While rebutting another post here on Lemmy, I ran into this. This says exactly what I want to say.
I am not a friend of Biden’s Administration. I think they drug their feet over a variety of things ranging from holding Trump and his goons accountable for January 6th through rulemaking on issues like OTC Birth Control and abortion rights, and yes, I think he’s too quick to please big business. But then I remember what the alternative is, and … well, disappointed in Biden or not, I’m voting for him. Because my wife is a Black bisexual goth woman, four strikes under Team Pepe’s tent. And I have my own strikes for marrying her as a White dude, and respecting her right to not have kids since she doesn’t want them is another strike against me. And I care about my Non-Christian, Gay, Transgender, and Minority friends, and will never willingly subject them to Team Pepe.
On nearly every single issue, not only is he “better than Trump,” he’s actually good. On the environment? Actual progress in the form of a massive infrastructure bill that invests in green energy sources and tamping down on pollution. On education? He’s made student loan forgiveness a central tenet of his policy agenda. On the economy? He’s gotten inflation under control and the economy is actually doing great now.
The elephant in the room is Israel and Palestine, of course, but I wish people would pause and think before knee-jerk reacting to… not even his policies there, just headlines about his policies.
The fact of the matter is that the Middle East is a fucking mess and Israel is currently run by a government hell-bent on making it ten times worse, but Israel actually falling and the conflict overtaking the entire region would be a global catastrophe. Biden is doing what he can to pressure Netanyahu over the insane and genocidal treatment of Palestinians while not giving Iran and others the sense that they have free rein to invade. (And for FUCK’S sake, can we stop pretending Iran is suddenly the good guys? They’re supplying arms to Russia.)
This is a nuanced, complex, and fragile situation, and like it or not, Biden is exactly the right kind of person for the presidency at a time like this. Not only that, Trump would make it ten thousand times worse on purpose, because it would please Putin to see Russia’s influence in the Middle East overtake that of the United States.
There is literally only one sane choice on the ballot this year.
I just like to think that we’re currently playing the Weimar Germany game. Let Trump win and you’ll have given the Republicans decades of power if not more. They’ve been planning for years to control the government through the supreme court, you think this is the worst they can do?
For those wanting acceleration towards collapse, that’s not guaranteed, and will cause many deaths in the process if it does, and there probably still won’t be any guarantee or high likelihood of some sorta takeover by the proletariat or what have you. Seeing as how most of the militant groups in the US are likely to be right wing, all you’ll have is a right wing take over after a collapse.
Which is the real problem, has been a problem since before I could vote, and is a problem that cannot be fixed.
I actually think it can be fixed, but doing so is hard work. It requires:
If we’re shooting for the stars, for election reform, I think we might need proportional representation. First-past-the-post is only one problem in our first-past-the-post, winner-take-all voting system.
Ranked is better than our current system, but STAR and approval would be even better.
If we are doing election reform, we should go for the best.