A New York Times reporter was asked why they consistently frame things as bad for Biden but never bad for Trump.

mozz@mbin.grits.dev to Politics@beehaw.org – 148 points –
We’re Michael Bender and Maya King, reporters for The New York Times covering the 2024 presidential election. Ask us Anything.
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"I think what you're reacting to is that, at the moment, Biden is an unpopular president seeking a second term while Trump is a popular figure inside his party who is winning primary races. I wouldn't necessarily compare the two."

Credit to @JoshuaHolland

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Trump is the dumpster fire the Republican party has been working towards since Reagan. He is exactly what is expected on the Red side.

Biden is a union busting right leaning genocidal sociopath, which is the exact opposite of what you would expect from the Blue side.

America has been lost.

It seems like everybody needs to remind democrat voters that it was Hilary that made Trump a Republican candidate so she would have a better chance at winning. Republicans work towards Trump, Democrats did. Voting for Democrats is a vote for worse Republican candidates and I assume vice versa.

And then she still lost. Why? Because she was a conservative running as a Democrat because her husband gave her an in with the party.

We do not currently have a liberal party in America. We have a bunch of dunce christian conservatives on the red side and we have a bunch of brainwashed not-christian conservatives on the blue side.

We have VERY few that are anti-war, anti-genocide, anti-cash-in-politics, pro-working-class politicians because Hilary and her circle murdered the moral compass of the Democrat party.

Look, you have two choices:

  • You stay home and wake up in a nightmare where Trump uses his power to usurp the presidency and end democracy, because that's exactly what he and his followers want.
  • You get your ass to the polls and vote for Biden.

Agree

I actually don't even agree that Biden is a "lesser evil" in the first place, I've talked about it

But even accepting for a second the premise that there's nothing to support about Biden, I like how to these guys the lesson of 2016 and Hilary Clinton is "let's refuse to support the establishment candidate against someone who's clearly worse, what harm could come of it?"

I blame South Park.

I very much believe -- I'm being completely serious about this -- that 4chan making good memes about Trump becoming president, because it really is just inherently a funny idea, had a lot to do with elevating him from 0 support to a little kernel of popularity that could start to grow into something.

Boomers don't pay attention to 4Chan. It's such a small segment of the population.

Gen X and Millennials pay attention to South Park, though. They see that "douche vs. turd sandwich" bit and think "Hey, that applies to our situation now!" Then they stay home in protest, because they don't like certain aspects of Hillary's campaign and ideals, as opposed to hating every aspect that Trump does or represents.

It's not about picking the "lesser evil". It's about having realistic expectations and analyzing the situation as a whole. During the primaries, you pick the candidate you want. During the general election, you pick the party you want, even if your primary pick didn't win. That's it.

I honestly agree and America is the dumbass that microwaved their iPhone to charge it.

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If you went here and had a substantive rebuttal to the reasons Biden's actually been way above average for a US president, you'd be the first.

spent several months engaged in absolutely war-criminal support for Israel's genocide in Gaza

I feel like you laid out why ^ in your own post where you think you're supporting Biden. You're also is incorrect about the US putting military personnel in Gaza (they're not, but that wouldn't be good anyways). They're explicitly building the pier without actually landing any personnel. You're also overstating the 'sanctions' Biden is putting on settlers; they applied to like 7 (sorry, after double-checking that I wasn't understating it, it turns out I was overstating it; it only applies to) 4 nobodies who the sanctions in no way actually harm.

But he's showing some little stumbling signs of humanity as regards our Israel policy, which is un heard of for a US politician.

Might-actually-be-the-Devil-Ronald-Reagan was harsher on Israel than Biden is being, and it wasn't even over a genocide. Reagan cut off weapons sales to Israel after they bombed Iran's nuclear materials program at Osirak. He allowed 21 UN resolutions condemning Israel to pass without vetoing them, and even backed the resolution (UNSC 248) condemning the attack on Osirak. He also slowed down aid to Israel to pressure them to withdraw troops from Lebanon, and publicly condemned them on multiple occasions.

Meanwhile, Biden is still calling for more weapons for Israel.

Reagan is a literal evil gremlin, and Biden doesn't even come close to matching his response to Israel's evil bullshit.

Every time you downplay or misrepresent Biden's actions on Gaza, you normalize them.

You're also is incorrect about the US putting military personnel in Gaza

You think they're gonna build the port and then extend aid packages on long poles so their feet don't have to touch the soil?

(they're not, but that wouldn't be good anyways)

Compared to the IDF being there unsupervised? Yes it would.

You're also overstating the 'sanctions' Biden is putting on settlers; they applied to like 7 nobodies who the sanctions in no way actually harm.

Correct. It's crap. But, it's more than anyone else has done.

Might-actually-be-the-Devil-Ronald-Reagan was harsher on Israel than Biden is being, and it wasn't even over a genocide. Reagan cut off weapons sales to Israel after they bombed Iran's nuclear materials program at Osirak. He allowed 21 UN resolutions condemning Israel to pass without vetoing them, and even backed the resolution (UNSC 248) condemning the attack on Osirak. He also slowed down aid to Israel to pressure them to withdraw troops from Lebanon, and publicly condemned them on multiple occasions.

Iraq, not Iran (unless I missed something big about Reagan's geopolitical alignments).

And you have to go back 42 years to find a US president who did more than what Biden's doing, and the reason he did it was nothing to do with the Palestinians but just because the IDF was attacking our ally.

But yeah, if you want to tell me bad about what Biden's doing with Israel, you honestly won't get a lot of argument from me.

My point is (a) what the fuck, it's way more than any other US president has done actually on behalf of the Palestinians that I'm aware of, for whatever fucking weak sauce that is (b) Trump is way worse; Trump wants to "finish the problem" in Gaza (c) I'm a lot more open to criticism of him from people who seem like they are reality based as far as politics and world events overall. If he suddenly starts doing everything right in Gaza, and becomes the president who reverses 75 years of genocide enablement (4 fucking blood-soaked months too late) -- are you gonna start saying hey this guy seems like he's produced a genuine permanent improvement in the US's policy which pretty badly needs the help, and as a person who wants to see it get better I'm behind that? Or are you gonna pivot to some other talking point to use to criticize him, if the ones that have some validity are no longer available? And if it's (b)... why?

You think they’re gonna build the port and then extend aid packages on long poles so their feet don’t have to touch the soil?

No, I don't think that, because I actually read about what the plan is: they're having third-party organizations do the delivery of the aid.

Compared to the IDF being there unsupervised? Yes it would.

You think the US military would do shit if the IDF stepped in?

Correct. It’s crap. But, it’s more than anyone else has done.

Except it's... not? Sanctioning 4 nobodies is somehow more than cutting off weapons sales? What?

Iraq, not Iran

Correct, my mistake.

And you have to go back 42 years to find a US president who did more than what Biden’s doing, and the reason he did it was nothing to do with the Palestinians but just because the IDF was attacking our ally. And if your argument is that Biden would have much more quickly condemned Israel over bombing a military site in say, Germany, than over conducting a literal genocide, I'm not sure that supports Biden.

Yes, you claimed that no US president has been harsher on Israel than Biden. That's complete bunk, and I laid out the evidence. Now you're moving the goalposts.

Trump is way worse; Trump wants to “finish the problem” in Gaza

No one else here is talking about Trump. Your apparent need to make everything a comparison of the 2 in no way lessens the actual actions Biden has taken.

If he suddenly starts doing everything right in Gaza, and becomes the president who reverses 75 years of genocide enablement (4 fucking blood-soaked months too late) – are you gonna start saying hey this guy seems like he’s produced a genuine permanent improvement in the US’s policy which pretty badly needs the help, and as a person who wants to see it get better I’m behind that?

Sure, I can commit to a fantasy scenario: If Biden makes the US no longer support Israel materially, politically, or ideologically, YES, I will absolutely say he deserves credit for it.

But he's not going to.

Yes, you claimed that no US president has been harsher on Israel than Biden. That's complete bunk, and I laid out the evidence. Now you're moving the goalposts.

That's not what I said. The two main things I said initially were:

After having spent several months engaged in absolutely war-criminal support for Israel's genocide in Gaza, he's now put sanctions on Israeli settlers for the first time in history, is putting the US military on the ground in Gaza after having publicly clashed with Netanyahu about the war, and is directly feeding starving Gazans.

and

showing some little stumbling signs of humanity as regards our Israel policy, which is un heard of for a US politician

I don't feel that having a tactical disagreement with Israel over something unrelated, while fully supporting their ongoing program to kill Palestinians whenever they feel like and arming them the entire time, represents any humanity in Reagan's Israel policy. I feel like giving food aid to the Gazans and telling Netanyahu there are particular cities he's not allowed to bomb does. Not enough, by any means. But some. You might disagree, and point to the recent past as an argument for why. And fair enough if you do. Most especially fair enough if we do actually follow through on giving them $14 billion worth of weapons and money to keep killing with, which we seem poised to do at any moment.

I feel like you're trying to make a disagreement here, like I'm for Biden and you're against Biden and we're each trying to make the best argument because one of us has to win. I am not operating that way. There's actually not a whole lot of difference between how we see what he's been doing and saying on Israel. Maybe I have a little more hope that he'll start to do better things soon. But go back and read what I actually said. I'm just a person trying to make sense of the world and explain how I see it; for as much as I say good things about Biden, I'm not really on anybody's "side."

union busting

Biden is arguably the most pro-union president in recent history, hands down.

https://www.americanprogressaction.org/article/8-ways-the-biden-administration-has-fought-for-working-people-by-strengthening-unions/

If you're talking about the one time he signed a bill to force the rail workers to work ... while we were in the middle of already very very serious supply chain issues right before the holiday season... We got through the season and the rail unions ultimately ended up winning https://www.ibew.org/media-center/Articles/23Daily/2306/230620_IBEWandPaid

right leaning

How?

genocidal sociopath

If he didn't help Isreal he'd be thrown under the bus for weakening the US's only ally in the middle east. He'd also likely be opening up a power vacuum (and potentially larger war) that would backfire very badly for the US.

The real issue is the Isreal people elected their own version of Trump so Biden is dealing with a "Trump of Isreal" that's more than happy to run down civilians.

It's not like he hasn't been trying to go behind Isreal's back and help Palestine. It's just not a "press a button to stop sending them weapons and all the problems go away" situation.

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