FlossyDFlynt said:
IseWolf22 said:
FlossyDFlynt said:
Ill add a few points
-Defund the police - call it what it is then. I am actually all for reforming police (getting rid of qualified immunity would be a good start), but thats not whats happening in Democratic cities at the moment (see NYC/Minneapolis).
-Healthcare is broken. And my hot take as someone who works in it, the current system cannot be saved. I dont think Trump or Biden has an answer, but I am vehemently against Medicare for All. Medicare/Medicaid/Tricare are a very large part of why healthcare costs are where they are today. I realize single payer is more than likely to happen in my lifetime, but anyone that proposes it will not get my vote.
-Trumps transcripts read like his Twitter posts. Hes been doing the same thing forever. To put it nicely, he is not an eloquent speaker by any means.
-I actually admire AOC in an odd way. I hardly agree with her on anything, but she should be the poster child for the American dream. She was literally a bartender and now holds government office. Not many places in the world you can make that transition. Rooting out government waste is good and I am happy for any politician that calls it out, regardless of which side of the aisle they sit on. Its also the reason that Beth Wood will get my vote for auditor in NC. She goes after everyone regardless of party, which is exactly what you need in a position like that.
I agree with most of this and your last post. However, I'm deciding between Biden and voting Libertarian, and am not considering Trump. I won't hash out all the reasons why I think he's a terrible president, but there are 2 strategic considerations as well.
1. I'm less worried about 1st term Biden than 2nd term Trump. Biden will devote significant time and effort just to roll back some Trump policies while Trump will be emboldened and just build off his first term
2. I think Biden winning gives America better choices in 2024.
A large Trump loss may lead to some soul searching in the Republican party and hopefully a different nominee (maybe even a fiscal conservative) . If Trump wins, the 2024 candidate is going to be using his playbook of stoking divisions and big government "conservatism". Meanwhile, Biden is relatively moderate within his own party (He's been dragged left recently), and a Biden loss is only going to embolden the left flank even more to say moderates can't win.
I dont have the faith that Biden would spend his first term simply rolling back on Trump policies. I feel like the house and probably senate would bulldoze anything he would want to do in favor of their policies.
Unfortunately, I disagree with the second point. I thought the same thing for the Democrats after Hillary lost, that they would do some soul searching and come back towards the middle, especially with Trumps first two years going further right. Instead, they did the opposite and veered hard left. There is a reason that all moderate candidates dropped out within a week of Super Tuesday and endorsed Biden, because Bernie had a real chance to win the nomination, and he would have gotten demolished by Trump in the general election. And after all said and done, Biden selected one of the most, if not the most left Senator as his VP pick. There are people I would like to see run in 24 on both sides (Klobuchar from the left, Dan Crenshaw on the right), but I have no idea if they are interested. After the last two candidates, give me a candidate that served, please. At least they would understand basic decorum that comes with the office.
As I said previously, I am almost certainly voting third party/write in at this point. I realize its basically pissing in the wind, but both of the two main options are just unappealing to me. I am way more interested in State elections as they can actually matter in my day to day life.
Why do you think the house and senate will bulldoze their way better than Republicans in 2016-2018? If Democrats have the majority I expect them to fight among themselves almost as much as with Republicans. The 2018 Democratic majority, (and 2020 if they keep it), was built off of moderates flipping suburban Republican seats. Those representatives get a fraction of the press that "the squad" does, but they are more numerous, and will be paranoid of the electorate turning on them in 2022.
The problem I have with your point on Hillary, is that democrats as a whole did not consider her liberal at all. The lesson the left flank got from her loss was not that she was too liberal, but that she wasn't Liberal enough (also Russians, sexism, Comey, and every other excuse). If Biden loses, I guarantee their next nominee is further left than he is now. Personally my problems with Hillary were more around foreign policy and overall ethics than her being on the liberal end of the Democratic party.
If Trump gets elected again, it sends the message that Republicans approve of his brand of politics. We will get more Trumps. I am dreading seeing Harris face off against Don Jr or Tucker Carlson. I'll have to keep voting 3rd party forever.
At the end of the day, there is a very good chance I vote Libertarian anyways. I dont fit with either of the major parties unless they change substantially. I'm not that big on the current nominee, Jorgenson, compared to Johnson, but at the end of they day my views align more with that party and they are the only organization remotely close to providing a 3rd party voice.
