As a lifelong democrat, I find this to be very dangerous rhetoric. It sounds tonedeaf. Regardless of the candidate, being critical of politicians is a cornerstone of democracy.
I understand it’s important to be a united front, but the need to seemingly bring dissenting voices into line is not a good way to do it. We cannot force people to say we have a perfect candidate for the sake of avoiding discussion.
Edit: a word
I disagree that’s what’s happening here. He’s saying that you can be disappointed with Biden all you want, but not voting for him means we get trump and Project 2025 and fascism.
I don’t know a single person that is stoked on Biden, but he’s all we have right now. And we cannot let Trump get a second term.
Unfortunately, that’s not what Fetterman is saying.
Fetterman noted during an interview an uptick in Democrats who have become more critical of Biden lately, and said it’s only helping former President Trump.
“I don’t understand why,” Fetterman said, speaking on “Morning Joe” on MSNBC. “I don’t know what’s in it for you to do that whether you’re just chasing clout or you want to make it in the news or anything like that. But if you’re not willing to just support the president now and say these kinds of things, you might as well just get your MAGA hat, because you now are helping Trump with this.”
He’s addressing other Democratic politicians, whom would probably be one of the last groups to not vote for Biden. He seems to think that Biden would fare better in November if Dems outright refuse to acknowledge the realities of unprecedented homelessness, Israeli war money, or being 81 years old. (Because forcing people to look to Republicans for a dissenting opinion on these subjects is a great idea.)
You should vote for Biden if you don’t want Trump, obviously. And vote for Fetterman over whomever if you don’t want whomever. But either Fetterman severely misspoke here, or his opinion goes way beyond that, and I can’t help but lose a lot of respect I had for him.
This is buying into the Republican way of thinking, which is that you criticize someone’s performance for any shortcoming you feel. A progressive stance is to elevate other people (There is more than one person in Government) who are doing things correctly without tearing down the current leader. It s the difference between a collaborative government and a competitive one. Within a (generally speaking) unified political block which values diversity of opinions, a collaborative approach is much more productive than a competitive one.
The strength of a movement is in the sum of the effort.
Oh, I totally agree everyone needs to vote for Biden based on how the system currently works. But what I disagree with is the insinuation that anyone disagreeing with Biden needs a MAGA hat. That’s tonedeaf and bad for the party.
That has been proven time and again to not work. You can’t take the high road and expect to win.
Win what? Ultimately no one wins if we can’t discuss areas for improvement even within one’s own party.
With first past the post voting, a “win” is very simply avoiding the biggest loss.
Push and scream and lobby as much as you like, but at the end of the day, Biden only needs to be marginally less psychotic than Trump for him to be the preferred candidate.
The other side will fall in line behind Trump. So what choice is there?
Try criticizing Biden openly here or on Reddit. This is the party sentiment right now, open criticism is viewed as being equal to supporting Trump. It’s nutty.
I don’t think that’s true, there’s plenty of disagreement over Biden policies. It’s when people try to play the both sides card, lumping Biden and Trump as both being senile or blaming the situation in Palestine on Biden that gets people riled up especially when people try to use those arguments to convince people to not vote.
It’s news when the democrats say there’s no appropriate time to critique democrats
It should be news when someone calls himself progressive for years and as soon as he gets to congress he starts ranting about how much it pisses him off everyone thinks he’s progressive.
Asshole pulled a Sinema and the most annoying part is everyone defending him because he wears a hoodie.
I hope it’s more due to the fact that he had a stroke rather than he’s doing it intentionally. Either way he has had a complete shift in personality and its disappointing to no end that he’s not who he was when elected.
I’m not worried about Biden’s age mostly because I think this comes from the racist fear that Kamala Harris isn’t capable of running this country.
I think we’re worried about biden’s age less because we’re worried he’ll die in office and more because we’re worried he won’t and will keep running the country as his mind deteriorates beyond the point he should be running a bingo game.
Either way he has had a complete shift in personality and its disappointing to no end that he’s not who he was when elected.
there’s no appropriate time
Biden’s been in office for more than 3 years. But all the complaints get drummed out during election season. I wonder who’s pushing them…
You’ve had your head in the sand if you haven’t been hearing people complain about Biden for nearly 4 years.
I have. But it seems to have been ramping up lately. And criticisms of things in the past now are not being done for anything but to tank the election.
I mean, I’m still voting for Biden over any of the Nazis on the red team, but the whole funding-a-genocide-on-gaza thing is going to make it a pretty unenthused vote.
I really wish I could vote for someone on a basis other than lesser evil.
I really wish I could vote for someone on a basis other than lesser evil.
Down-ballot exists! That’s where I’m most enthusiastic about voting. There might be some places where it’s just lesser evil option in some down-ballots, unfortunately, but you’re more likely to have a representative that represents voters within the down-ballot which makes lesser evil choice less likely.
Down-ballot exists!
And has the added benefit of a vastly lower vote count so your vote matters much more. The general election for my state rep got like 4,000 votes. And it was a blowout as expected, so really it was decided in the primary where there were a little over 2,000. One of the other races was literally decided by a single vote!
Exactly. The game sucks, but it exists and one must play to win. The other team has been remarkably successful at working every lever to their advantage for half a century now.
It would be nice if our team wasn’t treating the “game” as a friendly co-op match.
If valid criticism of a candidate causes someone to decide not to vote for them, then so be it. That’s how democracy is supposed to work. What’s important is that people vote for who they want to lead them, period.
Funny how demanding unquestioned loyalty is a MAGA cultist quality.
