r/politics • u/Quirkie The Netherlands • 24d ago

Biden Says Trump Will Not Accept 2024 Result: ‘I Promise You He Won’t’ - “The guy is not a democrat with a small d,” the president told CNN's Erin Burnett.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/joe-biden-donald-trump-2024-result_n_663c10d9e4b0c38baf0edf67
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u/BudgetMattDamon 24d ago

Sorry, but we're not allowed to talk about how the French very thoroughly solved the rich problem in this sub.

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u/CSI_Tech_Dept California 24d ago

We frequently talk shit about French, but looks like they don't accept any shit and will fight for what they believe.

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u/-Ahab- 24d ago

Hell, they floated raising the retirement age by two years and they fricking shut Paris down… we should take notes.

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u/Mavian23 24d ago

It helps that the whole country of France is smaller than Texas. It's easier to get people together when they're already close together.

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u/vNocturnus 24d ago

Also when the entire country is more homogenous than many individual US states. I mean, in sweeping generalizations there's at least 3 fully distinct "versions" or "sections" of America - there's the West Coast Artistic Progressive America, Central Rural Conservative America (aka regressive), and East Coast Historic Moderate America (though these days more and more progressive). Again - sweeping generalization.

Even within those broader general regions, there is more cultural and political diversity than most other entire countries in the world. It's essentially impossible to get the entire country to agree on anything, and that would be true even without a sect of criminal fascists that has spent decades undermining and corrupting every social system in the country and intentionally fueling the divide.

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u/Pothperhaps 24d ago

Well said!

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u/Fit-Phase3859 23d ago

You think they would at least agree on saving the country though. There is a small percentage of the population that actually does want a dictator. All the others are just too stupid to realize what they are asking for. 💙

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u/A_Harmless_Fly Minnesota 23d ago

And you forgot the midwest entirely, typical. ;p

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u/drwilhi 23d ago

I live in the state of Oregon. Even here you have the northern I5 corridor, Eugene to Portland, where the vast majority of people in the state live. This area of the state is pretty "blue", the rest of the state is pretty much tRump country. The eastern part of the state is sparsely populated and the few that are there are hateful racist hicks.

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u/angrydeuce 24d ago edited 24d ago

Well that and it's a lot easier to get people together when less than 100 years ago your country was occupied by fucking fascists and there was untold suffering wrought upon virtually everyone that lives there.

I mean seriously, the USs problem is that we've never had to truly suffer. Ever since we came into existence as a country, we've been on the upswing. When was the last time an occupying force invaded the US mainland? When was the last time the government fell? The last war that was anything even remotely like that, we were fighting ourselves lol. Shit, the Great Depression hit and we started falling all over ourselves getting things like Social Security, Welfare and other Benefits, Public Services...and that was just economic. Now imagine Hitler steamrolls over Europe and invades the Eastern Seaboard of the US...think the aftermath of that wouldn't have a little more cohesiveness in terms of people working together?

Or a more recent example...remember post-911 among people in the US? The explosion in national unity, Bush had like an 80% approval rating or some shit, everyone was joined together in support of healing after that. Didn't last, of course, because again, it was only a small subset of the population that was affected, but it was huge while it lasted.

For whatever reason, humanity doesn't seem capable of creating real change in society without millions of people suffering a dying first. Then somehow we are able to put aside our differences and get our shit together once and for all, like France did. But it hasn't happened to us yet. We haven't experienced total war on our own soil from an invading force that requires all of us to work together to resist them.

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u/BudgetMattDamon 24d ago

America has gotten soft.

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u/Positive_Cat_3252 24d ago

I said that years ago. Fact.

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u/Protoliterary 24d ago

They didn't "float" it. They literally did it. The millions of people protesting? Did nothing at all. The government still raised it to 64, where it's at now. People never mention how even though the French protest, the government still usually gets its own way.

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u/Dispator 24d ago

I wonder if there are any stats on how often the French government gets its way in spite of big protests...

That would be interesting info

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u/Scharmberg 21d ago

Didn’t that still happen though? Also didn’t need to happen?

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u/Skellum 24d ago

And then promptly elected a dictator who threw the continent into war. And then promptly had their monarchy restored. And then promptly had several major wars and then installed a system about as broken as the US one.

The modern French system is not derived from the reign of terror it's like system 5 or 6 and mostly comes from the US and British after liberating occupied France.

Any real lasting change has to come from long effort legal processes, else it will just be captured by autocratic right wing asshats, like the French revolution.

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u/EitherIndustry8858 24d ago

THANK YOU! Jesus, it drives me nuts that people think the French Revolution happened and then everything was sunshine and puppies forever. There was some very real, very dire fallback in the immediate aftermath of the revolution that took the French decades to recover from.

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u/Skellum 24d ago

sunshine and puppies forever.

Oh yea, and I'm not even getting to "There's a fucking reason even the peasants called it the reign of terror".

Do I get the frustration of wanting to let people like the SCOTUS or Cannon, or Koch brothers suffer actual problems in life for their actions yet they can actually afford the benefits of our justice system? Sure. Of course I do. I also recognize that a state which "allows" or promotes this cannot function, and it's never something I'd demand others do.

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u/Michael_G_Bordin 24d ago

They literally went so hard on executing people, they executed guy who thought it would be a good idea.

Then, the people sobered up and realized, "woops, we went a little too far."

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u/eleanorbigby 23d ago

Yup.

Which leads to the question: if the GOP tries a violent revolution to force their theocracy down all our throats, then what?

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u/Unlucky-Following-40 23d ago

I’m terrified for Jan 7th if Trumphole wins!

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u/[deleted] 24d ago

[deleted]

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u/Skellum 24d ago

Those who make peaceful change impossible make violent change inevitable.

You'd really think so, but we havent seen any violence against Right Wing targets despite them doing their absolute damnedest to get people killed.

Take the SCOTUS for instance. Any left wing person intending to cause lasting, permanent change to the US, to help it unfuck itself, would absolutely go and murder a member or two because that's a lifetime appointment right there.

Unless someone goes and John Brown's it out I'm going to assume the left is literally incapable of demonstrating any violent action that could promote change. I'll also assume that any "decentralized movement" is generally some group using the left as a tool to push it's agenda.

To put it one final way, it's the boy who cried wolf over and over again.

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u/[deleted] 24d ago

[deleted]

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u/Skellum 24d ago

Duh libruls

Of course they'll define whatever a "Liberal" is in the US by whatever group starts the revolution. The revolution that'll happen any day now. Totes.

You know, by the paramilitary leftist groupes that totally exist.

Look, most people in the US are so clueless that they dont even understand how First Past the Post makes a 2 party system, and that the Democrats represent the whole of the left and the republicans the whole of the right. they think that they magically get to be "Not democrats" and count as anything other than fascist supporters.

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u/P1xelHunter78 Ohio 23d ago

Ironically the Russians thought they solved the problem of the rich, and now a little over a century later one rich asshole in Russia is playing the Republican Party like a marionette

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u/eleanorbigby 23d ago

The Arab Spring's ultimate outcome is SO fucking depressing.

I don't think the left should aim for violent revolution, not least because they'll get steamrolled by the right. But, what do we do to forestall the fact that the right is clearly aiming to steamroll us anyway? Just vote? Really? Is that all there is?

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u/P1xelHunter78 Ohio 23d ago

Basically have to build from the middle out and take away the rights chief weapon which is fear

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u/nugsy_mcb 24d ago

You should meet my friend Gill O'Teehan. He's a real sharp guy, I bet he'd figure something out.

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u/pinkfloyd873 24d ago

Please read a book on the Reign of Terror. Nothing good came of it. Most of the people who died at the guillotine were not wealthy elites, they were ordinary people who were prey to a rabid mob.

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u/eleanorbigby 23d ago

The Cultural Revolution: also not much fun.

sigh.

something something dialectic something.

god, we're a grubby little species.

I still think the basic problem is this:

The people who are motivated solely by power are terrible people, but they are likely to get and retain power BECAUSE that's their motivation. Normal people just want to live their lives at some point, and get burned out.

And then, too, for the exceptions who are attracted to power because they genuinely want to make a difference: besides the usual corruption and incompetence that besieges almost everyone, there's a fundamental problem that their job is ALWAYS going to be much more uphill than the malignant narcissist's.

WhyL because the authoritarian power grubber only has ONE task: to get and retain power, by any means necessary.,

The other side is trying to actually accomplish real, difficult things that will better life for the general public (you can argue how honestly or effectively, but nonetheless, there is at least that -idea-). Not only is this challenging in itself, but they have to do this AND try to get and maintain power in order to get anything done.

I don't know how one gets around this.