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Senator Mark Kelly says he will 'seriously consider' running for president (www.bbc.com)
submitted 6 months ago by to c/politics@lemmy.world
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US Democratic Senator Mark Kelly has said he will "seriously consider" running for president in 2028 as he battles the Trump administration over a video in which he urged military personnel to refuse illegal orders.

The Arizona senator, who was accused of "seditious behaviour" by Donald Trump over the November clip, said he and his wife, Gabrielle Giffords, received "many" death threats after the president's comments.

"We get them on a weekly basis now," he told BBC Newsnight. "We had to get security to protect us 24 hours a day."

Asked if he was considering a White House run, the retired Navy captain said he was considering it "because we're in some seriously challenging times".

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[–] 3 points 6 months ago* (1 child)

Primaries are picking. If you think your opinion matters more than tens of millions of people it's a you problem.

Bender is poking fun at how we threw the 2024 election when millions of people who voted for Biden in 2020 did not show up for Harris, which is relevant because of how I nitpicked Kelly's stances.

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  • [–] 14 points 6 months ago (1 child)

    Kamala lost because she abandoned her voters. She told her own base to pound sand while fruitlessly trying to appease Republicans. The voters didn't "not show up." She simply made herself not their candidate anymore. It's a fools' errand to blame voters, as they're not an individual you can actually hold accountable. Blaming voters for not voting for your terrible candidate is like blaming consumers for not buying shitty overpriced items at a store. You can whine, "well you have to buy something somewhere anyway!" But that's just unproductive whining.

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  • [–] 2 points 6 months ago (2 children)

    I think the only unpopular stance she had was on Israel and even thats only a few percentage points, about the same as those concerned with the economy among those who voted for Biden but not Harris. SOURCE

    Do you have any examples of policies that you think made Harris a worse choice than Trump?

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  • [–] 4 points 6 months ago (1 child)

    I think she did a poor job of saying what she brought to the table. I understand not wanting to throwJoe under the bus, but opening some daylight on policy would have given her a chance to deflect the affordability problems the last months of Biden had, for example.

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  • [–] 4 points 6 months ago

    She had a campaign website which is no longer up and it detailed every stance very clearly. One of my favorite parts was a proposed Unrealized Gains Tax on amounts over $1M which would cripple income for billionaires, removing the cap on social security so that the rich payed their share, and no tax inceases on anyone who made less than $400k.

    There was a large orchestrated effort to keep the conversation off of those important topics, though. Including social media psyops, such as giving lower priority and exposure to DNC on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and TikTok.

    The news surrounding her and her campaign advertising were generally pretty ass, though, yeah.

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  • [–] -1 points 6 months ago (1 child)

    First, you can cut that shit right out with your leading question of "was she worse than Trump." That isn't how a large portion of the electorate acts, thinks, and believes. Some vote on utilitarian ethics. Some vote on respect for persons. You can't just whine, stamp your feet, and pretend that utilitarianism is the only way to vote. You're trying to hand waive away an branch of moral philosophy that has centuries of scholarly work behind it. If you view voting as simply an either/or choice, sure, Kamala was the only choice. If you view voting as an endorsement of candidate, then it's perfectly valid to not vote for a candidate simply because you consider their actions to be morally abominable. The other guy being worse doesn't change that.

    She abandoned Palestinian Americans. The strongest defense of trans people she could offer "she would follow the law." She cozied up with the Cheneys and offered no real policies that would move the needle on wealth inequality. And she couldn't even offer a robust plan on how to protect abortion rights. And she gaslit everyone on the economy, telling people to believe the inflation figures and not their own lying eyes.

    And before you claim that utilitarianism is the only valid voting philosophy, realize that is not how our own government behaves. We've literally vaporized millions of innocent civilians over the decades. The justification has always been, "well, they supported the evil regime and their evil actions." Yet every dictator has come to power on the backs of people who thought they were the lesser evil. Hell, almost every Republican thinks Trump is a monster, but they vote for him because they consider him the lesser evil. I'm sure we incinerated thousands of Iraqis who voted for Saddam because he was the lesser evil on the ballot.

    Vote how you want. If you view voting as a utilitarian exercise, so be it. But part of living in a democracy is recognizing that other people can have different belief systems and ways of life. Your way is not the only way. You believe that the ends always justify the means. Others recognize that as a road to Hell.

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  • [–] 4 points 6 months ago (1 child)

    The Biden administration she was Vice President of had Trans cabinet member and judges appointed, the most LGBT+ administration in US history.

    Biden protected the ranks and jobs of LGBT government employees and servicemembers attacked by the previous Trump admin including reinstatements. They also signed the respect for marriage act which gave protections for Gay Marriage.

    No matter how you expect the electorate thinks, there were two options and the people of the US collectively made the wrong choice, blame falling on the few million who could have changed the outcome.

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  • [+] 1 point 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 child)
    [deleted]
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  • [–] 2 points 6 months ago* (1 child)

    Also, also, the Trump admin's change of policy to explicitly "death or exodus of every Palestinian" is far worse than what was going on in the Biden era.

    If you measure them by number of bombs shipped or by number of food deliveries allowed into Gaza, Trumps is worse for Palestinians in every way.

    I never believe that criticisms of the Harris campaign on the topic of Gaza come from a genuine or well informed place. It's insane to me that people would say they both cared about the innocent men, women, and children of Gaza but are somehow able to allow the "kill their families" guy back into office.

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  • [–] 0 points 6 months ago (1 child)

    There's more than one kind of moral philosophy. Why do utilitarians always forget this?

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  • [–] 2 points 6 months ago (1 child)

    If your moral philosophy consistently produces more suffering then I think it's not moral just self-justifying, like when the Israeli's constantly claim the genocide is "the most moral war in history".

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  • [–] 0 points 6 months ago

    And yet, utilitarianism was the moral philosophy of the Nazis. After all, think of all the suffering that will be prevented long-term once we kill all the racial minorities! Sure, millions die today. But in the future, far more people will be spared racial conflict if we just kill all the non-Aryans right now. Eternal world racial peace for the cost of a bit of genocide today.

    The greatest good for the greatest number requires we kill everyone that isn't white.

    This is why utilitarianisn is a philosophy of the damned. It's the philosophy behind almost all of history's greatest atrocities. If you can convince yourself that some crime is a net positive, well the ends justify the means.

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