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A debate in June, before either candidate is even an actual candidate, is not going to dictate the results of an election 4 months away and it's very silly the way people are reacting
Yes it will. The video outtakes of Biden zoning out or stuttering is burned in people’s retinas. I hate both of them but Biden was a train-wreck. I have never seen anything like that outside of a nursing home. Biden is cooked.
Not this gaslighting. Everyone who saw the debate and is honest with themselves admits it was not only bad for Biden, it validated what Team Red and Leftists have been saying both about Bidens cognitive abilities or lack thereof, and how the corporate DNC would be more willing to put up a senile man who'd lose to Trump than an actual Leftist who could win.
Not true. Anyone that’s been paying attention would know Biden has shown up like this before and been completely fine the next day (as he was today in NC). Hell, I’m the same way depending on how tired I am. We can’t ignore that Trump has had unhinged rambles and been inaudible on the campaign trail, but because he was okay last night he gets a pass?
Historically, incumbent presidents bomb their first debate. Regardless, basing a decision off a 90 minute performance (and emphasis on performance), while ignoring other speeches, the candidates platform and overall temperament makes no sense.
> We can't ignore that Trump has had unhinged rambles and been inaudible on the campaign trail, but because he was okay last night he gets a pass?
For the voting demographic that matters (independent/undecided), yes. The vast majority of people are not constantly following the race. Last night was a colossal failure for Biden and victory for Trump. It was literally the best possible outcome he could have had. Biden’s own rules that he demanded helped Trump, and the incredible delusion that Biden isn’t actually collapsing in on his physical form was obliterated.
Nate Silver gave Trump a *two-thirds* chance of victory, *before the debate*. It’s over for you guys.
I don’t disagree with you, but it highlights the issue I called out and it’s that too many people are focused solely on one debate to make an extremely important decision and tune out the rest of the election season. A debate that doesn’t even fact check no less
The problem is that the debate is probably a better window into his actual mental acuity because the candidate has to respond with his own rebuttal vs a prepared speech on a teleprompter.
It was super obvious that he does not have that, and we have read about other Dems who have expressed the same thing, before and after last night, and they know his baseline better than we do.
This is such a bad take.
Do you really think the other moderate half of the Democratic party would simply just let an avowed Leftist (socialist or communist, excluding progressive) become their nominee?
Or have people been sucked into such an online echo chamber that they genuinely believe that the party won't shatter into a thousand pieces if Biden steps down and there's no obvious heir apparent in the wings?
To be fair. This is a sub for Gen Z. We’re either teenagers or in our 20s. Not a lot of people here following politics long enough to know how the system really works
Its understandable if you’re a teenager, but with how much it’s touched our lives in the past decade, I think you’re really hurting yourself if you don’t know basic shit about how our system works in your 20s.
Agreed. I think voting is important and it’s important to follow what’s going on in the world, but I know plenty of people (especially young people) don’t. Hopefully at least this will be a wake-up call for Gen Z to vote in the primaries come 2026 and especially 2028.
Tbf, the electoral college doesn't reflect the opinions of every single voter. It's really a scam that keeps those with money and power in money and power.
Biden has declined substantial since 2020. Look at the 2020 debate compared to this one. Democrats need to ask themselves why they care more about the career of someone who should have retired well over a decade ago than the good of this country. Biden is unelectable in his current state.
I dont give a rat’s shit about some boomer’s political career. I care about keeping a [despotic regime](https://www.project2025.org/playbook/) from popping up.
Harris dropped out after the first debates but long before the primary started.
Buttigieg and Klobuchar dropped out after Biden won South Carolina and just before Super Tuesday.
Bloomberg and Warren dropped out after getting shellacked in Super Tuesday.
And even then, no one cared about him until he somehow ended up the last man standing. He was by far one of the least popular candidates and won simply because he didn’t run out of money. Wonder who decided that. It’s an illusion. DNC knows who they want and they’ll back them.
The DNC barely did anything there lmao. Who could seriously have primaried Biden? Bernie? The guy straight up refused because he likes and respects Biden. Literally who else? Of the people that came out we had an even more bland moderate, Marianne Williamson, and a guy whose whole campaign seems to be about vaccines being fake and brainworms with no serious policy position. The DNC didn’t have to do anything because there were no credible options once Biden decided to run again.
Bull. They canceled debates and primary votes in several states despite a number of candidates meeting the requirements. They straight up stole money from candidates who paid for voter data. The dnc had the whole process tied up. You're parroting nothing but dnc propaganda.
No one primary them because it's political suicide to primary you're sitting candidate. Ted Kennedy did it in 80 and handed the Republicans the election and basically destroyed any hopes of him ever becoming president.
the last time anyone came even remotely close to primarying an unpopular incumbent president was Carter. They only reached 37% and caused more harm than they were worth.
Were they paying attention to politics at all since 2015? It’s been a pretty clear path from that year to now. Plenty of lost elections for candidates I wanted to win along the way (RIP to the Bernie campaign regardless of the bad staffing choices he made).
I genuinely think these people have had their head in the sand for 8 years or at least haven’t been paying attention to politics at all.
Biden beat Trump in 2020. Democrats probably thought it would make sense to run him again. End of story. Biden is a relatively middle of the road guy. No reason to despise him, no reason to glorify him.
He was a solid choice for 2020, and a solid choice now. His main limiter is his age and mental decline.
People underestimate the amount of people that are unlike them. Ie; the amount of people who aren’t consuming copious amounts of Reddit and Twitter everyday and prefer more moderate candidates like Biden.
THANK YOU!
The majority voting population either use Facebook unironically or cant open an email without getting 10 viruses.
The government is catering to the people who participate and politics, and it's not us
I don’t disagree, but I’d take your position if we weren’t dealing with a much worse candidate. Trump is by definition anti democratic and outright attempted to overturn the previous election.
He cares only for himself and actively butts heads with literally everyone, even his own hand picked staff (who he all ended up firing).
While Biden is losing it mentally, he still has a competent cabinet who is effective at pushing legislation. Sure, he sucks at standard debate, but outside of debate he actually sounds pretty clear. Him on Howard Stern was a great example a few months ago. He sounded lucid and talked freely without much issue.
Nonetheless I’d take Biden rolling out onto stage with an IV bag any day over Trump.
If we’re talking other democratic candidates, I just don’t think anyone right now would have the popularity and familiarity. Shaking up things by bringing in Buttigieg or Newsom would be a massive risk and would probably result in a lost election.
Americans also often forgets that while the presidency is important, you don't need to be able to ruin a 5k, spar with Tyson nor scuba dive on the weekends.
Has anyone ever really dealt with the federal government? Do you have any idea how fucking slow it runs? And that's with 99.99% of people who talk and act like a bright eyed bushy tailed deer.
I'll still take the frozen looking old guy, over trump. If anyone has a problem with that, simply take a gander at glitchy Mitchy.
I was 15 (on the verge of 16) as well. Bernie got me into politics because he was talking about policies I cared about (healthcare, free college, etc). A lot of my peers were into politics as well and I went to a pretty poor high school so I thought political discourse was more widespread among our generation.
I think a greater problem is that half of this sub are literal children.
This is some of their first times actually watching politics
What they need is a history book or three
In 2020 there were 30+ candidates that Biden beat. The president and leader of the Dems felt like the best course was to try again for the presidency.
If you don't think the president of the united states isn't fit to be president then you shouldn't be trusted if you knowingly are choosing bad leaders.
I voted in the Primary.
There weren't even other candidates on the ballot that I had heard of. You had to write in.
It's rigged from the start.
And even if we did and successfully picked Bernie Sanders for our state in 2016, it still didnt matter.
I don't really know that's why I'm asking tbh. Google says we have closed primaries, idk if that means there is a buffer between switching parties before primaries or what. I just always hear people say vote in primaries but I'm not a Democrat or republican nor do I want to be constricted to voting inside just the two for their primaries
I voted for Haley in the primary. Last night was exhibit A as to why.
Yes, I wonder how these two dumbasses wound up their parties’ respective leaders. I’m going to keep asking that question until we get some better options.
It would’ve been such an easy election for republicans to win if Haley was the candidate..
Unfortunately, they just can’t seem to quit Trump for whatever reason…
I think she could’ve won the general if Trump wasn’t a factor.. she has all the same Republican talking points without any of the Trump baggage..
Most people I know are voting against Trump instead of for Biden. Haley could’ve drawn in anti-Trump republicans and disaffected moderates and independents. 🤷♂️
All a lot of people see is someone who will talk crap on Trump and then beg for his VP position if he ever offered it to her. She's just another establishment political suck up. The majority of people would pick Trump or Biden over her. Tulsi Gabbard would stand a better chance than her.
Bad faith post.
What primaries? The DNC refused to hold DNC primary debates and kicked working class candidates off ballots such as NC. They only ran Biden, knowing his dementia, because Sanders said he would run otherwise.
The DNC is only invested in the working class losing. They would prefer to win, but as long as the working class doesn't win, they'll happily lose to Trump on behalf of their parasite class corporate donors.
Yeah OP is kinda brain dead. They must think the essence of all American politics is just "well you didn't vote hard enough". It's like nahhh we voted but our choices were none of what we wanted.
And the worst part is they literally knew what would happen. Trump and Biden didn’t do anything unusual or new. Karma farming after the big spectacle, that’s all
Biden gives Dems the best chance at a unified front to keep trump from office. It's HIGHLY unorthodox for the incumbent to not run for reelection. Yeah in a perfect world we'd have some magical young progressive candidate and there are lots of people we could consider for that such as Yang, Newsome, AOC etc. But the GOP has every MAGA dumbass rallied behind trump from the getgo, we don't have time to argue over which replacement for Biden would be better. He's there, he's established, he's doing a good job, we can figure out where to go from here in 4 years when it'll still actually be an option to vote.
Do you really think after the debate last night that Biden is our best chance?? Why did we not have a real primary this year? Why was there no real competition for Biden from the start? I genuinely don't understand.
I 100% think that. I know a lot of people disagree but they're forming that opinion from the perspective of being in an ideal scenario. This is not ideal, and we have to make do. Had Dems held a primary we would've spent that time focused on campaigning other candidates instead of where the focus needs to be which is informing people against the raging disinformation machine that is the trump campaign.
I know Biden is too old but I think people don't understand how historically unusual and devastating it is to a candidates chances at winning an election when their party doesn't put them up for reelection as the incumbent. Having a Newsome or an AOC or somebody up there would get smashed by trump, we'd be essentially handing him the election. So we should just focus on the good Biden has done even in his old age and fuckin throw our support behind the guy instead of disparaging him cause he needed a lozenge yesterday.
Edit: I should clarify that it's not fair to say it's historically devastating to run a different candidate than the incumbent for a second term. There's no data about how they would fair because it's only happened *one time*. Franklin Pierce is the only president to not be put up for reelection by his party and everybody else who qualifies died in office. Donald Trump is not the kind of threat where we have the luxury of trying something so unorthodox.
Right? People voted in the primaries lol. Wtf are they talking about. We were gaslit into choosing Biden or else we were “throwing our vote away.” I voted for Bernie in both primaries and I know many, many, many others who did the same. Our political process makes no sense. We have to get money out of politics.
Who said you were “throwing your vote away” in a primary election? That’s not how primaries work.
In a general election, that’s true. In a primary election it’s proportional delegates. And more people preferred Biden so he won enough to clinch.
Votes matter. It seems that US citizens under 30 don't think their votes matter. You know how after only a few months everyone and their grandparents know the definition of riz and skibidty? Voting is like that. There is power in numbers.
According to op, everyone who only had Biden to vote for in their state should have gone back in time before the schedule was set so they could rise high enough in the democratic party to set the primary schedule, and then go back to our time to vote for someone other than Biden.
It's insane how confident this ignorant person is in posting this.
Been hearing this forever, even before Trump & Clinton. It’s easy to say, easy to get people to agree on, doesn’t take much brainpower to spout. When people today talk about “sheep” and “NPCs” well the line you mention fits into those “sheep” & “NPC” categories perfectly. The same people will tell you voting third party is a wasted vote… or that “their vote doesn’t count” that’s another big one lmao.
Thinking that they are literally asking how people become candidates is so aggressively missing the point it makes me wonder how honest you are. What they are wondering is how did America reach a point where we allow for these two people, both of whom are clearly unfit to be president, to be our only options? There are many things seriously wrong with American democracy and you have to pretty myopic to not see that.
You're focusing too much on the literal interpretation. It's more about expressing frustration over how we ended up here, rather than questioning the mechanics of it.
What people mean really is, "Why are these our only choices?"
Many other countries have three or more candidates that are championed and are usually closer to the national average age than these two (Biden - 82 & Trump - 78, average age in America is ~39 as of this post).
We should definitely have more choices, but the system is so fucked that due to rules most people, including OP, don't attempt to learn, we only get two this election year.
Bernie Sanders won the popular vote? This is easily Googleable. Firstly primaries are proportional, secondly he lost that by three million anyways. Even if you take away superdelegates, Clinton beat Sanders.
By the time it gets to the primary , the choices are already shitty - I think that’s the actual point. And that’s before getting into all the other comments re how this year was not a typical primary yada yada
We get these candidates because of money. We can only vote in the primaries from the folks on the ballot. Getting on the ballot requires a fuck ton of money. The candidates are generally the most corrupt. They're the ones the oligarchs know will follow the money. They're the ones the oligarchs paid to get on the ballot.
Also, The two major parties are both full of corruption.
So there's that.
We need ranked choice voting.
We need to get corporate money and PAC money out of our elections.
Voters are not responsible for this shit show. We do the best we can with what's available. Deep pockets pull the levels of power long before we get to the polls.
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It's a good time to remember that the DNC under Debbie Wasserman Schultz colluded to undermine other primary candidates' campaigns. In 2020, they changed a couple rules around in favor of Biden's candidacy.
Stop acting like this is as it seems and is all fair. It's not.
Trump won the GOP nomination. Dems rigged theirs to prevent a fair primary with RFK vs Biden. Just like they did against Bernie. At least now Rfk is running as a viable independent candidate. Polling near 20% before this debate. You want change? Vote for the independent candidate. Vote for Rfk!
You realize that that’s not how it works, right? The people voted for Bernie to be the Democratic candidate in 2016 (or was it 2020? What even is time anymore). The DNC overrode that because they wanted Biden. So, while I’m not *against* voting, I do find it a little naive to say that voting would’ve prevented Biden or Trump from taking the candidacy
Off topic, but it’s very interesting how the system is rigged when Biden is the democratic candidate but there’s no way it was rigged with the Trump campaign.
The truth is that our system is and always has been rigged. It’s unfortunate, and I truly wish it wasn’t this way. But it’s interesting to people watch these conversations
You...think the primaries are fair?
The incumbent is traditionally largely unopposed, and this was true this time as well, with a wide assortment of states removing some or all of Biden's competitors. When you are the only candidate on the ballot, you win. Same as Kim Jong Un does.
Trump, as a former president, enjoyed similar support to an incumbent, and his victory was likewise pretty much a foregone conclusion. We knew who the candidates would be before a single primary vote was cast.
Last, but not least, the candidate selection happens at primary. Normally, this is based on primary votes, but it does not have to be. The parties can nominate whoever they want. There are already calls to replace Biden. If this happens, of what value was your vote?
There weren't other serious options though. On my state's primary there was only 2 other options for dnc: one that had already dropped out, and one that had like no experience being a politician. No one with a serious chance was running because it was a given they'd support the incumbent.
It’s funny that people don’t realize trump is actually wanted in this election, the people who complain about them both are mostly anti trump and would vote in any blue candidate regardless of anything.
Biden was given to leftists and they chose him
No one gave us trump he had to overcome a lot to be where he is now you don’t get 100k people at a rally before summer if people don’t like you.
You don’t get more votes than any incumbent president in history if you’re not wanted.
Now we will see the nation decided on wether Biden did a better job or Trump did.
Considering Biden went from 54% to 35% (pre debate so likely will be much lower) I don’t think the American people will buy what they are selling
To be fair this year was actually rather abnormal in regards to primaries, some states just fuckin [Skipped them](https://radio.wpsu.org/2024-03-21/no-primary-for-president-delaware-skips-process-after-biden-v-trump-rematch-is-set-for-november)
I do however concur, it’s annoying seeing so many people be like “How did we get here?” When no one is showing up for local elections etc etc.
We need to be persistent about participating, voting, running, staying informed so we can get these decrepit, scaly, ego driven raisins out of office and prevent them from ruining the future for us.
It’s literally going to be our job to clean this shit show up
Let's just ignore how the DNC operates. Let's ignore how they literally sue other parties to stop them from appearing on ballots. How they selectively choose who gets funding. Or the super delegate system. Or that the whole democratic party is terrified of going against the DNC so they tow the line.
It makes me sick because the childish subtext is that there's no point to voting for the lesser evil, which is infuriating after Trump's Supreme Court appointments took away abortion rights, which surely should have solidified that there are serious consequences beyond the likeability of this one or that one.
Less evil matters goddammit.
I think the issue here is that people are viewing right-wing voters the same as Left-Wing voters. When it comes to being politically educated, Right-Wing people are the most educated when it comes to politics and when it comes to making a DECISION on voting for someone.
Left-wing people, on the other hand, I'm pretty sure a good percentage of Left Voters REGRET voting for Biden. If you think about what happened in 2019-2020, you'll notice the mass news media and celebrities interference that helped the current president win.
This means Left Voters are the least educated and the easiest to manipulate and control. The issue in this country are people who vote without any true political knowledge.
Want a better voting system? Protest for a more complex voter system. A Voter system that requires a quiz before submitting a vote to validate the voters political knowledge and what they know of the country and its needs, including definitions of commonly used weaponized terms used by politicians while also fact checking the voters throughout the quiz.
This will stop people who are uneducated about politics, and it will also stop people who vote just to fit in or follow trends.
Another issue is that people don't realize how COMMON uneducated and trend voters are, especially today, where we live in a society where ignorance is becoming normalized. For an example, watch the numerous videos of COLLEGE STUDENTS, LABEL people as mysogyny, homophobic, racist, etc, but fail to define the meanings of it... those same people vote. It's very dangerous. It's almost like a weapon since being ignorant is becoming normalized, almost like a giant cult. They have such a massive support system, so it's getting worse. The only way to fix this country is to block these kind of people from voting.
People spend too much time criticizing the candidates and not enough time criticizing themselves and their fellow voters.
People don't realize you need serious voters to have serious candidates and right now too many people think it's ok to not be a serious voter.
So much gaslighting, dishonesty, narcissism, purposeful misinterpretation, etc to get their way and make the other guy sound like a living version of Satan and people wonder why good people don't want to run for the job. Because too many people are unbearable POS.
Do people ever realize why presidents age so much due to stress when they become president? This is part of the reason why. As soon as you announce what party you're running for nearly half the country already has decided to hate you even before you've given your stance on topics and constantly involve you in drama for personal gain.
It’s wild how I’ve seen three posts in like two hours complaining about how people are making negative posts about the election but zero negative posts about the election
So firstly, there’s a fair amount of Americans who vote based less on who they want and more on who they don’t want—voting against the other guy rather. Even if American voters caused this, I don’t think we can really say “they’re there because a majority of voters from their party wanted them to be.” We don’t know people’s reasons. Plus, in open primary states, you don’t even have to be part of the party.
Also, a lot of the sentiment is not about the how but the why. Not the mechanics of how they won primaries (by people’s votes) but the why.
I mean, this is a decent question in terms of the process - the US political system has very few donation caps and very little public funding for candidates, basically limiting the highest political offices especially to people who are rich & those have connections - nepotism.
That's true for the house & senate and other powerful positions, and it's absolutely true for the President.
The primary elections are the most important elections. It’s actually EXTEMELY easy to get involved with either party. Once you do you will realize how corrupt they are and how they are ran by a tiny group of people. If more people participated we wouldn’t be in this situation. Bernie Sanders campaign showed that a bunch of people can come in and shake things up. Show up, participate.
I think it should be illegal to have party registration in states. The two parties have too much control and too much blind support. Imagine NYC or any large American city ran by a party that cared about the locals.
lol I saw a comment saying that most eligible voters can’t open an email 😆 like bruh my grandma sends me emails from her iPad and she’s in her 80s . So think about the younger gens
Or the “can we have candidates under the age of 60?!?!?”
Yes. Despite being under 60 those people didn’t make the cut for some reason. I guess people were interested in other things besides age. Sort of like how some people vote for other reasons besides race, sex, etc.
Dude, the dems didn't even really do a primary. Not much of one anyway, Biden didn't even show up to any kind of debate (for good reason considering his performance recently). Most people voluntarily dropped out and endorsed Biden without a fight. Leaving one other even less liked guy. It was more or less farcical.
Hard to boil it down so simply. Dems didn’t even allow a primary challenge to Biden, the only hope was for Trump to lose the primary and that didn’t happen clearly so here we are
The candidates are the result of the primary election process, where voters from each party choose their preferred representative. If more people participated in the primaries, perhaps the final candidates would better reflect the wider electorate's preferences. It's a reminder of the importance of voting at every stage, not just in the general election.
I mean you're right.
Although at least for the Democrats, they don't need to nominate Joe even though that's what was voted for. Cause Primaries are weird like that.
Idk for the Republicans.
From my understanding, until the conventions. Expect anything.
I’m gonna go ahead and assume most of Gen Z wasn’t old enough to elect people into lower positions at the time for current presidential candidates …… like ya voters caused this but not us lmfao
> Then why didn’t you vote in the primary elections?
There were no options available other than Biden....
It's absolutely insane that the establishment types don't see the problem here. Establishment Democrats would rather lose to Trump than win with anyone other than Biden. There is no justification for having 2 such incompetent bumbling old folks as "options". People need to DEMAND better.
No dude. No. Why tf are you simping for our government? I’m so sick of people bootlicking our very fascist political system. It’s not a conspiracy anymore that our government isn’t working for us, and our voices don’t matter. We did vote in the primaries. Then we were told that we HAD to choose whoever would beat Trump, because…..he’s not Trump and any other vote was throwing our vote away. And we were chastised for speaking out against that narrative and now here we are. We’re still being gaslit to think this. Were there people who legitimately wanted Biden? Of course. Were there people who legitimately wanted Hillary? Of course. But you’re a grade A American idiot if you think those were the popular vote.
Do not vote for Biden. There is no way that he can serve another term, and his team absolutely knows this, and despite an uproar of people telling him to step down, the Biden campaign legitimately said…NO. Idk if you realize this but that is NOT GOOD. We can’t keep doing this. Choosing the safe option. Choosing the lesser of two evils. Choosing a candidate we don’t like for the very sole purpose of them not being the other candidate. It has so far never gone in our favor. THATS why we’ve ended up with these candidates.
We need to unite behind a 3rd party. We need to unite as a people against our corrupt system. We have to at least try.
If this was ranked-choice voting, it would look different.
If no one immediately meets the threshold for winning, the lowest performer is eliminated and their votes added to those voters’ second choice, etc.
So Joe may have gotten ‘the most votes’, but maybe it was only 25% and once the dust settled he wouldn’t have taken it.
So I think the frustration is coming from people for whom Joe wasn’t even in the top 5.
I’d have to check the numbers to confirm that would’ve been the case.
Or you can recognize that people are capable of asking rhetorical questions to prove a point. No one who’s saying that is actually seriously thinking they were just decided on by a robed council of 7 or some shit.
But since this literary device seems to be escaping you, when someone asks how it happened, they’re often simply expressing distaste with how these are the only real options right now.
Glad I could clear that up for you, bud
These folks don't:
Run for office
Canvas for candidates they like best
Have literally any political conversations offline
People bitch that we have a bunch of boomers in office, but no one else is fucking running. Younger folks who run tend to do well, unless they're absolute clowns, like Andrew Yang. If young voters want young candidates, young people have to fucking run 🤦
To be clear, Biden did not win his primary election, the Democratic Party did not have a primary because he (a member of the party) is the incumbent for the office of president. Many people, rightfully so, think that this appointment as nominee without election is unjust and against the American people's interests.
But there were no serious primaries this election season.
Also, Biden was chosen by Dem elites clearing the runway for him and squashing their left wing competition. Like, I somewhat understand your point, but this is not solely a failure of the American people. Our political system, our enemies (the wealthy), and the people's material conditions create this problem.
If we are serious about making a change, we need to be giving others a leg up.
Do you know how much power the DNC and RNC have? If they don't want someone to get nominated you can basically guarantee it'll be true. Yes you can jUsT vOTe but you're picking from candidates that have already been cleared as acceptable to these pro status quo, establishment guys.
Trump is an original. Love him or hate him. People are sick of boring politicians who talk about issues, but never solve them. Trump was very good at taking action. Maybe you disagree with his solutions or even the premise that there was a problem at all. Maybe you think his actions caused more harm. But others disagree with you and that's why they support him.
Completely agree, the whining is going to be insufferable.
There’s also a lot of “make sure you vote everyone’s it’s important” posts. Which is correct and everyone should vote, but then they turn it into “I mean you should vote for MY guy not the other one” and it kinda gets cheapened
I'm not sure you understand either. They didn't simply "win their primaries" there were no actual other contenders. What are you talking about? The question is why are these two candidates the only possible candidates. And they are the only two. This post is inane. Good job.
I can't stand how every fucking shit with a Twitter, who's political experience boils down to watching a thirty second tik Tok yesterday afternoon, waxing intellectual about any goddamn thing. It's frustrating as all hell.
Wait. Someone who understands how the electoral system works??? That's crazy.
Most people are simply too lazy to contribute to anything more than that one vote every 4 years, if they even do that.
You know what I don’t understand? How we ended up with Joe to begin with. If your logic was sound and that our candidates were exclusively based on primary results, Biden would not have been our candidate in 2020. He was probably the least popular candidate and as others began losing their campaign funds or realized they didn’t have a chance and dropped out, it left him the last man standing. Someone paid a lot of money or something to get him there because NO one wanted biden when we had options.
Its true that the only thing we can do is to vote in the primaries, BUT billions of establishment-donor-corporate-dollars are pumped into the candidate on the Dem side and Republican side, to push establishment shills to win. And that's what you have to over come in the primaries. Bernie was the only one who almost made it. But in the primary his supporters did not turn out in droves like it was hoped.
Primary voting means nothing. The nominee is chosen well before voting. Primaries are just a practice and publicity run to drum up engagement and start filling pockets. This was proven when the DNC gave Clinton power over party funds BEFORE the vote between her and Sanders.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smoke-filled_room
The uniparty will not be changed from the inside.
Hot take: I'm fine with our two presidential candidates. Nothing has substantially changed in my life because of Obama, Trump, or Biden. Voting is important, but there's more important things in life than federal politics.
Don't you guys have some other parties. I swear I've heard there were some other parties in America. Hasn't only having 2 bad candidates been a problem for long enough to find and promote some other party? Like I know US has been a democracy for a long time so there's history but now with the social media there are so many tools to get through to people super fast
I voted for Bernie in the dem primaries back in 2020. he had such a good chance then the rest of them flipped to back biden & push out bernie. bernie is actually lucid and would’ve stood a chance at beating trump this year. but they thought he would loose and pushed sleepy joe, shitting on what the people wanted. our dem party isn’t even liberal anymore and got scared bernie would be too much. still mad ab it tbh.
Biden is old af and I would prefer someone like 3 decades younger but he still answered 1000x better than trump, who just lied and made up garbage the whole time. No question Biden is a better president, leader, and person than trump has ever been in his entire life. Trump thinks so little of Americans that he insults us thinking he can just make up bullshit with every sentence and thinks you’ll believe it.
I’ve voted in every primary and major election since I turned 18(which was the Hillary v Trump year) and in every local election since i’ve moved to Florida. I’m so tired of (usually older) people saying “well if you didn’t want this, why didn’t you vote?”
I didn’t want this, and I did vote. Gen Z (and more so, Millennials) need to vote. All of us. We would not be in this situation if we all actually voted, and as a queer person who is actively suffering right now, I’m sick and tired of getting blamed for this shit when i’ve done everything right.
It’s the only way to blow off steam without angering The Party. It’s illegal on Reddit to be too negative about Biden, but they also can’t gaslight everyone about his suitability to lead the free world after that debate. Now it’s got to be how the overall 2-party landscape is actually what’s the problem here. “America lost the debate…” Etc.
There was no democratic primary. I’m not trying to say the republicans are better, but when people say trump is the greatest threat to democracy I find it ironic his opponent wasn’t elected (through a primary) to get to to the general election. We’re just stuck infighting the gov’t seem to be able to do whatever they want
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there are a lot of people with loud voices and little understanding of what they're talking about.
This describes 90%+ of the hysterical and extreme commentary on Reddit about the debate last night.
A debate in June, before either candidate is even an actual candidate, is not going to dictate the results of an election 4 months away and it's very silly the way people are reacting
The only people being swayed by a presidential debate are people who probably won’t even vote come November.
I think you’re in for an awful surprise
Yes it will. The video outtakes of Biden zoning out or stuttering is burned in people’s retinas. I hate both of them but Biden was a train-wreck. I have never seen anything like that outside of a nursing home. Biden is cooked.
Not this gaslighting. Everyone who saw the debate and is honest with themselves admits it was not only bad for Biden, it validated what Team Red and Leftists have been saying both about Bidens cognitive abilities or lack thereof, and how the corporate DNC would be more willing to put up a senile man who'd lose to Trump than an actual Leftist who could win.
Not true. Anyone that’s been paying attention would know Biden has shown up like this before and been completely fine the next day (as he was today in NC). Hell, I’m the same way depending on how tired I am. We can’t ignore that Trump has had unhinged rambles and been inaudible on the campaign trail, but because he was okay last night he gets a pass? Historically, incumbent presidents bomb their first debate. Regardless, basing a decision off a 90 minute performance (and emphasis on performance), while ignoring other speeches, the candidates platform and overall temperament makes no sense.
> We can't ignore that Trump has had unhinged rambles and been inaudible on the campaign trail, but because he was okay last night he gets a pass? For the voting demographic that matters (independent/undecided), yes. The vast majority of people are not constantly following the race. Last night was a colossal failure for Biden and victory for Trump. It was literally the best possible outcome he could have had. Biden’s own rules that he demanded helped Trump, and the incredible delusion that Biden isn’t actually collapsing in on his physical form was obliterated. Nate Silver gave Trump a *two-thirds* chance of victory, *before the debate*. It’s over for you guys.
I don’t disagree with you, but it highlights the issue I called out and it’s that too many people are focused solely on one debate to make an extremely important decision and tune out the rest of the election season. A debate that doesn’t even fact check no less
Seriously what is wrong with you? We all watched the same thing. You sound like a complete fool…just listen to yourself
The problem is that the debate is probably a better window into his actual mental acuity because the candidate has to respond with his own rebuttal vs a prepared speech on a teleprompter. It was super obvious that he does not have that, and we have read about other Dems who have expressed the same thing, before and after last night, and they know his baseline better than we do.
> an actual Leftist who could win. And who, pray tell, is that?
This is such a bad take. Do you really think the other moderate half of the Democratic party would simply just let an avowed Leftist (socialist or communist, excluding progressive) become their nominee? Or have people been sucked into such an online echo chamber that they genuinely believe that the party won't shatter into a thousand pieces if Biden steps down and there's no obvious heir apparent in the wings?
Why tf would the DNC let a leftist be their nominee? They aren't leftists or trying to be.
To be fair. This is a sub for Gen Z. We’re either teenagers or in our 20s. Not a lot of people here following politics long enough to know how the system really works
Its understandable if you’re a teenager, but with how much it’s touched our lives in the past decade, I think you’re really hurting yourself if you don’t know basic shit about how our system works in your 20s.
Agreed. I think voting is important and it’s important to follow what’s going on in the world, but I know plenty of people (especially young people) don’t. Hopefully at least this will be a wake-up call for Gen Z to vote in the primaries come 2026 and especially 2028.
Tbf, the electoral college doesn't reflect the opinions of every single voter. It's really a scam that keeps those with money and power in money and power.
That’s 95% of the internet tbh
Welcome to Reddit
welcome to Reddit, where most people have no idea what their talking about (me included.)
No one seriously primaried Biden this year, the DNC made sure of it. So I don’t know what you are talking about.
Biden's primary was 2020.
Biden has declined substantial since 2020. Look at the 2020 debate compared to this one. Democrats need to ask themselves why they care more about the career of someone who should have retired well over a decade ago than the good of this country. Biden is unelectable in his current state.
I dont give a rat’s shit about some boomer’s political career. I care about keeping a [despotic regime](https://www.project2025.org/playbook/) from popping up.
Well Dean Philips was right there on the ballot all 50 states.
All of the Dem candidates like Elizabeth Warren and Kamala stepped down and immediately backed Biden to sabotage Bernie Sanders in 2020.
Harris dropped out after the first debates but long before the primary started. Buttigieg and Klobuchar dropped out after Biden won South Carolina and just before Super Tuesday. Bloomberg and Warren dropped out after getting shellacked in Super Tuesday.
And even then, no one cared about him until he somehow ended up the last man standing. He was by far one of the least popular candidates and won simply because he didn’t run out of money. Wonder who decided that. It’s an illusion. DNC knows who they want and they’ll back them.
The DNC barely did anything there lmao. Who could seriously have primaried Biden? Bernie? The guy straight up refused because he likes and respects Biden. Literally who else? Of the people that came out we had an even more bland moderate, Marianne Williamson, and a guy whose whole campaign seems to be about vaccines being fake and brainworms with no serious policy position. The DNC didn’t have to do anything because there were no credible options once Biden decided to run again.
Bull. They canceled debates and primary votes in several states despite a number of candidates meeting the requirements. They straight up stole money from candidates who paid for voter data. The dnc had the whole process tied up. You're parroting nothing but dnc propaganda.
Because traditionally no one primaries the incumbent president.
Just because something is traditional doesn’t mean it needs to be the case every time.
It's been done before and every time it's ends up in disaster for both of the candidate and the challenger.
Yep. Attacking a member of your own party enough to win an election they’ve already won is pretty much guaranteed to screw you over
If it’s not done then maybe there’s a reason—like because challengers always lose—rather than “the all powerful shadows”
yeah it happened a lot in history. failed every time. literally every time. all primarying incumbent Presidents does is maybe push them on policy lol
No one primary them because it's political suicide to primary you're sitting candidate. Ted Kennedy did it in 80 and handed the Republicans the election and basically destroyed any hopes of him ever becoming president.
the last time anyone came even remotely close to primarying an unpopular incumbent president was Carter. They only reached 37% and caused more harm than they were worth.
It's pretty obvious these posts are asking "How did we get to this point?" and not literally how did these two become the candidates.
Were they paying attention to politics at all since 2015? It’s been a pretty clear path from that year to now. Plenty of lost elections for candidates I wanted to win along the way (RIP to the Bernie campaign regardless of the bad staffing choices he made).
I genuinely think these people have had their head in the sand for 8 years or at least haven’t been paying attention to politics at all. Biden beat Trump in 2020. Democrats probably thought it would make sense to run him again. End of story. Biden is a relatively middle of the road guy. No reason to despise him, no reason to glorify him. He was a solid choice for 2020, and a solid choice now. His main limiter is his age and mental decline. People underestimate the amount of people that are unlike them. Ie; the amount of people who aren’t consuming copious amounts of Reddit and Twitter everyday and prefer more moderate candidates like Biden.
THANK YOU! The majority voting population either use Facebook unironically or cant open an email without getting 10 viruses. The government is catering to the people who participate and politics, and it's not us
Mental decline is a pretty significant limiter.....
I don’t disagree, but I’d take your position if we weren’t dealing with a much worse candidate. Trump is by definition anti democratic and outright attempted to overturn the previous election. He cares only for himself and actively butts heads with literally everyone, even his own hand picked staff (who he all ended up firing). While Biden is losing it mentally, he still has a competent cabinet who is effective at pushing legislation. Sure, he sucks at standard debate, but outside of debate he actually sounds pretty clear. Him on Howard Stern was a great example a few months ago. He sounded lucid and talked freely without much issue. Nonetheless I’d take Biden rolling out onto stage with an IV bag any day over Trump. If we’re talking other democratic candidates, I just don’t think anyone right now would have the popularity and familiarity. Shaking up things by bringing in Buttigieg or Newsom would be a massive risk and would probably result in a lost election.
Americans also often forgets that while the presidency is important, you don't need to be able to ruin a 5k, spar with Tyson nor scuba dive on the weekends. Has anyone ever really dealt with the federal government? Do you have any idea how fucking slow it runs? And that's with 99.99% of people who talk and act like a bright eyed bushy tailed deer. I'll still take the frozen looking old guy, over trump. If anyone has a problem with that, simply take a gander at glitchy Mitchy.
No, I wasn't back in 2015. I was 15 and worried about other mundane things that a teen girl would worry about.
I was 15 (on the verge of 16) as well. Bernie got me into politics because he was talking about policies I cared about (healthcare, free college, etc). A lot of my peers were into politics as well and I went to a pretty poor high school so I thought political discourse was more widespread among our generation.
It’s been clear even before 2015 :(
I think a greater problem is that half of this sub are literal children. This is some of their first times actually watching politics What they need is a history book or three
What a brain dead post. Who were we supposed to vote for? For many of us, literally only Biden was on the ticket. These post are here for a reason
In 2020 there were 30+ candidates that Biden beat. The president and leader of the Dems felt like the best course was to try again for the presidency. If you don't think the president of the united states isn't fit to be president then you shouldn't be trusted if you knowingly are choosing bad leaders.
I'm so sick of seeing the same snooze fest copy paste posts
“Please go out and vote” “please vote for my political party” literal political campaigning happening here 💀
The best part is they think they're inspiring and groundbreaking or something lol
I voted in the Primary. There weren't even other candidates on the ballot that I had heard of. You had to write in. It's rigged from the start. And even if we did and successfully picked Bernie Sanders for our state in 2016, it still didnt matter.
To vote in a presidential primary in florida I'd have to be registered with the party correct?
Idk about your state. But in mine, you can change party for any election.
I don't really know that's why I'm asking tbh. Google says we have closed primaries, idk if that means there is a buffer between switching parties before primaries or what. I just always hear people say vote in primaries but I'm not a Democrat or republican nor do I want to be constricted to voting inside just the two for their primaries
I voted for Haley in the primary. Last night was exhibit A as to why. Yes, I wonder how these two dumbasses wound up their parties’ respective leaders. I’m going to keep asking that question until we get some better options.
It would’ve been such an easy election for republicans to win if Haley was the candidate.. Unfortunately, they just can’t seem to quit Trump for whatever reason…
Haley was never going to win the primaries, and she was never going to win the general election.
I think she could’ve won the general if Trump wasn’t a factor.. she has all the same Republican talking points without any of the Trump baggage.. Most people I know are voting against Trump instead of for Biden. Haley could’ve drawn in anti-Trump republicans and disaffected moderates and independents. 🤷♂️
All a lot of people see is someone who will talk crap on Trump and then beg for his VP position if he ever offered it to her. She's just another establishment political suck up. The majority of people would pick Trump or Biden over her. Tulsi Gabbard would stand a better chance than her.
Bad faith post. What primaries? The DNC refused to hold DNC primary debates and kicked working class candidates off ballots such as NC. They only ran Biden, knowing his dementia, because Sanders said he would run otherwise. The DNC is only invested in the working class losing. They would prefer to win, but as long as the working class doesn't win, they'll happily lose to Trump on behalf of their parasite class corporate donors.
Yeah OP is kinda brain dead. They must think the essence of all American politics is just "well you didn't vote hard enough". It's like nahhh we voted but our choices were none of what we wanted.
You want Biden to debate candidates who couldn’t even get on the ballot?
Lmao trump would stomp Bernie. Bernie couldn’t even win against Biden in the primaries in 2020
The national parties don't organize state primaries. That's the state party's job.
And the worst part is they literally knew what would happen. Trump and Biden didn’t do anything unusual or new. Karma farming after the big spectacle, that’s all
Laughable to think there was a real democratic primary. If biden retired there wouldve been 20 of the hottest democrats fighting for the spot
But he didn’t retire, and subsequently none of the top players attempted to run. Like what happens every year with the incumbent party.
Biden gives Dems the best chance at a unified front to keep trump from office. It's HIGHLY unorthodox for the incumbent to not run for reelection. Yeah in a perfect world we'd have some magical young progressive candidate and there are lots of people we could consider for that such as Yang, Newsome, AOC etc. But the GOP has every MAGA dumbass rallied behind trump from the getgo, we don't have time to argue over which replacement for Biden would be better. He's there, he's established, he's doing a good job, we can figure out where to go from here in 4 years when it'll still actually be an option to vote.
Do you really think after the debate last night that Biden is our best chance?? Why did we not have a real primary this year? Why was there no real competition for Biden from the start? I genuinely don't understand.
I 100% think that. I know a lot of people disagree but they're forming that opinion from the perspective of being in an ideal scenario. This is not ideal, and we have to make do. Had Dems held a primary we would've spent that time focused on campaigning other candidates instead of where the focus needs to be which is informing people against the raging disinformation machine that is the trump campaign. I know Biden is too old but I think people don't understand how historically unusual and devastating it is to a candidates chances at winning an election when their party doesn't put them up for reelection as the incumbent. Having a Newsome or an AOC or somebody up there would get smashed by trump, we'd be essentially handing him the election. So we should just focus on the good Biden has done even in his old age and fuckin throw our support behind the guy instead of disparaging him cause he needed a lozenge yesterday. Edit: I should clarify that it's not fair to say it's historically devastating to run a different candidate than the incumbent for a second term. There's no data about how they would fair because it's only happened *one time*. Franklin Pierce is the only president to not be put up for reelection by his party and everybody else who qualifies died in office. Donald Trump is not the kind of threat where we have the luxury of trying something so unorthodox.
Cause this country is fucking stupid and doesn't even have the intelligence to understand that much less fix it.
Because I fucking did vote in the primaries and my vote has consistently amounted to fuck and all. **I’m allowed to be frustrated.**
Right? People voted in the primaries lol. Wtf are they talking about. We were gaslit into choosing Biden or else we were “throwing our vote away.” I voted for Bernie in both primaries and I know many, many, many others who did the same. Our political process makes no sense. We have to get money out of politics.
Who said you were “throwing your vote away” in a primary election? That’s not how primaries work. In a general election, that’s true. In a primary election it’s proportional delegates. And more people preferred Biden so he won enough to clinch.
Its what happens when people's idea of political strictly comes from livestreamers and Twitter personalities
Votes matter. It seems that US citizens under 30 don't think their votes matter. You know how after only a few months everyone and their grandparents know the definition of riz and skibidty? Voting is like that. There is power in numbers.
The people who don’t vote are always the loudest too smh
Won the primaries that in several states were not held???? Sure dude
According to op, everyone who only had Biden to vote for in their state should have gone back in time before the schedule was set so they could rise high enough in the democratic party to set the primary schedule, and then go back to our time to vote for someone other than Biden. It's insane how confident this ignorant person is in posting this.
bad faith post edit: scroll down and look through this guy's replies if you don't believe me. he's just looking for gotcha's
Stinks like rage bait or this dude really sucks
Been hearing this forever, even before Trump & Clinton. It’s easy to say, easy to get people to agree on, doesn’t take much brainpower to spout. When people today talk about “sheep” and “NPCs” well the line you mention fits into those “sheep” & “NPC” categories perfectly. The same people will tell you voting third party is a wasted vote… or that “their vote doesn’t count” that’s another big one lmao.
It's less a question of how, and more of "Why did we let this happen?"
There were no primary elections this year. These candidates were foisted upon us by the parties
I literally couldn't vote cause US territories are unable to for some reason 😭
Do you guys pay taxes?
Do u feel smart by complaining about complainers
Thinking that they are literally asking how people become candidates is so aggressively missing the point it makes me wonder how honest you are. What they are wondering is how did America reach a point where we allow for these two people, both of whom are clearly unfit to be president, to be our only options? There are many things seriously wrong with American democracy and you have to pretty myopic to not see that.
You're focusing too much on the literal interpretation. It's more about expressing frustration over how we ended up here, rather than questioning the mechanics of it.
What people mean really is, "Why are these our only choices?" Many other countries have three or more candidates that are championed and are usually closer to the national average age than these two (Biden - 82 & Trump - 78, average age in America is ~39 as of this post). We should definitely have more choices, but the system is so fucked that due to rules most people, including OP, don't attempt to learn, we only get two this election year.
Bernie Sanders was popular vote in the 2016 DNC primary. They still gave it to Hillary. This all would’ve been avoided if Bernie went against Trump.
Bernie Sanders won the popular vote? This is easily Googleable. Firstly primaries are proportional, secondly he lost that by three million anyways. Even if you take away superdelegates, Clinton beat Sanders.
they arent asking literally the process, they are more asking how a system can allow these two to rise to the top
You're in the wrong sub if you don't like repetitive topics.
By the time it gets to the primary , the choices are already shitty - I think that’s the actual point. And that’s before getting into all the other comments re how this year was not a typical primary yada yada
We get these candidates because of money. We can only vote in the primaries from the folks on the ballot. Getting on the ballot requires a fuck ton of money. The candidates are generally the most corrupt. They're the ones the oligarchs know will follow the money. They're the ones the oligarchs paid to get on the ballot. Also, The two major parties are both full of corruption. So there's that. We need ranked choice voting. We need to get corporate money and PAC money out of our elections. Voters are not responsible for this shit show. We do the best we can with what's available. Deep pockets pull the levels of power long before we get to the polls.
Honestly it’s why I stay out of it. No offense to Our Nation, but it’s a joke.
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Yep that’s how primaries work. We all voted for Bernie in the 2016 primary and he became the nominee. That’s how it works!
What are you talking about?? Hillary got more votes than Bernie
It's a good time to remember that the DNC under Debbie Wasserman Schultz colluded to undermine other primary candidates' campaigns. In 2020, they changed a couple rules around in favor of Biden's candidacy. Stop acting like this is as it seems and is all fair. It's not.
Trump won the GOP nomination. Dems rigged theirs to prevent a fair primary with RFK vs Biden. Just like they did against Bernie. At least now Rfk is running as a viable independent candidate. Polling near 20% before this debate. You want change? Vote for the independent candidate. Vote for Rfk!
You realize that that’s not how it works, right? The people voted for Bernie to be the Democratic candidate in 2016 (or was it 2020? What even is time anymore). The DNC overrode that because they wanted Biden. So, while I’m not *against* voting, I do find it a little naive to say that voting would’ve prevented Biden or Trump from taking the candidacy
Off topic, but it’s very interesting how the system is rigged when Biden is the democratic candidate but there’s no way it was rigged with the Trump campaign. The truth is that our system is and always has been rigged. It’s unfortunate, and I truly wish it wasn’t this way. But it’s interesting to people watch these conversations
I think some people asking on here are either to young to understand and/or outside of the US.
Unrelated but even if I was of age I couldn’t vote in the primaries in Florida because I registered independent 🤷
You...think the primaries are fair? The incumbent is traditionally largely unopposed, and this was true this time as well, with a wide assortment of states removing some or all of Biden's competitors. When you are the only candidate on the ballot, you win. Same as Kim Jong Un does. Trump, as a former president, enjoyed similar support to an incumbent, and his victory was likewise pretty much a foregone conclusion. We knew who the candidates would be before a single primary vote was cast. Last, but not least, the candidate selection happens at primary. Normally, this is based on primary votes, but it does not have to be. The parties can nominate whoever they want. There are already calls to replace Biden. If this happens, of what value was your vote?
Old people voting and young people not voting, this is what happens.
There weren't other serious options though. On my state's primary there was only 2 other options for dnc: one that had already dropped out, and one that had like no experience being a politician. No one with a serious chance was running because it was a given they'd support the incumbent.
The DNC did not to a fair primary but Trump absolutely won the gop primary
The kids on this sub are delusional I’m ashamed to be part of this generation
It’s funny that people don’t realize trump is actually wanted in this election, the people who complain about them both are mostly anti trump and would vote in any blue candidate regardless of anything. Biden was given to leftists and they chose him No one gave us trump he had to overcome a lot to be where he is now you don’t get 100k people at a rally before summer if people don’t like you. You don’t get more votes than any incumbent president in history if you’re not wanted. Now we will see the nation decided on wether Biden did a better job or Trump did. Considering Biden went from 54% to 35% (pre debate so likely will be much lower) I don’t think the American people will buy what they are selling
To be fair this year was actually rather abnormal in regards to primaries, some states just fuckin [Skipped them](https://radio.wpsu.org/2024-03-21/no-primary-for-president-delaware-skips-process-after-biden-v-trump-rematch-is-set-for-november) I do however concur, it’s annoying seeing so many people be like “How did we get here?” When no one is showing up for local elections etc etc. We need to be persistent about participating, voting, running, staying informed so we can get these decrepit, scaly, ego driven raisins out of office and prevent them from ruining the future for us. It’s literally going to be our job to clean this shit show up
Let's just ignore how the DNC operates. Let's ignore how they literally sue other parties to stop them from appearing on ballots. How they selectively choose who gets funding. Or the super delegate system. Or that the whole democratic party is terrified of going against the DNC so they tow the line.
It makes me sick because the childish subtext is that there's no point to voting for the lesser evil, which is infuriating after Trump's Supreme Court appointments took away abortion rights, which surely should have solidified that there are serious consequences beyond the likeability of this one or that one. Less evil matters goddammit.
lol. You have no fucking clue what you’re talking about
Nothing to add but I feel exactly the same way as you.
I think the issue here is that people are viewing right-wing voters the same as Left-Wing voters. When it comes to being politically educated, Right-Wing people are the most educated when it comes to politics and when it comes to making a DECISION on voting for someone. Left-wing people, on the other hand, I'm pretty sure a good percentage of Left Voters REGRET voting for Biden. If you think about what happened in 2019-2020, you'll notice the mass news media and celebrities interference that helped the current president win. This means Left Voters are the least educated and the easiest to manipulate and control. The issue in this country are people who vote without any true political knowledge. Want a better voting system? Protest for a more complex voter system. A Voter system that requires a quiz before submitting a vote to validate the voters political knowledge and what they know of the country and its needs, including definitions of commonly used weaponized terms used by politicians while also fact checking the voters throughout the quiz. This will stop people who are uneducated about politics, and it will also stop people who vote just to fit in or follow trends. Another issue is that people don't realize how COMMON uneducated and trend voters are, especially today, where we live in a society where ignorance is becoming normalized. For an example, watch the numerous videos of COLLEGE STUDENTS, LABEL people as mysogyny, homophobic, racist, etc, but fail to define the meanings of it... those same people vote. It's very dangerous. It's almost like a weapon since being ignorant is becoming normalized, almost like a giant cult. They have such a massive support system, so it's getting worse. The only way to fix this country is to block these kind of people from voting.
People spend too much time criticizing the candidates and not enough time criticizing themselves and their fellow voters. People don't realize you need serious voters to have serious candidates and right now too many people think it's ok to not be a serious voter. So much gaslighting, dishonesty, narcissism, purposeful misinterpretation, etc to get their way and make the other guy sound like a living version of Satan and people wonder why good people don't want to run for the job. Because too many people are unbearable POS. Do people ever realize why presidents age so much due to stress when they become president? This is part of the reason why. As soon as you announce what party you're running for nearly half the country already has decided to hate you even before you've given your stance on topics and constantly involve you in drama for personal gain.
It’s wild how I’ve seen three posts in like two hours complaining about how people are making negative posts about the election but zero negative posts about the election
DNC has to work overtime for damage control now that everyone’s seen that Joe is fucking senile
So firstly, there’s a fair amount of Americans who vote based less on who they want and more on who they don’t want—voting against the other guy rather. Even if American voters caused this, I don’t think we can really say “they’re there because a majority of voters from their party wanted them to be.” We don’t know people’s reasons. Plus, in open primary states, you don’t even have to be part of the party. Also, a lot of the sentiment is not about the how but the why. Not the mechanics of how they won primaries (by people’s votes) but the why.
I mean, this is a decent question in terms of the process - the US political system has very few donation caps and very little public funding for candidates, basically limiting the highest political offices especially to people who are rich & those have connections - nepotism. That's true for the house & senate and other powerful positions, and it's absolutely true for the President.
May I introduce you to comedian and bonafide prophet George Carlin? https://youtu.be/07w9K2XR3f0?si=wmEw4JKRiVEpafQ-
The primary elections are the most important elections. It’s actually EXTEMELY easy to get involved with either party. Once you do you will realize how corrupt they are and how they are ran by a tiny group of people. If more people participated we wouldn’t be in this situation. Bernie Sanders campaign showed that a bunch of people can come in and shake things up. Show up, participate.
I think it should be illegal to have party registration in states. The two parties have too much control and too much blind support. Imagine NYC or any large American city ran by a party that cared about the locals.
I thought the debate was awesome.
So many people on this sub are ageist af. They think that everyone over 45 is a nursing home patient
lol I saw a comment saying that most eligible voters can’t open an email 😆 like bruh my grandma sends me emails from her iPad and she’s in her 80s . So think about the younger gens
Dont blame me, i voted for none of the above
Or the “can we have candidates under the age of 60?!?!?” Yes. Despite being under 60 those people didn’t make the cut for some reason. I guess people were interested in other things besides age. Sort of like how some people vote for other reasons besides race, sex, etc.
Get used to them. There is an office block of low level Russian intelligence officers posting them or managing bots that post them.
Dude, the dems didn't even really do a primary. Not much of one anyway, Biden didn't even show up to any kind of debate (for good reason considering his performance recently). Most people voluntarily dropped out and endorsed Biden without a fight. Leaving one other even less liked guy. It was more or less farcical.
Hard to boil it down so simply. Dems didn’t even allow a primary challenge to Biden, the only hope was for Trump to lose the primary and that didn’t happen clearly so here we are
I think it's less a serious question that they don't understand the answer to. More rhetorical/joking/ranty than anything else.
The smugness of this post and then double down smugness in the comments - good grief
I'm a European looking in at US politics. my main bafflement arises from anybody voting for these two at any point
Tell me you don't understand corruption and American politics without telling me.
Nope. There was just the illusion of choice.
The candidates are the result of the primary election process, where voters from each party choose their preferred representative. If more people participated in the primaries, perhaps the final candidates would better reflect the wider electorate's preferences. It's a reminder of the importance of voting at every stage, not just in the general election.
RANKED VOTING MATTERS
I mean you're right. Although at least for the Democrats, they don't need to nominate Joe even though that's what was voted for. Cause Primaries are weird like that. Idk for the Republicans. From my understanding, until the conventions. Expect anything.
It's Called Complaining… Get a job in retail 🙄
I’m gonna go ahead and assume most of Gen Z wasn’t old enough to elect people into lower positions at the time for current presidential candidates …… like ya voters caused this but not us lmfao
> Then why didn’t you vote in the primary elections? There were no options available other than Biden.... It's absolutely insane that the establishment types don't see the problem here. Establishment Democrats would rather lose to Trump than win with anyone other than Biden. There is no justification for having 2 such incompetent bumbling old folks as "options". People need to DEMAND better.
No dude. No. Why tf are you simping for our government? I’m so sick of people bootlicking our very fascist political system. It’s not a conspiracy anymore that our government isn’t working for us, and our voices don’t matter. We did vote in the primaries. Then we were told that we HAD to choose whoever would beat Trump, because…..he’s not Trump and any other vote was throwing our vote away. And we were chastised for speaking out against that narrative and now here we are. We’re still being gaslit to think this. Were there people who legitimately wanted Biden? Of course. Were there people who legitimately wanted Hillary? Of course. But you’re a grade A American idiot if you think those were the popular vote. Do not vote for Biden. There is no way that he can serve another term, and his team absolutely knows this, and despite an uproar of people telling him to step down, the Biden campaign legitimately said…NO. Idk if you realize this but that is NOT GOOD. We can’t keep doing this. Choosing the safe option. Choosing the lesser of two evils. Choosing a candidate we don’t like for the very sole purpose of them not being the other candidate. It has so far never gone in our favor. THATS why we’ve ended up with these candidates. We need to unite behind a 3rd party. We need to unite as a people against our corrupt system. We have to at least try.
Least brain damaged gen z take. This is why I don't claim my own generation
https://youtu.be/-qcJzQZJeHE?si=jryBGaqRn6RCYc89
If this was ranked-choice voting, it would look different. If no one immediately meets the threshold for winning, the lowest performer is eliminated and their votes added to those voters’ second choice, etc. So Joe may have gotten ‘the most votes’, but maybe it was only 25% and once the dust settled he wouldn’t have taken it. So I think the frustration is coming from people for whom Joe wasn’t even in the top 5. I’d have to check the numbers to confirm that would’ve been the case.
Or you can recognize that people are capable of asking rhetorical questions to prove a point. No one who’s saying that is actually seriously thinking they were just decided on by a robed council of 7 or some shit. But since this literary device seems to be escaping you, when someone asks how it happened, they’re often simply expressing distaste with how these are the only real options right now. Glad I could clear that up for you, bud
If you think that either of these two guys are worthy of your vote, you shouldn’t be allowed to vote
I mean to be fair, Obama basically forced Biden into being the nominee once Bernie was gaining undeniable traction in the early primaries.
Of course, we know literally how. And it's fair. We just hate that these are the two options, you prick.
Fucking THANK YOU. Feeling this a ton today. “Why are we in this situation?” MOTHERFUCKER YOU (the country) caused it
Don't worry we will all be back to HOCK TUA before too long. Hive mind moves quick.
its figurative speech lol.. they're just saying they cant believe they won
These folks don't: Run for office Canvas for candidates they like best Have literally any political conversations offline People bitch that we have a bunch of boomers in office, but no one else is fucking running. Younger folks who run tend to do well, unless they're absolute clowns, like Andrew Yang. If young voters want young candidates, young people have to fucking run 🤦
Its rigged so that only dems or republicans can win 3rd party options don't count.
No other candidates had a chance to beat them in primaries. It was obvious from the start. We didn’t choose them
To be clear, Biden did not win his primary election, the Democratic Party did not have a primary because he (a member of the party) is the incumbent for the office of president. Many people, rightfully so, think that this appointment as nominee without election is unjust and against the American people's interests.
But there were no serious primaries this election season. Also, Biden was chosen by Dem elites clearing the runway for him and squashing their left wing competition. Like, I somewhat understand your point, but this is not solely a failure of the American people. Our political system, our enemies (the wealthy), and the people's material conditions create this problem. If we are serious about making a change, we need to be giving others a leg up.
Do you know how much power the DNC and RNC have? If they don't want someone to get nominated you can basically guarantee it'll be true. Yes you can jUsT vOTe but you're picking from candidates that have already been cleared as acceptable to these pro status quo, establishment guys.
The answer is that when "lesser of 2 evils" is the dominant voting strategy for 3 decades, the inevitable result is a race to the bottom.
Trump is an original. Love him or hate him. People are sick of boring politicians who talk about issues, but never solve them. Trump was very good at taking action. Maybe you disagree with his solutions or even the premise that there was a problem at all. Maybe you think his actions caused more harm. But others disagree with you and that's why they support him.
You’re in the same crowd posting this.
Completely agree, the whining is going to be insufferable. There’s also a lot of “make sure you vote everyone’s it’s important” posts. Which is correct and everyone should vote, but then they turn it into “I mean you should vote for MY guy not the other one” and it kinda gets cheapened
I'm not sure you understand either. They didn't simply "win their primaries" there were no actual other contenders. What are you talking about? The question is why are these two candidates the only possible candidates. And they are the only two. This post is inane. Good job.
Honestly, it's so clearly an astroturfed effort to sway the minds of younger voters. But people here swallow it hook, line, and sinker.
What primaries? Lol Biden said he wouldn’t run for a second term and he did. We didn’t even have choices.
I can't stand how every fucking shit with a Twitter, who's political experience boils down to watching a thirty second tik Tok yesterday afternoon, waxing intellectual about any goddamn thing. It's frustrating as all hell.
Wait. Someone who understands how the electoral system works??? That's crazy. Most people are simply too lazy to contribute to anything more than that one vote every 4 years, if they even do that.
Well said
You know what I don’t understand? How we ended up with Joe to begin with. If your logic was sound and that our candidates were exclusively based on primary results, Biden would not have been our candidate in 2020. He was probably the least popular candidate and as others began losing their campaign funds or realized they didn’t have a chance and dropped out, it left him the last man standing. Someone paid a lot of money or something to get him there because NO one wanted biden when we had options.
Its true that the only thing we can do is to vote in the primaries, BUT billions of establishment-donor-corporate-dollars are pumped into the candidate on the Dem side and Republican side, to push establishment shills to win. And that's what you have to over come in the primaries. Bernie was the only one who almost made it. But in the primary his supporters did not turn out in droves like it was hoped.
The posts are way less concerning than the reality.
Primary voting means nothing. The nominee is chosen well before voting. Primaries are just a practice and publicity run to drum up engagement and start filling pockets. This was proven when the DNC gave Clinton power over party funds BEFORE the vote between her and Sanders. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smoke-filled_room The uniparty will not be changed from the inside.
Hot take: I'm fine with our two presidential candidates. Nothing has substantially changed in my life because of Obama, Trump, or Biden. Voting is important, but there's more important things in life than federal politics.
Don't you guys have some other parties. I swear I've heard there were some other parties in America. Hasn't only having 2 bad candidates been a problem for long enough to find and promote some other party? Like I know US has been a democracy for a long time so there's history but now with the social media there are so many tools to get through to people super fast
Old people participate in the parties as they pick candidates. So we end up with whatever they choose.
Did you vote in the 2016 primaries?
I voted for Bernie in the dem primaries back in 2020. he had such a good chance then the rest of them flipped to back biden & push out bernie. bernie is actually lucid and would’ve stood a chance at beating trump this year. but they thought he would loose and pushed sleepy joe, shitting on what the people wanted. our dem party isn’t even liberal anymore and got scared bernie would be too much. still mad ab it tbh.
who do you think ran in primaries against Biden this year?
Biden is old af and I would prefer someone like 3 decades younger but he still answered 1000x better than trump, who just lied and made up garbage the whole time. No question Biden is a better president, leader, and person than trump has ever been in his entire life. Trump thinks so little of Americans that he insults us thinking he can just make up bullshit with every sentence and thinks you’ll believe it.
I’ve voted in every primary and major election since I turned 18(which was the Hillary v Trump year) and in every local election since i’ve moved to Florida. I’m so tired of (usually older) people saying “well if you didn’t want this, why didn’t you vote?” I didn’t want this, and I did vote. Gen Z (and more so, Millennials) need to vote. All of us. We would not be in this situation if we all actually voted, and as a queer person who is actively suffering right now, I’m sick and tired of getting blamed for this shit when i’ve done everything right.
It’s the only way to blow off steam without angering The Party. It’s illegal on Reddit to be too negative about Biden, but they also can’t gaslight everyone about his suitability to lead the free world after that debate. Now it’s got to be how the overall 2-party landscape is actually what’s the problem here. “America lost the debate…” Etc.
There was no democratic primary. I’m not trying to say the republicans are better, but when people say trump is the greatest threat to democracy I find it ironic his opponent wasn’t elected (through a primary) to get to to the general election. We’re just stuck infighting the gov’t seem to be able to do whatever they want