Biden presidency and 2024 election campaign

[What'sinaname]

Damn, that’s some serious friendly fire

Yeah. It's an own goal.

[slangman]

That is a seriously stupid comment.
I’m surprised that the mods haven’t deleted it yet.
You can dislike Trump all you like but to compare him to Hitler is f**king stupid and makes you look like an ignorant fool.

Be better!

Lol...read David's comment.

I’m a bit over people making comparisons to Hitler.

[What'sinaname]

I’m a bit over people making comparisons to Hitler.

Hence the irony of Biden sitting down laughing and smiling with someone who his party happily referred to as Hitler and a fascist. If he really was Hitler, would anyone be happy to sit down with them?

[roar]

Plenty of people were happy to sit next to Hitler back then. Plenty would be now, too.

[stui magpie]

^
Hitler was elected on the promise to dismantle democracy. The people actually voted to become a dictatorship.

[David]

Not sure if that's true:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolf_Hit ... e_to_power

Both within Germany and abroad, there were initially few fears that Hitler could use his position to establish his later dictatorial single-party regime. Rather, the conservatives that helped to make him chancellor were convinced that they could control Hitler and "tame" the Nazi Party while setting the relevant impulses in the government themselves; foreign ambassadors played down worries by emphasizing that Hitler was "mediocre" if not a bad copy of Mussolini; even SPD politician Kurt Schumacher trivialized Hitler as a Dekorationsstück ("piece of scenery/decoration") of the new government. German newspapers wrote that, without doubt, the Hitler-led government would try to fight its political enemies (the left-wing parties), but that it would be impossible to establish a dictatorship in Germany because there was "a barrier, over which violence cannot proceed" and because of the German nation being proud of "the freedom of speech and thought". Benno Reifenberg of the Frankfurter Zeitung wrote:

It is a hopeless misjudgement to think that one could force a dictatorial regime upon the [German] nation. [...] The diversity of the German people calls for democracy.

— Benno Reifenberg

Following the Reichstag fire, the Nazis began to suspend civil liberties and eliminate political opposition. The Communists were excluded from the Reichstag. At the March 1933 elections, again no single party secured a majority. Hitler required the vote of the Centre Party and Conservatives in the Reichstag to obtain the powers he desired. He called on Reichstag members to vote for the Enabling Act on 23 March 1933. Hitler was granted plenary powers "temporarily" by the passage of the Act. The law gave him the freedom to act without parliamentary consent and even without constitutional limitations.

Employing his characteristic mix of negotiation and intimidation, Hitler offered the possibility of friendly co-operation, promising not to threaten the Reichstag, the President, the States or the Churches if granted the emergency powers. With Nazi paramilitary encircling the building, he said: "It is for you, gentlemen of the Reichstag to decide between war and peace". The Centre Party, having obtained promises of non-interference in religion, joined with conservatives in voting for the Act (only the Social Democrats voted against).

The Act allowed Hitler and his Cabinet to rule by emergency decree for four years, though Hindenburg remained President. Hitler immediately set about abolishing the powers of the states and the existence of non-Nazi political parties and organisations. Non-Nazi parties were formally outlawed on 14 July 1933, and the Reichstag abdicated its democratic responsibilities. Hindenburg remained commander-in-chief of the military and retained the power to negotiate foreign treaties.

The Act did not infringe upon the powers of the President, and Hitler would not fully achieve full dictatorial power until after the death of Hindenburg in August 1934. Journalists and diplomats wondered whether Hitler could appoint himself President, who might succeed him as Chancellor, and what the army would do. They did not know that the army supported Hitler after the Night of the Long Knives or expect that he would combine the two positions of President and Chancellor into one office with the "Law Concerning the Head of State of the German Reich". Only Hitler, as head of state, could dismiss Hitler as head of the government.

Considering the last free elections in Germany were held in November 1932 (in which Hitler won 33% of the vote), I don't think it's clear to what extent people knew they were voting for a dictatorship – what does seem to be the case is that by the time it was obvious he was moving in that direction, it was already too late.

[Pies4shaw]

I’m a bit over people making comparisons to Hitler.

I do think we need to be careful to make sure that we don't inadvertently slur Hitler in that way.

[David]

Sam Kriss on why Harris and the Democrats deserved to lose:

https://samkriss.substack.com/p/i-told-you-so

The reason Kamala Harris lost is the same as the reason she was the candidate to begin with: the Democratic Party is allergic to democracy. It’s the instrument of a particular form of class power; its role is basically disciplinary. When it comes to an actual crisis, all it knows how to do is coil in on itself, breathe in its own fumes, suck itself off until completion. The party knew that Joe Biden’s brains kept running out of his nose and into his morning coffee, but they kept pretending until it was far too late that he was running laps around the White House lawn and solving new problems in theoretical physics in his spare time. They really seemed to think that people wouldn’t notice what was right in front of them. Maybe they simply didn’t care. When people did notice, when Biden stretched his arm too wide at the first debate and all the stuffing came out, the party made sure his overthrow and replacement went as smoothly and as seamlessly as possible. No messy primaries, no ideological bickering, just a slick, stage-managed show. They’re very good at politics too.

[...]

It couldn’t have hurt for her to have adopted literally any policies whatsoever. Stupid thought. That sort of thing isn’t available to politicians like Kamala Harris. It’s not how the system works. The candidate doesn’t owe anything to the public, the public owes something to the candidate. You have to give them your love and respect and admiration and, crucially, your vote. Otherwise the monster wins.

Which is the line they reverted to, once Brat Summer faded into the dying time when the leaves all fall. Blackmail: democracy is on the ballot. Project 2025. The Republican plot to steal your pronouns. Fascism on the horizon. All of which might be real: Donald Trump exists within the purely instinctive life, a kind of wafting meditative state in which everything is possible. He can levitate a few inches off the ground; he is capable of extreme evil. Last time, he tried to overturn the result of a democratic election, which is extremely bad juju. But ‘democracy is on the ballot’ is an incredibly antidemocratic slogan. You have no choice other than to vote for us, it says. You don’t get a say in the matter. Whichever grasping freak we pick is your only option: now deal with it. It should not surprise you that a lot of people look at the offer you’re making, and decide to pass.

Trump will be bad. He probably won’t be as bad as his enemies keep screeching, but he’ll be bad. This is your fault. Once, when the kings of Israel sinned, God sent terrible empires to sack the holy city of Jerusalem, carry away its temple goods, massacre its people, and sell the survivors into slavery. Things have changed, but not that much. Now, he sends the king of the morons. You have sinned, and Trump is your punishment: whatever happens next, you will deserve it. You did not learn! The last eight years have taught you absolutely nothing: we’ve gone nowhere, we’re trapped in the same stupid loop, and now I’m writing essentially the same post all over again. You should have listened to the voice of the prophet, wailing in the wilderness, in the deserts and the unclean places, gibbering with the fury of the Lord. But you didn’t, and there’s not much left to say. Just that I told you so. I told you so. I told you so.