this post was submitted on 07 Apr 2024
80 points (100.0% liked)

askchapo

22757 readers
486 users here now

Ask Hexbear is the place to ask and answer ~~thought-provoking~~ questions.

Rules:

  1. Posts must ask a question.

  2. If the question asked is serious, answer seriously.

  3. Questions where you want to learn more about socialism are allowed, but questions in bad faith are not.

  4. Try !feedback@hexbear.net if you're having questions about regarding moderation, site policy, the site itself, development, volunteering or the mod team.

founded 4 years ago
MODERATORS
 

I’m not even American, so it doesn’t affect me directly, but I am scared to death of a Trump presidency.

I am one of those people here who think that Biden is a far more competent executor of imperialist policies compared to Trump, but what I am even more afraid of is the early death of nascent left wing movements in America.

I am reminded of how the KPD getting its leaders murdered by Freikorps thugs during the Spartacist uprising (mind you, a much stronger party than any leftist movement in America today), and how its continued suppression paved the way to Nazi Germany.

Project 2025 will effectively embolden fascist thugs in America to do the same to the left wing movements, many of which are still in their cradle, and the death of leftist movements in their infancies will inevitably pave the way to a fascist America and undo many of the progress that had been made over decades.

The world cannot afford a fascist America. Imagine Hitler with nukes. The world will have to pay a much, much larger price as a result.

On this reasoning alone, I believe that Trump needs to be stopped at all cost. But many here have disagreed with me, and I need you to persuade me why I shouldn’t be afraid of Project 2025 at all. Even if the chance of that happening is 10%, I’m still not ready to gamble with it.

(I’m not saying we have to support Biden, I believe it is somewhat inevitable, I’m saying that we have to buy ourselves as much time as possible, even if it means strategic voting, to build a resilient leftist movement while delaying the inevitable for as long as we can.)

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] ristoril_zip@lemmy.zip 5 points 7 months ago (23 children)

You're misrepresenting the meaning of a vote in the general election of a first past the past voting system to select electors who will cast votes later after the result is certified.

If we're being really casual, sure, it's "approval." But what it really is is a selection of the best option out of what is available.

When the votes are tallied and the Electoral College outcome is finalized, it will either be President Biden getting ready for another four years or President Elect Trump getting ready to take office.

So our only choice here is between a bad four more years of Biden doing some good things because he wants to and some when he has no other choice, or a disastrous four years of Trump doing as many terrible things as possible as fast as possible, almost certainly ending our way of government.

We don't have the "luxury" of time but we have to live in the reality of time. Time is something we can't work around. It takes time to organize, time to work within whatever system(s) we're in, time to convince others to join us, ...

Whatever damage we do to the climate becomes more and more difficult to reverse, major and more difficult to adapt to, affects more and more people, as time goes on. But we have to plan for working in that scenario because we still don't have the numbers of people on our side.

I'm not arguing that we should "wait," either. We've seen that Biden can change his mind and change course. We need to work with that, get more progressives and liberals and Democrats elected from medical examiner to dog catcher to school board to state government to federal. And push them left every time. More unions. More corporate regulation. A four day work week with no reduction in pay, or five 6.5-hour days. Universal basic income. Lower the Medicare eligibility age by five years every 2 years until we have Medicare for all. End all fossil fuel subsidies, and transfer 75% of the subsidies to renewables and the other 25% to next gen power research. Give every worker a minimum of 3 weeks paid vacation and 6 months of parental leave. Provide for end of life care. Make abortion legal safe and rare and decided upon by the pregnant person and their doctor. On and on and on.

On foreign policy, basically support actual freedom and oppose oppression. (Not 1960s Cold War "support capitalism" CIA bullshit.)

We can take steps toward that with Joe Biden as president. Not as fast as you or I would want. But we'll get none of that, and probably the opposite of some of it, if Trump is elected.

[–] half_giraffe@hexbear.net 26 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (10 children)

Biden has been president for 4 years. Can you give me exactly one (1) thing that he's done for the left in that time period?

load more comments (6 replies)
load more comments (18 replies)