• melpomenesclevage@lemm.ee
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    2 months ago

    “saving democracy” tho; lol. if he wanted to do that, why the fuck is he running again?

    edit: that feels more like ‘dangling democracy over a trumpian abyss to jack off his own geriatric ego’.

      • RealFknNito@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        He’s certainly not destroying it

        Oh, yes, the only two options. Death or life support. No way to improve it.

        • nexguy@lemmy.world
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          2 months ago

          How could someone improve democracy and who would it be?

          Edit: weird that I would be down voted for asking who and how to improve democracy.

          • Leate_Wonceslace@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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            2 months ago

            Okay, while I think the other person’s complaints are unreasonable and dishonest, I really need to answer this sincerely, because it’s genuinely important that people understand.

            Ways that American democracy can be improved:

            1. Eliminating lobbyists

            2. Capping how much money can be spent on political campaigns

            3. Capping individual donation sizes

            4. Capping donation frequency

            5. Implementing a cardinal or ordinal voting system (such as approval or single transferable vote)

            6. Making voting more accessible

            7. Removing the possibility of gerrymandering

            8. Outlawing political parties

            9. Making voting mandatory

            10. Several other things who’s scope mean they probably don’t count (like better education, which would help citizens perform democracy better, but also clearly falls outside the scope of the list) or that I am otherwise forgetting.

            Edit:formatting.

            Edit2: I never intended to answer “who” because that question doesn’t have a single answer; the president can’t do those things, and it’s silly to expect them to.

            • AA5B@lemmy.world
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              2 months ago

              Unfortunately, I don’t see how any president can do any of those. The best he can do is appoint competent justices and try to persuade Congress

              • Leate_Wonceslace@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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                2 months ago

                Correct; the president can’t do those things, hence why the other commentor’s complaints didn’t make sense. I was answering the question of how.

                  • Leate_Wonceslace@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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                    2 months ago

                    Personally, I don’t credit him with “saving democracy” however, putting Trump in the White House would endanger democracy as an institution because his faction would have enough control to implement their will without being checked.

            • nexguy@lemmy.world
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              2 months ago

              You didn’t answer who. Who is so much better than Biden that they would be able to do all of this.

              • explodicle@sh.itjust.works
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                2 months ago

                Despite his age, Bernie Sanders is still the most qualified person to be president. He would get more done and made election reform a focus of his campaigns.

                • nexguy@lemmy.world
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                  2 months ago

                  I love Sanders but he couldn’t do all of that. He also supports Ukraine but is willing to sacrifice Ukrainians and Ukraine territory in a squabble over money to support Ukraine. This weakens democracy and strengthens Putin’s resolve to continue plowing through Ukraine.

                  • Leate_Wonceslace@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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                    2 months ago

                    Yes; of course there isn’t. It requires a movement, not a person. Every election season I am baffled by how everyone is willing to blame or credit the president for literally everything. You asked how, and I answered. That was the entire scope of my comment.

              • Admiral Patrick@dubvee.org
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                2 months ago

                Not only did they not answer the question of “who”, they instead listed off a wish list of things no president is able to do unilaterally. Like, those are all good things, but blaming the current incumbent / candidate for not doing those is a completely ignorant take (if not intentionally moving the goalposts).

                We need better civics lessons both in K-12 and maybe some kind of adult education classes.

                • Semi-Hemi-Lemmygod@lemmy.world
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                  2 months ago

                  Too many people’s expectations of our government are way too high. We can’t even feed hungry children in school, how are we going to outlaw lobbying?

                  • explodicle@sh.itjust.works
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                    2 months ago

                    Because they need to be in the opposite order. If we can’t outlaw lobbying, then lobbyists will simply pay to undo the school lunches.

                    This is usually met with appeals to emotion - “how dare you sacrifice children, my child will starve to death tomorrow if you don’t trade everyone’s representation”.

                • explodicle@sh.itjust.works
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                  2 months ago

                  The only unilateral goal in the meme was destroying “democracy” because Trump instigated January 6th. Everything else was a goal that required bipartisan support.

            • nexguy@lemmy.world
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              2 months ago

              Great, a usual list of improvements but you didn’t answer who. Who will be so much better than Biden and would accomplish this?

              • Duamerthrax@lemmy.world
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                2 months ago

                Lawrence Lessig…

                The problem isn’t that we don’t have solutions. The problem is that, collectively, we don’t have the will to implement them. It’s like effective Climate Change policy or Covid policies. At best, we’re getting half measures because people rather have their popcorn and circuses than saving their children. Biden doesn’t represent a solution, he represents a theater of a solution.

      • melpomenesclevage@lemm.ee
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        2 months ago

        he’s keeping anyone else from saving it. anyone whose chances are more than ’questionable’.

          • melpomenesclevage@lemm.ee
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            2 months ago

            he’s the worst dipshit that could be running here, sucking up all the support for the smallest permissible ‘better’, when you have enough bipartisan issues to get support from both the left and sane-right if you ran anyone else. biden is not defending democracy; he’s dangling it over a cliff with Donald trump at the bottom.

            • nexguy@lemmy.world
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              2 months ago

              Neirher West nor Stein would do anything different. In fact both of them want to give in to Putin and weaken democracy world wide. Who could do it better?

              • melpomenesclevage@lemm.ee
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                2 months ago

                anyone. else. literally anyone on my block, including many of the pets.

                and if ‘west’ and ‘stein’ wouldn’t do anything different than biden, they’re shit too. your whole argument is that the entire democratic party is worthless, that none of them have any virtue to counter trump, just the exact same calculated amount of vice less, the smallest amount so we can say they’re not quite the same, following them down the intellectual lacuna, using them as a wind break?

                that seems like a party I’m literally never going to vote for.

                  • melpomenesclevage@lemm.ee
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                    2 months ago

                    anyone else! is al gore still alive? Michelle Obama? Bernard sanders? my roommate? my roommate’s dog? any school aged child?

                    would be better than either of these two.