only one of those have been recent. hillary might've been younger but we all know how that went lol. bush 2 electric boogaloo would've been pretty close though.
What is recent? W. Bush was four presidents ago, Clinton was only five presidents ago. We're only on our 46th president since Washington was inaugurated in 1789, 235 years ago. When you go through presidents that slowly, it's easy to have your sample thrown off if you just include a couple of decades.
Yeah I felt like including anyone older than the 1900's was cheating considering people back then died in their 60's from having bad teeth back then, let alone bloodletting.
Just to explain my math point a bit more, let's take the definition of recent by decade, where all presidents serving within those decades count:
1 decade (2014): 3
2 decades (2004): 4
3 decades (1994): 5
4 decades (1984): 7
5 decades (1974): 10
6 decades (1964): 11
7 decades (1955): 13
8 decades (1945): 15
Even going back fairly far, we still have a pretty small sample size to draw conclusions for presidents specifically.
I agree with you on the age issue as a broader problem. There we have a solid sample. We've become a gerontocracy at the federal level especially, with the older generations holding onto power far past when they should have moved aside to allow in new people and fresh ideas. People in their 80's and 90's holding on to seats clogs the pipelines so that everyone else is prevented from moving up.
every so often i remember that there are still probably silent generation members in the government, and that statistically, the vast majority is gen x or older, broadly across the government.
I would personally be happier with 20 something year old presidential candidates over the current trend of the battling octogenarians. At least the 20 something year old politicians would have to live a long time with the ramifications of their decisions and actions.
Its still not ideal, but I would take it over these incredibly out of touch seniors. They should be out enjoying their retirement and last days on Earth, anyways.
So in Lemmy and other fediverse services, liberals are typically defined as "left of center." That's because a significant portion of fediverse users are progressives (socialists, advocates for social justice within government) to leftists (anarchists, who believe the government shouldn't exist in the first place, and communists where money shouldn't exist in the first place).
Both candidates are a joke & without voting reform it’ll stay as a cabal for the donor class, lobbyist, & corporations. It costs about $10 to mail my ballot to my very red-&-ain’t-changin’ domicile… so I’ll just keep my $10 & buy 6 made-to-order meals instead.
Local elections are also very important and really need participation. Like if you wanted that fee for mail-in voting to go away that would likely be a decision made by local politicians.
And without voting there's no hope for change for the better
Congratulations on ensuring our system has a harder time improving
I would agree but I spent very little time in my domicile & haven’t set foot within US borders in years. Seeing that I don’t pay (local) taxes or otherwise participate in the local community or economy, I would argue it would be unethical if I did vote in a place that doesn’t represent me & I don’t understand too well—like voting straight ticket without looking into any candidates. Last time I did a mail-in, I only checked State-level boxes since those you can easily research online & are more broad-reaching than the local level where only locals should be casting ballets for their community.
If I could vote on issues that actually affect me, I absolutely would—like FBAR reforms where you aren’t seen as a criminal for having more that $10k in a foreign bank where you actually have your address, tax reforms that took TurboTax out of the equation as the only ‘affordable’ option that actually lets you file with a non-US address instead of a no-service error, or Medicare/Medicaid reform that allowed vouchers or reimbursement for using services abroad rather than it being a money sinkhole you pay into your whole life, even if you don’t live there, but can’t redeem any care unless on US soil. These are never ballot measures & instead requires, ugh lobbying or a representative willing to champion these topics seen niche despite there being more citizens outside the US than some States in population.
This is obviously absurd. If choosing from the legal options in an election is being part of a "conspiracy" then the whole system is already failed and you yourself are a conspirator for not doing anything about it.
And no, voting one of the same two parties that have brought all this mess in the first place is not doing something. The Reps and Dems are equally responsible for the desolate state of the US democracy. So by your definition of "conspirator" you have conspirated to bring about the conditions in which Trump not only was elected, but has a chance to be reelected.
It's easy to understand the leftist claim that liberals always ultimately bend to fascism when you see comments like this that explain the US's turn to fascism is because of leftists(?).
You comprise one of the two sides who blindly vote according to the principle of "he's better than the other guy". I suspect you'd be fine with more genocides in the decades to come only insofar as they're committed by democrats. Meanwhile, actual leftists will continue to imagine better systems, build mutual aid networks, and arm vulnerable comrades. American electotalism isn't going to stop the backslide into fascism or the ecocidal intent of the US ruling class.
Agreed. And if we look even a decade into the future what happens when leftists and progressives voters suddenly start dominating primaries? Are moderates and liberals going to show up in the general elections then? I think we all know the answer.
Fascism isn't a possibility, it's a guarantee and it will be moderates and liberals who are to blame.
Yeah, it seems so, i personally don't like our system either, but that would have to come down to a vote from the people to tear it down and start over. People dont get to force the issue like trump and many extremists, and apparently, like this other person wants.
How do I vote trump out in a state that WILL go to him? Does me vote matter in that situation? Should I just lie down and take being banned from the public sphere? You act like violence isn't already being committed by the right and ignored by ineffectual liberals like you who think that being polite is important when lives are at stake.
These people deserve justice for the harm they've caused, and the justice system will not bring it to those in such powerful positions. I merely am positing that justice will only be wrought by our own hands. The fact that is only possible through their deaths isn't my fault, nor does it concern me in the slightest if these mindless ghouls get hurt. If you make change impossible, you make your death inevitable.
And if my vote did matter, Biden has done nothing to improve my life and the lives of people like me but to allow us to serve in the imperialist death machine that is the military. That is disgusting. Everything I wanted from him, abortion and the border have been dismantled in the same way I expected Trump to, and actually resulted in MORE migrant children being caged. Neoliberalism will kill both me and this planet before I reach 50, and you're acting like some stupid fucking voting will prevent people with guns from doing what you're shaming leftists for advocating. It should worry you that Biden has so thoroughly failed so many people that they prefer a violent and tumultuous revolution to your dystopian hellscape future you call "progress".
Generally speaking what follows a violent revolution is usually a few decades of war, poverty and tyranny.
It's quite unlikely that you'll be better off in the 2-3 following decades than when you started. After that, it's anyone's guess. You might be better off or worse off, depending on the ability of the new government
By that logic all of America should still be partitioned between the Spanish, British, Portuguese and French.
I understand this is an hyperbole, but still, let's take for example the French revolution: sure Napoleon crowned himself emperor and in the end left France in a worst state than before, but he gave the whole world some important advancements that in many (often subtle) ways still reverberate today:
for example, his monetary policies are the reason we have 1,2,5,10,20,50 of a given currency and the respective cents, and not an arbitrary system of fractions (old European coinage could get absurd, I suggest who's interested to go on numista.com or a similar site and check for yourself) .
He helped introducing the concept of separation of church and state to the general public (not much considerated before).
He helped the nascent industrialist class to emerge and impose itself, gradually stamping out the remains of feudalism from Europe.
He advanced history in many ways I can't even start to mention.
Let's take another example, you can think what you want of the Soviet Union and I can agree to various criticisms, but living in the Russian empire in the 1900s (even before WW1) was like living 3 centuries in the past. People lived in misery and died young, servitude was abolished only 50 years before.
The Communists took a country that barely surpassed feudalism (in the cities) and gave basic dignities to its citizens, arriving to compete, militarily and economically, with the strongest superpower in history.
Can be argued it degenerated after Lenin's death, but it's undeniable that, even under stalin's time, life was magnitudinally better than even 30 years prior (and to be fair that's an enormously low bar)
Essù, anche noi abbiamo fatto ben 3 (tre) guerre per ľindipendenza contro ľaustria, evidentemente la gente lo voleva! Concordo che non sempre quando rovesci il governo vai a finire meglio (vedi Hitler, giovani turchi) ma gli Italiani lombardi/veneti/friulani sotto cecco Beppe non se la passano proprio bene... Non che i SaBoia fossero meglio, ma ľautodeterminazione dei popoli è una cosa importante per cui (a mio avviso) vale la pena combattere se si è oppressi.
I didn't say that all revolutions are bad. It's usually a mixed bag, some good, some bad.
What I was saying is that violent revolutions and civil wars, like all wars, usually bring death, destruction and poverty for the normal everyday people. So if you are expecting better living conditions right after a revolution, you are either so poor that anything is better or you better be on the short list of elites that will get to grab power and rebuild the country, otherwise you are going to suffer. Maybe your kids will be better off... Maybe.
And yes, there are also independence wars, but those are different from civil wars. The US is independent, Americans don't consider themselves being occupied by a foreign entity.
There are cases in which the status quo kills way more in the long term than a revolution would in the short term, I agree with you that a war, expecially a civil war fought expecially on national soil brings misery and destruction to the nation, but it is sometimes a necessary evil in the short term in order to avoid a way bigger evil in the long run. To make another Italian example, the fascist regime killed hundreds of thousands of people, 120.000 innocents died only in Lybia during the deportation of the cyrenaican people, that's less than all of the deaths in the Italian Civil War!
didn't say that all revolutions are bad. It's usually a mixed bag, some good, some bad
I think we agree on this one, I thought you meant revolution was inherently evil. Better to clarify and argument further nevertheless, For posterity. Peace.
I would say a peaceful change by vote of the people (not politicians) would be a better way than violent revolution. Violent revolution can be justified, but it will end up hurting many people and destabilizing a country. War from internal and external parties would be garunteed. Peaceful revolution is not an easy nor even plausable outcome, but it would harm far fewer people.
Im curious: How does not voting show you wish for revolution? My view is that I'd rather vote for someone who is working within the system (corrupt and broken though it may be) than someone who wants to tear it down and install a dictatorship. Not voting just means you're complicit and signals you don't prefer one over the other. I don't like either, but i definitely have a preference.
Probably harder now than ever. I think the last time it was tried, roughly 2/5ths of the population wanted it and they failed miserably, and they were still using Muskets then.
I think a better analogy would be, "a building has many exits available, but only 2 emergency exits. During an emergency, you 'must' use the emergency exits... But do you really?"
If the USA population decided to ignore the democrats or republicans, as a whole, and focus their votes on one of the remaining four parties, then you lot would see a different party being elected. Easier said than done. I know. And I'm not blaming any of the USA voting population for this dichotomy.
It's an incredibly stupid movement where people are saying that they won't vote as a protest to not liking either candidate.
Usually said by people who have little to lose if Republicans win, seem to think revolution is a viable possibility if Republicans win, and/or think that by not voting something good might happen.
Also people who don't understand that our system is a First-Past-the-Post system and the only group of people who are trying to get support for not voting in this election are people on the left.
So I'm not as many words: people trying to guarantee a victory for trump.
Again, I haven't seen anything like that. I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt by assuming that you aren't dumb enough to be confusing the noncommitted movement of the DNC Primaries with the general election in November. You're not that dumb, right?
Don't make the mistake of believing that just because you haven't seen something that it doesn't exist.
We all exist in media bubbles and in those bubbles we miss a lot. By seeing this meme you could say that your media bubble has finally bumped into the bubble where people openly talk about not voting.
Hell there's comments in this comment section on the note of not voting.
I'll be voting but it won't be for Biden or Trump. If you want me to vote for him then figure out how to make him listen to the people he's depending on to get elected.
There's no such thing as the perfect candidate so voting for the person you hate the least is the best option for preventing the person you hate the most from winning.
I'm not a fan of Biden but he's way fucking better than trump and his fellow Republicans.
No. I'm not going to continue to reward moderates and liberals for being inflexible. If they're not willing to do it now they're never going to be and fascism isn't just a possibility it's a guarantee. Let's get it overwith.
And by not voting you're ensuring that positive change will have a much harder time occuring.
Local elections are very important and pushing for more progressive local candidates can help to influence policies on the national stage. And if there's no candidates you like in your locality you can try to run yourself.
There's more elections than just the election for president.
And by not voting you’re ensuring that positive change will have a much harder time occuring.
Liberals and moderates by not materially compromising with leftists and progressives are ensuring that positive change has and will continue to have a much harder time occurring.
They are way more likely to do so than Republicans that’s for sure
Give me an example of liberals and moderates making a material compromise with leftists and progressives during Biden's term. Show me any time they have sacrificed a policy position in order to get the votes of progressives and leftists.
