Joe Biden, Senator from Citibank (oops, DELAWARE), to Run for President

Non-committal centrists who are very concerned about riots and looting are very much a real thing. There's a rather disturbing amount of these people.

feel like the entire point of riots and looting is to make people concerned about larger issues, but yeah I see what you mean

It definitely did not work with a significant portion of the country, namely low information, both sides dummies.

It definitely did not work with a significant portion of the country, namely low information, both sides dummies.

idk if they are dumb, it's that so much of this country is segregated racially and economically and there are a lot of people in small towns and suburbs for whom the places where the rioting and looting happens are like some foreign country. ... and a lot of media content, even that which is sympathetic to leftist beliefs and explains them, a lot of that content is from the perspective of law enforcement. It's like we need some popular Prestige TV centered on Activists in order to get through to people.

The reflex to trust Facebook/YouTube sources over mainstream journalism is at the root of a lot of this confusion. I kind of think one possible approach to people who feel helpless when it comes to discerning between many media options is to just recommend going to Google News where you can see a single story reported by dozens of sources of varying quality. It doesn't take long to understand what sources take what positions and make up your own mind about who to trust.

The reality, though, is that he's never shown any indication of caring about systemic racism

He talks about it all the time these days. He didn't used to. I'm inclined to believe it's because he's been persuaded that it's an issue worth his attention and concern in the present moment, even if his past record isn't strong.

He talks about reinforcing it, though. Those who've persuaded him to consider it are obviously butting up hard against the limits of his inherent concern.

It's like we need some popular Prestige TV centered on Activists in order to get through to people.

https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1320470291l/6580969.jpg

https://64.media.tumblr.com/53c8f2bf70c02f904d5dc6ee2112992e/54a4e749606e6c06-7f/s500x750/6f5cd63841886c67b52eeebbbfb6104d0d5c99f1.png

https://64.media.tumblr.com/787e3294b4f1fd163b6c59ff2bd30436/54a4e749606e6c06-c9/s500x750/744d7af3e684b1da353318296c1c81e2900e5290.png

(I wonder if anything else in the post was a lie?)

The rest of that national police union's feed is a flood of VOTE TRUMP affirmations, claims that the media is lying, dogwhistles and complaints that departments have been told not to arrest protestors. (Plus, inexplicably, memorial cards for cops that have died from COVID.)

It's hard to see what Biden gains by campaigning on increasing police funding, and promising to escalate their response to protestors.

he's not campaigning anymore, the election is over

It's hard to see what he gains by saying those things in official campaign press releases, on-camera doorstops at in-person voting locations, and televised debates against the President Of The United States while not campaigning, then.

Level setting your expectations for February 2021

he's not campaigning anymore, the election is over

― Dan S, Friday, 30 October 2020 05:48 (two hours ago) link

Really, who won? Can't find the results anywhere

they're being shipped by UPS right now

motherfucking pinochle

oops wrong thread

IS it?

One thread

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v= Yp6NZO6jI-Q

Um

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yp6NZO6jI-Q

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/10/27/upshot/biden-trump-poll-quiz.html

^you'll want to click through on that one

man, a tub of sabra but then there's two 2.5 pound bags of shredded cheddar cheese.

I've just got White Claws and salami.

White Claws and Salami -- now that's what I call a part-ay

As much I am for police abolition, I’m not going to expect it to happen over the next five years at the very least. Most of the people were introduced to the idea a few months ago, including me, it is still a radical idea that goes against the fabrics and history of our nations and I would not expect a politician wanting to win an election to present a whole new paradigm on security that might alienate a huge chunk of the electorate; I am starting to wonder what are the expectations some people have of the american electorate: Biden is trying to win over the very same people who have fed the systemic racism that police abolition is trying to solve.

Are you actually talking about the issues when we clearly have refrigerators to parse?

Hummus and multiple bags of shredded cheese in the fridge, a Subaru in the driveway, and a Biden sign on the front lawn is like every single family within five miles of me (my own included)

got a trumper with almond milk, must be shy

you can always spot a lib fridge by the fresh arugala. the fresher the arugala, the further to the left they are

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-Ln43bGdj0

VHS, I'm not expecting it in my lifetime. Doesn't mean it isn't worth fighting for and repeating the observable facts about the police at every possible point.

Because the police murdered a man, the main street running through my neighborhood has at least 5 cops on every single corner for more than a mile. They murdered someone, yet we're the ones who need to be policed, according to their logic. We live in a police state. Fuck em.

I think it's one thing to be an activist whose goal is to abolish the police force, it's absolutely worth fighting for, but I think it's another thing to expect large parts of the electorate to agree with you. Asking a politician, whose job is to find a compromise between millions of dissenting voices to adopt a viewpoint that is still clearly seen as radical is a bit childish.

a lot of people will die needlessly if a lot more people than we're currently seeing don't start to demand the seemingly impossible, whether it strikes one as "childish" or not. (I'm thinking mainly of climate action, but police abolition is relevant as well.)

I dunno about childish. naive and ineffective maybe

focus your outrage on the specific individuals who murder, and the specific police departments who cover for them if and when they do

there's an ongoing police brutality in the U.S. thread btw, unless this is some sort of referendum on the Biden/Harris ticket

I agree Simon, I just don't see how in this case, Biden positioning himself for police abolition and not pandering to the people afraid of looting helps him win an election anyway. I don't think it's up to Biden to make demands of the people. It has to come from the electorate.

the specific police departments who cover for them if and when they do

"if" lol

Asking a politician...

It's fine to ask for what you want, but expecting the answer to be something the general population does not accept or agree with is highly unrealistic. The main thing is to keep pushing the idea out there, honing the message and sharpening it so that lightly-engaged people can grasp what you're asking for and why.

The cultural changes necessary for effective climate action are staggeringly huge, but activists having been laying the groundwork for decades now and a lot of progress has been made since 1990. Making policing over into something that would be nearly unrecognizable next to today's policing isn't as big a shift as climate action, and BLM just jumped the issue ahead in a big way, but the work of educating people has a long way to advance, yet.

No one expects Joe Biden to become a police abolitionist overnight.

Some people do think Presidents and politicians should be leaders and point "large parts of the electorate" toward the necessary reforms to avoid societal breakdown/for human life to continue in a recognizable form.

I think presidents and politicians can do that, but that it's foolish to take it for granted that they will.

Aimless is saying what I'm trying to say but much better.

Who takes it for granted? That Joe Biden obviously isn't on 'our' side here doesn't make him immune to criticism or negate the idea that proactive leadership is required.

Having zero expectations of elected leaders is how you get... here.

Afaic, anyone calling people who are speaking the truth 'naive' and 'childish' are simply engaging in maintenance of a social order that's murdering people.

And the way this started, btw, was that someone posted the absolute bullshit letter the Biden campaign put out about the murder of Walter Wallace Jr.

the burrito that defended a generation

here we go

simply engaging in maintenance of a social order that's murdering people.

I think it is useful to differentiate between those who accept that the reality is that the current social order which is murdering people is deeply entrenched and will not yield easily, those who are simply afraid of change and have been taught that police are their bulwark against their fears, so that murdering people is a regrettable but necessary byproduct of a fundamentally correct social order, and those whose interests are most directly benefited by the active and vigorous enforcement of this social order that's murdering people.

yeah that, plus it's not ok for police to push an old guy to the ground and crack his skull open during a peaceful protest

And the way this started, btw, was that someone posted the absolute bullshit letter the Biden campaign put out about the murder of Walter Wallace Jr.

good morning!

Asking a politician, whose job is to find a compromise

His compromise was to blame the protestors, and to not say anything about the cops. Hours later, the same cops attacked a random woman, smashed every window in her car, kicked her violently in the street and then kidnapped her son to lie in a photo op that they had rescued him. I strongly hope that Biden's ticket wins election on Tuesday, but he's still six feet of white dogshit in a cellophane bag, and this is the behaviour that he pre-endorsed while denouncing protest against it:

The young mother tried to make a three-point turn when a swarm of Philadelphia officers surrounded the SUV, shattered its windows and pulled Young and her 16-year-old nephew from the car, the video shows.

A now-viral video of the confrontation shows officers throw Young and the teenager to the ground and then grab the toddler from the back seat. The scene was captured by Aapril Rice, who watched it unfold from her rooftop and told the Philadelphia Inquirer that watching a police officer take the baby was “surreal” and “traumatic.”

Mincey said police temporarily detained Young, who had to be taken to the hospital for medical treatment before she could be processed at the police station because her head was bleeding and most of her left side had been badly bruised when police threw her to the ground. She and her son were separated for hours, he said.

“Her face was bloodied and she looked like she had been beaten by a bunch of people on the street,” he told The Post. “She is still in pain.”

Her nephew also suffered injuries in the confrontation, Mincey said, and Young’s son was hit in the head leaving a large bump on the toddler’s forehead.

Mincey said Young phoned her mother while in police custody and asked her to find the boy. The toddler’s grandmother managed to find him after several hours, the lawyer said, sitting in his car seat in the back of a police cruiser with two officers in the front seats. Glass from the SUV’s broken windows still lay in the child’s car seat, he said.

“We are not your enemy,” the union said in the posts showing Young’s son. “We are the Thin Blue Line. And WE ARE the only thing standing between Order and Anarchy.”

The sun had risen Tuesday morning before Young was finally reunited with her 2-year-old son, Mincey said. Police held Young for several hours, but eventually released her without charges, her lawyers said. The boy’s family then took him to the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, where doctors treated him for the head injury and then released him.

The family’s lawyers said police have not yet told Young where to find the damaged SUV or the family’s belongings that were inside it, including her son’s hearing aids.

And as noted earlier, the union that published the false propaganda generated by stealing a child was engaged in an emphatic campaign against Biden's election, to which his immediate reaction is to absolutely and totally capitulate.

People can speculate that his plan is to switch rhetoric sharply after the election and carefully explain to an unthinking populace that murder and kidnapping are bad, but his constant public reaching out to oligarchs and Republican mega-assholes for cabinet roles doesn't inspire confidence that capitulation-via-compromise will not be his ongoing strategy.

Asking a politician, whose job is to find a compromise

Here’s the problem right here. A politician’s job is to govern or legislate. Compromise is sometimes necessary, but it’s not the directive ffs