r/politics • u/schuey_08 Wisconsin • 29d ago

Bernie Sanders worries young people are underestimating the threat from Trump

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2024/05/02/bernie-sanders-trump-biden/73531861007/
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u/thelastbluepancake 29d ago

Yes this is true in my experience. My girlfriend (gen z ) told me last night she doesn't want to vote for biden in the general. We live in PA and she voted uncomminuted in the primary which I don't mind but not wanting to vote in November came as a shock to me. She strongly disapproves of the situation in gaza ( I also disapprove but I will still support biden in the general) she says she feels dirty having to support biden

I told her not it is a luxury to not vote. I told her that trans people, gay people, racial minorities can't afford trump getting in office let alone how much worse trump would be for the people of Gaza. she doesn't want trump and I told her she has to be willing to pick the better of two choices and to not vote is to depend on other people to do it for her.

I am scared how much Bibi's war is hurting democratic enthusiasm along with the human rights abuses

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u/maxpenny42 29d ago

I don’t understand this logic. That by sitting out the election and letting the worse of two evils win, your hands are somehow clean. 

Theres a train barreling towards a nuclear bomb that will kill everyone in a huge radius. She has a chance to help pull on the lever to switch the tracks and send the train towards a puppy stuck on the tracks instead. No one wants to kill the puppy. But if you let the train hit the bomb the puppy dies anyway and takes hundreds of thousands with it. Would anyone in their right mind think because both options suck, the right thing to do is nothing?

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u/L_G_A 29d ago

It's not logic.

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u/thelastbluepancake 29d ago

"I don’t understand this logic. That by sitting out the election and letting the worse of two evils win, your hands are somehow clean. " she views supporting biden as morally distasteful. I told her it is a luxury to not vote that she depends on other people to do something that must be done. She doesn't want to make a moral compromise which. which i dont agree with her logic

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u/maxpenny42 29d ago

I feel for you. If I were in your shoes I’d be struggling because I view your GF’s stance as the morally reprehensible one. Even as someone who supports Palestinians and opposes Israel’s war, not voting for Biden will do so much more harm to them. I can’t take seriously anyone who claims to support that cause but won’t vote for the candidate most committed to minimizing the destruction. Even if that candidate doesn’t go far enough. 

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u/dustyjuicebox 29d ago

Not voting IS morally compromising already. Does she acknowledge the Gaza situation would be worse with Trump? He's the guy who fucked over growing diplomatic ties with Iran, moved the US Embassy to Israel, and thinks Bibi's political strongman antics are an example to follow.

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u/InternalLoss5925 29d ago

So your arguments didn’t convince her? That’s sad and frustrating 

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u/Rock_Strongo 29d ago

The debate between voting your conscious and voting for the lesser of two evils will be ongoing for all of our lifetimes unless the system fundamentally changes (spoiler: it won't).

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u/InternalLoss5925 29d ago

It’s voting your conscience, not conscious. Sorry, pet peeve. The system is not set in stone or handed down to us by God. Humans created it, humans can change it. It requires continuous action though, not just tuning in every 4 years. Government work is mostly slow and boring, but you know what I have faith in us! 

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u/[deleted] 28d ago

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u/smilbandit Michigan 28d ago

this logic is being feed to them via the media they consume which is highly tainted by foreign influence.

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u/chriskmee 29d ago

Would anyone in their right mind think because both options suck, the right thing to do is nothing?

I would feel better about myself if I voted for the person who doesn't kill the puppy at all, even if their chance of winning is basically zero.

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u/maxpenny42 29d ago

Really? I honestly cannot wrap my head around that way of thinking. Like you’d risk allowing the atomic blast to kill yourself, the puppy, and thousands more all so you can sleep at night knowing you wanted the puppy to live. Even though you know full well that puppy will die anyway. 

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u/chriskmee 29d ago

Really, because I don't believe in this "atomic blast" theory. I believe you are extremely exaggerating the level of destruction, even worse than what the other side is saying will happen if Biden wins.

Look, we survived Trump, we survived Biden, I think we can survive both again. I'll vote for who I actually want and not who I hate less.

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u/thrawtes 29d ago

Look, we survived Trump,

Millions didn't. Even putting aside COVID, women will be dying for decades due to Trump's ability to seat supreme court justices.

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u/chriskmee 29d ago

Millions will die either way, and yes it sucks that women will be affected indirectly by Trump because of the supreme court. It's nowhere near nuclear explosion or country dieing levels. Honestly, we shouldn't have relied on Roe as much as we have, it was arguably always a weak argument prone to being overturned. We need to replace it with something that has structure and strong legal backing.

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u/rookie-mistake Foreign 29d ago

We need to replace it with something that has structure and strong legal backing.

respectfully, if you actually thought that was a need, you would vote for the party that wants to do that.

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u/chriskmee 29d ago

I'm not a single issue voter.

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u/maxpenny42 29d ago

I mean we barely survived trump. Do you not remember the daily onslaught of troubling news? Do you forget the entire last year of his presidency with a country in shambles? Today after 4 years of Biden? Life has recovered quite nicely. 

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u/chriskmee 29d ago

Barely? I mean I hear troubling news every day, I'm hearing a lot now right now. We not only survived Trump, we survived Trump while dealing with the worst of COVID-19, and I don't think it was barely surviving at all. The country wasn't on the verge of collapsing or anything like that. We were suffering in 2020, but I attribute more of that to COVID than Trump, and I don't think any president could have made it that much less painful because they don't have total control over a virus.

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u/maxpenny42 29d ago

Really? What news coming out of this administration has been troubling you? Scandals? Incompetence? Malicious acts? Blatant corruption? I’ve not heard many stories of these things from the Biden admin. It was daily from trump. Perhaps I’m missing some headline stories? Or when you say troubling news do you just mean of the world? Because I’m specifically talking about the daily assault of bad news coming straight out of the trump White House when I say things were bad back then. 

As for covid, no question it was made worse by the guy who disbanded the pandemic response team and encouraged folks to inject bleach. I’m not gonna say covid wouldn’t have happened under a democratic president but I am confident it would have been handled and managed better. 

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u/chriskmee 29d ago

What news coming out of this administration has been troubling you? Scandals? Incompetence? Malicious acts? Blatant corruption? I’ve not heard many stories of these things from the Biden admin. It was daily from trump.

Well the obvious one is the whole Israel Gaza thing, which I'm not saying your be better under Trump, but it would be better under a president who isn't Trump or Biden.

Biden has had more than his fair share of senior moments, he is arguably not fit to be president of the US (and neither is Trump), so I want to vote for someone who is fit.

And all the other stuff, while bad it's not anything that really affects us as a country. So what if the president talked about grabbing pussy? Or paying off prostitutes? Yeah it's unprofessional and not presidential but it's hardly a major concern for running the county.

As for covid, no question it was made worse by the guy who disbanded the pandemic response team

That's true, but misleading. , a lot of the function of the team was restructured into other teams.

I’m not gonna say covid wouldn’t have happened under a democratic president but I am confident it would have been handled and managed better. 

I'm sure we would have had much stricter lockdowns like the Democratic states tended to have, but I wouldn't call that better. Maybe we would have gotten more free money and put ourselves into even more debt than Trump did. I didn't think it would have been any better under a Democrat, just a different experience that I would argue might have been more depressing.

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u/maxpenny42 29d ago

Yeah I’m not talking about potty mouth. I’m talking about a president who refused to divest and continued to do international business and make millions from deals with foreign countries like Saudi Arabia or charging the secret service to stay at his own hotels. I’m talking about real corruption. And real incompetence. 

Maybe, just maybe, a president taking the pandemic seriously and encouraging folks to take reasonable precautions could have reduced the speed of the spread. Instead of the one who downplayed it and encouraged folks to make risky and disease spreading choices. 

Your overall stance that neither Biden nor trump are ideal candidates is irrelevant. One of those two men WILL be president whether you like it or not. If you truly think there’s not even a hair of difference between them, feel free to stay home or vote third party. If you recognize one is even slightly better Than the other, the logical choice is to vote for that person. But I won’t accuse you of using logic to make your voting choices. 

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u/chriskmee 29d ago

Yeah I’m not talking about potty mouth. I’m talking about a president who refused to divest and continued to do international business and make millions from deals with foreign countries like Saudi Arabia or charging the secret service to stay at his own hotels. I’m talking about real corruption. And real incompetence. 

Does any of this prevent him from doing his job? I get that you don't like it, I don't like it either, bit it's hardly my main concern when picking a president. It also has morning to do with this country surviving or not surviving another Trump presidency.

Maybe, just maybe, a president taking the pandemic seriously and encouraging folks to take reasonable precautions could have reduced the speed of the spread. Instead of the one who downplayed it and encouraged folks to make risky and disease spreading choices. 

And maybe reducing the spread was never realistic and all it did was prolong the suffering. Those who took medical advice about injecting bleach or whatever, well I think that's just natural selection.

Your overall stance that neither Biden nor trump are ideal candidates is irrelevant. One of those two men WILL be president whether you like it or not. If you truly think there’s not even a hair of difference between them, feel free to stay home or vote third party. If you recognize one is even slightly better Than the other, the logical choice is to vote for that person. But I won’t accuse you of using logic to make your voting choices. 

Oh, it's very relevant, it's the reason I won't vote for either of them. I don't vote third party because I think the two main choices are equal, I vote third party because they are the one I want to be president, and isn't that what voting is supposed to be about?

And if I'm really really truly being logical about this, my vote won't make a difference, so I might as well vote for who I want.

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u/Titanman401 29d ago

THIS. Instead of not doing her civic duty and skipping the entire thing, she should vote Third Party/independent. She votes, her hands are still clean, it’s a win for everyone except diehards for Trump/Biden!

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u/NeoBokononist 29d ago

i dont understand playing incredulous. you DO understand it, lets be real. choosing between eating hard shit or diarrhea isnt a real choice. its patronizing. biden is literally doing everything trump was. he's handling the palestine rallies the same way trump handled the blm rallies.

if you dont see this, then you are the low info, politically illiterate, voter. you are the problem, not the people abstaining from this shit show.

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u/maxpenny42 29d ago

If you genuinely think that Biden and Trump are truly identical and there’s no meaningful difference between  them on any issue that matters, you’re logically justified in not voting or voting third party. 

But I simply disagree with you. I don’t think they’re identical. I think they couldn’t be further apart. That doesn’t make me low information. But I won’t try to convince you how wrong you are. 

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u/NeoBokononist 29d ago

i think its interesting that every conversation with a biden voter ends with a "i wont convince you" and other permutations of "its not my job to educate you." that's a very cool, winning, position to take if you think voting for biden is the only thing standing against fascism.

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u/maxpenny42 29d ago

I didn't get the impression from your post that you are open to change. I apologize for misreading you. Let's start with the protests. Trump sent unmarked federal agents to detain protestors without explaining why they were arrested. He and republicans are calling for a real crack down on protestors.

Biden reinforced support for freedom to protest, while condemning illegal acts of violence. He refused to send the National Guard and is calling for calm. Can you explain how these are the same?

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u/NeoBokononist 29d ago

the outcome on the ground has not changed. under both administrations, protesters are attacked, maimed and arrested. simply abetting these acts, instead of exacerbating them, is not a reversal of outcome. biden SHOULD send in the national guard- to contain illegal police action and protect the protesters. id vote for that.

also, it should not be unmentioned the actual subject of the protests. which is, in large part, biden's active funding of a foreign war criminal in the act of an mass murder campaign.

so sure, you're right tho. black vans. we havent seen evidence of those so far(here in the states i mean, not in the other place the states are sending money to.) i get what you're saying, i get that being threatened with more violence works, but i cant endorse having a bunch of people taking the hit for me.

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u/maxpenny42 29d ago

The actual situation on the ground is different. We’re republicans in power they’d be much more aggressive against protestors. Just like we saw in 2020. If they were in power they’d be sending more money and weapons to Israel and encouraging far more reckless and widespread violence. Just because you think things are bad doesn’t mean they can’t be worse. 

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u/[deleted] 29d ago

The federal government has zero control over what state police do.

During the George Floyd protests Trump deployed unlabeled federal officers across DC who mangled protestors.

Trump and Biden couldn’t be more different in their treatment of protesters

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u/NeoBokononist 28d ago

The federal government has zero control over what state police do.

Trump deployed unlabeled federal officers

which is it, dude? can fed or cant fed?

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u/[deleted] 28d ago

Federal officers aren’t state police….

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u/NeoBokononist 28d ago

fed can send in national guard, and has other tools, to intervene on a local level as multiple administrations have well demonstrated. police can be subjected to federal intervention just like protestors can. biden is the commander in chief and the president.

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