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This is all anyone needs to know to understand what we’re up against.
There will be no democracy if he wins.
Biden said it explicitly on his last speech. Of course he also said this was a fight for democracy in 2020. He was right then too, but it never came true so people forgot.
It's frustrating that if you fight against a thing and beat it, folks think there was no need to fight it in the first place. No. We routed evil temporarily. Great victory; still needs to be defeated again every time it rears its head.
I've been using the Death Star as an analogy for my nerd friends. Yes, we won a big battle, but the Empire isn't dead. Gotta keep fighting.
A little more like Serenity/Firefly than Star Wars
It almost did on January 6.
And if he doesn't again, it won't stop him from continuing the same path and not wait for the next election
There will be no democracy if he wins.
Given the outright rigging by voter registration culling, limited polling places, voter intimidation, gerrymandering and electoral nullification/tampering, winning so big that they can't overcome the results is critical.
Get ready for swing state violence. With polling places severely reduced in swing states in left leaning areas, we will see more rhetoric about “2A people can take care of that”.
What will happen is that polling place will be closed, and no one will be allowed to vote. Since the books won’t be changed to another location, all those people will have their rights taken away. SCOTUS will say in a 6-3 decision “can only vote on this date”, and by doing so will also strip away voting by mail.
He hasn't been afraid to say the quiet part out loud for a while now. This isn't news, it's more like a final echo off of a once-distant wall that's just about within reach.
If enough people don't get off their ass in November and vote to put Harris, the only other ACTUALLY REALISTIC choice, into office, then the final dominoes will fall.
I'm looking at all of you casual voters who don't go every time. I'm looking at you independent voters. I'm looking at you remaining "undecided" wafflers. I'm looking at you unregistered "it's too hard “ and "I'm too busy" people.
If Trump gets into office again, that's on all of you, and you're gonna be part of the problem if you aren't part of the solution. NOBODY else is gonna do it for you. NONE of the other names that might appear on a ballot in your state will have a snowball's chance in hell. If you don't like Harris, that's fine, you don't have to like her, but choosing not to vote for Harris is giving your vote to Trump.
So get off your lazy ass for a few minutes to help save the world for what looks like it might be more than the next 4 years; it could be for a lot longer. And while you're at it, if you keep voting Republicans into Congress, State, and local governments, (where most of the power ACTUALLY is), then they will keep working us all toward this kind of position. Stop putting them in power. Period.
If Trump gets into office again, that’s on all of you, and you’re gonna be part of the problem if you aren’t part of the solution. NOBODY else is gonna do it for you. NONE of the other names that might appear on a ballot in your state will have a snowball’s chance in hell. If you don’t like Harris, that’s fine, you don’t have to like her, but choosing not to vote for Harris is giving your vote to Trump.
I have a cousin who insists on voting for Jill Stein because she doesn't want to vote for Trump but "I could never in good conscience vote for a Democrat". I know people who buy into the "I have to withhold my vote (or vote third party, or whatever) because withholding your vote is the only way to force change and bring about ranked choice voting". I know people who won't vote for Biden over Afghanistan or the Israel conflict while fully acknowledging that Trump would be exponentially worse, but saying "Voting for Biden (now Harris) would be endorsing his actions, so I can't do that."
And sadly, I do wonder how many of these people are just closet Republicans who are down with the racism and bigotry, and use those reasons to justify the fact that they just really wanted to vote for Trump in the first place but aren't ready to admit it yet.
Some of these people don't know how the system works, and others don't care. They believe they're taking some kind of "principled stance" and think that somehow, in a two-person race (none of the other independent candidates even appear on enough ballots to make it to 270 in the first place), they can get people to not vote for Biden (now Harris) but still somehow not end up with Trump, as long as they Jill Stein hard enough.
They don't understand......One road leads to Harris. All other roads lead to Trump. There are no other candidates that could even mathematically make it to 270. As the song goes, "If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice." Voting third party, or not voting at all in 'protest', is just voting for Trump with extra steps.
So get off your lazy ass for a few minutes to help save the world for what looks like it might be more than the next 4 years; it could be for a lot longer. And while you’re at it, if you keep voting Republicans into Congress, State, and local governments, (where most of the power ACTUALLY is), then they will keep working us all toward this kind of position. Stop putting them in power. Period.
And this is where you can tell who are the closeted Republicans. If they're voting D at the top of the ticket, then voting R downballot, they're a closeted Republican. They may not want to have to justifty their vote when they're sitting around with friends and family talking about the President, or your state governor, or whatever, where voting for Trump may still be considered embarrassing. But they'll have no problem voting for the bigot to sit on their local school board because they know nobody's gonna talk about who voted for who in the school board election of East Bumfuck, Nowhere.
It's why all but the most extreme (and often unemployed, violent felons) Proud Boys or Klansmen won't show up in public with their faces exposed. They want all the racism and bigotry, they just don't want to be covered with all the stink that goes along with it. So they quietly vote these people into power so they can get what they want while still pretending to be Democrats until they think they don't need to pretend any more.
I've said it before, and I'll say it again because I have seen no reason to believe otherwise: These issues will never go away until we address the systemic racism in this country at a grassroots level. And we have not even achieved step 1: We need to acknowledge that there are a lot more racists and bigots in this country than we were comfortable admitting to, and those people see everything that Trump has to offer and are saying "Yes, we want more of that.". But as a country, we are not willing to admit how deep the problem is and have spent the past 60 or so years pretending to solve the problem when all we've really managed to accomplish is sweeping it under the rug and pretending it doesn't exist, and we are now seeing the results of pretending that a significant portion of our voting base that is just as racist now as they were back in the 60s and before are just some fringe lunatics that can be safely ignored. They are not. There are a lot of them, and Trump has successfully coralled them into a very powerful voting bloc. And until that is addressed, this problem will continue no matter how many band-aids you try to stick on it. I'm not even saying I have any kind of a solution to that problem -- I'm a straight, white guy after all, but I do know enough to be able to say I don't know what the solution is, but I do know that what we're doing isn't it.
Uh??
I really want to give him the entirely unwarranted benefit of the doubt that he's saying it won't matter in 4 years bc he won't be running (making the assumption he'll win this time and reach his term limit) but having watched the video I dunno, that "we'll have it fixed by then" sounds reeeeaaally ominous.
It looks like the real benefit of the doubt is that he's hopefully talking about laws on voter ID being fixed. Still, what the hell is a presidential candidate doing telling people they don't need to vote anymore? Even with the benefit of the doubt, this shit is ominous.
Edit: to be clear, I don't give him the benefit of the doubt. All I'm saying is if somebody wants to, this is the best they're able to do. It's also important to be aware of the context of the quote, even if you believe he means it in the worst way.
When did giving trump the benefit of the doubt ever work?
It wasn't even a dog whistle, it was a fog horn. There's not much room for interpretion.
Mr dictator on day one obviously wants to stay a dictator.
He literally tried to fix the last election by seeking out individuals to form slates of imaginary electors in states he didn't win, telling his VP to discard enough votes to make him the victor, launching frivolous lawsuits seeking to have legit votes thrown out, seeking to influence local election officials in urban districts to fail to certify their districts votes and ultimately when none of that worked by sending a mob to stop the counting of the vote.
If I shot you in the head and as you were recovering in the hospital went on tv and said went on tv and said I'd take you down next time nobody would give me the benefit of the doubt and propose I meant on the basketball court. It's completely and totally crazy to propose he meant anything but what he clearly said.
How does he know that everything deranged people want is the same as what Christians in the U.S. want? Christians and deranged republicans don’t form a circle Venn diagram
The absolutely do.
Evangelicals do.
Or more literally: You won’t have a choice
Trump is the most dangerous figure in American politics. He's a demagogue, and a fascist insurrectionist. It's certainly arguable that he's saying 'we'll rig future elections so Christians always get their way' because we know that's what he has already tried to do and what he will undoubtedly do again if given the chance.
But it's equally arguable that he's saying 'we'll have the country fixed over four years, so Christians won't need to even bother voting again.' I've watched the video a few times and I think if you listen to his stilted speech it's clear he's doing his con artist/salesman schtick and saying 'believe me I'll fix your country so good you won't need another President.' Not to say that this doesn't also betray his anti-Democratic views, but I don't think this quote is the gotcha that everyone seems to think it is
So think of the SpongeBob meme where he keeps revealing more dirty diapers. We are currently at the panel where he points out the window to the mountain of diapers.
But what do you do when you realize that half the people you're pointing the mountain out to have a diaper kink?
I maintain the true buttress holding up conservatism is religious suppression of kinks and sexuality.
Once we convince these people it’s ok to suck a dick, they are not bad for doing it, the GOP will crumble in a year.
This needs to be front page news and of course it isn’t.
CNN is trying to figure out what to do with their 350,000 LLM made articles about Biden being too old.
They keep trying to make stories about Harris, but since the LLM’s are trained on Reddit all it is doing is spewing out hardcore racism.
I am willing to accept that he mostly means "we'll fix the country so it won't be a close call ever again". I also am willing to accept he subconsciously means "I just need to pardon myself and I can't run again anyway, so I don't give a crap what you do afterwards".
Thing is, both of those are disqualifying, too, so... no real good options here.
It's very obvious what he means, and it's not that. Stop giving him the benefit of the doubt, ffs
For real. Everyone welcome every single news outlet to a thread, turns out it's just one guy that can't read.
The problem is in order to talk to conservatives about this you need to get in their mind and consider how they'll write off the statements.
His cult followers don't matter. They are long gone and don't give a shit about democracy as long as they get their way.
New voters, undecided voters and swing state voters who don't like him, but didn't care for Biden matter.
Eh, those in your circle of influence might make it so it doesn't matter to you, but I know folks who are on the fence especially after the felony charges.
You do you, convincing the folks you mentioned, and let others do their job.
Those fit into 'Undecided'
And are there conservative leaning undecided?
Any voter who is "on the fence" is an undecided voter.
And you don't think it's worth considering different interpretations of what trump says for them? What defaults them to automatically believing only the most damning interpretation? It seems like anyone who does so is probably a left leaning undecided, there are conservative undecided voters out there.
Because he's literally said similar things OUT LOUD multiple times before. Installing himself as a dictator, arresting political adversaries, publicly executing people he doesn't like, arresting judges and jurors who he doesn't find favorable...
It's very fucking clear what he said. There is no "BUT WHAT HE REALLY MEANT WAS..." talking point to spin this. Hitler and Mussolini used almost verbatim language. Don't be a dope.
You misunderstand, there's no ambiguity on my part, but instead understanding that there are those on the fence who may interpret it differently, and acknowledging that to know how best to respond.
For example, if it was brought up that what he really meant was that it'd be his second term, then the response would be "why wouldn't he want you to vote after his second term?"
Title from every media company out there should say "trump wants to end democracy and become it's dictator"
“Yeah, but Harris is a woman and also…yah know…” - Libertarians and swing voters.
Libertarians = fedora kids and survivalists and flat earthers who don't feel connected to Trump.
That defines the female libertarian candidate. Jorgensen.
Libertarians had a woman candidate last election.
Libertarians also tried to make a "utopian" town that embodied all of their ideals where nobody was coerced to pay for services or assistance, and long story short the town was overrun by trash and bears and libertarians trying to kill each other. Just google Grafton, New Hampshire, it was a whole fantastic story.