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this post was submitted on 11 Feb 2024
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I'm not American, so I don't have much skin in the game.
Instead of complaining about something you can't control, perhaps you should look forward to the next four years and think about what kind of candidate you want to run, how viable a candidate they'll be, and how to best promote them for a presidential campaign.
Ultimately, you always get the politicians you deserve. If your choice is always a bit shit, perhaps you need to look at yourselves instead of complaining about who is assumed to be the best choice.
That is madness. The reason the US gets shit candidates is because of shit takes like that (sorry). Because there are incredibly forces at work. Not "behind the scenes" so much as baked into the rules of the system. Economic power rules all. And those who pursue power or money without regard for anything else are statistically the most likely to achieve it.
So, if the rules are crooked, but the public largely supports these rules...you're getting the politicians you deserve.
It's not a criticism of you or your views, more the views of wider society that don't align with your own. It's a similar story in many countries, and ultimately your choice is a reflection on your country.
"You get the politicians you deserve" is a common/famous saying that applies to many countries everywhere. It explains why the UK voted for Brexit, it explains how Donald Trump rose to power, and it explains how someone like Biden won the nomination to become the next president. You might not like it, but it often accurately reflects your society as a whole, so it shows how divided society is.
But all of that is ignoring the power imbalance. There is very sophisticated techniques being used to control what people hear, think and say. And that technology or science is getting better every day. And that power is overwhelmingly in the hands of those who have lots of money or "economic power". They can hire the smartest sociopaths.
While most people are too busy living their lives and are less interested in devoting their whole live to acquiring or keeping power. Or they belong to the unfortunate 50% of people who are less than average in mental capability. They are the easiest to manipulate.
There are certain flaws in how we see our society and how you represent it. And your explanation doesn't explain any of that. It HIDES those explanation and redirects focus away from the actual causes.
We as a civilization have parasitic elements and can manipulate by exploiting emotions or weaknesses or disadvantages. Saying we deserve that abuse is like saying someone deserves to be robbed because they were too weak to fight back. Few people want to live in a world like that.
!inperson@slrpnk.net might be a good place to start.
I have no idea how you somehow got the impression that I posted this to complain about Biden. But yes, voting and advocating for better candidates in the future is incredibly important. We got into this mess because of the wrong people winning power, but we still have quite a few tools to get better people in power, it's just not easy or automatic.
Except the part where we get the occasionally get to make a binary choice of which candidate sucks the least between a fascist & a neolib corporate shill .
The rules & who gets to write/enforce them determine the winners.
The donor class decides who the candidates are, money being speech & all We outsourced the a big chunk of the election process to the parties to avoid raising taxes to pay for elections.
The thought was the party fanatics would work for free.
No one ever works for free. The pay is influence, future consideration for decisions...
But the public supports these rules, correct? Hence, you get the politicians you deserve.
If you (and by you, I mean society) didn't support these rules, they'd promote a counter-culture candidate like Trump, or they'd do something to change the rules. This isn't the case, because for its failings, people at large like the current system enough to not do anything about it. Those parties in power also have enough support to keep the steady flow of same-y politicians flowing.
It's not a criticism of you or your country. It's ultimately a truism of politics that if the system you choose produces poor candidates, your people support poor choices.
Well put. This is why the left has had trouble growing compared to the right. The Kochs played the long game, to the point that it spiraled out of their control. None of their push to the right was instant.
That's something the left has trouble with. It has to be now or never, even if there's a 1% chance of making it happen now.