“The guy is not a democrat with a small d,” the president told CNN’s Erin Burnett.

President Joe Biden said in an interview Wednesday he is all but certain Donald Trump, his predecessor and presumptive 2024 rival, will reject the results of the November election and called Trump “dangerous” for the nation.

“The guy is not a democrat with a small d,” Biden told CNN’s Erin Burnett during a visit to Wisconsin this week.

“How many court cases do they have, Supreme Court cases? They’ve all said this is a totally legitimate election. … He may not accept the outcome of the election? I promise you he won’t. Which is dangerous.”

The president went on to say other world leaders had expressed to him their fear of a second Trump presidency and pointed to Trump’s pledge to prosecute his political opponents if he enters the Oval Office once more.

  • PopOfAfrica@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    Democrats have refused to stop Trump at every juncture. Id really should be appalling to us that we allowed democracy to be on the ballot when we had four years to patch every exploit in the system.

    This is not what success looks like. Im just very tired knowing that Democrats never seems to push anything beyond half measures that fail.

    The stakes were simply too high, and we’ve let the cancer metastisize too long.

    Lets hope we can shove it into remission, but we really should have done it earlier.

      • makyo@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        This is the right answer. (Assuming they really are all lazy assholes) if others don’t join the cause because it’s full of lazy assholes, that’s all it’ll ever be.

        I feel like there are way too many people who feel like using the power of their vote is some magical trump card that fully absolves them of getting involved in any actually meaningful way. And accusing them of being lazy is another excuse to not have to get involved.

      • PopOfAfrica@lemmy.world
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        In this anology, all I want is for the lazy asshole to stop beingbeing a lazy asshole.

        We never seem to put up a less lazy asshole. Ever.

        And then we wonder why we have a dragon problem.

        Im already being downvoted for simply asking for a dragon slayer in that can slay the dragon.

        • MegaUltraChicken@lemmy.world
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          7 months ago

          Im already being downvoted for simply asking for a dragon slayer in that can slay the dragon.

          I didn’t downvote you, but my frustration with statements like this is that there is no other dragon slayers to call up now. There is no scenario where Biden is not the Democratic nominee in November. I agree we should have a better candidate, Biden is not my preference at all, but that’s reality. Asking for a new candidate for this election is a complete nonstarter.

          • PopOfAfrica@lemmy.world
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            I’m not even asking for a new candidate at this point, I’m just asking for Biden to do better. I totally think he is capable of doing more and doing better, but it seems like he just doesn’t want to. And it seems like the moderates don’t expect him to, as if they also are frustrated with him. A lot of the progressive frustration comes from the fact that we had warned about this years prior And we’re just told to shut up about it.

            If we need a dragon slayer to meet the moment and Joe Biden is all we have, then we better start training him to be a dragon slayer. We really should have been doing that four years ago.

            Instead, the election is coming up and we have someone who might not be able to slay the dragon… versus a dragon. We can help all we can, but it’s really up to him to slay the dragon in the end. I just don’t think we put ourselves in the best situation if the goal is to kill the dragon.

            • CileTheSane@lemmy.ca
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              7 months ago

              we had warned about this years prior

              What would you have liked the Democrats to have done, keeping in mind that Republicans have a majority in the house? Can’t amend the Constitution.

              Republicans keep being given the power to delay and deny anything the Democrats want done, and then people complain about Democrats not doing enough, so they don’t vote, which allows Republicans to keep doing it.

              It’s frustrating how successful the strategy is working for them.

              • MegaUltraChicken@lemmy.world
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                7 months ago

                Exactly. The first priority is removing the GOP roadblocks. I’m a progressive. I desperately want progressive policy enacted. There is no viable path to make that happen without electing more Democrats in general elections. I recognize that the Democratic party is not a progressive party, but that’s our job to change via primaries.

                My biggest complaint about my fellow progressives is a lot of them seem to refuse to think strategically and cling to the idea that your vote is somehow a moral choice. It’s not. It’s a strategic choice to further your interests. Helping elect Republicans during the general election does nothing but put us even further away. Biden is not our champion, he’s a tool. We use Biden to promote our interests where we can and ditch him the moment he’s no longer needed. Right now, he’s absolutely needed.

              • PopOfAfrica@lemmy.world
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                For starters, Biden should have picked a better AG, that would have gone a long way. Secondly, Democrats should have impeached Trump THE DAY OF THE INSURRECTION, while Republican support was wavering in the uncertainty. Instead they waited months.

                We could have removed the filibuster to ease legislation.

                Mind you, all of this was stuff progressives were screaming at the time but moderates ignored.

                • Eccitaze@yiffit.net
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                  At the time, picking Garland as AG was a giant fuck you to republicans to get revenge on them denying Obama the supreme court nomination in 2016, a way of saying “ha, ha, you denied him a seat and now we gave him one that’s almost as good.”

                  Unfortunately, in hindsight it turns out that when you put a very moderate, nonpartisan, old-school Republican in the cabinet, they will run their department like a moderate, nonpartisan, old-school Republican, and that resulted in the DOJ focusing on the mooks more than the masterminds out of fear of being seen as a political hatchet man.

                  • PopOfAfrica@lemmy.world
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                    7 months ago

                    But I, alongside many other progressives, explicitly said Garland was going to be exactly like this.

                    As is sadly often the case, progressives are right in the moment, and then history has to look back on them as being correct in the moment. It wasn’t hindsight that told us this.

                    I mean you look at history and almost always whether it be the civil rights movement or the gay rights movement or workers rights progressives are always 100% of the time on the right side of history, but they are never given the credit.

          • PopOfAfrica@lemmy.world
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            I think Biden could be a dragon slayer. He just has to have the gumption to do it. To a lot of progressives like myself, it feels like we are just giving up on the prospect of Biden doing better, as if that is not even an option anymore, and the people that are most prominently supporting that notion are the moderates right now.

            The fact of the matter is we have a dragon problem, and it doesn’t seem like anyone is willing to fix it. We can’t just get eaten by the dragon.

            I don’t know, it just doesn’t seem like people are frustrated enough that we have no dragon slayers. Perhaps we would have gotten one if people were this upset earlier.

        • TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world
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          The people downvoting you are scared, and don’t see themselves as having any other options.I think their fear is warranted, but you can’t stand idle in the face of an oncoming train. You have to move your feet.

          They rely on hope and fantasy whose only basis in reality is between their ears, because otherwise the weight of it all becomes crushing. I’d rather bear the weight if that’s what it takes get my feet going though. I’m will not go willingly into the long dark night.

      • TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        Yeah except that what you’ve described is a delusional fantasy. The ‘lazy asshole’ in your metaphor has been enabling and empowering the tyrant asshole the entire time, and when it comes to draw swords, they’ll be turning cloak to try and retain some semblance of power and position.

        They aren’t your allies and they never have been.

          • barsquid@lemmy.world
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            Me, watching an insurrection televised live: “hmm, but why aren’t the media giving coverage to Hunter Biden’s laptop?”

        • zaph@sh.itjust.works
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          7 months ago

          Yeah except that what you’ve described is a delusional fantasy. PROCEEDS TO AGGREE WITH COMMENT

          • TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world
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            Yeah thats not what their comment described.

            The ‘lazy asshole’ in their metaphor is never coming to your aid. They’ll vote to call protestation against Israel hate speach before they’ll ever consider reforming the system that keeps them in power. This is the solipsistic delusion I’m highlighting. ALL of the evidence suggests that Democrats will maintain support a tyrannical Republican agenda before considering the kind of critical systematic introspection necessary to actually reform the system. Democrats are not interested in reform of a system that keeps them in power.

            The only place in which Democrats are a reform party is in the deluded minds of their aquarian sycophants. There is no external evidence to suggest that Democrats are a reform party, because at every given opportunity to do so, Democrats refuse. Its a Marvel-tier fantasy that the Democrats writ large are the heroes in this story.

            • zaph@sh.itjust.works
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              Holy shit I’m sorry to make you write all that out. I’m not sure what happened in my brain but it looked like your comment was a reply to a different comment.

            • John Richard@lemmy.world
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              The problem is that a majority of those vocally supporting Biden can’t just be happy with people agreeing they’ll vote for Biden over Trump, but they insist that people live in the fan-fiction fantasy land with them.

    • RubberDuck@lemmy.world
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      Yeah, no! The simple fact is that actually changing something is a lot harder than simply obstructing. Just look at the Ukraine aid bill. One guy was able to hold it off for more than half a year.

      Actual change requires buy in from a lot of people and that means talking, compromising and then doing it. If there is one obstructionist fuck in your path, everything slows down or even grinds to a halt.

      That is why Trump wants to be dictator (for a day, or maybe a few… and the a few more) and why they have the 2025 plan. To eliminate the need to talk and compromise but simply bulldoze your plans through.

      Your narrative is false and hurts democracy a lot.

    • TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      Democrats have refused to stop Trump at every juncture. Id really should be appalling to us that we allowed democracy to be on the ballot when we had four years to patch every exploit in the system.

      Your down voters have been propagandized to their entire lives that there is always a ‘team good’ and a ‘team evil’, and that the lathe of heaven cuts just so. Its the rebels versus the empire and the rebels always just. Its David versus Goliath, and the underdog always wins.

      Its a fantasy. Democrats as a functional political party, in practice, are not allies of the people. They’ve supported and promoted effectively an identical slate of polices to Republicans for almost 50 years. It was RBG that refused to step down from the supreme court. It was Obama who didn’t pressure her to do so. Its the Democrats who refused to fully investigate Trumps involvement with Russia in the Mueller investigation, because they needed to take the ‘high road’. Republicans are there to represent a convenient excuse, while its Democrats who fail to do what they need to do when its the right time to do it. They aren’t your friends, they aren’t even your allies. Stop engaging in these masturbatory fantasies of what you think this institution represents.

      • barsquid@lemmy.world
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        Muller is a Republican, was made director during a Repub admin, and was working in a Republican DoJ. You might want to choose a different example if you’d like to give the impression you know what you are talking about?

        I’m pissed off about RBG as well, but they are lifetime appointments. Not sure what the Dems as a collective group were supposed to do on that one. By the time Obama had an obstructionist Senate it was too late.

          • barsquid@lemmy.world
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            Oh, no, I think it’s pretty rewarding to educate young children such as yourself. Feels good.

              • barsquid@lemmy.world
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                Not really. That’s why I don’t want to help a complete authoritarian running on a campaign of bigotry by throwing my vote in the garbage.

                I think it’s more the people completely wrong on basic facts of who is Dem or Repub are delusional. Like they are so biased and bought in to what they want to believe that they don’t care about the truth.

      • fosho@lemmy.ca
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        7 months ago

        there are so many easy ways to refute this so I’m just going to go with: you dumb bitch.