Wow, a lot of vitriol on this topic! Okay, so, for my first post on Lemmy I am going to make a positive leftist case for Biden.
Biden is not the problem! He wants to do big things; he wants be a great president. If congress sent him voting rights, reproductive rights, major climate action, and many other leftist priorities, he would sign them. He could definitely be better, but he is mostly not standing in our way. How many decades would you have to go back to find another president you could say that about?
Biden is not the problem. Congress is the problem. State and local governments are the problem. Nimbys are the problem. We have a lot of problems to solve but the presidency is not one of them. What we need to do with the presidency is simply reelect Biden and then get on with the work of solving the actual problems.
Biden is still a centrist, also known as a fascist enabler.
The man is not for labor, see ending the railroad strike, one of the most infuriating moves a so-called great president could perform.
If he truly wanted to do great things, and not be hindered by the backing of capital, he'd be moving fast and breaking things more than the previous administration. He's not.
I understand your frustration but also encourage you to pay more attention to what happens behind the scenes. Your position on the railroad strike is outdated/misinformed relative to what happened a month ago:
When Joe Biden and Congress enacted legislation in December that blocked a threatened freight rail strike, many workers angrily faulted Biden for not ensuring that the legislation also guaranteed paid sick days. But since then, union officials says, members of the Biden administration, including the transportation secretary, Pete Buttigieg, and labor secretary, Marty Walsh, who stepped down on 11 March, lobbied the railroads, telling them it was wrong not to grant paid sick days.
In other words, Biden instructed his administration to double back and force the hand of the railroad companies to get the union exactly what they wanted.
IBEW statement. this is one of the unions involved, and their official statement on the matter. pretty positive.
I think you're wanting him to be more like LBJ, using his political power to drag reluctant congress members along, and you're right, someone like that would have gotten more done. But LBJ wasn't perfect either, and the LBJ approach isn't the only way to get things done. Another way is more bottom up, get the support in congress and then just have a president who's willing to go along. I'm guessing that's probably AOC's intention, to bring liberals and leftists together so we can present a unified front and get majorities in congress.
But yeah, I agree about the railroad strike. Also the vaccine patents. He's not perfect.
I don't think Biden wants to do big things.
Yep. He is absolutely invested in the status quo. Which is why the DNC sabotaged the 2020 primary to make sure he'd win.
Biden won the most states, nothing was sabotaged.
Going into super Tuesday, it was clear that Bernie had the lead. Most of the other candidates absolutely tanked, and afterward dropped out and all of them endorsed Biden. Then fucking Bloomberg joins the race out of nowhere, spends a bunch of money, muddies the waters, then drops out after hardly any time and endorses Biden. And when the DNC super delegates decided they'd go for Biden no matter what, it was clear what was going to happen.
Tell me with a straight face that people at the DNC didn't contact the other candidates and make it clear that they wouldn't have a future in the Democratic party unless they dropped and endorsed Biden.
He was endorsed by the dropouts because any political operative could see that Biden was the best candidate to beat trump. Sanders core support is from white liberals and there aren't enough of them to win a presidential election. Minorites and moderates have no interest in him and that was shown in the primary results.
Sanders would have been stomped by trump on 2016 or 2020
Would have been nice to see if that is true. Sanders had much stronger support across the aisle in 2016. We'll never know though.
I think it's a bunch of kids with little life experience. On one hand their passion recalls fading memories of my own young, idealistic self in my 20s. On the other hand, politics doesn't work with raging hardliners. On the third hand, the world is pretty fucked, the US is going to hell in a handbasket and I don't think geriatrics are who we should be voting for. You say Congress is the problem, but really, it's voters. Voters just fucking suck. But unless someone wants to do away with any type of democracy, shitty voters is where we are at.
raging hardliners
you're not wrong, politics is about compromise and in the most successful nations no one gets what they want and no one leaves the bargaining table happy. the question is, how does one work the politics of coalition and compromise when the people you're supposed to coalition-build and compromise with are raging hardliners. How does one find a middle ground with open christian nationalist fascists?
How does one find a middle ground with open christian nationalist fascists?
You don't. You must never. Because there is no middle ground.
The fact that Dems keep trying to "reach across the aisle" is one of the worst parts of what's going on right now. They have no spine to stand up for what's right.
Wow, a lot of vitriol on this topic! Okay, so, for my first post on Lemmy I am going to make a positive leftist case for Biden.
Biden is not the problem! He wants to do big things; he wants be a great president. If congress sent him voting rights, reproductive rights, major climate action, and many other leftist priorities, he would sign them. He could definitely be better, but he is mostly not standing in our way. How many decades would you have to go back to find another president you could say that about?
Biden is not the problem. Congress is the problem. State and local governments are the problem. Nimbys are the problem. We have a lot of problems to solve but the presidency is not one of them. What we need to do with the presidency is simply reelect Biden and then get on with the work of solving the actual problems.
Biden is still a centrist, also known as a fascist enabler.
The man is not for labor, see ending the railroad strike, one of the most infuriating moves a so-called great president could perform.
If he truly wanted to do great things, and not be hindered by the backing of capital, he'd be moving fast and breaking things more than the previous administration. He's not.
I understand your frustration but also encourage you to pay more attention to what happens behind the scenes. Your position on the railroad strike is outdated/misinformed relative to what happened a month ago:
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/may/01/railroad-workers-union-win-sick-leave
In other words, Biden instructed his administration to double back and force the hand of the railroad companies to get the union exactly what they wanted.
IBEW statement. this is one of the unions involved, and their official statement on the matter. pretty positive.
I think you're wanting him to be more like LBJ, using his political power to drag reluctant congress members along, and you're right, someone like that would have gotten more done. But LBJ wasn't perfect either, and the LBJ approach isn't the only way to get things done. Another way is more bottom up, get the support in congress and then just have a president who's willing to go along. I'm guessing that's probably AOC's intention, to bring liberals and leftists together so we can present a unified front and get majorities in congress.
But yeah, I agree about the railroad strike. Also the vaccine patents. He's not perfect.
I don't think Biden wants to do big things.
Yep. He is absolutely invested in the status quo. Which is why the DNC sabotaged the 2020 primary to make sure he'd win.
Biden won the most states, nothing was sabotaged.
Going into super Tuesday, it was clear that Bernie had the lead. Most of the other candidates absolutely tanked, and afterward dropped out and all of them endorsed Biden. Then fucking Bloomberg joins the race out of nowhere, spends a bunch of money, muddies the waters, then drops out after hardly any time and endorses Biden. And when the DNC super delegates decided they'd go for Biden no matter what, it was clear what was going to happen.
Tell me with a straight face that people at the DNC didn't contact the other candidates and make it clear that they wouldn't have a future in the Democratic party unless they dropped and endorsed Biden.
The DNC did not want anyone but Biden to win the nomination, and they made sure it happened. https://www.politico.com/news/2020/01/31/dnc-superdelegates-110083
He was endorsed by the dropouts because any political operative could see that Biden was the best candidate to beat trump. Sanders core support is from white liberals and there aren't enough of them to win a presidential election. Minorites and moderates have no interest in him and that was shown in the primary results.
Sanders would have been stomped by trump on 2016 or 2020
Would have been nice to see if that is true. Sanders had much stronger support across the aisle in 2016. We'll never know though.
I think it's a bunch of kids with little life experience. On one hand their passion recalls fading memories of my own young, idealistic self in my 20s. On the other hand, politics doesn't work with raging hardliners. On the third hand, the world is pretty fucked, the US is going to hell in a handbasket and I don't think geriatrics are who we should be voting for. You say Congress is the problem, but really, it's voters. Voters just fucking suck. But unless someone wants to do away with any type of democracy, shitty voters is where we are at.
you're not wrong, politics is about compromise and in the most successful nations no one gets what they want and no one leaves the bargaining table happy. the question is, how does one work the politics of coalition and compromise when the people you're supposed to coalition-build and compromise with are raging hardliners. How does one find a middle ground with open christian nationalist fascists?
You don't. You must never. Because there is no middle ground.
The fact that Dems keep trying to "reach across the aisle" is one of the worst parts of what's going on right now. They have no spine to stand up for what's right.