I wonder who’ll be next week’s Prime Minister?
Politics and Current Affairs
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Immunity? Yeah, no.
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I don’t write much about the current Tory shower any more because it’s just an endless shitshow, but Sunak sunk to a new low today by making a crack about recognising transgender people just seconds after Starmer noted that Brianna Ghey’s mother was in the gallery watching as a guest. What an absolute fucking arsehole.
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And they’re doubling down on it (from the Guardian live news blog thing).
No 10 refuses to apologise for Sunak’s anti-trans joke, and says it was ‘legitimate’ for him to highlight Starmer’s U-turns
No 10 has defended Rishi Sunak’s decision to make a joke about trans people at PMQs. (See 12.06pm.)
Asked about the PM’s comment at the No 10 post-PMQs lobby briefing, a spokesperson said:
If you look back on what the prime minister was saying, there was a long list of U-turns that the leader of the opposition had been making.
I don’t think those U-turns are a joke, it is quite serious changes in public policy. I think it is totally legitimate for the prime minister to point those out.
The spokesperson also declined to apologise.
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That sounds like a human response, Sunak had a software crash.
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Former Dutch prime minister and wife die hand-in-hand in double euthanasia
A former Dutch prime minister and his wife have died hand in hand in a rare double euthanasia.
Dries van Agt and his wife, Eugenie, were both 93 and were buried together on Thursday.
“He died hand in hand with his beloved wife Eugenie van Agt-Krekelberg, the support and anchor with whom he was together for more than 70 years and whom he always continued to refer to as ‘my girl’,” The Rights Forum, a human rights charity he founded, said on Friday. The couple met as students at Nijmegen.
The Rights Forum described him as “idiosyncratic” and said that Van Agt and his wife were very ill, but “couldn’t live without each other”.
A Dutchman of Catholic stock, van Agt served as prime minister between 1977 and 1982. He was popular for his humour and for riding with Tour de France cyclists. He was branded a “Jesuit” and a “mystic” by political rivals.
The former Christian Democrat adopted increasingly Left-wing views later in life, opposing his party’s electoral agreement with Gert Wilders’ PVV in 2010.Van Agt was especially vocal on the Israel-Palestine conflict, writing books on the topic and branding Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, “a war criminal” in 2016.
Euthanasia and assisted suicide have been legal in the Netherlands since 2002 under specific conditions.
Double euthanasia is rare but has been on the rise there with 26 in 2020 and 58 in 2022 out of a total of 9,000 euthanasia cases.
Jozef van der Heijden, a former MP from van Agt’s party, and his wife Gonnie died in a double euthanasia in 2016.
Constance de Vries of the Euthanasia Expertise Center told De Volkskraant, a broadsheet newspaper: “Many people dread the prospect of having to continue on their own, especially when they are 80 and no longer so flexible.”
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Good news, everyone:
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Saw a thing yesterday about how Austria’s probably going to vote in a fascist, following the mood of the moment. The party the guy represents is the extreme-right-populist FPÖ who just a few years ago had a huge scandal because it turned out their party leaders (and then members of government) were ready to sell out their country in a mad power grab (which was all actually a setup). It was an insane story, and it’s even more insane that now they have more voters than ever, polling around 30%. Apparently people just really want fascists in charge these days and there’s nothing you can do about it.
My mood may not be great.
For those who missed it (I don’t know in how far this made international news, probably didn’t make it to the US):
Austria’s ‘Ibiza scandal’: what happened and why does it matter?
Deputy chancellor and head of far-right party has resigned after video sting operation
What happened in Austria over the weekend?
On Friday night, two German media outlets published a video that shows the Austrian deputy chancellor and leader of the far-right Freedom party (FPÖ), Heinz-Christian Strache, talking to an unidentified woman purporting to be the niece of a Russian oligarch at a luxury resort in Ibiza. When the woman expresses an interest in gaining control of the country’s largest-circulation tabloid, Kronen Zeitung, Strache suggests he could offer lucrative public contracts in exchange for campaign support.Strache and his parliamentary leader, Johann Gudenus, who had initiated the meeting, resigned on Saturday, saying their behaviour was “stupid, irresponsible and a mistake”. Shortly after their resignations, the chancellor, Sebastian Kurz, of the centre-right Austrian People’s party (ÖVP), called snap elections, likely to be held in September.
[…]
What is the FPÖ?
Founded by a former Nazi functionary and SS member after the end of the second world war, the FPÖ became the first rightwing populist party since 1945 to form part of a government in Europe when its late leader Jörg Haider entered a coalition with the conservative ÖVP in 2000.
The power-sharing deal was eventually mired in a series of corruption scandals – the FPÖ finance minister at the time is still on trial over charges of bribery and embezzlement in connection with the privatisation of the state housing company Buwog.After Strache, a hardliner, took over the FPÖ in 2005, he managed to rejuvenate the Austrian far right largely by vowing to root out the “adventurers, profiteers and soldiers of fortune” in its ranks. The party entered a coalition government with the ÖVP after finishing third in the 2017 general election.
[…]
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Those who forget the past…
…vote Republican.
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Crace, once again doing excellent work:
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Nikki Haley gets first 2024 win in the Washington, D.C., GOP primary
Is that good news, bad news or just meh?
Meh.
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And the entire non-partisan reasoning sounds weak coming from what looks to be the most partisan court in decades.
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DAMN IT!!
Supreme Court rules Trump cannot be kicked off Colorado ballot
You seem surprised by this.
Who was in the position to put in 4 seats at the time?
Voters should not have been so fickle/wishy washy about elections.
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Why is it the voters’ fault for being fickle and not the Democrats’ fault for not running more popular candidates?
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Why is it the voters’ fault for being fickle and not the Democrats’ fault for not running more popular candidates?
That is also true. And now both parties have their leading candidates very close to (and over) 80. The Dems should have had someone young and promising after Obama, but then there was Hilary practically insisting it was her turn. Complicated. As voters remembered her in the White House from the 90s.
The point regarding the 4 seats: Neither choice was ideal, but look at how different the SC would have been now.
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DAMN IT!!
Supreme Court rules Trump cannot be kicked off Colorado ballot
You seem surprised by this.
Maybe I was just being hopeful.
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With regards to voters “fickle”, It may be more of an inaction and not recognizing how one thing relates another.
Not that they ever expected 4 seats to be replaced but it is somewhat similar to that “First they came for..”:
Some who were outraged the most when the SC overturned Roe v Wade didn’t bother much when things were about
the border, kids in cages, subtle new voter suppression laws, banning of books, attacks on affirmative action,
trans being targeted, LGBTQ+, BLM, Asians being assaulted… But then once it all came their way, it is a huge outrage
and all of a sudden now, a “clarion call” to unite everyone. -
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Why is it the voters’ fault for being fickle and not the Democrats’ fault for not running more popular candidates?
That is also true. And now both parties have their leading candidates very close to (and over) 80. The Dems should have had someone young and promising after Obama, but then there was Hilary practically insisting it was her turn. Complicated. As voters remembered her in the White House from the 90s.
The point regarding the 4 seats: Neither choice was ideal, but look at how different the SC would have been now.
The problem is that rather than asking progressives and leftists what would make them vote for milquetoast Democrats, the party only seems willing to yell at them for not voting.
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The problem (one of many problems, actually) with the Democratic Party is that it is currently run by the likes of Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer, long-term public servants who were part of the post-Kennedy progressive movement who gradually became the Establishment and now refuse to make way for the next batch of Progressives. Instead of backing someone like Katie Porter (who doesn’t take PAC money and, as a US Representative, has come down hard against corporate lobbyists and Big Oil) for the late Diane Feinstein’s Senate seat in California, the DNC is backing Adam Schiff because he’s one of the “old school” Dems. Instead of grooming someone fresh to run for President in 2016, 2020 and now 2024, they just keep nominating the same faces that have orbited Washington and the White House for decades.
There really needs to be a major shakeup of the two-party system, better oversight and control of PACs, and true reform of campaign financing, but that’s not going to happen in my lifetime.
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The problem is that rather than asking progressives and leftists what would make them vote for milquetoast Democrats, the party only seems willing to yell at them for not voting.
It’s a fair point and so’s Jerry’s, but, still, I mean… When you know the other guy the other guy’s policy is basically to fuck you and everybody you care about with switchblades, you go out and vote for the Democratic candidate because at least he’s relatively sane and won’t make everything a thousand times worse.
Or so you would think.
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Yeah, I mean I understand being unhappy at not having a wider range of candidates or a genuinely progressive option, but if that puts you off still voting in the person who is clearly by far the better of the two candidates then maybe you don’t understand politics as well as you think.
Some degree of compromise is inevitable in politics, I’ve never had somebody to vote for who precisely reflects my views and I likely never will, so I vote for the person who’s the best fit.
That doesn’t mean that we don’t still strive for better and more representative candidates, of course – it just means we have to be willing to vote for the best of the available options (or the lesser of the evils on offer, depending on how you view it).
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The problem is that rather than asking progressives and leftists what would make them vote for milquetoast Democrats, the party only seems willing to yell at them for not voting.
It’s a fair point and so’s Jerry’s, but, still, I mean… When you know the other guy the other guy’s policy is basically to fuck you and everybody you care about with switchblades, you go out and vote for the Democratic candidate because at least he’s relatively sane and won’t make everything a thousand times worse.
Or so you would think.
The problem is then the Democrats have no incentive to ever change, and a lot of marginalised people have been alienated as a result. Their willingness to hold reproductive rights hostage, for example. Biden using executive powers to bypass Congress and provide Israel weapons… It becomes harder to justify supporting them.
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It’s a fair point and so’s Jerry’s, but, still, I mean… When you know the other guy the other guy’s policy is basically to fuck you and everybody you care about with switchblades, you go out and vote for the Democratic candidate because at least he’s relatively sane and won’t make everything a thousand times worse.
To be clear, I’m going to vote for Biden, because I know that Trump is the narcissistic manchild Anti-Christ who will bring about the fall of civilization. But my son’s generation has a problem voting for a man who, by his silence, condones the genocide of Palestinians in Gaza, and would rather not vote than support that silence.
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I think you can vote for a party while still holding them to account for their failings, though. The two things aren’t mutually exclusive.
Perhaps, but if they all fail or the system makes them ineffective there comes a point where witholding your vote is the only thing you can do.
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I think you can vote for a party while still holding them to account for their failings, though. The two things aren’t mutually exclusive.
Perhaps, but if they all fail or the system makes them ineffective there comes a point where witholding your vote is the only thing you can do.
But when that decision also helps to let in someone like Trump, is it really the right choice to make?
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There was a picture in the thread that went “Just because you feel Alfred is too old in the Batcave, you don’t replace him with the Joker” For all the attention on Biden being old, the opponent is 78 himself, and is on record with a huge list of his faux pas. Still… these two are the remaining?
All the talk about Biden and Trump’s ages just makes me think of that Simpsons scene.
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I think you can vote for a party while still holding them to account for their failings, though. The two things aren’t mutually exclusive.
Perhaps, but if they all fail or the system makes them ineffective there comes a point where witholding your vote is the only thing you can do.
But when that decision also helps to let in someone like Trump, is it really the right choice to make?
You don’t motivate people by offering someone not as bad as the other option. And in the case of Trump vs Biden, if your opposition is based on their support for the Gazan genocide, then it doesn’t matter who you vote for because the genocide is going on right now. If your opposition is based on reproductive rights, then the Democrats have been unwilling to even fight for abortion access despite Obama running on a policy of making it federal law. Mass shootings continue apace, the economy is doing better but the benefits aren’t being passed on to the working class…
To a lot of left-leaning people, Biden is no better than Trump, and that’s a major problem for the Democrats.
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To a lot of left-leaning people, Biden is no better than Trump
Then I would have to question their judgement in general, if they really can’t see a difference between these two candidates.
The individual issues you mention are important, and both candidates should certainly be held to account over that.
But if your way of holding the better candidate to account is to deny him your vote – so that the worse candidate increases their chance of winning – then I don’t think you’re appropriately considering the bigger picture.
To put it another way – is a left-leaning voter of the type you describe going to be happy if Trump wins, because it will mean that they really taught those Democrats a lesson by withholding their vote from Biden? Is four more years of a Trump presidency really a price that they’re willing to pay for that point to be made?
Ultimately, I think you have to rationally consider the eventual harms of these outcomes, and whether the point you think you’re making is really worth the cost.
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To put it another way – is a left-leaning voter of the type you describe going to be happy if Trump wins, because it will mean that they really taught those Democrats a lesson by withholding their vote from Biden? Is four more years of a Trump presidency really a price that they’re willing to pay for that point to be made?
They’re going to be equally unhappy under a Biden presidency, which is the point. There’s literally no difference between them on the policies that matter to them. If Biden isn’t going to offer them anything, why should they vote for him? Because he’ll pretend to care?
And if Biden loses because they didn’t vote for him, is it their fault, or is it his?
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I’ll just throw something in here.
How can change happen if the options never change?
If the Democrats keep saying “Trump is evil, vote for us” and win or lose they get a Democratic turnout at the polls, then they’ll only ever have the option of whichever old man’s turn it is (or the occasional rock star like Obama).A big middle finger from the voters and their unwillingness to show up is all thats left to force change.
Sad but true.And they can burn for 4 years with Trump.
“Short term pain for long term gain.”
If we still have a world left, that is.1 user thanked author for this post.
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I’ll just throw something in here.
How can change happen if the options never change?
If the Democrats keep saying “Trump is evil, vote for us” and win or lose they get a Democratic turnout at the polls, then they’ll only ever have the option of whichever old man’s turn it is (or the occasional rock star like Obama).A big middle finger from the voters and their unwillingness to show up is all thats left to force change.
Sad but true.And they can burn for 4 years with Trump.
“Short term pain for long term gain.”
If we still have a world left, that is.Honestly, real change needs to happen at the grassroots level. Begin the change on the city, county, and state levels. It’s expensive as fuck to run on the federal level without huge backing. And even then, you’re making deals with devils. (That’s still going to happen regardless.) Starting at the lower levels of government, you build your base and your warchest. A lot of changes can be effected that directly impact people on the local level.
To make lasting change, the younger generations need to actually run for offices. Run for a city council position. Start somewhere.
As for president, the Democrats need to find someone under 55 and charismatic. The older generation should be mentoring the younger ones and paving the way for them to take over, instead of sitting in their seats till they die.
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Same shit, different day: the Republicans have no heart, and the Democrats have no balls.
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But again, that’s not an argument to vote for Biden, but against Trump.
And I’m saying that’s fine – because I think stopping Trump becoming president is more important than making a protest against the Democrats for not being closely aligned enough with your politics.
I guess others will have a different view on that, and that’s fine – they can celebrate really sticking it to the Democrats while Trump is getting sworn in for another four years.
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And to take it away from just the US presidential race for a moment, there are similar feelings at play ahead of the next UK general election I think. Nobody seems to want the Tories to stay in, but there’s also significant reluctance to vote for Starmer who hasn’t shown commitment to providing leftwing policies as an alternative to the current dominant political thinking.
And again in that case, I think that even if you have to hold your nose, you vote Labour in to get the Tories out – because the Tories in their current form are doing such damage to the country – and then on day one of Starmer’s tenure you hold him to account and push for more progressive policies.
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I hate that our choice in November will be to vote for the lesser of two evils, but I can justify my vote based on my concern about a Washington where Congress, the Supreme Court, and the White House are all controlled by the Republican Party. The GOP have learned how to vote as one body, something the Democrats need to learn quickly and strongly. They need to understand what causes and issues the base of their Party care about, and put their collective support behind candidates that embody those causes and issues. Kamala Harris showed more balls with her speech yesterday regarding the Gaza aid crisis than Biden, Schumer, or any of the other old farts who control the Dem Party and are afraid of pissing off Israel.
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the situation doesn’t get any worse if Trump is sworn in
Do you really believe that? That a Trump presidency would be no worse than a Biden presidency?
I don’t necessarily believe that, but a lot of Americans who’ve decided not to vote for Biden do, and a lot of their arguments are compelling.
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And to take it away from just the US presidential race for a moment, there are similar feelings at play ahead of the next UK general election I think. Nobody seems to want the Tories to stay in, but there’s also significant reluctance to vote for Starmer who hasn’t shown commitment to providing leftwing policies as an alternative to the current dominant political thinking.
And again in that case, I think that even if you have to hold your nose, you vote Labour in to get the Tories out – because the Tories in their current form are doing such damage to the country – and then on day one of Starmer’s tenure you hold him to account and push for more progressive policies.
What way do we have to hold him to account beyond not voting for him though? He’s purged the Labour party of progressive voices. The right to protest has been vastly eroded with him doing nothing to prevent that and he’s keen for it to go further even. He’s made it clear his party is more interested in corporate donorship than working for regular people. Once he gets in, he’ll be free to do pretty much whatever the fuck he wants (which just seems to be the same as the Tories have been doing but more efficiently) with no way for regular people to do anything to stop it, same as the Tories have been doing for years now.
I do genuinely want to know what way you think the populace can hold Starmer to account after his seemingly inevitable landslide by default and push him to more progressive policies.
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Medvedev stole the pantsuit look
Bitch stole my look!
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There are loads of ways in which the public can make their voice heard and politicians can be held to account on issues of importance outside of just voting every time there’s an election. There’s a constant interaction between the public and politicians, whether directly in person with MPs,
Not every MP does surgeries. Mine hasn’t in years, let alone election hustings or debates.
through public campaigns that gain momentum
Like the one for a ceasefire in Gaza? That Starmer is misrepresenting as threatening to MPs and blackmailing the speaker into avoiding having to address?
pressure through the media,
A mainstream media increasingly detached from ordinary people. Which paper do you think is going to push Starmer to the left? The Telegraph? The Mail? The Times? Even the Guardian is happier with Starmer now as bland Tory-lite than they ever were with Corbyn.
symbolic by-elections
The Tories have had how many symbolic by-election results now? And they’re still doubling down on policies. As much as I don’t care for him, Galloway winning Rotherham in part on a pro-Palestinian platform was a symbolic by-election win. But that’s led to more rhetoric from both Starmer and the Tories about “threats to democracy” because a guy they don’t like with policies they don’t want to engage with, got fairly elected by the public.
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my feeling is that in what is effectively a choice between two realistic potential leaders, in both the UK and US, I think it makes more sense to vote in favour of the person closest to your position, to help them get in and then try and influence them to change in ways that bring them closer to your position.
But that hasn’t happened at all with Biden in the US. And it’s not applicable in the UK because we vote only by constituency. Given I live in a Tory safe seat, it’s pretty much moot for me, but I’ll be voting Green rather than for Starmer’s Labour, in the futile hope that a weak vote share forces him to compromise with parties to the left.
ultimately what it boils down to is whether you think leaders and parties in power can be influence and have their policy shaped during their term of office, outside of general elections. I think they can, and we can see countless examples of this over recent months and years of UK politics.
And my point is that Starmer isn’t even listening to public opinion – or even his own party – while out of office, so I’m not sure why you’re so optimistic that he’s going to give a damn about it when he’s newly elected with an assumed massive mandate for all his terrible Tory-lite policies. As we found with Brexit, votes don’t come with caveats. Supporting Starmer now, in his embryonic authoritarian, New New Labour mindset, doesn’t do anything but validate him in that.
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I don’t necessarily believe that, but a lot of Americans who’ve decided not to vote for Biden do, and a lot of their arguments are compelling.
I think that’s a dangerously naive view of Trump and the kind of policies he – or his Supreme Court cronies – may install in a second term. If these people think that the Dems e.g. not doing enough to support LGBTQ kids is the same as Trump outright bullying them for four years – and encouraging others to do so, and to actively push legislation that’ll discriminate against them -, or that Biden supporting Israel in the current situation is as bad as a President doing that but also actively stoking hatred against the Arab communities in the US, they’re up for a rude awakening.
Trump is an all-out culture warrior, and he is fantastic, unfortunately, at really pushing his followers to extremes. There’s no telling what another Trump Presidency would result in.
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Like I said upthread, the Democrats didn’t even fight against a bill passed in Washington State this week requiring schools to out LGBT kids to their parents. if you want queer people to vote for you, you have to give them a reason and constantly telling them you’ll fight for them but never actually showing up for the fight only goes so far before they just say “fuck it” and working out escape plans.
Like, I have trans friends who have literally made plans to escape the UK to Ireland or mainland Europe if things get worse because they have no faith in Labour to support them.
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Donald Trump Faces New Republican Threat
I say, more power to them.
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The other factor that I think plays into Labour and Starmer is the media aspect. That you have right-wing politicians whinging about media bias when the media is easily right wing is amazing for all the wrong reasons. Name a popular left of centre UK newspaper? There’s the Mirror, but its sales are falling. Guardian / Observer? When it wants to be. All the others? Looney tunes, way off the deep end. Sure, you can find a paper, maybe, or an individual on radio or TV, but they will be the exception. Starmer makes a wrong move and he’s suddenly Ed Miliband eating a bacon sandwich.
Social media as an alternative? Perhaps, if you navigate it carefully.
The bigger problem is politics being captured by niche interests. In polls over trans rights, for a tiny group of the UK population, the result is it is not the big deal politicians have whipped it up to be, but rather than change course, they ignore anything that doesn’t fit. Likely due to honouring Saint Maggie, forgetting that not changing course did her in.
I’d like Labour to be better than they are, but they have gone with too meekly or agreed with a lot of bad Conservative politics over the last 14 years. Including not fighting Osborne’s smearing of them over the 2008 crash which still persists now.
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but I do appreciate that they are focused on actually winning the election so that they can get into power and make some changes.
But that’s half the problem: they don’t even really need to do anything. The Tories are going to lose this election regardless. Their vote share is collapsing. Labour’s been winning these by-elections not because the vote is swinging massively to them but by default because the Tory vote has collapsed and isn’t showing up. Galloway won, in part, because he actually engaged with people. Labour’s such a shoo-in for winning the next election they’re in the perfect position to actually have some policies people might like instead just regurgitating Tory shite like “get sick people off benefits and into work”. Even on fucking Rwanda deportations, which is massively unpopular, their position is never clearly “this is wrong” but just “this costs too much money while not working”. I’m never convinced when they talk about it that they have a problem with the underlying idea of deporting asylum seekers to a country from which we grant people political asylum, just that it’s not being done efficiently, cheaply and successfully enough.
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Like I said upthread, the Democrats didn’t even fight against a bill passed in Washington State this week requiring schools to out LGBT kids to their parents. if you want queer people to vote for you, you have to give them a reason and constantly telling them you’ll fight for them but never actually showing up for the fight only goes so far before they just say “fuck it” and working out escape plans.
I do get the disappointment with the Democrats, I really do. But not putting out enough of a fight is enough of a reason to help the other side, the guys actually coming for your, into power? What kind of logic is that? “For me, this is over, I’m going to escape and go away anyway, so fuck anyone who isn’t?”
Or is it “This’ll show them, if Biden fails now, they’ll have to put up a leftist candidate next time”?Because I think that’s mostly what people are thinking there, and if they are, they have no clue what is actually going on. Look at Project 2025 and the way they’re going to re-structure American governance. They’re going to go full Handmaid’s Tale on the US, and one of their foremost aims is eradicating any form of transgender or queerness from public life. And they’re going to help those people into power because Uncle Joe isn’t doing enough for them?`
Well good fucking luck in the Republic of Gilead.
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Like I said upthread, the Democrats didn’t even fight against a bill passed in Washington State this week requiring schools to out LGBT kids to their parents. if you want queer people to vote for you, you have to give them a reason and constantly telling them you’ll fight for them but never actually showing up for the fight only goes so far before they just say “fuck it” and working out escape plans.
I do get the disappointment with the Democrats, I really do. But not putting out enough of a fight is enough of a reason to help the other side, the guys actually coming for your, into power? What kind of logic is that? “For me, this is over, I’m going to escape and go away anyway, so fuck anyone who isn’t?”
Or is it “This’ll show them, if Biden fails now, they’ll have to put up a leftist candidate next time”?Because I think that’s mostly what people are thinking there, and if they are, they have no clue what is actually going on. Look at Project 2025 and the way they’re going to re-structure American governance. They’re going to go full Handmaid’s Tale on the US, and one of their foremost aims is eradicating any form of transgender or queerness from public life. And they’re going to help those people into power because Uncle Joe isn’t doing enough for them?`
Well good fucking luck in the Republic of Gilead.
It’s going towards Gilead anyway is the problem. And you don’t get people to vote for you that way. Like, I’m plugged into a lot of LGBT communities, and they’re sick and tired of the Democrats expecting their support and getting nothing in return. You can’t keep threatening them with things getting worse if you don’t vote for them and things keep getting worse when they do.
They’ve heard that lecture over and over and they reject it now. This isn’t a hypothetical, it’s actual lost votes. Telling them they’re wrong not to vote won’t bring them back.
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We’ll just keep going in circles at this point, because all I can say is once again, sure, I get the frustration, but if what’s going to come for them if they don’t prevent Trump doesn’t make them go out and vote, I don’t think people have an actual understanding of what’s going to go down compared to the current state of things.
And don’t get me wrong, it’s not like I don’t think the Dems deserve to lose vote for not listening to their actual base and being the fucking cowards they are. I just fail to understand how rational people over there aren’t panicking at the thought of Trump getting into power and rewiring American government. I know I am, and I won’t even be impacred directly!
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I can see what you both are sketching out.
The problem is, if someone opts out of the political process by not voting, the same individual will still have to live with the outcome the system they have opted out delivers.
I get the idea that the choice to voters should be more than conventional bastard versus apocalyptic super-bastard, which is the main two US parties. But giving the win to the worst contender because you’re hacked off with the not-as-bad candidate doesn’t look like a win.
Then again, as demonstrated by Brexit and its eternal aftermath, we are in the political era of: How do we know if everything will collapse if we send everything over a cliff unless we send everything over the cliff?
That is practically everything happening with climate change. The answer? Biden signed a bill to “combat” it. God forbid humans accept they screwed up spectacularly by creating it, no, it just appeared and now we must fight it!
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I could understand it better if it was just a four years of Trump kind of thing. Show people one more time how brutal this is and make them fight, and then hope for real change with the next administration.
But the people with and behind Trump are planning on changing how the political system in the US works and drill their shit in so deep it can never be removed. I don’t yet believe in their ability to actually end democracy in the US, but I do think they will be able to harm it so badly that it will become pretty much impossible to fight for those rights that the LGBTQ community are so frustrated are not being fought for right now.
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It’s not the Queer community’s fault that they don’t want to vote for Biden. It’s Biden’s fault for driving them away. And if he really wanted to fight for democracy he should have worked harder to secure their votes.
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Is the LGBT community so self-absorbed that they ONLY care about issues affecting them directly? Do they think their lives under the Trump Republicans will be marginally better? I’m sorry, Lorcan, but the argument you put forth is fundamentally wrong. Do you see what is happening in Republican-controlled states and cities in the USA? Passing regulations to prevent transgender kids from participating in high school sports under the gender with which they identify; banning books that (in their eyes) promote a gay/lesbian agenda by showing them as “normal”; and considering homosexuality to be abnormal (click the link to read about Texas)
It cannot be denied that the Democratic politicians have done more the the Queer community than the Republicans; even if it is still not enough, it is better than what you’re going to get from Trump and Matt Gaetz and Marjorie Taylor Greene and and and….
And it truly is the case this election season that not voting for Biden is a vote for Trump. The LGBT community needs to consider the bigger picture and decide whether they want to live in a less-than-perfect Democratic country or in a truly dystopic Republican one.
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You can’t turn to people who are being hurt all the time and say “OK, the last two times we said this was a threat to democracy and we needed your vote we gave you nothing, but you gotta vote for us this time”. And it’s not just the LGBT community. Why should muslims vote for the Democrats when Biden is facilitating Genocide?
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Because a Biden presidency will be better than another four years of fucking Trump.
You can complain about not liking the options you’ve been presented with, but ultimately that’s the choice you’ve got – and in that situation anyone who doesn’t vote for Biden is helping Trump get one step closer to the White House.
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Lorcan, do you foresee any benefit to the LGBT community if Trump wins in November? Assuming your answer is no, then if comes down to ALL THE OTHER ISSUES AT STAKE, including abortion rights, climate change, democracy, NATO support, gun control, women’s rights, civil rights, immigration and more, AS WELL AS the rights of the LGBTQ community.
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So here’s a question, if an American member of the LGBT community was in front of you, saying that they had been so disillusioned by the Biden administration that they were not going to vote this year, do you think this line of questioning would convince them to vote for him?
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So here’s a question, if an American member of the LGBT community was in front of you, saying that they had been so disillusioned by the Biden administration that they were not going to vote this year, do you think this line of questioning would convince them to vote for him?
In 2016, people didn’t vote for Hillary Clinton because they “didn’t like her”. Because those people didn’t vote, Trump got elected. He stacked the Supreme Court who overturned Roe vs Wade. Due to his incompetence handling of COVID, millions died. His tax cuts for the rich, this set in motion the recession we’re still recovering from.
All that damage done because of a dislike of Hillary. How many women regret not voting for her?
Not voting for Biden runs the risk of Trump getting in again. You know the Right will do anything to destroy gay rights. They would love to end gay marriage.
I will say this: if Trump gets reelected because LGBT+ people didn’t vote for Biden and gay rights are rolled back, I don’t want to hear one non-voting LGBT+ complain. They forfeited that right when they didn’t vote for Biden.
They need to get their heads out of their asses and look around. There is far more at stake by not supporting Biden. They aren’t the only group who’ll be at risk with a Trump sequel.
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So here’s a question, if an American member of the LGBT community was in front of you, saying that they had been so disillusioned by the Biden administration that they were not going to vote this year, do you think this line of questioning would convince them to vote for him?
I’d still make the same argument. Obviously it’s down to the individual whether they agree with it or not.
Either way, it’s not like all LGBT people are of one single hive mind on this. I was having this exact conversation (about Trump vs Biden, Sunak vs Starmer, and the frustrating lack of progressive policy from the nominally leftwing candidates) with a gay friend of mine this week, and she said she thought that despite that you still had to hold your nose and vote the better candidate through, because the worse candidates would be so much more harmful.
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It all comes down to wanting a better option that isn’t available and accepting the ones available.
For covid, until widely successful vaccines were developed, lockdowns of varying natures had to be used to contain the virus. There were high costs to it but all the other ways were worse.
Both US and UK politics are pretty much in the state of “Elect them on Thursday; fight them on Friday.” It’s damning where the politicians are concerned, but we’re stuck with them.
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And again, why is this the voters fault for rejecting Hillary Clinton and not the Democrats’ fault for being out of touch?
Because the rejection of Clinton wasn’t happening in a vacuum; it was happening in a context where rejecting one candidate assists the other, worse candidate.
Trump voters will turn out to vote. To counter that, people need to turn out to vote for Biden. Staying home and not voting, no matter how principled the reasons why, helps Trump.
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Also, the idea that a default Democrat voter staying home and not voting for Biden is really going to send a message to them and help reshape the party doesn’t hold up, for me – because like you said, people already did that with Clinton (helping Trump with his win) and we’re still complaining that the Democrats haven’t changed.
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