Four years on from the Hillary vs Trump with the shocking (but unsurprising) win for Trump, and 8 years of Obama before that, we're back to old white men. Then again Kanye is also running, though he's too late to be on the ballot in 6 states.
I'm crossing my fingers for Kanye. Mainly because I have a burning desire to see the Apocalypse in my lifetime.
Whilst I'm under no illusions that Biden is amazing, I feel he's certainly a better choice than Trump and having seen some of the stuff Libertarians have posted I definitely think he's better than that, so the obvious choice to me. (UK person here). Edit: And the whole Kanye thing is just a PR stunt I guess.
Honestly I can't say I'd be able to pick between Biden and Trump. Trump definitely appears worse, because he makes no real efforts to hide his worst qualities. Biden seems to have shadows of his worst qualities following him around with people actively trying to hide them, and frankly I don't trust him at all. Biden seems like your traditional old white man, and that doesn't instil trust in this generic white man.
No matter how bad Biden is, and how much effort is put into hiding his shitiness, it's still not as bad as Trump's hidden and unhidden attributes. Biden is simply the lesser evil.
No question that he's the lesser evil when compared to Trump, but so are a lot of things. It's not a high enough bar for a leader of a country. Considering Biden has voted in favour of bills that are driven by racism, has heavily associated with people who fought against desegregation (Going so far as to call them friends in 2008), and doesn't seem to be repentant for his votes in the past that, whether motivated by racism or not, were in favour of racist bills. People seem to see Biden as the fun loving buddy-cop-movie sidekick for Obama and think he's absolved himself, but. It seems to me that a man who is driven by political ambition just wants to go down as a president and will say anything to get there. Even as recently as 2019 when asked about slavery, he launched into a rambling answer about poverty and dysfunction. As if, to him, being black is synonymous with poverty and dysfunction. He was a leading participant of legislation that has unfairly incarcerated black people - And called the legislation his "greatest achievement". He said of Obama; "I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American presidential candidate who is articulate and bright and clean-cut and a nice-looking guy." There's been some debate about what he meant by 'clean', but none of the options are particularly great. The implications are that any other black presidential candidate has been tainted, or lacking in vocabulary, or not aesthetically pleasing (As if that has any bearing on the ability to be president). Admittedly, there haven't been many black people as candidates for president, but considering that list includes Jesse Jackson and Shirley Chisholm, I'm not convinced Biden either knows the history that he was present for, or isn't racist. I don't know much about the other candidates, but a cursory googling suggests that they too were quite well equipped in the articulation department. Again, though, sure. He's better than Trump. But that's a very, very, low bar. A boot full of seaweed would be better than Trump.
It is a low bar, but at the moment it's probably the bar that matters to a lot of people. 'Make it work then make it work well' is a phrase I often use/think of, which is just a less extreme version of perfection is the enemy of good etc type stuff, better to make small improvements than avoid making any until they're big enough.
I reckon Biden would be a net improvement, but I'm not sure he'd be enough of an improvement - Which is why I'd struggle with the decision were I to be granted a vote in the US. Although the decision for me would be between Biden and basically anything else that wasn't Trump. I think it's too easy for too many people to gloss over the potential pitfalls of a Biden presidency in the effort to get Trump out. If I had my way, I think I liked Warren or Harris the most out of the Democrat pool.
I mean I don't follow US politics closely enough to keep up with exactly who can be voted for when, who is/isn't in the race etc, I was a Sanders man but I understand he dropped out to try and improve the Democrat chances once it was clear the Democrat party were getting more behind Biden than him. I'm saying Biden over Trump assuming it is just Biden vs Trump.
It'll be Biden vs Trump, everyone else is way too far behind to stand a chance to be the final candidate from one of the two big parties. But if it was up me to pick one of the higher ranking Democrats to cleanse the Trump stench out of Washington I'd go with Tammy Baldwin instead of Biden.
It's pretty much, unless one of them dies, going to be Biden/Trump. It's basically been Democrat or Republican since 1860-somthing.
I read some analyst are saying it's even money trump decides not to run and just proclaims his awesome work is complete.
Biden isn't an impressive candidate, but clearly a better man for the job than Trump. If I was a US citizen I'd vote Libertarian unless my state was close enough for it to matter and then it would have be Biden. I would have preferred McCain and then Romney to Obama and both would have been good presidents but I'd be NeverTrump without a second of doubt.
Kanye is a PR Stunt. He hasn't filed any paperwork [and is too late to in multiple states] for it and it feels like the whole shebang is just 'Look at me, why aren't you looking at meeeeeeee?'. He might bleed some of the less enthusiastic 'Not Trump' votes away from Biden [and the more cynical and consiratorial have posited that's the aim] as a write-in. It was never going to be Sanders, it just wasn't. Mr 'I'm not a Democrat' was never going to get the whole-hearted backing of party. And ultimately, those bleating that they won't vote for Biden probably wouldn't have voted anyway, they almost never do they just use the non-selection of their saviour as an excuse to vote [or not] the way they were always going to. *Should* it have been Biden? Probably not. The man's only selling point seems to be 'I was the VP of the guy you actually liked'. But I'd wager Trump vs Biden doesn't actually matter that much in the grand scheme, the Senate does. Mitch McConnel is the one with the power and if the GOP keep control of the senate McConnel will torpedo anything and everything the house or Biden put forth [just like they did for most of Obama's tenure]. I think that's the hope amongst down-ballot GOP who think being associated with Trump is electoral suicide. But can you honestly see Trump giving up the power [or probably more importantly to Trump, the attention]? I've always thought Trump will have to be dragged kicking and screaming out of the White House, and I still do tbh.
If it were between Trump and a sack of flour, I'd vote for the sack of flour. I'm not pleased that it's Biden. He's the milquetoast candidate, for sure. But maybe that's the point. Trump has done such a completely poor job over the past four years, culminating in the current pandemic, protests, and financial disaster. I'm sure most swing votes in favor of Biden will be driven simply by dislike of Trump. If it were Sanders, then maybe those hate-driven swing votes would motivate people who hate Sanders to vote for Trump. Biden is the boring, safe choice. It's pretty disappointing to me given the "me too" movement and other supposedly progressive movements we've seen. If Biden did what he's been accused of, then it should have disqualified him. But people kept voting for him in the primaries, so I guess I just have to accept that most people don't care, apparently. And that makes sense given our p*****-grabbing current president that would bang his own daughter if they weren't related. Whatever moral core Americans think they have, they don't. Elizabeth Warren and Andrew Yang are both much better candidates, even more than Sanders in my opinion. They're obscure enough to be ignored by the general populous, so they wouldn't motivate a lot of retaliatory Trump votes. If either of them is announced as Biden's VP, then I'd be more excited. Anyway, I think the US is screwed. I don't think Trump will win. He's a moron. He was impeached, for god's sake and then changed nothing once it was over. If he wins, I'm sure he'll be the first president to be impeached twice. But at the same time, US politics has become so divisive, so binary that people will vote Trump no matter what because they couldn't imagine ever voting Democrat. It's that line of thinking that got us into this mess in the first place. And I'm not saying you're stupid if you vote Republican or that you're stupid if you vote Democrat. I'm just saying that Americans are overall manipulated by fake news and propaganda, they're stupid, and led by a misguided sense of morality that is 98% virtue signaling or myopic single-issue compartmentalization that they don't even know what it is they're voting to promote or protect at any given moment. And it's that way by design because politicians are motivated by power and money, which they get from corporations that don't give a crap about anything but quarterly reports. So if a politician can promote a bill that is "good" for the American people in name, but actually harms everyone but their corporate donors, then they'll happily let their constituents eat up those lies all day. And it's that bad for both Democrats and Republicans. The good politicians don't win, so we're unlikely to ever get anyone who's actually looking out for us.
I think America could do with a boring, safe choice right now. Woulda been nice four years ago, but the perfect storm of a seriously unpopular Hilary and the option of a bombastic populist numpty conspired to turn the US presidency into an orgy of power abuse, blatant dishonesty and clown shoes-level wtf-ness.
Even if Biden wins... i think a lot of his 1st term will be trying to fix what trump broke... Tweet— Twitter API (@user) date
