In this complex complicated world the expectation that one person---so far a man--can lead and do everything at a high rate of success is just nuts. I am thankful daily we have a smart kind true public servant at the helm who for the most part has put excellent people into posts to help manage and lead us through this wreck. Compared to the egotistical self-serving wanna-be autocrat who with his family and co-crimers pillaged the country, President Biden is a complete 180. Thank God.
I've got pretty mixed feelings about Biden. In some ways he's been much better than I thought; his covid policy has been much worse though. He's certainly better than Trump though!
Biden has also spent a good part of his term fixing what the 🍊 💩 fucked up. I've got mixed feelings for him as well and am disappointed the Dems haven't come up with a better alternative. I'm tired of old, rich, privileged, white males applying for the job.
well, once he got in for the first term he was almost certainly running for a second; presidents virtually always do. Harris will probably start as the D frontrunner in 2028...that seems a long way off though...
Let's not go off the deep end here—if the alternative weren't Trump or worse, Biden would seem like a pretty mediocre President. A lot of what he's taking credit for now, like PARTIAL student loan forgiveness? Is walking back legislation he voted for if not championed as a Senator! He may talk a good fight about cutting carbon emissions, but he's done damned little to attack and punish the big industries who are responsible for most if it.
There's also the "Creepy Uncle Joe" nagging personal issues that everybody conveniently glossed over because "Biden's only a LITTLE rapey—not like Trump!" (When I saw how the media and "feminists" GASLIGHTED Tara Reade, I was appalled—guess #metoo only counts when it's a politician or studio suit you despise, eh?) Maybe he's been behaving himself now, or his team has been carefully stage-managing his public appearances so he doesn't go all Father Jack during a press conference (https://img.gifglobe.com/grabs/fatherted/S02E09/gif/oNAkf8gt0Lbj.gif ), but I find it hard to believe that leopard has changed his spots this much....
Biden won in 2020 because he got older Democrats to vote for him in the primaries in the middle of pandemic, while Bernie Sanders was trying to get a grip along with his Senate colleagues on WTF just hit America! I remember Super Tuesday because while Biden' people were yelling "GO OUT AND VOTE—YOUR DEATH IS LESS IMPORTANT THAN A BIDEN VICTORY!", Sanders himself said "I won't stop anybody from voting, but I don't recommend it—and wear a mask and practice social distancing if you do...."
Biden won the General Election because people kept him out of the public eye, using COVID-19 as the perfect excuse, while every time Trump tried one of his Nuremberg Rallies he'd get pummeled on by everybody but the plague deniers! Which was absolutely the right thing to do, but Biden's not going to have that advantage in 2024....
I was initially very willing to give Tara Reade the benefit of the doubt. She lied repeatedly under oath though. And there hasn't been any other corroboration either. i think the press has been right to see those accusations as not credible at this point.
Biden's student loan policy was excellent, and I think it's good he's pressing on despite the SC. the infrastructure bill was a really impressive and important green initiative.
The things I'm not happy with Biden about are the poor handling of covid mitigation, his continued enthusiasm for cops and policing, and most recently the shameless caving on DC sovereignty. But there are a lot of things he's done that were much better than I expected.
I STILL believe Reade was gaslit by NeoLibs, but I suspect we won't find out the truth for at least another quarter-century after all the principals are dead, which saddens me greatly. You should know how easy it is to make victims of sexual assault look like "liars" by now—it's been done enough, and men have been getting away with rape because of it for ages.
I do not agree at all on Biden's handling of student loan—nothing short of total forgiveness and punishing the private student loan banks for Usury feels acceptable to me now. The infrastructure bill is Yet Another NeoLib Half-Measure, to have illusion of doing something while we peasants cook in the heat—we need to punish Big Oil like we need to punish the banks and the tobacco industry.
Yes to all your reasons for not liking Biden, I just have a few more...
i mean, she literally lied under oath repeatedly. False accusations are rare, but if someone is a serial fabulist and has lied repeatedly under oath, that's the sort of thing that's a red flag.
Biden's student loan package was really thoughtful and exciting; it transformed student loans going forward as well in ways that would have made it less burdensome for everyone going forward. It was a great initiative, and it's really frustrating to see people dismissing it. It obviously took a lot of work and thought and addressed structural problems in ways that were hardly part of the conversation at all. It was also a reversal of core neoliberal policymaking tenets going back decades. Having a president sign onto that was a huge, major, exciting win, and I kind of don't know how the left builds on policy victories when they won't acknowledge they've won, or even gained any ground.
The infrastructure bill may not be enough, but again it was huge, and really important. I think denying we ever get victories is a path to despair and irrelevance, ultimately.
::False accusations are rare, but if someone is a serial fabulist and has lied repeatedly under oath, that's the sort of thing that's a red flag.::
It still sounds to me like "GO AFTER THE RAPIST PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE! NO, NOT THAT ONE—THE OTHER ONE!" as Hillbot Alyssa Milano kept pushing, or how Hillary herself slut-shamed Monica Lewinsky during her husband's Presidency.
It's like everybody buying into the narrative that "Russia threw the election to Trump!" While Russia certainly engaged in a number of dirty tricks on the Internet (I saw some of them—they were hilarious), the only person who lost Hillary Rodham Clinton the Presidency is...Hillary Rodham Clinton, who couldn't even beat a reality show performing sloth like Donald Trump and utterly alienated the Left by everything she did.
::Biden's student loan package was really thoughtful and exciting;::
"Forgiving" $50K of student loans is "thoughtful and exciting"—tell that to my ex-wife's niece, who's drowning in over $200K of student loan debt! Forgiving it ALL—now THAT would have even gotten my attention, especially if it involved punishing private banks who took advantage of students wanting to attend college....
Everything else sounds like NeoLib Incrementalism—pretend you've made "real change" while doing nothing substantial.
Same goes for the climate change provisions in the Infrastructure bill—All The Dramatic Change a Corporate Scumbag Could Want.
::I think denying we ever get victories is a path to despair and irrelevance, ultimately.::
And I think calling performative half-measure "victories" is how you end up with Hillary v. Trump in 2016. I'm sick of it, and I want to see REAL progress moving forward, not some "But no—it's important, really!" That's how we were sold Romneycare - er, "Obamacare" over Medicare For All—"It's a first step to Full National Healthcare!" If anything, Big Insurance and Big Pharma has too MUCH of a voice and are pushing us back to where we're paying a fortune in healthcare for some of the worst on the planet...unless you're superrich, of course!
lots of corporate scumbags were quite opposed to the infrastructure bill.
When there are credible accusations, as there were against Franken and Cuomo, I think it's very important to say so and for the party to force the people who have done these things out. I think there are credible accusations against Bill Clinton. Refusing to distinguish between credible accusations and ones that aren't credible isn't very helpful though, imo.
I think the issue is that I don't think that all change is going to happen through electoral methods? Electoral change always involves compromise. So it's important to push for change in other ways, and to keep pressure on. There's been really inspiring activism and work with abortion funds since Dobbs for example. And activism can eventually create really important electoral changes, as in Illinois where we just eliminated cash bail.
some people see the glass as half-full; some see it as half-empty. I see it as about to be knocked off the table and shattered into hundreds of shards that will end up stuck between someones toes
Part of the problem is too many find representative democracy not overly representative, blasted by media and algorithmic internet providers, the solution seems to be imprinted onto those feeling left out that the alternative is less, not more democracy.
I believe you are correct concerning presidential polling. It rings true that this specific metric - presidential approval - is shaped less by actual job performance and reflects the overall mood. Biden has exceeded my expectations, and considering the broken pieces he is trying to reassemble, his work has been good.
As we get closer to 2024, I'm beginning to hope that the Biden administration has a plan for this. One of Biden's strengths has been appointing capable people. Instead of having, say, Bannon and Miller skulking about the White House. The Republican Party remaining silent on Trump should be proof enough they are going to ”let the people decide” in a situation where, I'm sorry, but the people should not be deciding because this has gone to the Justice system now.
The question I'm floating is this: What happens if Biden wins the popular vote similar to or greater than the 2020 results, but we see Electoral College shenanigans or an election thrown to the House? Does anyone think that Biden will peacefully hand over power to Trump? I contend he will not, and that is exactly what some want to see. If Biden makes the first authoritarian move, it will provide Republicans with the ”told you so” action to justify violence. Whereas, we know that Trump will do crazy shit like deputizing the Patriot Front and Proud Boys to take care of the libs or nominate Chris Rufo for Secretary of Education and Mike Flynn as Secretary of Defense.
At worst, Biden would never—he'll take every legal means to hold on, but if that fails he'll hand it over just like Gore folded to Shrub Bush.
As much as I despise the Clinton NeoLiberal Democratic Party, distrust Biden, and FIRMLY believe Bernie Sander should be President but the DNC pulled shenanigans on him, twice, to stop that? At the end of the day, Joe Biden is a career politician who believes in the system—Donald Trump is a crooked huckster with money, who discovered that crowd adulation was the biggest high of all and turned demagogue, because he's "hooked, like a junkie shooting pure quicksilver into his veins!" (The late Harlan Ellison may have been an asshole, but he did have a way with a phrase....)
In this complex complicated world the expectation that one person---so far a man--can lead and do everything at a high rate of success is just nuts. I am thankful daily we have a smart kind true public servant at the helm who for the most part has put excellent people into posts to help manage and lead us through this wreck. Compared to the egotistical self-serving wanna-be autocrat who with his family and co-crimers pillaged the country, President Biden is a complete 180. Thank God.
I've got pretty mixed feelings about Biden. In some ways he's been much better than I thought; his covid policy has been much worse though. He's certainly better than Trump though!
Biden has also spent a good part of his term fixing what the 🍊 💩 fucked up. I've got mixed feelings for him as well and am disappointed the Dems haven't come up with a better alternative. I'm tired of old, rich, privileged, white males applying for the job.
well, once he got in for the first term he was almost certainly running for a second; presidents virtually always do. Harris will probably start as the D frontrunner in 2028...that seems a long way off though...
Let's not go off the deep end here—if the alternative weren't Trump or worse, Biden would seem like a pretty mediocre President. A lot of what he's taking credit for now, like PARTIAL student loan forgiveness? Is walking back legislation he voted for if not championed as a Senator! He may talk a good fight about cutting carbon emissions, but he's done damned little to attack and punish the big industries who are responsible for most if it.
There's also the "Creepy Uncle Joe" nagging personal issues that everybody conveniently glossed over because "Biden's only a LITTLE rapey—not like Trump!" (When I saw how the media and "feminists" GASLIGHTED Tara Reade, I was appalled—guess #metoo only counts when it's a politician or studio suit you despise, eh?) Maybe he's been behaving himself now, or his team has been carefully stage-managing his public appearances so he doesn't go all Father Jack during a press conference (https://img.gifglobe.com/grabs/fatherted/S02E09/gif/oNAkf8gt0Lbj.gif ), but I find it hard to believe that leopard has changed his spots this much....
Biden won in 2020 because he got older Democrats to vote for him in the primaries in the middle of pandemic, while Bernie Sanders was trying to get a grip along with his Senate colleagues on WTF just hit America! I remember Super Tuesday because while Biden' people were yelling "GO OUT AND VOTE—YOUR DEATH IS LESS IMPORTANT THAN A BIDEN VICTORY!", Sanders himself said "I won't stop anybody from voting, but I don't recommend it—and wear a mask and practice social distancing if you do...."
Biden won the General Election because people kept him out of the public eye, using COVID-19 as the perfect excuse, while every time Trump tried one of his Nuremberg Rallies he'd get pummeled on by everybody but the plague deniers! Which was absolutely the right thing to do, but Biden's not going to have that advantage in 2024....
I was initially very willing to give Tara Reade the benefit of the doubt. She lied repeatedly under oath though. And there hasn't been any other corroboration either. i think the press has been right to see those accusations as not credible at this point.
Biden's student loan policy was excellent, and I think it's good he's pressing on despite the SC. the infrastructure bill was a really impressive and important green initiative.
The things I'm not happy with Biden about are the poor handling of covid mitigation, his continued enthusiasm for cops and policing, and most recently the shameless caving on DC sovereignty. But there are a lot of things he's done that were much better than I expected.
I STILL believe Reade was gaslit by NeoLibs, but I suspect we won't find out the truth for at least another quarter-century after all the principals are dead, which saddens me greatly. You should know how easy it is to make victims of sexual assault look like "liars" by now—it's been done enough, and men have been getting away with rape because of it for ages.
I do not agree at all on Biden's handling of student loan—nothing short of total forgiveness and punishing the private student loan banks for Usury feels acceptable to me now. The infrastructure bill is Yet Another NeoLib Half-Measure, to have illusion of doing something while we peasants cook in the heat—we need to punish Big Oil like we need to punish the banks and the tobacco industry.
Yes to all your reasons for not liking Biden, I just have a few more...
i mean, she literally lied under oath repeatedly. False accusations are rare, but if someone is a serial fabulist and has lied repeatedly under oath, that's the sort of thing that's a red flag.
Biden's student loan package was really thoughtful and exciting; it transformed student loans going forward as well in ways that would have made it less burdensome for everyone going forward. It was a great initiative, and it's really frustrating to see people dismissing it. It obviously took a lot of work and thought and addressed structural problems in ways that were hardly part of the conversation at all. It was also a reversal of core neoliberal policymaking tenets going back decades. Having a president sign onto that was a huge, major, exciting win, and I kind of don't know how the left builds on policy victories when they won't acknowledge they've won, or even gained any ground.
The infrastructure bill may not be enough, but again it was huge, and really important. I think denying we ever get victories is a path to despair and irrelevance, ultimately.
::False accusations are rare, but if someone is a serial fabulist and has lied repeatedly under oath, that's the sort of thing that's a red flag.::
It still sounds to me like "GO AFTER THE RAPIST PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE! NO, NOT THAT ONE—THE OTHER ONE!" as Hillbot Alyssa Milano kept pushing, or how Hillary herself slut-shamed Monica Lewinsky during her husband's Presidency.
It's like everybody buying into the narrative that "Russia threw the election to Trump!" While Russia certainly engaged in a number of dirty tricks on the Internet (I saw some of them—they were hilarious), the only person who lost Hillary Rodham Clinton the Presidency is...Hillary Rodham Clinton, who couldn't even beat a reality show performing sloth like Donald Trump and utterly alienated the Left by everything she did.
::Biden's student loan package was really thoughtful and exciting;::
"Forgiving" $50K of student loans is "thoughtful and exciting"—tell that to my ex-wife's niece, who's drowning in over $200K of student loan debt! Forgiving it ALL—now THAT would have even gotten my attention, especially if it involved punishing private banks who took advantage of students wanting to attend college....
Everything else sounds like NeoLib Incrementalism—pretend you've made "real change" while doing nothing substantial.
Same goes for the climate change provisions in the Infrastructure bill—All The Dramatic Change a Corporate Scumbag Could Want.
::I think denying we ever get victories is a path to despair and irrelevance, ultimately.::
And I think calling performative half-measure "victories" is how you end up with Hillary v. Trump in 2016. I'm sick of it, and I want to see REAL progress moving forward, not some "But no—it's important, really!" That's how we were sold Romneycare - er, "Obamacare" over Medicare For All—"It's a first step to Full National Healthcare!" If anything, Big Insurance and Big Pharma has too MUCH of a voice and are pushing us back to where we're paying a fortune in healthcare for some of the worst on the planet...unless you're superrich, of course!
lots of corporate scumbags were quite opposed to the infrastructure bill.
When there are credible accusations, as there were against Franken and Cuomo, I think it's very important to say so and for the party to force the people who have done these things out. I think there are credible accusations against Bill Clinton. Refusing to distinguish between credible accusations and ones that aren't credible isn't very helpful though, imo.
I think the issue is that I don't think that all change is going to happen through electoral methods? Electoral change always involves compromise. So it's important to push for change in other ways, and to keep pressure on. There's been really inspiring activism and work with abortion funds since Dobbs for example. And activism can eventually create really important electoral changes, as in Illinois where we just eliminated cash bail.
Don't think of it as things being bad, think of it as things being the best they will be for many decades.
aren't you the cheery one...
some people see the glass as half-full; some see it as half-empty. I see it as about to be knocked off the table and shattered into hundreds of shards that will end up stuck between someones toes
Part of the problem is too many find representative democracy not overly representative, blasted by media and algorithmic internet providers, the solution seems to be imprinted onto those feeling left out that the alternative is less, not more democracy.
well, the US has always had a strong antidemocratic tradition, unfortunately...
it has always been overly dominated by upper classes.
and an ongoing history of massive racist disenfranchisement
yes
I believe you are correct concerning presidential polling. It rings true that this specific metric - presidential approval - is shaped less by actual job performance and reflects the overall mood. Biden has exceeded my expectations, and considering the broken pieces he is trying to reassemble, his work has been good.
As we get closer to 2024, I'm beginning to hope that the Biden administration has a plan for this. One of Biden's strengths has been appointing capable people. Instead of having, say, Bannon and Miller skulking about the White House. The Republican Party remaining silent on Trump should be proof enough they are going to ”let the people decide” in a situation where, I'm sorry, but the people should not be deciding because this has gone to the Justice system now.
The question I'm floating is this: What happens if Biden wins the popular vote similar to or greater than the 2020 results, but we see Electoral College shenanigans or an election thrown to the House? Does anyone think that Biden will peacefully hand over power to Trump? I contend he will not, and that is exactly what some want to see. If Biden makes the first authoritarian move, it will provide Republicans with the ”told you so” action to justify violence. Whereas, we know that Trump will do crazy shit like deputizing the Patriot Front and Proud Boys to take care of the libs or nominate Chris Rufo for Secretary of Education and Mike Flynn as Secretary of Defense.
Biden will absolutely transfer power peacefully. There's just no question.
BIDEN? Contest handing over power?
At worst, Biden would never—he'll take every legal means to hold on, but if that fails he'll hand it over just like Gore folded to Shrub Bush.
As much as I despise the Clinton NeoLiberal Democratic Party, distrust Biden, and FIRMLY believe Bernie Sander should be President but the DNC pulled shenanigans on him, twice, to stop that? At the end of the day, Joe Biden is a career politician who believes in the system—Donald Trump is a crooked huckster with money, who discovered that crowd adulation was the biggest high of all and turned demagogue, because he's "hooked, like a junkie shooting pure quicksilver into his veins!" (The late Harlan Ellison may have been an asshole, but he did have a way with a phrase....)