UngodlyAudrey

I'm doing a replay of Dragon Age Origins. Slogging my way through my least favorite part of the game(the Deep Roads) right now. I'm not that good at the game, so for the harder encounters, I've cheesed them by having one member of my party run forward to aggro one group, then run back to where the rest are in order to deal with them one group at a time. If I let my party fight normally, they accidentally aggro multiple groups and they get overwhelmed. That plus saving after every difficult encounter is helping me get through it.

My warden is an elven mage; she's mostly built for casting ice magic and healing. I usually use Alistair as a tank, Zevran as a dual wielding damage dealer and Leliana as an archer/support unit.

It's a long read, but it's a good read, and it's worth your time. This is what we're up against; the christofascists are organizing, they're taking their shot now to end secularism. They know their ideas are unpopular, but it doesn't take much to flip an election. This is their best shot at creating a dystopian theocratic nightmare and they are pulling as many levers as possible(whether it's getting vote out from Christians, sowing election doubt, or pounding societal wedge issues) to get Trump in. This is both a last-ditch effort from those who know that Christianity's influence in society will continue to wane, but also one in which they have a good chance of succeeding. They are all in. Are we? I doubt it. We need to be.

The crowd just stood around bewildered throughout the whole thing. I mean, I do kinda get it, that weird pop sound in the video sounds too faint, unlike gunfire. Funny how he had time to mug for the camera after the "shooting".

The last fucking thing we need is Donald Trump the living martyr.

EDIT: Apparently a shooter is dead and one of the rally attendees died, too. Guess this was indeed legit. https://apnews.com/live/election-biden-trump-campaign-updates-07-13-2024

Just so you know, you're commenting in a Beehaw community, and we expect that people be(e) nice here. Being gatekeepy isn't nice.

This is anecdotal, but the vibes I'm getting in offline conversations make me think that his low approval rating is accurate. There's a lot of "Biden is too old, and hasn't done much(which isn't entirely true), but I'll vote against Trump." That's great and all, but I live in a deep blue city(Seattle) and, honestly, I am deeply concerned about people who are more moderate, who aren't as vehemently anti-Trump. I think the disconnect here is that we differ greatly in our faith that the Dems will turn out. They responded well in 2020 to kick Trump out, but I don't know how much that fire still burns in the voting populace. Some people respond better to carrots than sticks, and while the threat of Trump is a hell of a stick, Biden is not much of a carrot. Not to say that Biden hasn't done some good things, but I feel that the media and Russia have hammered Biden enough that I think the damage is done.

That being said, however, I'm going to disengage here, and try to refrain from advocating that Biden step down going forward. Posting this thread was a mistake on my part, and I'll take full responsibility for it. Anything that dampens enthusiasm for the Democratic nominee should be avoided at all costs, and by posting this thread and suggesting that Biden should be replaced, I was simply doing Russia's job for them, and for that, I'm sorry. It's not like we have any power over the situation to begin with. The party will decide whether to stick with Biden or not, and it's our job to help make sure they defeat the fascists.

American elections, in a nutshell, come down to this. Turnout. Motivate your voters to go to the polls en masse, and you win. There just isn't that many swing voters, especially in an election like this where both candidates have been President. The reason this has been catastrophic for Biden is that appearing to be old and out of touch tends to depress enthusiasm. Combine that with the short memories of the voters and you'll have people not bothering to vote because "both options are bad". As we get further and further from Trump's presidency, people's memories start to fade, they think to themselves, "oh, he wasn't THAT bad, we had more money back then." There's also lots of people who haven't heard about Project 2025, aren't paying attention to Trump saying that he'll be a dictator on the first day, etc. They will naively think to themselves that it can't happen here, that the U.S. is somehow special. Biden's margin of victory in some of the swing states was minuscule, and that was at the height of Anything But Trump sentiment. We absolutely cannot afford to have anyone stay home. Maybe some of the post Roe effect will help spur turnout. I don't know. But presidential elections are unfortunately just a popularity contest. I really do think we need to see if there's someone charismatic that we can roll the dice on. Because "Not Trump" won't be enough, and that's pretty much all Biden ever had going for him.

Honestly, I don't think this rhetoric is helpful anymore. As vile and disgusting as it is, we don't have a viable anti-genocide option. We need to pick our battles. I'm pretty left-leaning myself, so if you'll indulge me, this is why I feel compelled to grudgingly vote for the Democratic ticket.

Biden is a garden variety conservative corporate stooge, which has basically been the best case scenario ever since Reagan killed the New Deal. The billionaires that control this country aren't going to allow an administration that pushes back on imperialism and empire. Thus, we never get a chance to elect someone who'd actually stand up to Israel. Just look at what happened to Bernie. I voted uncommitted in the primary because I was furious about the genocide, but, electorally, that's about all I can truly do. The first past the post system actively punishes people who vote third party, and not voting against Trump is not an option for me. I'm a trans woman. I do not have the luxury of ideological purity. I have to vote for whomever the Democrats put up because Trump will institute a dictatorship that could very well have me put to death. After the "Supreme" Court's decision to allow immunity for presidents, I am even more convinced that the Republicans cannot ever be allowed to take power again. If the U.S. goes fully fascist, its influence will be as such that the current right wing wave in the West will be like a tiny ripple.

I hate the position we're in. It sucks. This country has been so utterly inundated with anti-left propaganda that people think liberalism is far left. We should be organizing and radicalizing everyone we can, 100%. I'm hoping that this late stage capitalist hellscape we're living in will help with that. But, even then, it's going to be a painfully slow process. We have six years olds being forced to swear that they won't betray the country every morning at school. Few people ever seem to stop and think just how fucking weird the Pledge of Allegiance is. When people are that indoctrinated, it'll take a Herculean effort to get them to realize they've been lied to their whole life. That doesn't mean it's not worth doing, but we're not going to be able to snap our fingers, elect a president from the Green party, and everything will be all better. It doesn't work like that. Change comes from the bottom up, by changing hearts and minds. People won't like to hear this, but we need to be patient until our efforts bear fruit.

So, we need to buy time. Failing to thwart Trump's dictatorship pretty much only leaves the last resort, revolution. Biden is too milquetoast to order purges. However, Trump will have no scruples cracking down on his "enemies". With how open we all are on social media, it would be trivial for someone in control of the three letter agencies to find us all. If this were a normal election, I'd be fine with people voting their conscience. I get it. I'd love to vote for the Socialist ticket. But I have to engage with the world as it really is. I had to set aside my idealism in favor of pragmatism.

I did, actually, in another comment further down the thread.

I suspect that most voters won't even think about that. This is the same voterbase that likes to vote based on who they'd rather have a beer with. I'd rather have a more informed populace, obviously, but the powers that be keep control by encouraging political ignorance, or failing that, learned helplessness. In the U.S., people legitimately think liberalism is left wing. How many Americans are capable of actually defining socialism? I don't want to infantilize people, but we've got to work with what we have, and what we have is a deeply propagandized population that's choosing apathy and despair in the specter of fascism. Joe Biden's approval rating is 37%. People do not like him. The media keeps hammering him because they want Trump back(Trump brings views and much of the mainstream media has been captured by billionaires). The margin of victory in the swing states last time was so slim that a few thousand staying home this time around would flip it. I would be fine with another Biden term. We could Weekend at Bernie's him through and everything would be fine. I just have severe doubts that people would see it my way, and so I feel his electability has tanked.

I really hope I'm wrong.

I do agree with that. Trump should 100% drop out. Unfortunately, his base loves the evil shit, and he might still feel that getting elected will keep himself out of jail, so there's no way he's going to.

But, yeah, the media is absolutely screwing us here. They deserve all the condemnation we can give them. We understand that we're voting for an administration, and not just one man, but does the country as a whole realize that? I doubt it. Civics education in the U.S. is abysmal.

I also kinda cynically think that maybe if we subbed in someone with high name recognition and at least decent favorability, that the media and the Russian disinformation engine won't have enough time to hack together a hitjob on them. I don't know, I'm just spitballing and huffing copium here, I think. Need to keep my hopes up somehow.

From the transcript:

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: And if you stay in and Trump is elected and everything you're warning about comes to pass, how will you feel in January?

PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: I'll feel as long as I gave it my all and I did the goodest job as I know I can do, that's what this is about. Look, George. Think of it this way. You've heard me say this before. I think the United States and the world is at an inflection point when the things that happen in the next several years are gonna determine what the next six, seven decades are gonna be like.

And who's gonna be able to hold NATO together like me? Who's gonna be able to be in a position where I'm able to keep the Pacific Basin in a position where we're-- we're at least checkmating China now? Who's gonna-- who's gonna do that? Who has that reach? Who has-- who knows all these pe...? We're gonna have, I guess a good way to judge me, is you're gonna have now the NATO conference here in the United States next week. Come listen. See what they say.

Even the full quote doesn't fill me with confidence. Biden's approval rating is about 37%, which is where George H. W. Bush's was, and he didn't get re-elected. You'd have to go back to Truman to find a president that got re-elected with a similar approval percentage. At this point, I don't think the incumbent advantage will save us.

I really am absolutely terrified that my life might be riding on this election. Honestly, I'm at the point where I don't really care what it takes, the fascists must not be allowed to prevail. If that means moving on from Biden, fine. If it means guilting freaking Michelle Obama into running, fine. But if Biden is going to stay the nominee, he needs to recapture the American people's confidence somehow, and I'm not sure how he's going to do it.

also, here's where I got the approval ratings data from:

https://www.reuters.com/graphics/USA-BIDEN/POLL/nmopagnqapa/

https://news.gallup.com/poll/311825/presidential-job-approval-related-reelection-historically.aspx

If you want to discuss the merits (or dismerits) of the Ladybird dev, I ask that both of you please keep it in the other thread. You're getting off topic here.