If he would’ve done it early in his term, I suspect Trump would not have been elected president again.

We would have had a civil war or at least an attempted one. Then the next time a MAGA-esque Republican came along, which would probably be in 2028 or 32 they’d feel free to completely take the gloves off. We would have validated and enabled that behavior by doing it ourselves.

I do find it fascinating that you seem to be attributing this all to Biden. We have a relatively weak executive branch and separation of powers through different branches of government for a reason. Overturning that is the worst possible idea.

“what’s right” is, sadly not an agreed-upon concept.

I doubt we’re ever going to have another election anyway.

I sometimes feel that way. But I still have some faith in people, particularly Gen Z. I believe after the shit hits the fan and keeps hitting it for 4 years, that we’ll turn this around. And because we didn’t agree to make presidents kings we can actually do that.

True. But the one thing we’ve got going for us is that it is demonstrably wrong and we didn’t fall into the trap of proving it was justified.

Edit: well at least two people think it’s ok to use authoritarian political power to counter authoritarian political power. Do you really think that ever works out? Note that this is very distinct from something like civil war or overthrowing the government. It’s doing the exact thing you don’t want your opponent to do.

Ah, the benevolent dictator fallacy. Because no person or party would ever abuse power or fail to give it up once the “aim” is achieved. There certainly would be no expansion in what the “aim” is. And definitely the people we agree with are always good.

Breaking the rules isn’t fascism though. Fascism is fascism.

It is precisely fascism. It’s ignoring the rule of law to achieve authoritarian aims. Why is it ok when you agree with the outcome and not ok when you don’t? But way more importantly, once you do it you cannot go back. If Biden did this and Trump ended up winning - make no mistake Biden has no authority to remove candidates from ballots - then Trump would feel completely justified in jailing his opponents.

What do you think is a more ethical choice

A. Because the premise of your choice is flawed. You do not know that breaking the law would stop him. You do not know -with certainty- that not breaking the law would result in that outcome. But we do know that being authoritarian to achieve aims we believe in is no better than people we disagree with doing the exact same. What would happen if Biden was successful in stopping Trump but then, because we wouldn’t ever keep unfettered presidential power… right? RIGHT? We’re the “good” guys… what would happen if MAGA Republicans won in 2028? I doubt we’d ever have another election again.

Right so… “let’s do the thing the fascist threatens to do because we’re right and it’s justified” is not the same thing as the fascist saying “we’ll do it because we’re right and it’s justified”.

Easy to justify the means when you believe in the ends… but of course every one thinks they are right and that everyone else will come to believe they are right, thusly conveniently avoiding any bad consequences.

Do you have any idea what would have happened if Biden just arrested Trump?

She was never polling to win, by every matrices Bernie was projected to win, but the oligarchy couldn’t have a populist candidate win and preserve the status quo so they kneecapped him to shove Biden into the spotlight

How do you know?

Believe it or not, I share your anger toward the Democratic Party. I’m not registered Dem for that reason. I just don’t care to limit my blame to one individual and say “oh well, that’s the problem”. Because the problem is way way bigger than that.

Sanders was never going to win against the establishment candidate. No progressive candidate will, possibly not in our lifetimes and so saying things like “the democrats don’t give a fuck about fighting fascism. It’s all theatre to them” is, quite honestly, pointless and not constructive. For one, we know that’s not universally true. For another, what are you going to do about it, in practical terms?

Let’s say that everything you state is true. What practical steps can you or I take to dislodge the DNC and put forth truly progressive candidates?

The answer to this question is precisely why, while I understand and share the anger, I don’t feel shouting into the void and laying blame is a good use of time. Because ultimately there is no revolution. There is no wholesale transformation of the system that happens in a short period of time, no matter how much we want to shake our fists and protest.

The only way to loosen the grip of the establishment parties is frustratingly slow, very incremental change. And that means blaming the DNC or anyone in the DNC and saying “well fuck them, I’m never voting for a Dem again” is counter-productive.

I’m claiming that people employ binary thinking and lay blame where the answer is just a wee bit more complex. Saying “Her selfishness is a direct cause of Biden being elected.” is flat-out ludicrous for all kinds of reasons, mainly that no one knows what would have happened if Bernie had been the candidate. Nobody’s even putting numbers on what “split the vote” even means. FFS.

And look, I voted for Bernie. I even wrote him in in 2020 (I’m in CA).

But the main reason I’m saying all this is that she had the right to run. It just comes across as incredibly shitty - AND exactly the same thinking that made HRC the candidate - to say “oh no, you there, you can’t run because it might split the vote”.

“Do what I want or else…”

Edit: It’s a joke.

Cool. I’m actually in the same boat. My House rep is a Republican fuckwit who’s been in office for a billion years, give or take. We agree on exactly nothing. I still call and email for the simple reason that even though he will always go with the majority opinion if I don’t do it then there will never be a chance for it to not be the majority opinion. I know it seems futile but it still important to represent our views and make sure those we disagree with aren’t the only thing they hear.

I think the lack of correlation between public opinion and government policy is more than satisfactory to demonstrate how much our federal legislators care about your phone calls, yes.

I hear you and acknowledge it is frustrating. But your assumption seems to be that your view is shared by all and thus “public opinion” aligns perfectly with what you believe or at least that a majority agrees with you. We all do this because we imagine our opinions to be sensible and hey, why wouldn’t other people share them? But they don’t.

“We should call our representatives”

“na na why should I bother? This requires effort and I have to figure out what to say. And anyway my cynicism dictates that it doesn’t matter. na na blah blah”

“How do you know, you’ve never tried”

“I just know blah blah they don’t care blah blah”

“Well, you’ve definitely proved that not calling produces no results”

How do you know? Have you ever actually tried?

You can pretty much lay blame on anyone or anything because there’s absolutely no way to prove it one way or another. You might as well be saying Biden got elected because of the phase of the moon.

You need to work on your writing skills. Nanner nanner or something

"Form your own party. "

Good luck with getting ballot access.

But no need to start from scratch - here’s a list of political parties in the US: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_political_parties_in_the_United_States

I’m sorry but this is how I read your comment:

“How dare she run for President instead of letting the man take it.”

Did you not notice i was talking about palestine?

Since you didn’t actually mention it, no, I wasn’t able to read your mind to determine that.

But ok, you are a single issue voter who thinks the treatment of the Palestinians is the same for both parties and this outweighs EVERY AND ALL domestic issue such as reproductive freedom, LGBTQIA+ rights, the environment, worker’s rights etc etc.

You are about to find out that’s far from the case. We could negotiate with Democrats and we know that worked because, among other things, Harris was very clear that she “would not be silent” about the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. She pledged to bring the war to an end so the “Palestinian people can realize their right to dignity, security, freedom and self determination.” That doesn’t mean you get 100% of what you want, which is presumably… well, do you even know? But it is a step in the right direction.

What did Trump say in response? What has Trump done (remember the embassy move) ? It’s a long list but most recently appoint Mike Huckabee as US ambassador. I assume you know what appointing a Christian Nationalist to that position means. Notably, Huckabee is pro-settlement. He has outright denied the right of Palestinian’s to Gaza and the West Bank. He literally said “there really [is] no such thing as a Palestinian”.

Add it all up and you can understand why Israel’s finance minister Smotrich recently said that Trump’s win was an opportunity to annex parts of the West Bank. “I intend, with God’s help, to lead a government decision that says that the government of Israel will work with the new administration of President Trump and the international community to apply Israeli sovereignty over Judea and Samaria

So contrast the two:

1. Dems = pressure on Israel to reign it in, humanitarian aid to Palestine and at least moderately responsive to pressure from progressives
2. Trump = annexation of more territory and permission given to Israelis to take the gloves off + explicitly putting in a person who believes Palestinians do not or should not exist, much less have any kind of sovereignty. And I wonder what you think will happen to pro-Palestine protests during a Trump administration?

In all honesty, if you believe “both sides” are the same on this issue you are grossly ignorant of the facts and simply too lazy to educate yourself. You and people like you are directly responsible for what happens now. You fucked around and now we all get find out.