Calmly? You invoked a sexist term and then when I called you out on it you called me "triggered" and now "butthurt." It's very clear what kind of person you are now, and it's not the even-tempered tolerant person you like to paint yourself to be.

I do want an honest discussion, my first comment was very respectful of our differences of opinion. You then immediately brought in bigotry-charged name-calling to the thread.

Being a bigot "calmly" isn't something anyone should ever tolerate.

You were the one who brought the sexist term "Bernie Bro" in. That's a cheap smear campaign term designed to invoke sexism. Stop using it.

When you want to talk without your unnecessary insults and sexist terms, I'm happy to talk.

God, these people are so fucking intolerant of any criticism of their party, it's absurd. I really tried to engage in an honest discourse and the person reverted straight back to petty sexist bullshit and nonsequitors, ignoring what I said entirely.

It's such an embodiment of the out-of-touch Democratic party and how they can't possibly fathom any other point of view.

I tried to engage you in honest discourse explaining my position and you immediately went straight to all of your favorite one-liners designed to undermine without actually addressing anything.

All of your points are easily refuted and I'm happy to write them out if you need me to, but it's a conversation that's been done to death since 2016. I'll do one: "Bernie Bros" voted Hillary better than Hillary supporters voted for Obama. Leave your sexist bullshit at home unless you want to admit your camp is racist.

Since you seem willing to engage in discourse about this, I feel similarly to the person you replied to and can explain my position. I don't want to discourage anyone from voting, I have two goals:

1. Don't concede the White House to Trump
2. Fight back against the Democratic Party's efforts to reduce the voice of the people.

I'm guessing we agree on #1 and disagree on the premise of #2. I see #2 as a systemic pattern that really launched after the 2008 primaries when Obama disrupted the plan to place Hillary in the White House. It came to a head in 2016 and has been rippling ever since.

I never believed Joe should have run again in the first place, and in the last month it became clear that him running was detrimental to #1. So we push for him to step aside, while I still think he shouldn't have run in the first place. He steps down, and you feel satisfied because goal #1 is protected. But I'm deeply unsettled by the damage that has been done to #2. The Democrats just figured out how to skip the voice of the people entirely.

The last time this happened (1968 primaries, eerily similar) the Democrats launched a committee to reform the primary process into what it is today. A big improvement over what it was before, but Biden just revealed a significant weakness in it.

I'm happy to vote for Harris to fulfill #1, I'm thrilled that there was a surge in registrations. But if the Democrats don't address the critical problem of this process we all just witnessed, I fear #2 becomes unreachable. The Democrats are our only hope of saving our democracy, so if they abandon democracy within their party (like I have seen happening over the last 16 years), it's a hollow victory.

Looks like we're back in full "you can't criticize the Democrats at all or you're a Russian troll" territory. I hate this sycophancy.

I'm with you on this one. The Democrats have been skirting democracy to the best of their ability for years. I'm glad we've got a better chance of defeating Trump now, but I'm unwilling to concede the democratic process of nominating candidates. If we celebrate this fucked up process instead of holding their feet to the fire, they're just going to learn that actually they don't need to bother involving the people at all. We cannot give a single inch to the plutocrats at the top.

I feel like this speech was unnecessary. It only made me feel worse. I need the Democrats, and especially Biden, to stop soapboxing about "saving democracy" and "presidents are not kings" when they literally just skipped the democratic part of choosing a nominee for it to be handed down like a crown.

In fact, I'd feel a lot better if they apologized for it and told us how they were going to stop it from happening in the future.

Edit: wow, y'all really freak out at any suggestion of wrongdoing by the Democrats. I'd suggest looking backwards at how we ended up with the current primary process. 1968 Democratic primaries. The Democrats recognized the problem then and introduced reform, why is that such an outlandish thing to ask for now?

We did not have a real primary, incumbency primaries are always just going through the motions without real challenge. Had Biden chosen to do the right thing and not seek reelection in the first place, we would have had a real primary. As it stands, we will have the first nominee since 1968 to win the nomination without a single vote from the people.

That year was such a disaster that it resulted in the creation of the current system of national binding primaries. The fact that our system is so fragile that the voice of the people can still so easily be skipped is extremely problematic. This situation demands reform or else the Democrats can take advantage of this anytime they want to avoid hearing what the people want.

What needed to happen was a primary process. This whole situation has robbed the people of any choice. I'm going to vote for Harris, but I'm deeply unsettled by what's happened. I think the convention should feature a pledge to hold an open primary in 2028 even if we have an incumbent.

That would kind of undermine their legitimacy though. I agree that the parties pushing for theocracy should be given better incentives against blatant unconstitutional behavior. But we also can't give them any cover to paint TST as an opportunistic cash grab. By only seeking token damages, TST maintains the moral high ground while also protecting freedom from religion.

To be clear: that was my take on it. I don't think that was the article's intention. OP did accurately copy the actual article title.

It is kind of nonsensical. But it (unintentionally?) highlights the deep irony that our saving grace from dictatorship is a candidate who has never received a primary vote for president. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad Biden dropped out and I think we have a better chance of keeping Trump out now, but we are far from a democracy right now.

I'm glad he dropped out, I feel like we actually have a shot in November. But with his endorsement of Kamala, which makes sense since she will face the fewest legal and logistical issues of any replacement, the Democrats have corrupted an incredibly important milestone if we do win. The first woman to be POTUS, the first woman of color to be POTUS, will have a tarnished legacy since she skipped the primary process (and skipped out in 2020 before any votes were even cast).

That's three incredibly ill-handled presidential primaries in a row. Do better, Democrats.

Legitimate criticism of a governing body that refuses to move left while demanding their left flank fall in line is not something I will ever stop doing. It's not supporting Trump to criticize Biden. To suggest so is absolutely absurd.

If he's such a weak candidate that people criticizing him online will lose him the election, then here's an idea: he should step aside.

I think it's foolish to chase "independent" voters (which I assume you're saying to mean the mythical "moderate"). What Biden is fighting is apathy.

Joe Biden being unwilling to call out the genocide in Palestine absolutely drives apathy among voters who feel disenfranchised by the current two party system.

If the Democrats truly cared about winning elections, they'd court the left and drive voter engagement. If we drive up turnout, the Democrats win every time, even with the ridiculously broken electoral college.

That's weird since I just got an email for a "payment due" on 8/15. It is so fucking exhausting to try to keep up with all the bajillion different "payment plans" and if you don't choose the right one based on all the misinformation out there then fuck you, you don't get the tasty breadcrumbs we're leaving in hidden corners.

I am so tired of my student loan payments changing or being threatened to change all the time. Just tell me how much I owe you each month and leave me the fuck alone. I need to focus on budgeting groceries.

They pretty quickly pivoted to their new MSNBC talking points.

• "But why is no one talking about Trump?"
• "No one else would have the incumbent advantage."
• "4 months is simply not enough time to get a new nominee ready."
• "You should have told us before the primaries that you didn't want Biden."
• "Suck it progressives. This, like everything else that is my fault, is all your fault."

I may have embellished one of those.

Gen Z slang really pushes my descriptivist tolerance.

Seriously, it actually sounds kinda good.

I will vote. But you pretending like Biden wasn't blatantly double-dipping on a campaign promise doesn't help.

I voted for him in 2020 based on his promises, and all I got was a knife held over me for two years until it was politically expedient for him to bother even trying. He could have already been on a new attempt by the midterms, they had that memo April 2021. They promised to release it. They never did, and it got struck down like we all thought it would.

It's the same story with every fucking policy. The Democrats waste time twiddling their thumbs until they think they can squeeze more political points out of it, they don't care about actually doing anything.

This Supreme Court reform is gonna be the same thing. They're going to milk this through 2024 but never actually do anything, and then sit on it until 2026 before even trying. Meanwhile he could have done this years ago and we could have already moved past whatever BS the Republicans will use to stop it and started on the next plan.

I'm so fucking tired of empty promises.