President Joe Biden is arguing that “there is something dangerous happening in America” as he revives his warnings that Donald Trump and his allies represent an existential threat to the country’s democratic institutions.
“There is an extremist movement that does not share the basic beliefs of our democracy. The MAGA movement,” Biden says in excerpts of the speech Thursday in Arizona, released in advance by the White House, referring Trump’s Make America Great Again slogan.
Although voting in the 2024 Republican primary doesn’t begin for months, Biden’s focus reflects Trump’s status as the undisputed frontrunner for his party’s nomination despite facing four indictments, two of them related to his attempts to overturn Biden’s victory in the 2020 election.
He’s absolutely right. The GOP wants to abandon democracy and install Trump as a dictator. We are on a dangerous precipice.
"If conservatives become convinced that they cannot win democratically, they will not abandon conservatism. They will reject democracy.”—David Frum, Republican speech writer under W. Bush
This was not a warning. It was a threat.
It was a warning. Frum is and always has been a staunch never-Trumper. He’s still a conservative, but he was never on board with Trump and to his credit has been pretty vocal in his opposition.
Oh my god, it was a republican that said that? That makes that line scarier, because that means was probably said with the idea that abandoning democracy is a good thing.
*trump or preferably any fascist Federalist society ghoul.
Their plan to end democracy is public even. They’re that confident/desperate. Leeja had a good video recently covering it.
I had not given my brain the space to imagine that Trump would be the choice of dictator. I guess there would never be a ‘good’ dictator candidate but damn that would be insane.
I would be a good dictator. I don’t crave fame, fortune, or control. I like to live a quite life, have general good will for people and am kind.
I have a very technical background, a decent understanding of, and more importantly a high respect for, science. My number one skill is probably troubleshooting complex systems.
I’m am secure enough in my knowledge and abilities that I have no problem admitting when I’m wrong, and enjoy and am not threatened by other people being right so I can learn something new.
I make a terrible manager, so I’d have to delegate the vast majority of the actual work to competent people.
Mostly I just want everyone treated fair and equal, to have access to basic needs, and the ability to better themselves.
I absolutely don’t want the job, nor do I think anyone should have it, but yeah, I think I’d make a good dictator.
Because you don’t want it, you won’t make it as a dictator. People don’t hold power because it’s easy.
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What
MAGAts are traitors.
They tried to destroy our democracy and install Trump as dictator. They trampled and beat hundreds of police officers in an attempt get their hands on the vice president in order to lynch him.
Republicans are so lawless and disdainful of our justice system that they aren’t even a little bit bothered that Trump was found liable for rape and fraud. They don’t care in the slightest that Trump is out on bail for trying to steal the election, and for stealing classified documents.
Republicans are attempting to impeach a newly elected judge for the singular reason that she acknowledged the legally decided fact that Republicans cheated and gerrymandered their state to seize power without the consent of the governed.
Republicans have become echo chambers for Putin’s propaganda, openly siding with our enemies over our allies.
Republicans are openly plotting to replace all the NONPARTISAN long-term government employees with violently partisan stooges who don’t come anywhere close to meeting the bare minimum requirements for doing these essential jobs.
Make no mistake at all: Republicans are a minority party with no interest anything but seizing power and harming anyone who they decide is an enemy. They can’t win over the voters with their perverted ideology, so they are determined to do ANYTHING inside or outside the bounds of the law, or even basic human decency, in order to steal the country from real Americans.
Republicans must be stopped, because if they gain power, they will make sure we never have anything close to a real election again. We will be living under a Christian theocracy, every bit as sick and hateful as the Taliban.
Joe Biden is right about this. Republicans don’t believe in our democracy and they don’t want people who vote against them to be able to vote.
Yes! Push this! They’re UnAmerican! Let everyone know!
They’re American. They’re the worst of us. But they’re American. We can and should be better than them though. But we can’t do that by acting like them.
You can be an American citizen and be UnAmerican. They reject the basic ideals this country was founded upon. That makes them fundamentally UnAmerican.
I definitely want to agree with you. No question there. But any country that enshrined slavery in their constitution. As we have. Who has fascisticaly toppled foreign governments for wealthy business interests. As we have. Who participated in genocide of native peoples up till at least the 1970s that we know of. As we have. Definitely matches their desires and behaviors quite well.
Not enough to make me question that those of us that want better might be the unamerican ones. But enough to recognize our failings as a country. And the difficult road ahead to be who we want to be, us. Vs who we’ve historically been, them.
They might technically be citizens but they are unpatriotic fifth columnists. And that’s being nice. It might be more correct to call them domestic terrorists: many of them openly moon over the idea of an actual shooting civil war and/or a government that will let them kill Americans that disagree with them and/or are the wrong color/ethnicity/religion, etc.
America has a long history of that unfortunately. We were the inspiration for the Nazis after all. We have made a lot of progress over the last 200 years. But they are very much part of who we’ve been unfortunately.
The lions share of people who originally settled the United States were criminals, and the dregs of society that refused to not be bigots. The pilgrims for instance. You have to remember the history we are taught is extremely whitewashed and sterilized. Then stuffed with false hero worship.
I agree they’re a danger to themselves and everyone else. But they are absolutely American and absolutely represent some of the worst America has to offer. And patriotic to that vision of the United States.
“Makes democracy a touchstone”
Wow man… It’s become this bad.
Not touchstone, touchtone! Beep boop beep
Extremism is born out of fear and desperation. And the number one driver of that is financial insecurity. I really wish he would say he was doing something about these fundamental issues: a liveable minimum wage, housing issues, education, and health care. He’s not wrong about these asshole insurrectionist Republicans, but pointing out that their thinking is anti-American and backwards doesn’t really get to the root of the issues.
Oh my god; someone still selling the ridiculous narrative that these white supremacist fascists are being white supremacist fascists because of “economic anxiety”
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/24/us/politics/trump-economic-anxiety.html
What they fear is losing the privileged status of white supremacy in America; what they’re desperate to stop is a more equal society. They didn’t march demanding more pay, better working conditions, or more upward mobility in Charlottesville, they marched chanting “Jews will not replace us” and “blood and soil.” They’ve been telling us, loudly, for years what it’s all really about and people still want to believe it’s about economics as if there weren’t dozens of very well-off people arrested for trying to attack Congress on January 6th.
. They didn’t march demanding more pay, better working conditions, or more upward mobility in Charlottesville, they marched chanting “Jews will not replace us” and “blood and soil.”
Yeah, because they’re fucking stupid and they don’t know why they have poor pay, poor working conditions, and no upward mobility. They literally believe it’s a conspiracy by Them to keep the white man down. They’re dummies.
But that doesn’t actually mean economic factors aren’t the primary motivator. There’s still an underlying, material problem.
They’re no more stupid than leninists. Honestly both having roots being on the authoritarian end of the spectrum. They are an excellent mirror of each other. Having more in common than they are different realistically.
It’s really isn’t a problem of stupidity. More a problem of taking an ideology or way of thinking as the core of their personality. Combining that with an unwillingness to rationalize or change.
I consider myself more of a centrist. I think leninists and anarchists both have good ideas
In general I do not. Since realistically Libertarians, anarchists, etc share any of the good ideas leninists might have. Without embodying all the bad things leninists do. As long as were talking true libertarians, social-libertarians. And not the fash friendly, selfish neo-libertarians of privilege on the right.
Absolute power corrupts absolutely. No matter the intentions behind it.
What absolute power? Power to the people my dude!
A party that’s socially suppresses the people does not represent the people. I say this about capitalism and leninism both. The party should only answer to the people. Not the other way round.
Like the farmers that under threat of the party. We’re forced to listen to the lunatic ramblings of Trofim Lysenko. Discarding what they knew would work to follow his unfounded recommendations. Exacerbating famines in Russia China Etc killing Millions. Committees and councils are absolutely bad about inaction. But inaction on genocide and torture I’ll take that any day.
It’s fine to recognize good ideas regardless of source, but politics is so much more than just ideas.
Centrism, especially at this point in time, may be the most dangerous political philosophy of all. After all, they will cast the decisive votes in 2024. The center of “democracy” and “no democracy” is “less democracy”.
Democratic Socialism isn’t less democracy and anarchism definitely isn’t less democracy so
It’s undeniable that more economic opportunity would shrink their pool of possible supporters, even if it would never eliminate that pool. We don’t have to stop every from being a white supremacist; we just need to stop them from coming up with the power to topple our government.
This reminds me of a good saying. The worst enemy of progress is doing nothing while waiting for a perfect solution. I agree with you.
Not having anyone doing hateful things would be better, but that’s a terrible reason to just let the problem grow.
“Extremism” Not just the fascists. If you can’t see the correlation between the shrinking middle class over the past 4-5 decades and the growth of extremism, I’m not sure what to say to that. These morons are anxious, and a lot of that is economic, and historically it doesn’t take much to point angry morons at the wrong target. Just define an “other” (Jews, Immigrants, LGBTQ) for them to focus on and they’ll run with it. I’m not excusing these assholes at all. But fighting the symptoms and not the disease is not a smart way to go about making change.
Also, for what its’ worth, I wanted to look at the article you posted, but I can’t get past the paywall.
Maybe if rural areas wouldn’t vote against their best interests they wouldn’t have been left behind.
Nothing will ever be done.
Difference between discussing solutions to difficult problems and developing effective rhetoric to win a campaign.
Nah dude, white supremacist extremism is born out of the fear of losing privilege.
If the Democrats were able to institute their full economic plan, there would be less financial insecurity. It wouldn’t be enough, but it would be a huge boon for less wealthy Americans. Most importantly, it would move the conversation about what’s acceptable policy more to the left.
Fuck yeah I knew this Dark Brandon was coming. Going to be a long couple years.
And don’t forget Dark Brandon’s color changing dark roast mug with flashing laser eyes! It even donates to his campaign.
That is pretty sweet. I want one with real lasers.
Well the spineless Republican candidates jockying for the vice presidency aren’t going to say it.
I think this guy sucks, but he’s not wrong here. I’ll vote for him again because as shitty as he is, he’s not going to completely destroy our country and/or destabilize the entire world.
If Trump is elected, that guy is going to hand Ukraine to Putin, and sever ties between the US and the majority of our allies in Europe.
If Biden wants to fight extremism he could maybe make the alphabets do something about all the domestic terror threats.
Maybe by admitting it’s domestic terrorism to threaten to murder your milquetoast political opponents.
Damn I’m so trained by the talking points. When you said alphabets I thought you meant gay people. Like what am I supposed to do? 🤣
Look, I’m not saying we should draft a Queer Anti-Terror Squad to take the fight to the Christofascists, but I bet they’d be well motivated.
Also extremely well dressed
It’s ok, for a second I thought they meant Google
💀 lmao
I think it’s important to note that Trump’s “extremist movement” is the mainstream GOP.
Yeah I saw a poll/survey that said voters found Biden to be “too liberal” and the GOP is just about the right amount of conservative.
The Overton Window in the US is so fucked up.
Yeah, targeting the MAGA crowd is not going to work. The Dems need an identity outside of “We aren’t Republicans”
Edit: That said, I must confess it is good to see they’re finally taking the Right seriously as a threat instead “ThEy WaNT WhAT’s BeSt fOr tHE NaTIon, wE JuSt NeEd A BeTTeR ComPrOmISE”
… about fucking time?
But all politicians are equally at fault for not leglislating to ensure workers have livable salaries and encouraging the “outsourcing” thing that moved jobs overseas so people could buy cheaper Walmart stuff.
It’s no secret. They make no attempt to hide their scorn for democratic principles.*
For example mininizing the number of eligible citizens who vote, by intimidation, “technical issues”, restricting in person voting times, targetting early and mail-in voting to name only a few tactics.
Also compare their legislative priorities with what actual Americans want… almost nothing in common. They continue to push a radical Christofascist agenda and are actually willing to destroy the country if they can’t get their way.
Republicans are the party of cruelty and misanthropy now, that is their absolute worst failing.
*Not our “democracy” because it has never been a democracy, but I’ll give him a pass there since literally every American politician abuses the language and people aren’t educated enough to know the difference.
Let’s go Joe! Hope my fellow Zoomers go out and vote.
The story of Joe Biden and his incredible perseverance, through hurdles and tragedies, is tremendously relatable to the common citizen. This man dusts himself off and charges headlong back into the fray after every setback. Lesser men would crumble, if faced with his challenges.
can we not have a lost nursing home patient run the country again please
Can we not have ableist shitheads claiming that a man who has had a stutter all his life is neurologically unsound because they’re mad their guy didn’t win the last election
It’s actually kinda hilarious how you think the dipshit criminal is “my guy”. Really shows how little you types really think about politics beyond a capital R or D.
Enough of this virtue signaling bullshit. Joe Biden. Is eighty years old. Eighty. 8, 0. Donald Fuckhead Trump? An absolutely astounding three whole years younger. None of these geriatric fucks have any place in government. No one over twice the national average age represents the citizens of a country. And since you’re evidently such an expert on health and ableism, maybe you should do some research on how neurological degeneration occurs in the elderly and get back to me about that.
Have fun choosing between conservative grandpa #1 and ‘slightly centrist but still a republican disguised as a democrat’ grandpa #2 next year. Let me know how that goes for you.
It’s actually kinda hilarious how you think the dipshit criminal is “my guy”.
I didn’t say that, but I know whoever your guy is they didn’t win and it makes you mad.
Enough of this virtue signaling bullshit. Joe Biden. Is eighty years old.
And?
None of these geriatric fucks have any place in government.
I don’t think anyone is too young or too old to be in government. Capacity to perform the duties required of the office isn’t reflected in a number.
No one over twice the national average age represents the citizens of a country.
No one at any age represents the country purely by their age. We are a country of geriatrics, children, young adults, middle aged, and retirees.
And since you’re evidently such an expert on health and ableism, maybe you should do some research on how neurological degeneration occurs in the elderly and get back to me about that.
Age is a risk factor but centenarians can be perfectly lucid while 55 year olds can get Alzheimer’s. It’s not a linear correlation, despite what you seem to think.
Okay dropping the whole “owning people on lemmy” schtick because I can’t stop myself from laughing at that first point. Genuinely, please dear god - if you weren’t referring to Trump being my guy by saying “can we not have people” while replying to me with a comment ending in “their guy”, then who in the gosh darn h*ck were you talking about? Are they in the room with us now?
I think he was talking more about the primaries. The sad part is even then the left wing alternatives to Biden were also old. Bernie was old, Warren was old, and none of the other candidates were significantly more left than Biden.
Um, what? You think Biden is a “lost nursing home patient”?
Personally, I’ve been loving the return to some semblance of stewardship after the dumpster fire that was donnie’s maladminstration. Even if Biden could not complete his second term for some reason, so what? There is a line of succession.
The US and the world would be in far better shape with Biden’s literal tombstone sitting in the Oval Office versus the writhing mass of a still living Trump.
I would vote for Biden over any of these chuckle fucks even if he were 100 years old and in the hospital for COVID, plague, and multiple snake bites. If is ridiculous that this age thing is even discussed. I chalk it up to all the 24/7 news channels needing something to talk about.
Biden, fuckhead dipshit Trump, Feinstein (rip I guess?), Chuck Grassley, Maxine Waters to name a few. Yes.
I understand what you mean and I do agree, but only ever having the two options of:
- literal fascism
- identity politics with absolutely no legislative backing
gets really tiring. It also really amazes me how so many people here are so deep in the sauce of bipartisanship that they forget that, unless it’s republicans forcing through legislation, barely anything gets done. Biden lied about so many things to get elected. Everyone before him did too, everyone after will as well unless real change happens.
I’m tired of choosing between fascism and diet caffeine free liberalism.
That, ironically enough, is why voter turnout is incredibly shitty these days and why independent counts are growing.
I just wonder how long it’ll be before it’s enough of a shift to matter.
