President Joe Biden hosted a small group of scholars and historians for lunch on Wednesday as he gears up for a speech framing the upcoming election as a battle for the nation’s democracy.
The discussion revolved around “ongoing threats to democracy and democratic institutions both here in America and around the world, as well as the opportunities we face as a nation,” the White House said in a statement.
Princeton’s Eddie Glaude Jr. and Sean Wilentz, Harvard’s Annette Gordon-Reed, Yale’s Beverly Gage and Boston College’s Heather Cox Richardson were among the attendees, as well as presidential biographer — and occasional Biden speech writer — Jon Meacham.
Attendees were tight-lipped about what was discussed at the gathering. One would only go so far as to say they “talked about American history and its bearing on the present — a lively exchange of ideas.”
Another person in the room, who like the others was not authorized to speak publicly about a private meeting, said the historians urged the president “to call out the moment for what it is.” In blunt terms, the academics discussed looming threats to the nation’s democracy and warned about the slow crawl of authoritarianism around the globe.
Our voting system is “first past the post”, this means there are mathematical realities that are not ideal.
We live in a world with entrenched powers that take advantage of this voting system to maintain power. The fact of the matter is, third party candidates have little chance of winning in a normal situation, when it gets as heated and tribal as it is now, there’s no realistic chance of ONE third party candidate pulling enough votes to win the election. The result of this is diluting votes for the major two candidates. The one with more diluted votes loses.
I don’t like Biden, I don’t like Democrats, but I’m not going to risk a Trump presidency (which will undoubtedly be even worse, I mean, you don’t think that the guy that moved the embassy to Jerusalem is gonna end the genocide do you?) by voting third party.
If you want this to change, push for voting system reforms, there are mathematically superior systems out there (proportional representation, ranked choice, etc), we just need the political will to change the law, but too many people on the left-ish have become convinced that accelerationism and willingness to put others at risk for ideological purity is the righteous position.
Let me be clear, the righteous position NEVER involves harming innocent people or putting innocent people at risk.
We are trapped in this system, the way out is to bust the trap, not ignore it and expect to win.
I don’t blame the accelerationists. What’s the difference between killing a million people in ten years with a revolution or killing ten million people over a century by trying to use the trap to break the trap?
The difference is we can’t predict the next ten years let alone the next century, so to assume our heinous actions can be cancelled out by some potential future that makes it all worth it is simply a silly argument. You’re betting the lives and well being of others that we win. There is no guarantee a revolution results in successful, sustainable communism. It’s quite likely a revolution results in millions of dead, massive environmental damage, and a generation with PTSD, only to result in fascism.
I agree with this. Which is why I’ve lost all hope, and will just wait for the system to collapse itself. People will die, but it’s not like I can stop that with the structures we have in place.
I don’t give a shit about it turning into communism.
I give a shit about change, drastic, and soon, because it is the only thing that is going to save us in the long run.
Honestly, I don’t even know where I stand anymore.
Apparently the political party I thought was worth it is just… not what I thought it was.
Like I thought we were all in it together and then it turned out that you guys just don’t give a shit about very serious stuff.
Like I love all my trans and gay and minority Homies, but at the end of the day, they’re all still alive and well, and we can’t even get you guys to stop sending fucking weapons!
We sure as fuck, couldn’t find artillery shells for Ukraine, but damned if we didn’t find it up for fucking israel.
Why the fuck should we condone someone taking fucking artillery shells that were destined for Ukraine and sending them to fucking israel?!?
Why should we condone someone who does not give a fuck about helping people commit genocidal actions?
Why should I be on that guys team?
We were doing so good for once, we were helping the underdogs save their nation from Russian invaders, not great though, we still held back at every fucking opportunity.
We had no American boots on the ground!
Now we have a whole fleet of Americans in danger.
Plus, tons of other countries who have to put all of their people at risk, because we can’t get the fuck out of Middle Eastern bullshit.
We have a lot of room in America, AFAIK we have every type of biome in America, let’s just give them some room here, hell if they want solitude we have a ton of national parks we could just cut out a square of.
It would piss off the Native Americans a shit ton, but they aren’t israel so most people won’t care.
That was being facetious, but I am serious about letting them move here, there aren’t even ten million of them, that’s barely bigger than New York.
If we had just given those guys, the fucking shit that they asked for when they asked for it instead of fucking waiting forever, this war would look a whole lot damn different.
I’m not even talking about the F-16s and shit that we’re still too pussy to fucking send, and all the other shit they’ve asked for that we haven’t given them, I am only talking about the things that we ended up sending them anyway.
Let someone attack israel, and then the fucking gloves are off though.
If we would’ve fucking sent aid trucks into Gaza when this shit first started, the killing of thousands of innocent civilians obviously not when Israel first got attacked, with one fucking soldier, driving it, and told them to do what they were going to do, a ton of people would still be alive right now, children wouldn’t be going hungry right now, living in fear right now, because there’s no way in hell that the fucking israelis would bite the hand that feeds them.
We could’ve stopped almost every bit of that bombing if we had just said “No, you’re not getting shit until you calm down.” and then sat down and made a real plan.
We could have released the weapons to them in batches that way they could never go too crazy.
Like we’ve done some dirty shit to other countries, America is in no way innocent on that front, but it wasn’t supposed to be a fucking lesson plan.
Honestly, I don’t think that we’ve done as much damage in so short of a time since World War II, at least Vietnam, as they have done in less than three months.
What they can’t kill, they destroy, they keep calling me the places they told people they would be safe.
They’re still human by all means, they are just being really shitty ones right now, and we are supporting them.
I was where you are in 2015. Stop thinking it will get better and it will get better.
I disagree that rcv etc will help. Ive looked extensively into voting audits and all the alternative voting. While useful on a local level there are real problems for national election performed at state and county administration in US… not to mention changing every state constitution.
RCV can be gamed, it’s nearly impossible to recount or transparent audits, with the exception of removing anonymous ballots (yes even with crypto because hackers or admin or two party key holders can reverse the crypto if you have receipt type proof)
A viable third party could have happened by now, except for decades of the crying about spoiler candidates and throwaeay votes and all the usual fake excuses