Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) went after former President Trump for his legal woes in an interview on MSNBC Saturday.
“I’ll take the individual who’s 81 over the guy who has 91 felony counts,” Swalwell said, making a reference to President Biden’s age in an interview on MSNBC’s “The Katie Phang Show” on Saturday.
“It’s not about two individuals,” Swalwell continued, speaking about the 2024 election. “It’s about the idea of competence versus chaos, or even greater, freedom versus fascism. If we make it about those ideas, and what they mean in our daily lives, we’re gonna win.”
Swalwell’s comments come after Trump was ordered to pay almost $355 million in penalties in a civil fraud case and amid increased scrutiny faced by the president on his age and memory in the wake of a special counsel report on Biden’s handling of classified documents. The report noted that Biden had problems with memory and recall.
cornel west or whoever wins the green party nom
you have just told me that you are not voting in the next election. I can appreciate your morality and idealism, but if you’re realistic for even a half second you’d know you’re voting against the greater good.
no, I told you who I’m voting for.
yeah, and as much as it sucks that it’s true, you’re throwing away your vote. I would love to have a replacement to the two party system and first past the pole but that’s not the reality in which we currently exist
if Biden wants votes from people who are going to vote for cornel west or Jill Stein, it’s not as though he couldn’t adopt their policies
That’s true, but who does he lose in the process? Who wins when he loses? Is it better to have incremental change than it is to vote for a fascist backslider? I understand the moral dilemma, but you implicitly enter into another by voting third-party. if you “help” Trump win, don’t you think he’ll also continue the genocide? Who is more likely to pressure an end to the violence?
yeah, we’re kind of left with shit choices but one’s a polished turd and the other one is a festering diseased pile liable to spread.
only voting for trump helps him win.
a vote for cornel west is a vote against all the other candidates
I disagree only because of the system in which you are voting. What you were saying is only true if you would not otherwise or could not otherwise have voted for Joe Biden, who probably aligns with most of your other policy positions.
I wish that I could vote for Cornel West, but the actual choice you are faced with is Joe Biden or Trump. to vote for anyone else is to, at best, abstain from the election. so maybe West is the absolute moral choice, but which choice begets less suffering in the real world?
Appreciate your perspective on this
i would not vote for joe biden. i did it in 2008 and that was the last time i voted for a democrat for president.
…Are you downvoting yourself? You know we can see the vote counts, right? Default is everyone gives themselves one upvote when they post anything. You have zero upvotes and one downvote as of right now.
Anyway, the people who are planning on voting third party aren’t necessarilly taking away votes from other candidates since they would likely just not vote at all if there wasn’t the third party option. Having them come to the ballots at all is still important due to down ballot candidates.
i can’t vote at all: i’m a mastodon user
The mass slaughter of children is not a worthwhile cost to pay for incremental change.
Is it that you don’t believe that children under 10 are being intentionally shot in the head by Israeli snipers?
Do you not believe hundreds of children are having limbs amputated without anesthetic after surviving a bombing that orphaned them?
Or does their suffering, that you paid for, just not matter to you?
I believe all of that, and I believe that it must stop.
It’s really easy to evoke dead children in war zone and get justifiably morally outraged. I personally don’t know which atrocity outweighs another. There are so many millions of people affected by who is elected, and in such complex and minute ways. what about the suffering Houthi children? Syrian? Afghans? what about the suffering of women in America without access to abortion or healthcare? What about the poor without access to healthcare at all? are their slow deaths just less important because they r less acute?
what happens if the United States shows willingness to impose its (correct and moral) will on its long-standing allies? what effect does that have on foreign policy and other nations that we support? Can Joe Biden switch off the child-genocide button, or is it a lot more complex than that? Can a leader existing in the real world always make a 100% absolute moral choice? do I trust Donald Trump or Joe Biden more with that choice?
I can appreciate your fervor on this issue but I would ask that you consider refraining calling people genocide-supporters or racists because they have a nuanced view that’s different than your own.
I could never support Israel and their genocide, but I also can’t support Trump. in my estimation a vote for anyone but Biden is a vote for Trump because of the utterly broken backwards system we use.
Neither will stop the genocide because neither is going to win. You may as well pick Mickey Mouse and you’ll accomplish the same thing. Not to mention, the presidency is a bit of a distraction here. Biden has bypassed Congress with some weird legal loopholes, but the bulk of support for Israel comes from acts from Congress.
If by some miracle West or the Green wins, how will they stop an aid bill for Israel if 2/3 of Congress votes for it? Combined, Democrats and Republicans who support Israel have the numbers to easily overcome a veto. Unless you’ve got third party candidates who can win over 1/3 of the seats in both chambers of Congress, it doesn’t matter if the president is anti genocide.
If someone truly wants to end the Palestinian genocide, they need to win a lot of Congressional seats. Tell me, what does it say that West and the Greens are much more focused on the presidency than on building up Senate and House candidates? Either they’re pathetically naive, or they’re just lying to your face and trying to get your money. Considering the Green Party has no issues with Stein dining with hyper capitalists, I believe it’s the latter.
as the chief diplomat, the president actually has the executive power decide if or when the aid ever gets delivered.all congress can do is authorize the spending.
>Tell me, what does it say that West and the Greens are much more focused on the presidency than on building up Senate and House candidates?
i think it means they didn’t hire you as a political consultant. which is great because i f they did it looks like your advice would be “drop out”
>You may as well pick Mickey Mouse and you’ll accomplish the same thing.
this is election misinformation: a vote for either of them will count for the candidate who received the vote. a vote for mickey mouse will not.
> Considering the Green Party has no issues with Stein dining with hyper capitalists, I believe it’s the latter.
i voted for her in 2016, and i’d do it again if i had a time machine. this year, i’m planning to vote cornel, but i could be swayed to vote for stein if she does something rad.
>If someone truly wants to end the Palestinian genocide, they need to win a lot of Congressional seats.
i’m sure there are other ways.
>Neither will stop the genocide because neither is going to win
you can’t prove this
If you weren’t an irrational idealist that is a net detriment to American society you would vote Biden and donate money to STAR and RCV initiatives.
calling me irrational and a detriment to society are personal attacks. they don’t make me want to vote for someone whose policies i don’t like.
I would call someone who litters an irrational detriment to society. Is that a personal attack? Is it not irrational to pollute your own environment? Is it a benefit to society to litter?
You’re doing the wrong thing and it’s ok for me to tell you it’s wrong and why.
saying that the act is irrational or that **someone** who does it is acting irrationally is one thing, but to directly call someone irrational **is** a personal attack.
it’s not a fact. it’s an opinion. it’s an ad hominem that doesn’t change the truth of anything that’s been said.