More than a dozen former Ronald Reagan staff members have joined dozens of other Republican figures endorsing the Democratic nominee and vice-president, Kamala Harris, saying their support was “less about supporting the Democratic party and more about our resounding support for democracy”.
The Harris campaign has not extended an invitation to the Bush administration to come back and take over the White House if she wins. Nor is there some great wave of enthusiasm on the right for Harris, it’s just them endorsing the only viable alternative to Trump.
And if Bush v Gore was the biggest threat to democracy in your lifetime, you must have been dead for the last four years. Florida in 2000 was a clusterfuck whose outcome was always going to be determined by how the votes were counted because the margin between the candidates was less then the number of disputed ballots. But after it was over, the country went back to business as usual.
Trump spread lies about the election being stolen, plotted a blatant coup attempt, incited a riot that attempted to overthrow the election by force, and after failing to hold onto power. But unlike in 2000, this didn’t stop with one election, Trump and pals have continued to push conspiracy theories and coordinate at the local level to disrupt the entire democratic process. You’ve got armed nut jobs threatening poll workers, and local election rules being written specifically to maximize the disruption they can cause to elections. It’s now the norm for Trump supporters to see elections as inherently invalid if their side loses, with a significant number of those people being willing to support illegal or violent actions if it will give them the win they want. Even if Trump loses, the damage he’s inflicted to American democracy will likely last for decades.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brooks_Brothers_riot
If the law had been followed Florida in 2000 would’ve done to gore.
Things went back to “business as usual” because the people who stole the election WON and successfully got control of the country, and what they did with that power was start 2 wars and murder a million+ people in the middle east and legitimize torture. That is worse than anything trump has done.
The damage that reagan/bush/cheney did to this country and to the world is incalculable. The dems disagree with me on this and that’s why I’m not a dem and I can’t support the dems
I’m not hear to defend Bush v Gore, the Bush administration, Republicans, Democrats, or anything else.
Fuck it, ok, fine, Bush v Gore was worse. So what? Unless you have a time machine, there isn’t anything we can do about that. But Trump poses a threat right now, one which will get much worse if he manages to get back into power. That can still be prevented. If the price that comes at is the knowledge that a few loathsome individuals agreed with millions of people like me on this one narrow choice, that’s a small price to pay.
We could expect Harris to denoucne the endorsements and tell them to F-off instead of reveling in the ensorsements, that would be a start
https://lemmy.ml/post/20396714/13736665
The long term effects of voting “lesser of 2 evils” pushes everyone to the right.
I’m not willing to get pushed anymore, if you are then just accept that you’re center-right or far-right at this point. I’m not, I’m a leftist and I’m going to stay a leftist
The long term effects of authoritarians consolidating their power and eliminating the last remnants of democracy and the rule of law is that it no longer matters if any of us are left or right. I’ll take having a system that can still be changed over being trapped in under dictatorial rule but taking comfort in the fact that I’ve remained ideologically pure.
And no, choosing the best viable candidate doesn’t just lead inevitably to a shift to the right. If that were the case, we wouldn’t be talking about people on the right endorsing someone to their left. The fact that Democrats have chosen electable candidates when Republicans chose Trump loyalists and MAGA nutcases is the main reason why Republicans have underperformed since 2018, and why they keep sabotaging their own efforts fighting with their own party members. Their most recent victories are largely due to courts they packed with right wing judges, something that will only get worse if they win, but which will be gradually undone if they lose.
But this is an argument that’s always raging on this site. That particular dead horse has been reduced to a fine paste. I doubt anyone’s going to be swayed at this point.
Harris isnt to the left of Reagan or cheney, thats my point