Gretchen Whitmer responds to calls by some Democrats to vote ‘uncommitted’ in Michigan’s primary on Tuesday
Gretchen Whitmer, the Michigan governor, pushed back on calls to not vote for Joe Biden over his handling of the Israel-Gaza conflict, saying on Sunday that could help Trump get re-elected.
“It’s important not to lose sight of the fact that any vote that’s not cast for Joe Biden supports a second Trump term,” she said on Sunday during an interview on CNN’s State of the Union. “A second Trump term would be devastating. Not just on fundamental rights, not just on our democracy here at home, but also when it comes to foreign policy. This was a man who promoted a Muslim ban.”
Whitmer, who is a co-chair of Biden’s 2024 campaign, also said she wasn’t sure what to expect when it came to the protest vote.
Rashida Tlaib, a Democrat who is the only Palestinian-American serving in Congress, urged Democrats last week to vote “uncommitted” in Michigan’s 27 February primary.
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I wonder if right wing fascism will arrive more easily and more quickly if we vote Biden vs sitting on our hands and watching trump be elected. Maybe I’m just old-fashioned but I’ll try give the non fascism side a leg up every opportunity I get.
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Yes, the “fascization” of the US government has been unfolding for decades.
To make a leap from that to an inevitability that “destroying the system to start over” is the only cure…
Well, isn’t the cure is worse than the disease?
What are the practicalities your presumptive solution hand-waves away?
Insurance and reinsurance markets, for example, provide regional/national/global stability for business to happen in the face of mass catastrophe. Medicare and Medicaid provide millions of people with healthcare.
These details, and literally thousands like them, make up the everyday function of government—even if they are currently not working in some places or not working as well as we’d like in many others!
If you’re actually committed to the welfare of millions of ordinary people, then your position has got to be more nuanced than “destroy the system!”
What are we destroying? What are we replacing it with? What kind of work are we doing to ensure a reasonable transition? Who is the we that is organizing toward a new vision? How do we work with opposing forces inside and outside of our camp?
All of those questions fall under the banner of politics and the answers are constrained by the agendas of the participants engaging with the existing system.
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I appreciate that your answer was something other than violent revolution or its buddies. Thank you for elaborating!
If you’re willing to share: where would you go?
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This is somewhat true, however there was also a fascist uprising in the US during the 1930’s that was only just avoided.
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It is a goddamn primary election and there isn’t oppostion to Biden. Anyone voting uncommitted in the primary is having no actual effect on the general election as Biden will be the nominee no matter what the voters express.
Telling the voters they doth protest too much is electorally a shit strategy.
And shit electoral strategies on behalf of the Democratic Party is how we got Trump once and now likely twice.
Not just a second Trump term, but a second Trump term and continuation/acceleration of the genocide in Gaza. Not voting and letting Trump win with a razor thin margin in a swing state will not fix the problem. Between the two realistic choices, Biden is infinitely more likely to push Israel for a ceasefire, which is the best chance anybody has to get the situation under control.
You can say that all you want, but currently RIGHT NOW a democrat is furthering and furthering the genocide and murder of Palestinians. Trump IS NOT DOING THIS. Maybe he will, probably. BUT I KNOW FOR A GOD DAMNED FACT BIDEN DOESNT CARE.
Quit telling me I’m letting democracy die while we have a democrat doing conservative politics in the whitehouse.
You’re letting democracy die by capitulating to the two party system that doesn’t represent you.
So you’re voting for a guy who literally said to be a dictator? A guy who as some 90something criminals indictments, and has been convicted in too many fraud cases to count, who currently owes half a billion dollars in fines? Awesome Choice
So you’re voting for a guy…
Literally, no.
Maybe vote uncommitted in primary for pressure since that has literally no effect on the main election?
I was told that if I didn’t support Biden sending tanks into Gaza, that I was a tankie.
That’s the truth in very stark terms.
Not even remotely. The actual headline:
Hesse governor says not voting for Hitler over concentration camps ‘supports second Hindenberg term’
You fucking dumb fuck
Think of it this way: Vote for Biden. Not because you support any war, because you support being able to harass the man for another four years. Don’t let him leaving office leave you with regrets! Meanwhile, consider also voting specifically against tyranny.
Personally, I see a chance for change with Biden, or at least the foundations for positive change. All I see with Trump are giant steps backwards.
Voting for Biden because forcing him to be president is elder abuse, and he deserves it
he a little confused but he got the spirit
Biden is definitely confused, but he doesn’t have the spirit.
He keeps ranting about how he wishes republicans we’re more like Nixon, Reagan, and HW Bush…
I know you don’t have 50 years of Senate experience, but you understand they weren’t great guys with integrity…
Right? You get that right?
Please tell me people under 70 don’t think those three were fine now.
I know the Overton window keeps getting dragged right by neoliberals, but have they really convinced people those three had integrity and everything was fine back then?
They weren’t calling Biden confused, they were calling the commenter confused.
Biden may be old but he is clearly perfectly capable of doing the job and will most likely be just as capable again.
Saying Biden is “perfectly capable”…
Have you watched him speak?
Like, he doesn’t do it often, and for good reason, but the only way someone can say what you just said without intentionally lying, is if they’re ignoring their eyes and ears and believing his staff that as soon as a camera isn’t pointed at him, Biden suddenly becomes half his age.
If I link any recent video of Biden acting confused, you’re going to claim it’s a one time thing. No matter how many videos I link, you’ll keep claiming it only happens in every video I link.
So how about this?
Why don’t you help me and everyone else feel comfortable with Biden?
Link a single video of him as president speaking for more than 3 minutes without fucking something up?
He’s the freaking US President, if you can’t find a video 3 minutes long of him not getting confused, maybe that means he is confused all the time, the admin is hiding him, and all their claims of what he’s like is bullshit.
Now keep in mind you’re not just saying he’s “good enough” at 81, you’re saying he’ll stay “perfectly capable” until 85.
Have you watched him speak?
I have, yeah. He has a speech impediment. He’s had it his entire life. That’s not confusion.
As someone with an actual speech impediment I’ve just started blocking people who say a childhood stutter can reappear 60 years later and cause you to mix up names and just go blank, but never actually stutter.
I just can’t believe anyone used logic to get there.
How is Tlaib going to explain to her constituents that supporting Trump - who pushed the Muslim ban and called them shithole countries - by proxy will help them?
Biden may not have the best foreign policy but it really is a fascist wannabe dictator who will absolutely support Bibi regardless or we can choose Biden who isn’t a fascist who at least has shown some pushback.
How is voting and organizing against genocide support for Trump?
What should her constituents do to oppose a man who is arming the folks massacring their families?
Not only that, but it effectively does nothing as Trump will support Israel as well.
It’s a primary…
What they’re hoping it will do is show the party and Biden that his actions don’t follow the value of Dem voters.
The goal is for him to shape up so he doesn’t depress turnout and let’s trump wins like when he ran against Hillary.
Ignoring the problem and letting the media keep calling Biden “most progressive president yet” will disenfranchise Dems and hurt turnout.
Dem voters aren’t Republican voters. Fear isn’t enough to motivate them, it works on conservatives because they’re statistically likely to have a larger amygdala. Liberals (actual liberals) are more likely to have increased frontal lobe activity that handles empathy and critical thinking.
The main problem is neoliberals are essentially conservatives. They may vote D, but they think like Rs. And without that critical thinking and empathy, they assume everyone else is like them. Like Republicans do.
The result is actual liberals look at both parties, and realize it’s not a good thing the same type of people are now running the only two options. Especially when the donations are coming from the same place.
AIPAC for example. They’re funding Biden and Republicans who say Trump won, while attacking Dem incumbents who are against genocide.
Because all AIPAC cares about us Israel. They dont give two shits about Biden or America.
It effectively proves to Democrats that if they support Genocide like Republicans they will never win.
If Democrats want to bend over backwards to appeal to a small minority of AIPAC voters, they will lose all their other voters.
“Let’s (literally) destroy democracy so we might be able to save the Democratic Party”.
Did you miss all the great speeches at CPAC?
“Let’s literally commit Genocide so Biden doesn’t have to run another 4 years”.
Trumps rise to power is a direct consequence of the DNC sabotaging every attempt of real progressives like Bernie that could have actually fixed issues.
It creates both voter apathy and it enables right-wingers to point to the deteriorated standards of living under Biden and blame Biden for it (and biden pulls out another 15 Billion for israel) (cue someone linking me how people working 3 jobs is good for unemployment)
If Biden wins now the unrest and support for right-wing authoritarianism will only grow.
If Trump loses the election, that will not remove the threats and social changes that trigger the “action side” of authoritarianism.
The authoritarians will still be there. They will still look for candidates who will give them the strong, punitive leadership they desire.
If bad Dems keep winning the right will only grow stronger.
If Biden wins this time #Hitler2028 is a plausible reality as Biden is doing nothing to address any real problems and only gradually making things worse. Further bolstering Republicans.
Do you not understand what “primary” means?
Oh, it has nothing to do with AIPAC VOTERS. It’s ALL about AIPAC DONORS.
Big difference…
It’s both. Dems want to appeal to voters that are brainwashed by AIPAC.
There is also a Zionist minority in America that will only vote for a Zionist president and Dems are so afraid to lose them that they will throw away every single moral value they have to appeal to them.
But if the Dems aren’t shown that they will lose more voters by kneeling for AIPAC than they will gain, the Dems will not be incentivized to clean up their act. In fact Dems will only become more extreme in their Zionism because they know that people will keep voting for AIPAC anyways.
Biden still has a shot to win voters back by actually managing to get recognition for a Palestinian state implemented. But he’s just dancing around that subject as long as possible and it doesn’t look like he’s serious in any way.
There are more AIPAC dollars than there are AIPAC voters, but then I guess that’s always the inherent problem with our political system:
https://www.opensecrets.org/industries/summary?cycle=All&ind=Q05&recipdetail=S
The top three israeli money recipients being Democrats, and the top being Biden, is not a great argument to vote Democrat though.
If Biden tanks Israel where do you think that money is going to go?
Biden is the most willing to sell out to israel. Which is why Biden is getting that money. I must say that the Dems are very cheap too, they sell their souls for a few million dollars.
“If I don’t do it somebody else will” is the default excuse for any crime. This excuse only works if enough people keep believing in it.
Lol this tribalism is ridiculous. Biden had one job, to be different than the genocide guy. I don’t care about the complexity of the issue here, but when our choices are both establishment warmongers it’s not really a choice is it? Is it really that big of a ask not to fund the eradication of a group of people and a nationalist government? That should be the bare minimum for a “leftist” candidate IMHO and it’s depressing how the goalpost landed here of all places
And yet again, a concern troll boiling down both candidates to “genocide guy”.
I can’t see these kinds of comments as anything other than “both sides are the same” in an attempt to get people to not vote.
Let me ask a simple question: Will you vote for Biden in the next election, or do you choose to support Trump through not voting, or worse voting for him?
Both candidates are establismentarian ASF and represent the oligarchs FAR more than any everyday American. I am not a “concern troll” I’m a leftist with concerns and I’ll be voting third party, (most likely green) as a matter of principle. I’ve done this my entire adult life- you aren’t changing my mind in a million years. I legitimately think he’s too old, too right-wing, and too corrupt. Dude should just be running as a Republican tbqh.
Alternate title: Michigan governor explains first past the post voting. People unhappy.
This is a primary. Voting for Biden won’t make it less likely that Trump will be elected.
So they’re not even the official candidates yet? Just how long is your election cycle?
4 years.
Neoliberals never let a silly thing like facts get in their way.
They’re just republicans who don’t want the cool kids to hate them.
The fucked up part is theyre the only other option this election, and they know it.
It’s not good enough for them that Biden is better than trump, they want 100% support for all the fucked up shit Biden is doing as well.
When every side supports Israel, isn’t it basically a non issue? I know you guys love to police the world, but maybe choose your politicians based on national, not global affairs
“that’s right little Timmy, back in my day we voted for genocide and when we didn’t we were told it was the only ethical choice, because everyone was doing it.”
As relevant here as it was there
No one’s fucking voting for genocide; not even Biden (whose actions on Gaza are not acceptable) is voting for genocide; say what you want, but he’s not telling them to go into Gaza. And the 2024 election is about whether you want America to still be a democracy. A fascist USA helps no one.
No one’s fucking voting for genocide
Oh good. I was worried our political leadership was killing people.
And the 2024 election is about whether you want America to still be a democracy.
What kind of democracy only gives you one option on the ballot?
Objectively correct take.
You can validly hate Biden for the handling of Gaza. But not voting for him is just helping the Fascists win.
Swallow your pride. Do your duty at the ballot and then make the real changes by organising and protests.
More objectively correct take:
Thanks to the political-parties highjacking governing-the-country,
they can commit any crime or abomination, whatsoever, and you only can choose between them, because the rigged-system won’t permit anyone to have any alternative to what the incumbent political-parties offer.
There: fixed it for you.
Okay, so then, do your duty, vote for biden, then work to support ranked choice voting?
Why do you think the neoliberals running the DNC will let ranked choice happen?
FPTP is the only reason neoliberals and Republicans can get elected, while they control both parties, we’ll never get rid of it.
To get ranked choice, progressives first have to replace neoliberals, and then win so many elections it doesn’t matter what Republicans want.
RCC isn’t the cure, it’s what we do after we win. Because it’s not going to happen until after we win.
It’s a fucking primary.
This is literally the only point in time we can try to drag Biden too the left, will we get him far enough that he stops being pro-genocide? Probably not, dude is all in on Israel and always has been.
But telling people they don’t even get to vote “not committed” in a fucking meaningless primary is something so undemocratic if you told me it would happen this primary I’d have bet millions on it being republicans.
But then again, I’d have bet billions on them being the ones to pull delegates for something the state party had zero control over.
Not holding Dems to standards may have already fucked the country for good.
It’s a fucking primary
I don’t know why people don’t get this.
Since 2000 progressives have been told to vote for who you want in the primary and then hold your nose in the general.
Now we’re supposed to hold our nose in the primary, too?!
I don’t have enough clothespins for this bullshit.
Since 2000 progressives have been told to vote for who you want in the primary and then hold your nose in the general.
NH went progressive over party favorite moderate the last two primaries they had that counted…
So this party the DNC said their votes count for nothing, then Biden withdrew and threw money at a write in campaign so the headlines would be “Biden wins even as a write in!”
And not:
“DNC just made NH primary meaningless for something only NH republican officials could change!”
They know this is just a primary.
They’re just conservatives deep down and give zero fucks lying and destroying democracy if they win. And it’s not enough to win, they demand 100% loyalty.
Just like trumpers.
It’s why Dem standards can’t just be “better than a Republican”.
I’m not trying to defend the “pro genocide” thing at all, although I’m expecting to be down voted regardless, but…
Isn’t support for Israel over Gaza an American / western thing rather than specifically Biden?
Like is it reasonably possible to have a POTUS that wouldn’t support Israel?
I guess they could be more overt in their condemnation of Israel’s behaviour, but I’m not sure how meaningful that is.
Isn’t support for Israel over Gaza an American / western thing rather than specifically Biden?
Biden has spent 50 years calling himself a Zionist and saying nothing will ever make him stop supporting Israel.
It’s hard to think anyone believes that’s normal…
Like is it reasonably possible to have a POTUS that wouldn’t support Israel?
Bernie and every other progressive.
you’re pro genocide
No u.
you clearly have a pro-trump agenda, as evidenced by your comment history…
you’re spam, and pro-genocideYou’ve completely lost the thread.
Then run a fucking better candidate. Biden is actively ignoring the will of his constituents. He didn’t win because he’s likeable or desired, he won because Trump generates negative voter turnout. Imagine if the DNC actually ran someone people were enthusiastic about–they might actually get a fucking landslide.
As much as it doesn’t feel like it when inside certain echo chambers there’s a lot of support for Israel in the United States. The situation is also very complex with plenty of obviously very bad potential outcomes if he listened to the extremists, I have no doubt 90% of those would then blame him for whatever the result of rash action would be.
You don’t like it but it’s the politically sensible thing to do, democrats always lose chunks of purist votes that’s one of thy main reasons the right manages to stay relevant and there’s no point chasing them because of it wasn’t this it would be something - there’s always something.
Genocide is not complex.
If a government is intentionally withholding food, medicine and potable water from a population it considers undesirable, it is intentionally committing genocide.
There.
Simple.
A 3 month old Palestinian baby boy died of starvation yesterday.
He wasn’t even born in Oct.
Of course you can use dramatic phrasing and emotive language to make your point feel weighty but it doesn’t change the reality that it’s a hugely complex situation.
Hamas are still fighting, it’s a war. I don’t know why you expect Isrealies to just let them keep killing them without trying to fight beck. Now you can start getting into who started it and Isreals right to exist but that’s all the complex stuff you want to ignore.
If a government is withholding food and water from their population that’s terrible, there’s evidence of Hamas doing this and of them refusing to let the idf evacuate children from hospitals and transport them to world class medical facilities in Isreal (where many Muslim doctors and nurses work and get treatment)
There’s also lots of easily available information about the routes into the Gaza strip that aid is being delivered and the amounts being delivered, you can read about all the special measures set up and the complexities of that if you’re interested.
Now we could get into why Hamas are doing the things they’re doing and why Isreal is but again it’s all very complex - we’d have to get into fanatical Islam, Iran’s internal politics, Isreal’s politics and history…
Trying to get a progressive agenda by only thinking about the Presidency is like trying to win a game with only hail Marys. We need to focus on smaller races in house and build up from there. It would be a stronger and longer lasting change. Even if you’re in an area that doesn’t have any competitive progressives running in the primary, you are allowed to volunteer to help progressive candidates in areas that do.
We need to focus on smaller races in house and build up from there.
I heard this back in 2008. But the next eight years was nothing but losses, in large part because the national party kept kneecapping grass roots organizations.
From ACORN to Code Pink, left activists were targeted and dismantled from within the liberal party.
By the time Trump won in 2016, Dems had castrated themselves across the entire Midwest and were losing in record numbers.
How do you organize under that kind of leadership?
Florida just recently had a governor race where there was a great new candidate but then the DNC refused to back her and chose a former Republican instead to back… And which point why would anyone pick the former Republican governor when you can just have the current Republican governor and the Democrats lost by a landslide again.
They don’t want to win they just want to give rich donors a job or a yes man.
And which point why would anyone pick the former Republican governor when you can just have the current Republican governor
I mean, gun to my head, if my choices are DeSantis or Crist… But that’s not great for enthusiasm.
They don’t want to win they just want to give rich donors a job or a yes man.
The dirty truth about the modern Democratic Party.
