Sorry this is kinda political. Is there an asklemmypolitics group this would be better for? I’m hoping not to get into the libs vs progressives political debate we see everywhere on here… Just want to know what people are actually looking for.
Non-US guy here. I don’t get why there’s a choice whether to vote for him or not, when you know the alternative is Trump.
It’s clear Biden isn’t a great option, and there’s probably plenty of reasons not to want him. But is any of those reasons gonna get better in the next 4 years when his opponent would win?
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But I also understand the people who can’t bring themselves to vote for a guy supporting a genocide
If people have this view, then they should be even more concerned about a Trump second term. I’m sorry, this is unacceptable and it’s exhausting seeing it repeated on this platform. It shows a clear lack of understanding on how we’ve made progress in this country and a concerning misuse of emotion over critical thinking.
Modern governance has always been an uphill battle. Don’t throw away progress, as little as it may be. It’s still progress and gaining an inch every day is almost always better than going back a foot. It may take years to get that inch.
If we want change, start local and work up. Campaign for the people who see the world the way you do and fight for them. Organize. Not voting is by far one of the dumbest and most un-American thing you can do.
The problem is, not voting is as far as they’ll actually go towards “not participating in that system”. They still want all the benefits that they get from the system.
So it becomes less of a politically motivated action and more of just a tantrum.
That’s what irks me the most, when people act like abstaining from an election is a grand act of protest that will change things for the better. I understand the reluctance to vote, but that should never be accompanied by a reluctance to act.
I’m not participating in that system
No, this is a lie they tell themselves. Not voting isn’t not participating, because participating means making a choice for who will be president, and doing nothing is a choice. Not voting is equivalent to saying “I don’t care” or “I like both candidates equally”. People who don’t vote are participating, they’re just saying that they don’t care who gets elected.
Yes, obviously stopping Trump is the priority. But, that’s not the point of the question. Imagining Biden actually did have to earn your vote, what would he need to do?
What makes it clear that Biden isn’t a great option? It really annoys me that such a progressive administration in a very divided government is somehow not measuring up to the ever changing goal posts. The only perfect candidate to vote for is yourself, everyone else is a compromise.
The goalposts aren’t changing, for Leftists Capitalism itself is unacceptable and genocide is off the table. Biden meaningfully moving against either would garner more leftist support.
Like his many attempts to push back against corporations? Or do those not count?
What attempts? Minor pushbacks certainly count, but don’t actually threaten Capitalism.
For real, we’ve got the first openly pro-union president, we expanded NATO, student loan forgiveness, actual infrastructure funding, the first administration to openly push back against Israel during war time, all of that in only 4 years. He is the most effective president of my lifetime and I am happy to vote for him again.
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Unions oppose/opposed NATO, especially autoworkers.
Are you thinking NAFTA? I’m not sure unions have much of a position on NATO.
Tens of thousands of dead kids, and he’s sending more bombs.
Mass graves of people buried alive with their hands bound, and he’s vetoing resolutions against Israel in the UN.
Bombing food trucks and the crowds surrounding them, and he’s making excuses for them.
Famine set to kill most if not all people in Gaza, and he keeps sending bombs.
Ok, so to be clear you only started opposition to Biden since the Israeli invasion of Gaza after October 7th?
I can understand the belief that Biden has been deficient in his response, despite the innumerable competing interests any administration would need to juggling. I had similar issues with Obama’s handling of ISIL, however I also had no better idea of how it could be handled better.
Literally just has to stop funding to Israel wherever he’s able, whether it’s using his veto or directing the State Department to delay aid or make disbursement more difficult. He needs to publically condem the genocide like every sane person with two eyes has been able to do for months. No more blocking UN resolutions, no more calling student protestors antisemitic, veto the The Antisemitism Awareness Act etc.
He needs to do what people have been demanding since the very start of the genocide. Do what people were saying when they voted Uncommitted, what students are saying when they protest; stop giving Israel a blank check, stop pretending to criticize them"behind closed doors", stop funding genocide and carrying water for a fascist right-wing government.
He needs to do it now, the longer he delays the more people die, the less likely he is to get people to vote for him.
Bingo.
He’s already got my vote. He’s by zero means perfect, but I live in a swing state and cannot throw out “meh it’s terrible, but good enough considering” because it’s not perfect.
Here’s some things he could do to make “meh, it’s terrible but” into just “good”:
- Put any kind of pressure on Israel.
- Expand the Supreme Court.
- Executive order giving the NLRB Sectorial Bargaining at the Federal Level.
- Force the FCC to regulate data collection.
- Go back in time and allow the railroad workers to strike and threaten nationalization if the hedge funds that own the railroads don’t play ball.
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Spot on!
Stop funding genocide.
IMO, there is a single issue of any relative importance right now, and that is the genocide in Gaza. The longer Biden does nothing about it, the harder it will be to earn my vote. Already at this point, simply stopping all aid yo Israel is likely not enough. I would need to see the US voting for sanctions against Israel in the UN, for war crimes charges against the Israeli government and IDF command. I would also accept a decapitation strike on the Israeli government, and a UN peacekeeping force deployed to the region.
Stopping genocide would be fantastic, for starters.
Pushing for workplace reform like workplace democracy, mandatory unionization, nationalizing industries like Healthcare, and so forth would be incredible, so getting started and getting the ball rolling on those would be much appreciated.
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So, depressingly, he already has it. He’s the only candidate running so I have to vote for him if I’m going to vote at all.
Of course… But imagining a world where he actually had to earn it… What could he do to actually earn your vote?
Universal basic income and free Healthcare. Or 100% tax on anyone with more than 1 million dollars and any corporation with profits of more than 1 million dollars.
If any of those options were on the docket I’d Jan6 the election to make sure it happens.
How did you decide on $1,000,000? That seems very low.
How would you set up the UBI? Safety net, living wage, thriving wage?
UBI means everyone gets a set amount of money every month, no matter what, from what I understand
That’s my understanding too… I meant OP personally. What level of UBI do you support?
While I have my opinions on it conceptually, I’ll be the first to state I don’t have the know how to build it. I do know that $1k a month would give me a life without stress or burden and $4k a month is more than I could spend responsibility. So ideally between those. Maybe calculate the cost of living in an area annually and just give that.
Stop sending money to Israel, or forgive student debt, or vehemently support RCV and reformation of the electoral college and restricting stock trading by members of the government.
do a little actual marketing/advertising on the things he actually has accomplished.
and he has done stuff.
So he already has done enough to earn your vote. In that case what was it he did that earned your support? (Besides not being Trump)
I’m not American but The Inflation Reduction Act is the biggest climate bill that’s been passed ever. It has plenty of flaws, but it also has a lot of long term positive consequences, that can’t be easily undone when the administration changes.
The problem with marketing is that conservatives will make a huge deal about it. It’s better to keep things lesser known so that they actually happen.
Make me eligible to vote. That’s about the only thing he CAN do.
(I’m Canadian)
US can most definitely pull this off
On that day, it becomes the new norm
Other than stopping the support for Israel (for reference, besides the obvious humanitarian issues, the US government is throwing a massive amount of our tax money in weapons they are effectively giving to a foreign country that doesn’t really seem to like the US a ton), stop the stupid tariffs on solar panels and other renewables. Yes, the CCP is obviously flooding the market with cheap renewables, and they probably aren’t the most ethically made, but we’ve had decades to throw money at renewables and frankly, it seems we haven’t really bothered much. If you really want to fuel the domestic renewable market so much, give out insanely huge subsidies to them (like the CCP has been doing for years) and invest in the next gen tech related to them. I get we are currently in a trade war, but we also need to meet climate goals and without China it doesn’t really look like we will even get close. Not trying to be a China shill or anything, just facing the issue that it mostly seems like this is just going to be a net negative for the climate.
I would also say he’d need to make sure those subsidies actually went to innovation and growth and not just in fat cat’s pockets.
Honestly, just make them large enough to attach a lot of attention and eventually audit with actual punishments for gross misuse. If they could actually attach those punishments, some other stuff he’s passed (like the electrify America charging stations) would be far more effective. Not gonna lie, he kinda sadly still has my vote as he isn’t Trump. That being said, if Trump were to croak tomorrow, I think it would be a pretty safe bet that Biden would lose a lot of his polling power and some other crazy might actually have a chance to win. Actually publicly doling out punishment for those massively mismanaging funds and generally making life harder for the public would probably make him pretty popular though (at least for a bit).
Stop funding a genocide
Abolish the police
Abolish prisons
Abolish the military
Reverse course on climate change
Open up the borders
Drop all student loans, pay back previous loans with interest
Free college
Drop the TikTok ban and replace it with a data privacy law
Cancel all defense contracts
Do any one of these for real and I’ll vote for him. But I have my doubts…
do literally anything that suggests he’s thinking about people’s wellbeing rather than some lobbyist’s agenda for 5 seconds
He has to show us he has both a spine and a conscience. The funding of genocide must unconditionally end. Humanitarian aid must be allowed into Gaza.
