Fictional Biden will save us from fictional Trump!

I'd like to start with this review of a New York Times survey:

Note that all of these surveyed voters will still vote for Joe Biden after having pledged no allegiance to him or his policies whatsoever. They voted for Biden last time because they just couldn't stomach Trump, never having asked themselves if it wasn't Trump himself and not Biden who saved us from Trump in 2020. (Astute observers will note that Hillary Clinton sure wasn't saving us from Trump in 2016.) And it certainly wasn't "the Left" that saved us from Trump in 2020, and I wrote a lot of diaries explaining that fact. Meanwhile, as regards the actual, physical Joe Biden:

The illusion among the Democratic Party electorate is that, as with 2020, all the Dems need to do is to place Joe Biden on everyone's 2024 ballots, and we're guaranteed four more years. No questions are asked by this group as to what will actually happen in those four years, nor about the actual physical Joe Biden, nor about the efficacy of running a candidate for President who can't run and who has nothing to run on. According to the notion of reality promoted by Bernie Sanders (among others), voters will elect a fictional Joe Biden to govern the fictional America on a fictional platform, and they will do so knowing full well the realities at hand. I suppose if you want you can sign this petition. Meanwhile, on Rising:

h/t Joe Shikspack

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My ass. He can still sign his name to bills and orders to kill us all.
C'mon, 3rd party!

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2 users have voted.

"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981

Shahryar's picture

"44% DEMS for RFK Jr, 30% choose Marianne Williamson"

5 seconds into it we see this poll has Biden at 59%, RFK Jr at 19%, Williamson at 11%. The other numbers are "without Biden". And that's not even accurate. The dude says "Williamson at about 30%" when the poll numbers they show had her at 28%....if Biden weren't included.

Count me in the 19% for Bobby Jr but it's unrealistic, wishful thinking to say he's at 44%.

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Cassiodorus's picture

@Shahryar is to recognize the fantasy lives of ordinary human beings while at the same time observing the irrelevance of said fantasy lives to the stark reality of existence. So, in the fantasy lives of the Rising authors (maybe Briahna Joy Gray is the main one -- I don't know, she seems like the one to trust), RFK Jr. is at 44%, Williamson at 30%. In reality, of course, the corporate mass media exist to shield us from the possibility of either of those two being elected.

Caitlin Johnstone appears to get it:

You Don’t Have To Choose Between Happiness And Being Informed

Key quote:

What gets better is that once you’ve unplugged your mind from the matrix of imperial mind control, you stop looking for happiness, connection and satisfaction in the places the matrix trained you to look for it. You no longer get your sense of self-worth from how successful you can be as an industrious gear-turner of the capitalist machine or how much your body looks the way the ads say it should look. You don’t get your sense of satisfaction from how much approval you can win over from denizens of a mentally ill society. You no longer find connection in false tribal loyalties or in shared enjoyment of the buffet of mind-killing entertainment we are served by the empire. You no longer seek happiness in the pursuit of new things to own and consume, or in worthless new goals to attain.

Instead, you begin to see that as confused and shitty as our civilization is, we’re still living in an amazingly beautiful world...

It might be added here that Bernie Sanders definitely does not get it, because he continues to look for happiness in all of the nice people he thinks he's met in Washington DC.

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"The war on Gaza, backed by the West, is a demonstration that the West is willing to cross all lines. That it will discard any nuance of humanity. That it is willing to commit genocide" -- Moon of Alabama

usefewersyllables's picture

@Shahryar

is pretty strong with the RFKjr folks right now. I think that he has some great ideas, and I'm glad that he's trying to get them into the national discussion. But he's already completely screwed himself by running on the D ballot line from the outset. He has no chance of making it through the primaries, if they even bother to have any, and a lot of people are going to expend a lot of energy and cash to have their hopes crushed by the dem machine.

Again.

And then, even after that, they'll turn their remaining energy into fervent wishful thinking that he'll run independent or do a write-in campaign or aliens will come anoint him or something, and their hopes will be crushed by the dem machine.

Again.

Just like clockwork, the quadrennial masturbationfest. It is hard to watch, having sniffed the hopium myself back in the day. I really feel for them.

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7 users have voted.

Twice bitten, permanently shy.

On a rematch dems will need every vote. Will Bernie hold rallies to get young progressives to vote Biden? Trump won in good measure because the party faithful did not come out and vote Hillary was so bad a candidate. Or maybe AOC will take over his sheepdogging role?

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usefewersyllables's picture

@MrWebster

I wish that it weren't so, but that ship sailed years ago. He'll come out and say the things that he has to say, and some fraction of his old base will listen.

The DNC will grind the organ, and all the monkeys will dance.

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7 users have voted.

Twice bitten, permanently shy.

snoopydawg's picture

@MrWebster

He’s fully aware of the super delegates and he knows that they will never allow someone from the left to become president. And he has already ruled out running 3rd party.

See the link in last night’s EB I posted on how Dixon knew that Bernie would be Hillary’s sheepdawg even before he declared his candidacy. And remember Bernie turned over his email list to the Hellabitch and possibly his left over money.

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Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

Cassiodorus's picture

@MrWebster has a lot stronger anchor in reality than the fictional Joe Biden. The fictional Bernie Sanders once stood up for the people as a real, live human being -- but that was early 2016. The fictional Joe Biden, on the other hand, is "better than Donald Trump" in the minds of Democrats (because, you know, of his handling of the economy), while the real-life Joe Biden presides over an economy that is glorious for a rich few and crap for the many -- and here one remembers how the real-life Biden, all the way through his current bout of senility, has been an opponent of working-class solvency.

But the real competition Joe Biden is offering W. for the title of worst President in recent history is in his disastrous proxy war in Ukraine, which it is losing. Everyone hates Bush hijo -- and rightly -- for the Iraq war, but Bush hijo actually defeated Saddam Hussein, while Biden is now busy losing to Putin. The end-result will be to destroy the US standing in the world.

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5 users have voted.

"The war on Gaza, backed by the West, is a demonstration that the West is willing to cross all lines. That it will discard any nuance of humanity. That it is willing to commit genocide" -- Moon of Alabama

but less bad than those two, or Trump. Every election I watch the primary debates and find no one I want to vote for.

No one can make it past the woke left, they punch way beyond their weight, most of the donations, volunteers, media, etc, and they are far out in left field compared to the electorate. Their main issue is sex changes and the electorate wants a place to live. They also exert a lot of control of the Biden admin and the legislature as they are the people who work there. If all your staff is highly educated, from affluent families, and woke, so is your policies. Kamala Harris is not someone I want to see president.

Sanders had to switch his policy positions and yet was no match for the corporate Dem machine who is woke and neolib, the perfect combo.

So the alternatives are my two second cousins that went to CA and took too much acid? Anti vaxers" Even Trump is not a science denier. Rule by Taro cards? I don't think so.

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TheOtherMaven's picture

@ban nock

I have learned the hard way not to trust any of them one iota. If the Presidency were decided by random draw from active Social Security numbers (excluding those under 35 or over 70), we would probably get a better selection by pure luck.

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7 users have voted.

There is no justice. There can be no peace.

usefewersyllables's picture

@TheOtherMaven

that job arguably should not be allowed to have it…

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2 users have voted.

Twice bitten, permanently shy.

Cassiodorus's picture

@ban nock that Biden is "less bad."

Pointlessly.

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"The war on Gaza, backed by the West, is a demonstration that the West is willing to cross all lines. That it will discard any nuance of humanity. That it is willing to commit genocide" -- Moon of Alabama