in the pit and you're going to get killed to make a skinsuit unless Clarice Starling shows up and rescues you.
- Hello, I am once again asking for you to release that woman from the hole.
  
  This is the best worst Photoshop I've ever seen. Incredible.

And remember to be rational, to remain somewhat detached from the constant stream of political narratives and spins that gets thrown your way, where the positive or neutral things get ignored because that gets no click-ad revenue, everything that gets screamed at you is a distortion of reality.
Separate the garbage and the appeal to visceral reactions.
It's easier then to see that Biden and his cabinet inherited an incredible mess, is genuinely trying to clean it up, and there are no overnight miracles when the other political party constantly engages in sabotage of the gears of democracy, while a large segment of the population remains electorally apathetic and aloof.
This constant, perpetual media and social media provocation and clickbait, makes an intellect vulnerable to "divide-and-conquer" tactics, keeps him/her apathetic and aloof, while simultaneously demoralized. And the constant stream of infotainment excrement just keeps on flowing like a river during rainy season.
EDIT: To put in a nutshell, tldr:
Electoral apathy benefits republicans.
Electoral engagement benefits Democrats.
Now guess which side engages most with "divide and conquer" infotainment dumps to keep the electorate as cynical as possible.

I'll hold my nose and vote for Biden. It's obviously important and right. But I'll never pretend he doesn't stink.
- The point of voting for biden is to not give power to an unhinged far right russian assett. Or were you being sarcastic?
  
  He's not only inviable but actually just worse from what I know. Seriously, why the fuck would you recommend voting for him? Even if my impression is dead wrong, that's just stupid.

If the DNC could stop shooting themselves in the foot and blaming everyone but themselves, theyd be unstoppable.

Not the message you want to spread...
- Ain't it the truth, though? Four more years of Bipartisanship With Fascists or we give you Pure Fascism.
  
  One is rusty shitbox, the other is radioactive rusty shitbox that is also on fire.
  I choose rusty shitbox every time in this situation.
  Does it suck? Yeah.
  Not as badly as the alternative.
- Literally going psycho mode on the 2016 strategy of shaming the voters they need rather than blaming the DNC in any meaningful way for it's lack of ability to appeal to those voters. They don't understand this has already topped out on effectiveness. Not realizing Biden won because of the pandemic in spite of this strategy is going to mark the failure and likely GOP win this year.
  Sad and pathetic to see it happen this way, where the very people they need to win are the ones they target and judge harshest.
- I mean, kinda is though

Obviously the only solution is to vote Trump out of spite!
Cut to Buffalo Bill (GOP) wearing the DNCs skin
Edit: only one party gave us trump and to put the blame anywhere else is aggressively stupid.
- If there were some kind of guarantee that the DNC collapsed on a Trump victory...
  
  Can't have a DNC if we never have another election.
  
  Like not having elections anymore?
- Obviously the only solution is to vote Trump out of spite!
  Not voting is a vote for Trump.
  Voting third party is no better than not voting.
  Also, we need you to ~~Like, Subscribe, and Share~~ Donate, Blockwalk, and GOTV or you're not really committed! And if Biden loses? It's somehow still your fault for being insufficiently zealous.
  only one party gave us trump
  They Always Wanted Trump: Inside Team Clinton’s year-long struggle to find a strategy against the opponent they were most eager to face.
  
  That submissive defeatist mindset lol. "You have to vote for my guy because the other guy is worst, you have no choice.". What if I tell you that's the whole plan? And what about the millions people who politics doesn't align with the liberals? Does their voice not matter?
  How can you pretend living in a democracy lol we're not perfect but at least we have proportional representation.

God, what a glorious way to tell that truth! I really hate being in this position but there seems to only be one safe way out.

Let's see what happens in 4 years when trump runs again if he loses (because of course he will).
- hopefully he'll be too much of a literal pants-shitting vegetable or just dead by then
  
  Seeing as how his brain dead followers have likened him to the God Emperor of Mankind before I am not sure him being worm food (poor wormies) would stop them from voting for him.
  
  Hamburger 2024!
- Has something changed? I thought Trump was ahead in most states.

A clearly senile old fuck, or one where its questionable.
Can we please try younger? Just...young enough where its not a legitimate fear their mental state will start declining rapidly any day?
- Can we please try younger?
  DNC says "no"
  
  DNC says we know he's going to die mid term, you're going to get kamala, someone nobody voted for.

I doubt it but what if Trump actually gets disqualified from running? We'd have the unique opportunity of having no major opposition. Would be a prime time to pressure all the shill democrats to actually care about something, which includes Biden giving morbillions to Israel.
- Why would the democrats care about the electorate if they'd win anyway in your scenario?
- If Trump gets disqualified, we get what happened in Pakistan - people voting for republican because they don't like the idea of "choice" being taken away. (These people also would not be pro-choice, but the irony would be lost on them.)
  
  Yeah but tbf comparatively PTI was also banned and vote cheated out of a majority.
  Here I feel like the democrats will just shoot themselves in the foot and lose in both houses again with Biden as president.

Are you asking me to be happy about voting for him or to just vote for him? I'll vote for him regardless of the R option, especially if it's Trump, but I'm sick of people acting like I'm endorsing Trump or endorsing abstaining if I say anything critical of Biden.
- If you've seen Silence of the Lambs, then this meme reads more like you're screwed either way, it's just that the punishment (getting the Trump again) for noncompliance is more immediate
  
  I know where the meme is from, but I get push back from old democrats if I utter any form of criticism of Biden.

It hurts because it's true.

If you're going to be a skin suit, might as well be a good one

Maybe it kills the trump.

Best JFeg ever!

Stottlemeyer!
- Gesundheit

That’s what Putin wants
- Russia tried to help Trump against Biden in the last election per United States Intelligence, pretty weird you would just take a dictator's word for it despite all the evidence to the contrary.
  I mean Trump himself sided with Putin over US intelligence agencies but that doesn't mean sane people should.

- You probably want some ware other than C/PoliticalMemes.

Maybe it's my demand avoidance. But that just makes me want to say fuck you all, good luck.
- Pretty cool how thinking like this is what led to the fall of abortion right. Cool cool cool. Very neat.
- Sometimes you gotta go one step back to go two steps forward. If we fail to move forward afterwards, maybe we deserve what we get.
- See, instead of not voting, instead of, not doing something, that spite is the kind of shit which just drives me to do something productive, or, at least, it's better channeled that way, I think. I would vote if this was the ballot and this was the ballot box, insert image of molotov and government building, sort of thing.

Downvote me if you, but I still don’t understand what was so terrible about Trump. No new wars, cheap gas, cheap groceries, good economy, literally the worst thing I can recall from those years was reading in the news every day trying to explain why Trump was literally the worst thing that had ever happened to America.
Until 2020 happened, that is; but even if he admittedly didn’t do a great job at handling COVID or the George Floyd protests, I’m not sure Hillary would have done any better, or could have avoided them entirely.
Now everything is expensive as hell, everyone is depressed and angry all the time, but at least the news are mostly saying Biden is doing a great job, things are fine and everything is under control. It’s as if cognitive dissonance has become the new normal.
- I'm gonna put it in a bulleted list so it's easier for you to understand:
  Trump is racist
  Trump is a rapist
  Trump is a serial sexual abuser
  Trump was Putin's lapdog
  Trump stacked the courts, making it possible for them to take away basic rights we've held for decades
  Trump normalized bigotry to the point where people of basically all minorities are worse off as long as he's popular
  Trump tried to organize a fucking violent coup to falsify an election and keep himself in power
  Trump was impeached
  Trump immediately appointed his unqualified children to high positions of power
  Trump tried to trade Puerto Rico for Greenland, after Puerto Rico was devastated by a hurricane
  Trump withdrew from the Paris Accord, and generally reversed lots of efforts on slowing climate change
  Trump appointed a "birth control skeptic", anti-abortion advocate, and abstinence-only believer to the head of the family planning board
  Trump nominated a climate change skeptic to chair the White House's climate advisory board
  Trump cut corporate taxes to their lowest level in decades
  Trump oversaw the longest government shutdown in history
  Trump allowed border facilities that separated children from parents and kept people in cages
  Trump had BLM protesters gassed so he could take a photo with an upside-down Bible
  Trump has been charged with several crimes since leaving office, most of which are still in ongoing legal proceedings
  Trump stole highly classified documents from the white house and stored them in boxes at his residence, and evidence suggests those documents have since made their way into foreign adversaries' hands
  Now everything is expensive as hell
  Because of Trump's piss-poor handling of Covid and four years of corporate welfare
  everyone is depressed and angry all the time
  Because the orange man and his supporters are still threatening our democracy daily
  
  Trump supporters like those things, they just don't want to say it publicly. Just ask them "what do you think of (any minority group)?" and watch them squirm.
  
  At least half of these are just made up nonsense straight from those bogus headlines I was talking about.
  The other half are exaggerated and blown out of proportion to make them seem worse than what actually happened.
  Because of Trump's piss-poor handling of Covid and four years of corporate welfare
  I've seen this argument from another poster as well but it still doesn't make any sense to me.
  If Trump's corporate welfare was responsible for keeping prices low while he was in office, and Biden ending it caused them to raise prices to make profit another way, then wasn't it actually good for the ordinary customer? How exactly does Biden sticking it to them help you if you end up paying for it every day at the checkout register? Sounds like sticking a knife in your own flesh to own the rich.
  Because the orange man and his supporters are still threatening our democracy daily
  By living rent free in your head, mostly.
- If you don't mind lots of new corruption in the federal government, maybe Trump seemed ok. But here you go:
  https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/the-complete-listing-atrocities-1-1-056#2017
  I’m not sure Hillary would have done any better
  I think if Hilary was President, we'd have had a serious conversation about policing reform.
  Now everything is expensive as hell
  This is mainly due to the Fed under Trump printing a shit ton of new money. Remember all the "money printer go brr" memes? And remember how everyone said it would cause huge inflation? Yeah it just took a minute to kick in.
  
  Inflation wasn't caused by "printing money", or even COVID PPP loans being unpaid. It was mainly caused by businesses realizing they controlled many aspects of people's lives.
  When people were paying $50 for some toilet paper, most daily essentials companies realized that people were willing to pay more than they expected. There are very few tp companies and not many Americans install a bidet.
  Americans mostly got raises during COVID and that allowed many companies to raise prices. You always have to eat, clean your house, wash your clothes, go to the bathroom, etc. This is just the consequence of a lack of competition among companies in the US (and other countries).
  
  I think if Hilary was President, we'd have had a serious conversation about policing reform.
  Perhaps, but would it have been done in time to prevent George Floyd's death? Look at how Trump's border wall worked out despite all the effort he put towards it.
  And COVID would likely still have happened unless you're willing to go so deep into the conspiracy rabbit hole to be willing to say that Democrats released in on purpose to get rid of Trump. Would she have done a better job at handling that? More people died on Biden's watch than on Trump's, even if it was only due to the fact he had to deal with it longer.
- Yet another disingenuous, "just asking questions," huh? "Oh no the news is out to get him when he did nothing wrong!"
  Everything is as expensive as hell because Donald and the GQP have given out trillions in handouts to the wealthy, given out three years of tax cuts to the wealthy, blocked all attempts at fair wages, blocked all attempts at affordable healthcare, blocked all attempts at taxing corporations. Somehow we have both high price inflation and record profits for every corporation. That's not adding up. It's only Biden's fault if you're deliberately ignoring reality.
  Of course we should also consider Donald is a lifelong crook and a rapist who is corrupt as fuck. Biden won't sell state secrets to Russia and the Saudis like Donald did.
  
  Yet another disingenuous, "just asking questions," huh? "Oh no the news is out to get him when he did nothing wrong!"
  “Right off the bat, let me accuse you of something I have no proof for, just to frame this as an honest and fair debate.”
  Everything is as expensive as hell because Donald and the GQP have given out trillions in handouts to the wealthy, given out three years of tax cuts to the wealthy, blocked all attempts at fair wages, blocked all attempts at affordable healthcare, blocked all attempts at taxing corporations.
  That doesn’t make any sense, why would any of those things make consumer prices more expensive?
  Wages DID rise under Biden but they’re barely keeping up with inflation so for the average worker, things are no better now than they were under Trump, or am I wrong there?
  Somehow we have both high price inflation and record profits for every corporation. That's not adding up. It's only Biden's fault if you're deliberately ignoring reality.
  Okay so how is that Trump’s fault though? Did the handouts he gave help keep prices low and now that Biden isn’t giving any, they’re trying to make their profit by raising prices instead? Explain.
  Of course we should also consider Donald is a lifelong crook and a rapist who is corrupt as fuck. Biden won't sell state secrets to Russia and the Saudis like Donald did.
  And Biden isn’t? Did he not have a lifelong friendship with a KKK grand wizard? Did he not say he didn’t want his kids to grow up in a racial jungle? Did he not sponsor the 1994 crime bill that put millions of black people in jail for minor offenses? Is his son not a drug addict who films himself banging underage Chinese hookers and then leaves the footage on laptop he forgets to pick up from the repair guy?
- I'm not from the US, but in general, government policy takes a few years to affect the economy. I remember Trump cutting a lot of taxes; this may have something to do with the current state of the US economy.
  That said, I agree that Trump did get some things right, such as not starting new wars (although he often threatened to), working to end the war with Afghanistan, and opposing 'free trade' deals.
- I think roe v. wade was a pretty high profile one that probably wouldn't have happened without him, no?
  
  Sure, but what's the big deal about that? It didn't get rid of abortion or anything, it just made it a states' rights issue again.
  Yes, some conservative states moved to criminalize it immediately but there's always going to be states like NY or CA where it'll remain legal if you really need it. It's not like people need access to abortions every day of their lives, and even when they do, they generally have a window of time that's weeks if not months long, so not being able to do it in your home state is an inconvenience at best. Nevertheless, people reacted like it was about three 9/11s all happening at once. A bit overblown if you ask me, when a plane ticket to California is maybe a couple hundred bucks most of the year.
- Downvote me if you, but I still don’t understand what was so terrible about Trump. No new wars, cheap gas, cheap groceries, good economy, literally the worst thing I can recall from those years was reading in the news every day trying to explain why Trump was literally the worst thing that had ever happened to America.
  since the mid 2010s fascism has been marching across the world. golden dawn (the grecian fascists) had even set up a remote office in chicago. le pen almost won in france. AfD won seats in germany. and in america, protectionist, anti-immigrant rhetoric made our neo-nazis think that trump is their guy. literally. they called him "our guy".
  the traditionalist workers party marched in california, and knifed the high schoolers who showed up to resist them. people knew richard spencer's name. they embraced the "deplorable" moniker. and their guy was getting more news coverage than practically all other "news" events combined. there seemed to be no repercussions for the street violence from the right.
  trump's xenophobia made many believe he was literally hitler. his first moves in office, like the muslim travel ban, only heightened this sense. the orwellian phrases "fake news" and "alternative facts" also served to compound the sense that things were very wrong.
  but in the 3 years that followed, i have to admit that his rhetoric sucked but his actual actions in office were pretty benign. his judicial appointments were fucking dystopian, but not unexpected for any other republican like cruz or rubio. his executive appointments (like department of education) were likewise awful-but-expected.
  i still won't vote for him. but i didn't vote for biden, and i won't be doing that this year either unless there are some significant moves from biden that i don't believe are reasonable to expect.
  
  they called him “our guy”.
  to be fair, those chucklefucks also do this to ryan gosling, but I like ryan gosling. point, i suppose, is that believing the opposite of fascists is probably a good heuristic, but it isn't really a great like, reliable fact. see: the milk gallon psyop, or the OK symbol psyop.