He has delivered the largest economic recovery plan since Roosevelt, the largest infrastructure plan since Eisenhower, the most judges confirmed since Kennedy, the second-largest healthcare bill since Johnson, and the largest climate change bill in history.
and none of it matters because the other side thinks the work of government is to do as little as possible for the people it fleeces.
And their propaganda has been so good for the last 60 years that even half the left believes it but think they're immune to it. See motions to every thread in Lemmy
And yet the quality of life for Americans is still declining, while the wealth gap keeps growing.
Yep, and a bunch of the things Biden supporters want to tout are making this problem worse, because his economic legislation and climate legislation and healthcare legislation and all the rest is almost entirely just throwing taxpayer money at businesses and hoping it trickles down to us somehow
Narrator - It didn't.
If at first you don't succeed, give businesses more money and try again.
I would argue the quality has been improving as if late. But kind of hard to blame him for the fact that the world was gripped and massively disrupted a by a pandemic and the financial moves by the fed to stave off an even worse financial melt down led to high inflation. But we're going in the right direction, even if it isn't fast enough for some people.
Wages aren't keeping up with inflation for most people. The wage increases reported are mostly driven by top earners. It isn't moving at the bottom. Longer lines than ever at food pantries. I remember when Democrats used to at least pretend to give a shit about that stuff.
Wages aren't keeping up with inflation for most people.
Research constantly points to things getting worse, especially for younger generations. At best you could say the rate of decline has slowed somewhat recently.
And it’s unfair to blame it on the pandemic, the trends been going on for much longer.
That would all make it even less his fault tho...
It's not his fault it happened, it's his fault he's not doing enough to fix it. He campaigned on the status quo, yet the status quo is the problem.
Given the congress he has to work with, one could argue he's been a better President than Obama was.
He's been a better president than Obama was.
It's not particularly close in my opinion.
I'm hella biased, but the SAVE plan and not accruing interest on student loans as long as you make payments is a huge win.
There's no reason they couldn't have done this under Obama....
Edit: just wanted to mention that this restructuring for student loans had absolutely nothing to do with Congress
The SAVE plan and the rules around PSLF really do make medical school a lot more viable for people like me. Doctors get paid a pittance in residency, and the interest on medical school loans would add up really fast on the old income-driven repayment plans.
Trust me I fully understand.
I went to med school, finished back in 2018.
If I never step foot into a hospital again it'll be too soon.
I work from home now as a cloud engineer for a large US-based mortgage company.
I'm very happy now. I've already made my piece that my $350,000 in loans can only be solved by making minimum payments for 20 years.
All that being said, a lot of people are in a different boat than myself.
Their loans are much more manageable and I'm really glad they'll be able to pay them off because interest isn't accruing.
Who knows? I make enough now that I'm actually going to have to sit down and calculate whether it's worth it to pay the loans off myself or just make minimum payments for 20 years and have the rest forgiven.
The SAVE plan and interest no longer recruiting is the only reason these possibilities are there.
Otherwise I'd have to resign myself to making 20 years of minimum payments and hoping that forgiveness plan is still in place.
I agree too. Obama had charisma and was a great speaker, but policy wise Biden is much better.
If Obama was firmer many current problems would not exist today. But it is easier to say now.
Obama had charisma and was a great speaker,
And as we're seeing now with Biden's poll numbers, unfortunately, that's all that matters. Doesn't matter how many good things you do to help people, all that matters is whether you have charisma and a good media relations team.
People are so stupid. Maybe democracy was a mistake.
Not so subtle reminder that YOU are not immune to propaganda.
Also propaganda doesn't come exclusively from newspapers and magazines.
The best form of propaganda in the last couple of decades has been word of mouth.
Don't trust anyone to tell you what to think. Look at the facts and only the facts.
Do yOuR owN ReSeARcH!!
Yeah but literally. Not "watch YouTube videos". Look up a primary source - a statistic or a peer reviewed study.
The insidious part about the "do your own research" people is that they've managed to convince a generation of people to NOT do any research.
Those facts nobody tells you about?
Whether someone tells you or you stumble on it yourself.
Peer reviewed studies, direct statistics, etc
A poll is a primary source. That's good.
An article telling you about a poll is a secondary source. Be skeptical.
And above all, be very skeptical of anything that makes you feel intense emotion. Someone might be trying to make you feel that way so you'll be less critical.
What is this, the 1900's?
The best propaganda tool is obviously the internet: anonymous, spreads far and wide, can be automated
I think the biggest risk is the Internet as a propaganda tool disguised as word of mouth 'grassroots' opinions.
But I don’t have to be ecstatic to choose between a prehistoric career politician, and an embarrassing, felonious dinosaur
How dare you besmirch the good reputation of dinosaurs like that!
I mean, at least with dinosaurs the most I have to worry about is being eaten. With our government there's being eaten AND homelessness!
Being eaten cures homelessness!
Background: I supported Bernie in the 2016 primaries; I ended up voting for Hillary. In 2020, Biden wasn't even my 3rd pick in the Primaries (Warren, Sanders, maybe Buttigieg and even Steyer.). I still voted Biden, despite a clear lack of enthusiasm because I know how much easier it is to break and corrupt things than to simply maintain it or build upon a trillion-piece puzzle.
Overall, Biden has been a pretty great President if only for one simple fact: The genuine experience and expertise of his cabinet. When I think of Donnie, I think of Bill Barr, Richard Spencer, Mike Pompeo, and other scum of his cabinet. These people are psychopathic, smarter than Trump, and dangerous. While they're incompetent in their actual roles, they leveraged their offices to incredibly nefarious ends.
The true stars of Biden's administration has been his advisors and cabinet: Blinken, Yellen, Garland, Austin, Kirby, Bill Burns, Jake Sullivan, etc. These are the people that keep the machine running. Who actually take advice from reputable experts in respective fields, like Dr. Fauci.
So yes, given the bigger picture, Biden has been a great President; partly because of stability; partly because of contrast with chaos.
And folks, yes, it's campaign season now. Expect a massive influx of ads and opinion pieces and a general attempt to drum up energy and awareness to a crucial election. Don't shoot yourselves in the foot; the right has massive megaphones of propaganda they're using every single fucking day to distort reality. Don't be afraid to push back.
Don't forget Betsy Devos, the education secretary who's essentially never gone through public education, daughter of billionaire Edgar Prince.
A secretary of transportation Elaine Chao married to freakin Mitch McConnell of all people.
A Postmaster General Louis DeJoy with no experience at USPS who owns delivery companies that directly compete and contract with them who hasn't been ousted yet...
People rag on Joe's purported poor mental capabilities, but his power is from having effective, competent people in his cabinet who are not merely sycophantic conservative donors.
I knew I'd forget a bunch of terrible people... There were so many...
Don't forget the blatant nepotism and incompetence from Ivanka and Kushner, etc.
In spite of myself, I kinda like Biden. Could be way worse
Underrated comment, absolutely spot on.
The subtle power of lowered expectations.
"everything is bad, nothing can ever actually be good"
Maintaining the status quo in the face of looming danger does not make you a great president.
The best thing about Biden is that he is not Trump.
Also we're not only supporting a genocide, we're footing the bill.
Word. We're just in a situation that being a mediocre Democrat is "good". The bar is in hell.
I'm 37 years old, the bar has been in hell for my entire existence and more than likely a handful of decades prior
Big facts. History is gonna treat Biden like it treated Coolidge. Hes good at the appearence of doing his job but will be blamed for lack of action preventing what comes after him. Be it this election cycle or 4 years from now. Hes letting the fascists have their dress rehersal at the southern border and it's far from the first time hes refused to go hard on fascism. It's becoming a matter of when, not if.
We’re Americans son, we’re built off of genocide and slavery. It’s the only way of life that we know.
I can’t wait for the day that climate change truly wrecks this country of mine, like gods fury on Sodom and Gomorrah.
Biden has been a fine president, but notably failed to do a number of things that are important to me such as legalizing marijuana, codifying into law RvW, ending Citizen's United, increasing the minimum wage, etc. I like Joe Biden, and he's way better than the other guy, but I wouldn't say "great".
The President cannot unilaterally do any of those things.
And the things he could do unilaterally (student loan forgiveness), he absolutely tried to do , but was cockblocked.
Absolutely. I mean, it's utterly fascinating that people think the President can somehow overturn a Supreme Court decision (Citizens United). The civic literacy in this country is fucking awful, and it's clear that a huge portion of our electorate doesn't know or understand anything more complicated than a one-line soundbyte.
Most Americans don't know how many reps are in the Senate or House
I'm not talking about Lemmy either. I mean your average person on the streets, especially in Bumfuck, IA. It doesn't affect them enough to care.
One of them is 100 and that's the actually high class people. The other is like 500 and there's a whole bunch of uggos and sub-7s in there.
For the sake of any wayward souls reading this its 100 and 435.
I don’t know, Jackson ignored the Supreme Court and I think Lincoln was planning on ignoring the courts decision on Dred Scott.
Well the only thing stopping a president from doing something is the will of the civil service to do it and the will of Congress to impeach them. Trump proved that. Why are we still playing gentlemen's rules?
Same with Marijauna, one of the first things he did was call for rescheduling by the DEA who have been too busy masturbating in corners. He did, however, pardon a ton of people over weed offences.
He did, however, pardon a ton of people over weed offences.
How many?
In Early October 2022 he pardoned all simple marijuana possession charges via executive order. All of them.
"More than 6,500 people were convicted of simple possession between 1992 and 2021 under federal law, and thousands more under D.C. code, the officials said."
Got a link for that quote? I'd like to learn more.
Drug schedules are set by the FDA. The FDA is part of the Department of Health and Human Services. The Department of Health and Human Services is part of the executive branch of the US government. The executive branch is headed by Biden. Short of just waving his hand and magicking the drug classification away, there is still a lot he could do to make it legal.
If you cant hold him accountable for not getting minimum wage increase because he can't do it unilaterally why give him credit for things he cant do unilaterally, like the infrastructure bill? Clearly he didn't do that unilaterally either so why should he get credit? You can't have it both ways.
It's astonishing to me the supposed number of "informed" people with their moral purity on Lemmy don't know basic US civics. But hey trendy nicknames worked for the low intelligence maga voters no reason it doesn't work on them. Maybe they'll realize it when Trump takes power again.
Proceedings to add, delete, or change the schedule of a drug or other substance may be initiated by the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), or by petition from any interested party, including:
The manufacturer of a drug
A medical society or association
A pharmacy association
A public interest group concerned with drug abuse
A state or local government agency
An individual citizen
Not quite unilateral, but seems like he could lean a bit on Becerra and get the re/de-scheduling started. Congress handed that authority to the executive branch years ago.
That is happening, maybe slower than any of us want ( and honestly probably time a bit to help in the election), but the rescheduling process had begun.
Yes, they've said they're looking into it like 3 times now.
The Railroad Union was all him. He can raise the minimum wage of federal workers, contractors, and sub contractors. He could have ended the Remain in Mexico program. He could have set the DOJ to monopoly breaking. He could have stopped supplying Israel. He could direct HUD to begin buying housing for direct rental programs...
The executive can't make laws. Only congress can do that. And right now that means for those things to happen, Democrats have to control the House and 60+% of the Senate.
Or they have to be willing to use a simple majority to get rid of the filibuster.
All those things have to be done through Congress. If he had the majority to do it and didn't do it, that would be a good reason to hold it against him.
If we want Congress to act we need to make sure he has the House and the Senate, and best to do it is to vote in upcoming election and make your friends and family to do the same
We had a majority in congress. But that majority was Democrats, so they found the no votes to maintain the status quo.
They didn't really, they had a majority in the House, and not in the Senate, in 2022 things reversed.
They had a majority in both chambers.
I get that no Democratic majority ever acts like one so it's hard to tell.
None of those things are the responsibility of the President.
I was really really really hoping Gerrymandering would be a key issue for his administration.
He set Harris on that issue early on, which is basically code for "it's not a priority, will probably fail, and I don't want to be associated with failure". Which was kind of self fulfilling, because the VP just doesn't have the stature to strongarm anyone into a reform.
I don't "like" him at all, but I can acknowledge that he's done a great job.
Then vote Democrat across the board. He needs a majority in both the House and Senate for some of those, and a super majority to go against the Supreme Court afaik.
Voting matters. If you want results, Biden needs the numbers.
I could go on citing the achievements of a president who actually cares about governing. All of these actions and numbers are important, but none matter as much as what Joe Biden has done to restore stability and decency to the presidency. One of the greatest gifts of a democratic civil society is the freedom not to think about government, to wake up and not worry about the mood of a leader. Joe Biden has made governing boring and predictable, both fundamental rights of the people in a healthy democracy.
As a Canadian this was one of the greatest benefits of the Biden Presidency. I can rest assured Biden won't be contradicting the weather service, licking Putin's boot or whatever stupid thing that's going to end up on Canadian news five times a week.
This article is an archetypical "come on America!" fanfare to drum up patriotism and exceptionalism, it feels over the top to me as a non-american. However, I suppose we'll have to try everything for Democrats to stop whimpering about Trump and sleep-walking towards his dictatorship.
none matter as much as what Joe Biden has done to restore stability and decency to the presidency
I expect more from a president than just not being an incompetent criminal.
Obviously biden not being an incompetent criminal is a huge plus, but I'd be embarrassed to cheerlead someone who's greatest accomplishment is not being trump.
The article lists a slew of accomplishments that can be touted as the Biden administration's greatest, please feel free to read it.
I know that acting President-like is something that should be a bare minimum expectation of a President, but here we are. I won't lie there are a bunch of things I didn't like from Joe but there are a lot I do, the Infrastructure, Investment and Jobs Act is my top pick. It's the first step in a while that the U.S. got serious in funding public rail transport.
Let's also not forget that the republicans are in a position to hinder any real progress. That's how the system is designed, unfortunately. Biden would have achieved much more had the republican party not been so strong, and the only way to fix that is forcefully at the ballots.
Americans always act like the presidential election is the only one that matters. Having the presidency only gives you so much if you can't rely on the senate.
The system was not designed that way. The filibuster is a self imposed rule that can be suspended and has been before.
And two shit bag "Democrats" fucked that prospect up, so what's the point of bringing it up now? Filibuster may be "self imposed," but when two wolves in sheep's clothing stop any meaningful attempt to nuke it from orbit to get shit done, it is a sad rule the rest of us get to suffer because.
I'm just talking about the system. It was designed for 50+1 on normal votes.
The system is designed with the assumption that politically elected representatives would seek compromises in an attempt to reach what is best for the country, making sure it is very difficult for one fraction to get absolute political power.
The Republicans at some point realized the dominant strategy in this system, assuming their goal is power rather than the improvement of society, is to never compromise and to fuck everyone over at every option. The way the system is designed they are in a great position to do a lot of damage that way.
Are all this "wow Biden was actually the greatest president ever but we didn't notice" news that started floating around a part of his upcoming election campaign?
I was curious because of how unashamedly propagandist this article is. So I clicked on the author link. It seems this is the only article he's ever written for this website (I hesitate to call it a news outlet). Also, it says he's a former republican political consultant now working for the Lincoln Project. That's apparently the name of a moderate republican PAC that is trying to fight Trumpism.
So why would a political news website outright publish propaganda from a PAC without any commentary? I've never heard of the new republic before, but they seem to be an otherwise unremarkable progressive political magazine. I couldn't say whether the new republic is getting paid by the PAC to publish this, or whether they just took it because it generally aligns with their own stated political views. I will say that, although it is mentioned at the bottom that the author currently works for the Lincoln Project, I had to really look for that. it also wasn't clear to me at first this was a PAC. So in my opinion, proper journalistic ethical standards are not being upheld here.
Given the article's origins, it's pretty safe to say none of this is genuine. These are moderate republicans who hate Trump, trying desperately to destroy Trumpism. If they truly believed their own article they'd be democrats. And if you're here wondering if the article is worth reading, I'd say it is practically fully content-free. It's all just hopium.
You know it! I'm just thinking what's the point? I don't like Biden, but I gotta vote for him anyway cause the alternative is way worse. I DO NOT want to go back to seeing 24/7 news feeds about Trump doing something worse each day or playing golf for the nth time.
You know one of the few things I liked about Biden was that I was able to go days or sometimes weeks without hearing anything about him. Campaign seasons suck.
Yes, the Biden presidency has been blissfully "boring". I might have hoped for better, but I'll settle for stagnant compared to 2016-2020.
Boring? We are involved in two major regional wars with constant threat of escalation, global economic chaos, and the highest inflation in a generation. Fallout from a pandemic, the feds have been raising interest rates to the point the whole economy is fundamentally changing.
We are living through historic times. I feel like the world hasn't been normal or "boring" since Dec 2019
He's been a boring mediocre president, but it'll take that any day over a Republican.
Boring has been great, honestly. I didn't know how much I needed a president who just got things done and wasn't making headlines every day.
I wouldn't say he's mediocre tho. Domestically he's had a fantastic first term. I hope he brings some kind of CHIPS Act level stuff like an axe to the housing market yet, at least something to tease for his second term. International results have been a different story, Afghanistan was a disaster but also a call that needed to be made (and should have been made before him), and his handling of Israel so far is appalling. I'm sure it's more complicated than we know but still - let's hope he makes some tough demands there before too much longer.
In the end I agree with you, better than a GOPer and infinitely better than Trump in any of these situations.
Except for supporting the genocide of Gazan children, sure.
Don't get me wrong, if my only options are a vindictive Orange wannabe dictator, and Biden, I'm still voting for Biden...but fuck, his support for Israel's genocidal crusade is really fucking bad.
His support of Israel is consistent with American foreign policy writ large since 1947. That people want to place the ongoing genocide at his feet betrays the success of GOP and foreign propaganda, to wit: The absence of American support for Israel would not stop the genocide, and the position of the Biden administration in Israel and Gaza is the same as any other presidency, historical, hypothetical, or imaginary. That is, any US president would have the exact same policy, including Donald Trump, any other president in the last seventy-five years, and anyone who ever had a realistic chance at the Oval.
That's because a US-Israel alliance, even in the presence of reprehensible acts by Netanyahu's government and the IDF, is still better for the US, and arguably global stability, than any alternative. The best we can hope for, from any president, are calls for restraint and ceasefire, both of which Biden have made. Abandoning Israel as a US ally would be a disaster for the entire region, and more importantly it would make no difference whatsoever to the Palestinian people.
I don't think the policy is morally good. But it's rational. Criticizing Joe Biden for the genocide is like criticizing a commuter for their vehicle's emissions. Yeah, things would be better if they were different, but Israel-Palestine isn't a problem Joe Biden can solve in the real world.
The absence of American support for Israel would not stop the genocide
I'd say cutting out hundreds of millions of dollars in weapon exports would do a hell of a lot to slow it down
Yes, let them continue the genocide if they must, but as an American it makes me absolutely sick to know my taxpayer dollars are funding it. Biden is perhaps the most Zionist president in American history, and is largely responsible for the current state of affairs by providing cover for Israel and preventing the UN from performing peacekeeping duties.
Stop sending them money and bombs. Not another dime until they end the occupation. Palestine belongs to Palestinians, period.
His support of Israel is consistent with American foreign policy writ large since 1947.
Israel has never been this bad during our period of close alliance, and it's making us as Americans less safe to stand with them.
This is spot on. Politics is all trolley problems. Biden is the one pulling the lever and there are certainly fair criticisms to be pointed at the set of actions taken within a realpolitik approach to this, but this relationship can be stretched or stressed, not broken. If it breaks, the humanitarian crisis to follow is magnitudes worse than the current conflict.
Holy shit, is this someone who actually understands how foreign policy works AND you're getting upvotes? There may be hope after all.
But seriously, if you read between the lines, the Biden administration has had some of the hardest rhetoric towards Israel in decades. It sounds very minimal in a vacuum but saying things like, "we might stop sending actual weapons and only infrastructure support", is a huge step whether anything is actually done or not. It is very much a threat. The government in Israel absolutely knows what it means as well.
His support of Israel is consistent with American foreign policy writ large since 1947.
"That's the way we've always done it" is a monumentally shitty justification for supporting genocide.
There are a handful of US politicians who don't support Israel. There's too much money and regional interests to do otherwise
Guess theres only a handful of good US politicians than.
ding ding ding
When Congress is constantly like half Republican, and then another portion of Democrats are basically neocons or populists, we’re left with a small percentage of progressives and liberals who want to actually make the country better
I swear, it feels like it would only make sense that Mossad has something on so many of these folks.
Democrats will probably almost universally agree that he's been a good president. Tribalism is a hell of a drug.
It's the leftists that won't. And speaking as a leftist, he's done a lot better than I thought he was going to. He ended up pushing for more progressive ideas than I thought he would. Good for him. He's been stymied by the courts and his own party on some of them. And that why I, as a leftist, think the democratic party is still (less) trash. They had a majority for two years. Did some stuff. Could have done more. You can be all "but but Manchin/Sinema" all you want, but I'll bet all the money in my pocket against all the money in your pocket, than if Manchin and Sinema were to announce that yes, they'd vote to abolish the filibuster, there would be two other democratic senators who would come out and say no. And that's fine as it relates to their world view. They're liberals. They're not leftists.
Democrats will probably almost universally agree that he’s been a good president.
And speaking as a leftist, he’s done a lot better than I thought he was going to.
Okay, but what about if you're speaking as an unaligned voter in a swing state?
Then I'm saying "at least he's not openly fascist but the democratic party still fuckin sucks."
I mean, I wish. But Democrats threw tens of millions of dollars to a "Pro-Trump" Dem Senate candidate in Tennessee. Mayor Adams, up in NYC, has echoed a host of the Trump "immigrant invasion" talking points, when confronted with bus-loads of women and children kidnapped and displaced by governors' Abbot and DeSantis.
Then you've got Sinema in Arizona and Manchin in West Virginia and even John Ossoff of Georgia demanding hundred of millions for bigger and more heavily armed police forces to clamp down on any kind of public dissent in their historically red states. Our AG is once again refusing to close the torture camp in Gitmo, while Anthony Blinken runs around the Middle East peddling advanced weapons systems to extremist governments in Saudi Arabia and Nigeria and India.
You can "Trump would be worse" all you like, but this shit is truly awful on a scale its hard to overstate.
Pretty sure "but the democratic party still fuckin sucks" covers all that.
How do you describe any of this as less than open fascism?
Remember when Biden said no new *fracking on federal land? Then the Department of Interior, headed by his appointees, approved 1000 more drilling requests in the first year than Trump?
Pepperidge Farm 'members. they can't grow cookies anymore because the oilly water kills the cookie plants.
As a Republican media consultant, I made hundreds of ads about the high cost of prescription drugs.
Stuart Stevens, one of the people who brought us to the brink of fascism desperately wants us prevent the dystopian future he helped to create. Unfortunately, Stevens has no idea who the people on the left that he's been demonizing over the years actually are. As a result, he assumes we might be authentic Republicans who call ourselves Democrats.
Maybe you’re a Democrat who actually cares about the federal deficit, unlike the Republicans who fake concern.
Maybe if Republicans had spent the last 55 years listening to what people on the left wanted instead of engaging in bad faith with the political process, he would actually be able to write this article with some certainty.
Regardless, Vote Blue! We can make fun of this person all we want if we aren't killed in death camp in the following years.
I do so enjoy not being in a death camp...
Yeah he's better than trump for sure
A blind and crippled hedgehog would be better than trump
He's nowhere close to great. Hes run back much of his campaign promises and he's funding a genocide. The best thing he could do is say he's not running and throw his support behind someone actually progressive and actually not half senile
I don't think he's been a great president. I think he's a million times better than Trump, though. That applies to the last election, and some-crazy-how to the upcoming election, too...
I want to go back to my timeline, where Sinbad starred in a movie about being a genie. Things made sense back then...
I wonder who is president in the Sinbad universe
President Sanders, finishing his second term, of course.
Biden has done his job, I think Bernie would have been better, but at least it isn't Trump.
Yup. He's not perfect and has a ton of major issues that articles like "just say he's super awesome ok!" Are trying to paper over.
Most notably for me is the dogged support for Israel and continuing the trump era border policies.
He's been progressive on a lot of stuff, but he's also not the perfect leader. And frankly, this realization should be common. It's disturbing when any media wants to deify political leaders. Feels like "come on Democrats, why can't you be fascist like the right is?"
At best he's been inoffensive. He's a "great" president only in comparison to the last guy.
He's been better than Obama so far. He's got way more worthwhile legislation passed (with fewer Democrats in congress), he pulled out of Afghanistan, which both Obama and Donnie knew we should do, and his economic recovery was faster than Obamas.
he pulled out of Afghanistan,
no. trump pulled out of Afghanistan, which is why it was a fucking shit show.
Trump had no choice, as the war was won by the Taliban in like a week's offensive.
Why was it a shit show? It was one of the most successful pull-outs of all time.
They just packed up and left instead of trying prolong it with a bloody civil war between the American pedo police and the Taliban
“The reason we were here is because we heard the terrible things the Taliban were doing to people, how they were taking away human rights,” said Dan Quinn, a former Special Forces captain who beat up an American-backed militia commander for keeping a boy chained to his bed as a sex slave. “But we were putting people into power who would do things that were worse than the Taliban did — that was something village elders voiced to me.”
President Biden’s choices for how to execute a withdrawal from Afghanistan were
severely constrained by conditions created by his predecessor.
....
Over his last 11 months in office, President Trump ordered a series of drawdowns of
U.S. troops. By June 2020, President Trump reduced U.S. troops in Afghanistan to
8,600. In September 2020, he directed a further draw down to 4,500. A month later,
President Trump tweeted, to the surprise of military advisors, that the remaining U.S.
troops in Afghanistan should be “home by Christmas!” On September 28, 2021,
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Milley testified that, on November 11, he had
received an unclassified signed order directing the U.S. military to withdraw all forces
from Afghanistan no later than January 15, 2021. One week later, that order was
rescinded and replaced with one to draw down to 2,500 troops by the same date.
During the transition from the Trump Administration to the Biden Administration, the
outgoing Administration provided no plans for how to conduct the final withdrawal or to
evacuate Americans and Afghan allies. Indeed, there were no such plans in place
when President Biden came into office, even with the agreed upon full withdrawal just
over three months away
Seriously... have you all forgotten what went down? Memories like goldfish.
Yeah as far as legislation goes he’s been one of the most effective presidents we’ve had. It’s been overshadowed by the media, constant rhetoric about his age and the small handful of mistakes he made. All in all he’s been good.
It has been overshadowed by funding the genocide of Palestinians
The same would happen under Trump. No escaping that truth. So pick your poison.
Na, Trump would say something stupid like....
....
...
You know what, I've been up for nearly 20 hours and cant get that stupid. Anyone wanna help a brotha out?
Hold on, let me get the puke bag ready.
You can't let those those De- Palestinian guys run around. It's really unfair to Israel. And and to us! You know what they're saying; Donnie we want you to do more, send more. But the Democrats are... You know they're impeaching me again? I should have the Justice Department knock on their door. It's not fair, they're not playing fair. I should get a third term for this. That's the only really fair thing. People come up to me all the time and and they and they ask me, Mr. President (Trump just smiles for a full second) what are we going to do without you? Those nasty guys over at MSNBC are the real insurrectionists. Anyways I emergency deployed... Did you know I have that power? I do I do. I sent the 82nd Airborne to help my friend Bibi and I told them, "I like war heroes not prisoners".
Sorry that's as far as I could get before I had to fill the bucket.
I saw that full second smile in my head and now I don't like you. You placed it perfectly.
That's the result of way too many hours where I had to look up a speech to see if he actually said something.
He's the best president of my lifetime, which isn't saying much.
Are you 8?
Nope, been alive since Reagan. Obama was a milquetoast do-nothing that cared more about what Republicans thought than the people who actually voted for him. We delivered him a supermajority and what did he do with it? He stripped the public option from Obamacare to please Republicans and then left it out despite not getting a single Republican vote.
When you're used to getting nothing but Ds and Fs, a C+ seems great.
congrats, better than a wannabe fascist dictator is now being great
Always a choice between a giant douche, and a turd sandwich!
This is why we have trump. Biden hasn't been a great president, he has had a great presidency. The man who is president is a small part of the equation. By attributing it all to him instead of all the people in the administration, in congress, and to just to where the world was at the time, we reinforce a culture where people praise guys like trump, and musk, and other billionaires. All of them were mostly lucky. They had some special skills to take advantage of thier luck that others don't, but without the luck, they would be nobody.
Stop praising people for the work of many and good luck.
But on the other hand, let’s not forget that there have been great presidents, and then there’s Ronald Reagan.
The ability to select a competent, effective cabinet is a quality of an excellent leader. In a simplistic sports analogy, being a star captain and team manager doesn't mean you score well on your own.
Trump had one single curveball thrown at him in 4 years which was the COVID-19 pandemic, and his ilk of sycophants and him couldn't get an effective national response and the competent people like Dr. Fauci were ridiculed.
In the various conflicts that have manifested in Biden's term, we can be confident that the people in charge of the respective office under Biden's command aren't there just to make money off of each crisis.
One can only select from what is available. And that is where the luck comes in. But they barely select the cabinet, thier staff do all the work, they just have to pick from a short list that the current political climate provide as possible options (congress has to approve them). Their primary staff are either people who joined on long ago, or just the people the party has deemed are having the most success.
And while you think trump's administration was ineffective, that is only true in the sense that he didn't do what you wanted. From the conservative point of view, he knocked it out of the park. His administration used the pandemic to further drive the voters to extremes, which his party needs to gain power. The supreme court (also mostly luck). The plethora of conservative federal judges. The rich got richer and the poor got poorer. The list goes own.
He supports one country clearly defending itself. Yay!
But then he turns around and supports a genocide.
You know that saying about building a thousand bridges and one goat?
Never build a goat before, is it like a bear?
Yeah but the goat gets stuffed differently.
Yes but with more updawg.
You know that saying about building a thousand bridges and one goat?
No, and now I'm curious as to what it is.
You build a thousand bridges, and nobody calls you Bridgebuilder.
But you fuck ONE goat...
My brother is a pretty decent backyard griller. He got himself a new weber and wanted to break it in with some lamb souvlaki. Well, he really fucked it up somehow. Thermometer in the wrong place, vents not behaving, I don't know but he figured it out for the next cookout. He did not appreciate me nicknaming the grill Lambfucker.
If a man builds a thousand bridges, and fucks just one goat, they don't call him a bridge-builder
Do they ever call me bakkoda the wall builder? Fuck no they don't. But ya fuck one goat...
Make Brandon Dark Again
People wouldn't say that if he wasn't up against Trump.
Don't you want to at least see Biden in a last term with nothing to lose besides legacy? He'll be term limited, plus his age... he'll do something crazy to be loved.
He'll make weed legal if it isn't by then...
He'll forgive all the student debt this time....
He'll expand the Supreme Court...
He'll do something worthwhile and he will continue to not be trump.
Plenty of things where he misses my ideal, but generally positive progress and we keep pressure on for more progressive choices. General progress...
This is basically the same argument people made about Obama's second term. "He had to pull back in the first term or he'd lose reelection! In his second term, that's when he'll do all the progressive things that he ran on!" Anyway, he didn't do any of those things, but we did find out he'd secretly put us all under mass surveillance.
Thanks Obama!
Best Republican president since Eisenhower.
He's been alright. I'm a strident leftist. The cynical part of me says his second term will be significantly less alright once he's not working for re-election. But he won't be worse than Trump.
Actually, 2nd term presidents have no incentive to hold back on their plans. It's not like they're going to get re-elected. Biden might go bigger and better before he dies.
It's the reason why term limits probably aren't that great of a solution to political problems.
Yeah. In general Democratic presidents don't need to attract the left into voting for them. They need to attract the moderates. People who traditionally might vote Republican, or these days just stay home.
They persist in thinking they need to attract the moderates, but I'm skeptical.
A democratic pollster interviewed on NPR repeated a great quote from a focus group participant: "My hood didn't get any better under obama, or any worse under trump. What's biden got to do with me?"
I dunno. Maybe the hood got some infrastructure. Probably not but they came closer than any time since the 70s.
I dunno if 'you came closer to being helped then ever before' is a very persuasive argument, but without knowing where they were it's just like, an opinion man.
is the profiteer of a few wars on his election campaign now?
As an employee at Raytheon, Mr. President Joe Biden has my full support.
We live in the "imflamitory headline era". No one reads articles that say "Biden delivers infrastructure bill" they read articles named "Biden is crazy!" The news definitely skews peoples views. He's done a lot but doesn't get a lot of front page coverage.
No the fuck he has not, stop propagandizing us
Joe Biden is a hero for beating Donnie and making his win stick, which was harder than he made it look.
If Biden can put Donnie away for good, they will be making a monument to him.
I agree that he has been a good president - the most progressive president in 50 years (yes, I realize that's a bullshit statement since there have been no even-close-to-progressive presidents). For those who think he's demented, please listen to his interview on Conan O'Brien's podcast. He's phenomenally engaging and has a great wit and memory.
He hasn't though. He busted a union. The economy for the working class is awful.
IIRC they eventually got everything or mostly everything they wanted.
They got part of one demand (4 days of sick leave for some workers, iirc) out of 5 or 6 demands ( more pay, 15 days sick leave leave than they got, different scheduling that would allow for more time to inspect trains to prevent shit like East Palestine, Ohio, amongst other things). Absolutely not everything. He took away their right to strike and gave them the tiniest possible consession so that people would go and defend him by saying "ok. He crushed the strike, but he actually turned around and helped them get what they wanted after". Purely doing whatever is politically convient, just like him standing on the picket line with the auto workers only a few months later. Disgusting. Thank for reminding me why he sucks.
Look at all of this manufactured outrage! It’s glorious! So many people so upset over events that happen in a country they couldn’t have pointed to on a map six months ago, nor were even remotely aware there was even issues there.
He has delivered the largest economic recovery plan since Roosevelt, the largest infrastructure plan since Eisenhower, the most judges confirmed since Kennedy, the second-largest healthcare bill since Johnson, and the largest climate change bill in history.
and none of it matters because the other side thinks the work of government is to do as little as possible for the people it fleeces.
And their propaganda has been so good for the last 60 years that even half the left believes it but think they're immune to it. See motions to every thread in Lemmy
And yet the quality of life for Americans is still declining, while the wealth gap keeps growing.
Yep, and a bunch of the things Biden supporters want to tout are making this problem worse, because his economic legislation and climate legislation and healthcare legislation and all the rest is almost entirely just throwing taxpayer money at businesses and hoping it trickles down to us somehow
Narrator - It didn't.
If at first you don't succeed, give businesses more money and try again.
I would argue the quality has been improving as if late. But kind of hard to blame him for the fact that the world was gripped and massively disrupted a by a pandemic and the financial moves by the fed to stave off an even worse financial melt down led to high inflation. But we're going in the right direction, even if it isn't fast enough for some people.
Wages aren't keeping up with inflation for most people. The wage increases reported are mostly driven by top earners. It isn't moving at the bottom. Longer lines than ever at food pantries. I remember when Democrats used to at least pretend to give a shit about that stuff.
Been that way for a long time bud
This has been a decades long problem that he has contributed to over his entire career.
Research constantly points to things getting worse, especially for younger generations. At best you could say the rate of decline has slowed somewhat recently.
And it’s unfair to blame it on the pandemic, the trends been going on for much longer.
That would all make it even less his fault tho...
It's not his fault it happened, it's his fault he's not doing enough to fix it. He campaigned on the status quo, yet the status quo is the problem.
Fundamental change needs to happen.
He's been in politics for like half a century.
Given the congress he has to work with, one could argue he's been a better President than Obama was.
He's been a better president than Obama was.
It's not particularly close in my opinion.
I'm hella biased, but the SAVE plan and not accruing interest on student loans as long as you make payments is a huge win.
There's no reason they couldn't have done this under Obama....
Edit: just wanted to mention that this restructuring for student loans had absolutely nothing to do with Congress
The SAVE plan and the rules around PSLF really do make medical school a lot more viable for people like me. Doctors get paid a pittance in residency, and the interest on medical school loans would add up really fast on the old income-driven repayment plans.
Trust me I fully understand.
I went to med school, finished back in 2018.
If I never step foot into a hospital again it'll be too soon.
I work from home now as a cloud engineer for a large US-based mortgage company.
I'm very happy now. I've already made my piece that my $350,000 in loans can only be solved by making minimum payments for 20 years.
All that being said, a lot of people are in a different boat than myself.
Their loans are much more manageable and I'm really glad they'll be able to pay them off because interest isn't accruing.
Who knows? I make enough now that I'm actually going to have to sit down and calculate whether it's worth it to pay the loans off myself or just make minimum payments for 20 years and have the rest forgiven.
The SAVE plan and interest no longer recruiting is the only reason these possibilities are there.
Otherwise I'd have to resign myself to making 20 years of minimum payments and hoping that forgiveness plan is still in place.
I agree too. Obama had charisma and was a great speaker, but policy wise Biden is much better.
If Obama was firmer many current problems would not exist today. But it is easier to say now.
And as we're seeing now with Biden's poll numbers, unfortunately, that's all that matters. Doesn't matter how many good things you do to help people, all that matters is whether you have charisma and a good media relations team.
People are so stupid. Maybe democracy was a mistake.
Adjusted for inflation?
He's been ok. Way better than that last guy though!
I feel that he is mostly honest and wants to do the right thing but he doesn't always get it right. At least he tries.
If he didn't run a campaign against Bernie, I'd agree. Bernie could have done wonders for this country.
He's got women and children's blood on his hands from Palestine. He's only ok by comparison to the other guy.
Not so subtle reminder that YOU are not immune to propaganda.
Also propaganda doesn't come exclusively from newspapers and magazines.
The best form of propaganda in the last couple of decades has been word of mouth.
Don't trust anyone to tell you what to think. Look at the facts and only the facts.
Do yOuR owN ReSeARcH!!
Yeah but literally. Not "watch YouTube videos". Look up a primary source - a statistic or a peer reviewed study.
The insidious part about the "do your own research" people is that they've managed to convince a generation of people to NOT do any research.
Those facts nobody tells you about?
Whether someone tells you or you stumble on it yourself.
Peer reviewed studies, direct statistics, etc
A poll is a primary source. That's good.
An article telling you about a poll is a secondary source. Be skeptical.
And above all, be very skeptical of anything that makes you feel intense emotion. Someone might be trying to make you feel that way so you'll be less critical.
What is this, the 1900's?
The best propaganda tool is obviously the internet: anonymous, spreads far and wide, can be automated
I think the biggest risk is the Internet as a propaganda tool disguised as word of mouth 'grassroots' opinions.
Imagine being downvoted for telling people to seek the truth in what they’re told.
This is lemmy now.
Compared to another 4 years of Trump? Absolutely.
But I don’t have to be ecstatic to choose between a prehistoric career politician, and an embarrassing, felonious dinosaur
How dare you besmirch the good reputation of dinosaurs like that!
I mean, at least with dinosaurs the most I have to worry about is being eaten. With our government there's being eaten AND homelessness!
Being eaten cures homelessness!
Background: I supported Bernie in the 2016 primaries; I ended up voting for Hillary. In 2020, Biden wasn't even my 3rd pick in the Primaries (Warren, Sanders, maybe Buttigieg and even Steyer.). I still voted Biden, despite a clear lack of enthusiasm because I know how much easier it is to break and corrupt things than to simply maintain it or build upon a trillion-piece puzzle.
Overall, Biden has been a pretty great President if only for one simple fact: The genuine experience and expertise of his cabinet. When I think of Donnie, I think of Bill Barr, Richard Spencer, Mike Pompeo, and other scum of his cabinet. These people are psychopathic, smarter than Trump, and dangerous. While they're incompetent in their actual roles, they leveraged their offices to incredibly nefarious ends.
The true stars of Biden's administration has been his advisors and cabinet: Blinken, Yellen, Garland, Austin, Kirby, Bill Burns, Jake Sullivan, etc. These are the people that keep the machine running. Who actually take advice from reputable experts in respective fields, like Dr. Fauci.
So yes, given the bigger picture, Biden has been a great President; partly because of stability; partly because of contrast with chaos.
And folks, yes, it's campaign season now. Expect a massive influx of ads and opinion pieces and a general attempt to drum up energy and awareness to a crucial election. Don't shoot yourselves in the foot; the right has massive megaphones of propaganda they're using every single fucking day to distort reality. Don't be afraid to push back.
Don't forget Betsy Devos, the education secretary who's essentially never gone through public education, daughter of billionaire Edgar Prince.
A secretary of transportation Elaine Chao married to freakin Mitch McConnell of all people.
A Postmaster General Louis DeJoy with no experience at USPS who owns delivery companies that directly compete and contract with them who hasn't been ousted yet...
People rag on Joe's purported poor mental capabilities, but his power is from having effective, competent people in his cabinet who are not merely sycophantic conservative donors.
I knew I'd forget a bunch of terrible people... There were so many...
Don't forget the blatant nepotism and incompetence from Ivanka and Kushner, etc.
In spite of myself, I kinda like Biden. Could be way worse
Underrated comment, absolutely spot on.
The subtle power of lowered expectations.
"everything is bad, nothing can ever actually be good"
Maintaining the status quo in the face of looming danger does not make you a great president.
The best thing about Biden is that he is not Trump.
Also we're not only supporting a genocide, we're footing the bill.
Word. We're just in a situation that being a mediocre Democrat is "good". The bar is in hell.
I'm 37 years old, the bar has been in hell for my entire existence and more than likely a handful of decades prior
Big facts. History is gonna treat Biden like it treated Coolidge. Hes good at the appearence of doing his job but will be blamed for lack of action preventing what comes after him. Be it this election cycle or 4 years from now. Hes letting the fascists have their dress rehersal at the southern border and it's far from the first time hes refused to go hard on fascism. It's becoming a matter of when, not if.
We’re Americans son, we’re built off of genocide and slavery. It’s the only way of life that we know.
I can’t wait for the day that climate change truly wrecks this country of mine, like gods fury on Sodom and Gomorrah.
Biden has been a fine president, but notably failed to do a number of things that are important to me such as legalizing marijuana, codifying into law RvW, ending Citizen's United, increasing the minimum wage, etc. I like Joe Biden, and he's way better than the other guy, but I wouldn't say "great".
The President cannot unilaterally do any of those things.
And the things he could do unilaterally (student loan forgiveness), he absolutely tried to do , but was cockblocked.
Absolutely. I mean, it's utterly fascinating that people think the President can somehow overturn a Supreme Court decision (Citizens United). The civic literacy in this country is fucking awful, and it's clear that a huge portion of our electorate doesn't know or understand anything more complicated than a one-line soundbyte.
Most Americans don't know how many reps are in the Senate or House
I'm not talking about Lemmy either. I mean your average person on the streets, especially in Bumfuck, IA. It doesn't affect them enough to care.
One of them is 100 and that's the actually high class people. The other is like 500 and there's a whole bunch of uggos and sub-7s in there.
For the sake of any wayward souls reading this its 100 and 435.
I don’t know, Jackson ignored the Supreme Court and I think Lincoln was planning on ignoring the courts decision on Dred Scott.
Well the only thing stopping a president from doing something is the will of the civil service to do it and the will of Congress to impeach them. Trump proved that. Why are we still playing gentlemen's rules?
Same with Marijauna, one of the first things he did was call for rescheduling by the DEA who have been too busy masturbating in corners. He did, however, pardon a ton of people over weed offences.
How many?
In Early October 2022 he pardoned all simple marijuana possession charges via executive order. All of them.
Got a link for that quote? I'd like to learn more.
Drug schedules are set by the FDA. The FDA is part of the Department of Health and Human Services. The Department of Health and Human Services is part of the executive branch of the US government. The executive branch is headed by Biden. Short of just waving his hand and magicking the drug classification away, there is still a lot he could do to make it legal.
If you cant hold him accountable for not getting minimum wage increase because he can't do it unilaterally why give him credit for things he cant do unilaterally, like the infrastructure bill? Clearly he didn't do that unilaterally either so why should he get credit? You can't have it both ways.
The President can't reschedule marijuana?
edit:
The Congressional Research Service seems to think he could:
https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/LSB/LSB10655
It's not enabling genocide, so he can make up procedural nonsense to avoid doing it.
It's astonishing to me the supposed number of "informed" people with their moral purity on Lemmy don't know basic US civics. But hey trendy nicknames worked for the low intelligence maga voters no reason it doesn't work on them. Maybe they'll realize it when Trump takes power again.
Proceedings to add, delete, or change the schedule of a drug or other substance may be initiated by the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), or by petition from any interested party, including:
The manufacturer of a drug
A medical society or association
A pharmacy association
A public interest group concerned with drug abuse
A state or local government agency
An individual citizen
Not quite unilateral, but seems like he could lean a bit on Becerra and get the re/de-scheduling started. Congress handed that authority to the executive branch years ago.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/sarahsinclair/2024/01/18/dea-considers-rescheduling-cannabis-what-this-means-for-us-and-global-reform/?sh=1ee5279b743f
That is happening, maybe slower than any of us want ( and honestly probably time a bit to help in the election), but the rescheduling process had begun.
Yes, they've said they're looking into it like 3 times now.
The Railroad Union was all him. He can raise the minimum wage of federal workers, contractors, and sub contractors. He could have ended the Remain in Mexico program. He could have set the DOJ to monopoly breaking. He could have stopped supplying Israel. He could direct HUD to begin buying housing for direct rental programs...
The list goes on.
Don't forget railroad buster Biden and Israel apologist Biden.
Still better than "million American deaths due to incompetence and pushing psuedo-science" trump though, don't get me wrong.
The executive can't make laws. Only congress can do that. And right now that means for those things to happen, Democrats have to control the House and 60+% of the Senate.
Or they have to be willing to use a simple majority to get rid of the filibuster.
All those things have to be done through Congress. If he had the majority to do it and didn't do it, that would be a good reason to hold it against him.
If we want Congress to act we need to make sure he has the House and the Senate, and best to do it is to vote in upcoming election and make your friends and family to do the same
We had a majority in congress. But that majority was Democrats, so they found the no votes to maintain the status quo.
They didn't really, they had a majority in the House, and not in the Senate, in 2022 things reversed.
They had a majority in both chambers.
I get that no Democratic majority ever acts like one so it's hard to tell.
None of those things are the responsibility of the President.
I was really really really hoping Gerrymandering would be a key issue for his administration.
He set Harris on that issue early on, which is basically code for "it's not a priority, will probably fail, and I don't want to be associated with failure". Which was kind of self fulfilling, because the VP just doesn't have the stature to strongarm anyone into a reform.
I don't "like" him at all, but I can acknowledge that he's done a great job.
Then vote Democrat across the board. He needs a majority in both the House and Senate for some of those, and a super majority to go against the Supreme Court afaik.
Voting matters. If you want results, Biden needs the numbers.
As a Canadian this was one of the greatest benefits of the Biden Presidency. I can rest assured Biden won't be contradicting the weather service, licking Putin's boot or whatever stupid thing that's going to end up on Canadian news five times a week.
This article is an archetypical "come on America!" fanfare to drum up patriotism and exceptionalism, it feels over the top to me as a non-american. However, I suppose we'll have to try everything for Democrats to stop whimpering about Trump and sleep-walking towards his dictatorship.
I expect more from a president than just not being an incompetent criminal.
Obviously biden not being an incompetent criminal is a huge plus, but I'd be embarrassed to cheerlead someone who's greatest accomplishment is not being trump.
The article lists a slew of accomplishments that can be touted as the Biden administration's greatest, please feel free to read it.
I know that acting President-like is something that should be a bare minimum expectation of a President, but here we are. I won't lie there are a bunch of things I didn't like from Joe but there are a lot I do, the Infrastructure, Investment and Jobs Act is my top pick. It's the first step in a while that the U.S. got serious in funding public rail transport.
Let's also not forget that the republicans are in a position to hinder any real progress. That's how the system is designed, unfortunately. Biden would have achieved much more had the republican party not been so strong, and the only way to fix that is forcefully at the ballots.
Americans always act like the presidential election is the only one that matters. Having the presidency only gives you so much if you can't rely on the senate.
The system was not designed that way. The filibuster is a self imposed rule that can be suspended and has been before.
And two shit bag "Democrats" fucked that prospect up, so what's the point of bringing it up now? Filibuster may be "self imposed," but when two wolves in sheep's clothing stop any meaningful attempt to nuke it from orbit to get shit done, it is a sad rule the rest of us get to suffer because.
I'm just talking about the system. It was designed for 50+1 on normal votes.
The system is designed with the assumption that politically elected representatives would seek compromises in an attempt to reach what is best for the country, making sure it is very difficult for one fraction to get absolute political power.
The Republicans at some point realized the dominant strategy in this system, assuming their goal is power rather than the improvement of society, is to never compromise and to fuck everyone over at every option. The way the system is designed they are in a great position to do a lot of damage that way.
Are all this "wow Biden was actually the greatest president ever but we didn't notice" news that started floating around a part of his upcoming election campaign?
I was curious because of how unashamedly propagandist this article is. So I clicked on the author link. It seems this is the only article he's ever written for this website (I hesitate to call it a news outlet). Also, it says he's a former republican political consultant now working for the Lincoln Project. That's apparently the name of a moderate republican PAC that is trying to fight Trumpism.
So why would a political news website outright publish propaganda from a PAC without any commentary? I've never heard of the new republic before, but they seem to be an otherwise unremarkable progressive political magazine. I couldn't say whether the new republic is getting paid by the PAC to publish this, or whether they just took it because it generally aligns with their own stated political views. I will say that, although it is mentioned at the bottom that the author currently works for the Lincoln Project, I had to really look for that. it also wasn't clear to me at first this was a PAC. So in my opinion, proper journalistic ethical standards are not being upheld here.
Given the article's origins, it's pretty safe to say none of this is genuine. These are moderate republicans who hate Trump, trying desperately to destroy Trumpism. If they truly believed their own article they'd be democrats. And if you're here wondering if the article is worth reading, I'd say it is practically fully content-free. It's all just hopium.
You know it! I'm just thinking what's the point? I don't like Biden, but I gotta vote for him anyway cause the alternative is way worse. I DO NOT want to go back to seeing 24/7 news feeds about Trump doing something worse each day or playing golf for the nth time.
You know one of the few things I liked about Biden was that I was able to go days or sometimes weeks without hearing anything about him. Campaign seasons suck.
Yes, the Biden presidency has been blissfully "boring". I might have hoped for better, but I'll settle for stagnant compared to 2016-2020.
Boring? We are involved in two major regional wars with constant threat of escalation, global economic chaos, and the highest inflation in a generation. Fallout from a pandemic, the feds have been raising interest rates to the point the whole economy is fundamentally changing.
We are living through historic times. I feel like the world hasn't been normal or "boring" since Dec 2019
"Actually you poors are having an amazing time and everything is great, you're just too stupid to realize it."
For liberals, maybe. For leftists, fuck no.
In Europe, he'd be on the right
Anywhere, he would be. Using location as a barometer for left vs right, rather than the actual mechanics proposed, is bourgeois methodology.
If you want to know where democrats fall, leftists are a bigger enemy to them than Republicans and Trump.
He's been a boring mediocre president, but it'll take that any day over a Republican.
Boring has been great, honestly. I didn't know how much I needed a president who just got things done and wasn't making headlines every day.
I wouldn't say he's mediocre tho. Domestically he's had a fantastic first term. I hope he brings some kind of CHIPS Act level stuff like an axe to the housing market yet, at least something to tease for his second term. International results have been a different story, Afghanistan was a disaster but also a call that needed to be made (and should have been made before him), and his handling of Israel so far is appalling. I'm sure it's more complicated than we know but still - let's hope he makes some tough demands there before too much longer.
In the end I agree with you, better than a GOPer and infinitely better than Trump in any of these situations.
Except for supporting the genocide of Gazan children, sure.
Don't get me wrong, if my only options are a vindictive Orange wannabe dictator, and Biden, I'm still voting for Biden...but fuck, his support for Israel's genocidal crusade is really fucking bad.
His support of Israel is consistent with American foreign policy writ large since 1947. That people want to place the ongoing genocide at his feet betrays the success of GOP and foreign propaganda, to wit: The absence of American support for Israel would not stop the genocide, and the position of the Biden administration in Israel and Gaza is the same as any other presidency, historical, hypothetical, or imaginary. That is, any US president would have the exact same policy, including Donald Trump, any other president in the last seventy-five years, and anyone who ever had a realistic chance at the Oval.
That's because a US-Israel alliance, even in the presence of reprehensible acts by Netanyahu's government and the IDF, is still better for the US, and arguably global stability, than any alternative. The best we can hope for, from any president, are calls for restraint and ceasefire, both of which Biden have made. Abandoning Israel as a US ally would be a disaster for the entire region, and more importantly it would make no difference whatsoever to the Palestinian people.
I don't think the policy is morally good. But it's rational. Criticizing Joe Biden for the genocide is like criticizing a commuter for their vehicle's emissions. Yeah, things would be better if they were different, but Israel-Palestine isn't a problem Joe Biden can solve in the real world.
I'd say cutting out hundreds of millions of dollars in weapon exports would do a hell of a lot to slow it down
Yes, let them continue the genocide if they must, but as an American it makes me absolutely sick to know my taxpayer dollars are funding it. Biden is perhaps the most Zionist president in American history, and is largely responsible for the current state of affairs by providing cover for Israel and preventing the UN from performing peacekeeping duties.
Stop sending them money and bombs. Not another dime until they end the occupation. Palestine belongs to Palestinians, period.
Israel has never been this bad during our period of close alliance, and it's making us as Americans less safe to stand with them.
This is spot on. Politics is all trolley problems. Biden is the one pulling the lever and there are certainly fair criticisms to be pointed at the set of actions taken within a realpolitik approach to this, but this relationship can be stretched or stressed, not broken. If it breaks, the humanitarian crisis to follow is magnitudes worse than the current conflict.
Holy shit, is this someone who actually understands how foreign policy works AND you're getting upvotes? There may be hope after all.
But seriously, if you read between the lines, the Biden administration has had some of the hardest rhetoric towards Israel in decades. It sounds very minimal in a vacuum but saying things like, "we might stop sending actual weapons and only infrastructure support", is a huge step whether anything is actually done or not. It is very much a threat. The government in Israel absolutely knows what it means as well.
"That's the way we've always done it" is a monumentally shitty justification for supporting genocide.
There are a handful of US politicians who don't support Israel. There's too much money and regional interests to do otherwise
Guess theres only a handful of good US politicians than.
ding ding ding
When Congress is constantly like half Republican, and then another portion of Democrats are basically neocons or populists, we’re left with a small percentage of progressives and liberals who want to actually make the country better
I swear, it feels like it would only make sense that Mossad has something on so many of these folks.
Like videos on little st james island?
Stop confusing democrats/liberals with leftists.
Democrats will probably almost universally agree that he's been a good president. Tribalism is a hell of a drug.
It's the leftists that won't. And speaking as a leftist, he's done a lot better than I thought he was going to. He ended up pushing for more progressive ideas than I thought he would. Good for him. He's been stymied by the courts and his own party on some of them. And that why I, as a leftist, think the democratic party is still (less) trash. They had a majority for two years. Did some stuff. Could have done more. You can be all "but but Manchin/Sinema" all you want, but I'll bet all the money in my pocket against all the money in your pocket, than if Manchin and Sinema were to announce that yes, they'd vote to abolish the filibuster, there would be two other democratic senators who would come out and say no. And that's fine as it relates to their world view. They're liberals. They're not leftists.
Looks like he's slid into around 60/40 approval within his own party. Indies have him 30 pts lower than that.
Okay, but what about if you're speaking as an unaligned voter in a swing state?
Then I'm saying "at least he's not openly fascist but the democratic party still fuckin sucks."
I mean, I wish. But Democrats threw tens of millions of dollars to a "Pro-Trump" Dem Senate candidate in Tennessee. Mayor Adams, up in NYC, has echoed a host of the Trump "immigrant invasion" talking points, when confronted with bus-loads of women and children kidnapped and displaced by governors' Abbot and DeSantis.
Then you've got Sinema in Arizona and Manchin in West Virginia and even John Ossoff of Georgia demanding hundred of millions for bigger and more heavily armed police forces to clamp down on any kind of public dissent in their historically red states. Our AG is once again refusing to close the torture camp in Gitmo, while Anthony Blinken runs around the Middle East peddling advanced weapons systems to extremist governments in Saudi Arabia and Nigeria and India.
You can "Trump would be worse" all you like, but this shit is truly awful on a scale its hard to overstate.
Pretty sure "but the democratic party still fuckin sucks" covers all that.
How do you describe any of this as less than open fascism?
lmao
Horay! Plus a little war profiteering; supporting a bit of genocide never hurt right? Not like his is the first administration to do it.
Remember when Biden said no new *fracking on federal land? Then the Department of Interior, headed by his appointees, approved 1000 more drilling requests in the first year than Trump?
Pepperidge Farm 'members. they can't grow cookies anymore because the oilly water kills the cookie plants.
Ackchyually, Biden is a hero for doing thiis brave thing
#Joe Biden just did the rarest thing in US politics: he stood up to the oil industry
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/feb/07/joe-biden-big-oil-lng-permits
In the election year.
After approving more than Trump did.
I call shenanigans.
Stuart Stevens, one of the people who brought us to the brink of fascism desperately wants us prevent the dystopian future he helped to create. Unfortunately, Stevens has no idea who the people on the left that he's been demonizing over the years actually are. As a result, he assumes we might be authentic Republicans who call ourselves Democrats.
Maybe if Republicans had spent the last 55 years listening to what people on the left wanted instead of engaging in bad faith with the political process, he would actually be able to write this article with some certainty.
Regardless, Vote Blue! We can make fun of this person all we want if we aren't killed in death camp in the following years.
I do so enjoy not being in a death camp...
Yeah he's better than trump for sure
A blind and crippled hedgehog would be better than trump
He's nowhere close to great. Hes run back much of his campaign promises and he's funding a genocide. The best thing he could do is say he's not running and throw his support behind someone actually progressive and actually not half senile
If we gaslight ourselves hard enough, maybe we'll be happy.
I don't think he's been a great president. I think he's a million times better than Trump, though. That applies to the last election, and some-crazy-how to the upcoming election, too...
I want to go back to my timeline, where Sinbad starred in a movie about being a genie. Things made sense back then...
I wonder who is president in the Sinbad universe
President Sanders, finishing his second term, of course.
Biden has done his job, I think Bernie would have been better, but at least it isn't Trump.
Yup. He's not perfect and has a ton of major issues that articles like "just say he's super awesome ok!" Are trying to paper over.
Most notably for me is the dogged support for Israel and continuing the trump era border policies.
He's been progressive on a lot of stuff, but he's also not the perfect leader. And frankly, this realization should be common. It's disturbing when any media wants to deify political leaders. Feels like "come on Democrats, why can't you be fascist like the right is?"
Still the best president we've had since Obama
The bar wasn't set very high... I mean, practically anyone normal would've been better than Trump.
I vote for President RuPaul
RandPaul: ❌
RuPaul: ✅
And he’s not a Loser.
He probably smells better too.
At best he's been inoffensive. He's a "great" president only in comparison to the last guy.
He's been better than Obama so far. He's got way more worthwhile legislation passed (with fewer Democrats in congress), he pulled out of Afghanistan, which both Obama and Donnie knew we should do, and his economic recovery was faster than Obamas.
no. trump pulled out of Afghanistan, which is why it was a fucking shit show.
Trump had no choice, as the war was won by the Taliban in like a week's offensive.
Why was it a shit show? It was one of the most successful pull-outs of all time.
They just packed up and left instead of trying prolong it with a bloody civil war between the American pedo police and the Taliban
https://www.cnn.com/2023/06/30/politics/state-deparment-afghanistan-withdrawal-report/index.html
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jun/30/us-afghanistan-war-military-pullout-report-biden-trump
https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/biden-report-afghanistan-withdrawal-blames-trump-2023-04-06/
https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/US-Withdrawal-from-Afghanistan.pdf
From the last one:
Seriously... have you all forgotten what went down? Memories like goldfish.
Oh, lets take a look at articles detailing the equipment left behind:
https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/27/politics/afghan-weapons-left-behind/index.html
https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/27/politics/afghan-weapons-left-behind/index.html
https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/27/politics/afghan-weapons-left-behind/index.html
https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/27/politics/afghan-weapons-left-behind/index.html
Oh... and if that's not enough for you, lets talk about the human cost of
packing upjust leaving:https://www.nbcnews.com/investigations/us-left-78000-afghan-allies-ngo-report-rcna18119
https://www.hudson.org/foreign-policy/helping-afghan-allies-america-left-behind-luke-coffey
https://www.npr.org/2022/08/29/1119973093/how-u-s-allies-view-the-country-a-year-after-its-withdraw-from-afghanistan
https://www.factcheck.org/2021/09/how-many-americans-and-allies-are-left-in-afghanistan/
oh, and our reputation on the world stage, because you know, we weren't the only western power in Afghansistan: https://www.npr.org/2022/08/29/1119973093/how-u-s-allies-view-the-country-a-year-after-its-withdraw-from-afghanistan
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/afghanistan/2021-09-02/american-credibility-after-afghanistan
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/afghanistan/2021-09-02/american-credibility-after-afghanistan
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/afghanistan/2021-09-02/american-credibility-after-afghanistan
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/afghanistan/2021-09-02/american-credibility-after-afghanistan
TL/DR: It was a shit show.
Yeah as far as legislation goes he’s been one of the most effective presidents we’ve had. It’s been overshadowed by the media, constant rhetoric about his age and the small handful of mistakes he made. All in all he’s been good.
It has been overshadowed by funding the genocide of Palestinians
The same would happen under Trump. No escaping that truth. So pick your poison.
Na, Trump would say something stupid like....
....
...
You know what, I've been up for nearly 20 hours and cant get that stupid. Anyone wanna help a brotha out?
Hold on, let me get the puke bag ready.
Sorry that's as far as I could get before I had to fill the bucket.
I saw that full second smile in my head and now I don't like you. You placed it perfectly.
That's the result of way too many hours where I had to look up a speech to see if he actually said something.
Trump would say somehting like....
at least, that's all I really here between the greasy-fart noises whenever he speaks.
Ahh yes I too like to refer to my housing and food costs being historically high as a handful of mistakes.
Also, 27,000 Palestinians.
He must have quite big hands.
He's the best president of my lifetime, which isn't saying much.
Are you 8?
Nope, been alive since Reagan. Obama was a milquetoast do-nothing that cared more about what Republicans thought than the people who actually voted for him. We delivered him a supermajority and what did he do with it? He stripped the public option from Obamacare to please Republicans and then left it out despite not getting a single Republican vote.
When you're used to getting nothing but Ds and Fs, a C+ seems great.
congrats, better than a wannabe fascist dictator is now being great
Always a choice between a giant douche, and a turd sandwich!
This is why we have trump. Biden hasn't been a great president, he has had a great presidency. The man who is president is a small part of the equation. By attributing it all to him instead of all the people in the administration, in congress, and to just to where the world was at the time, we reinforce a culture where people praise guys like trump, and musk, and other billionaires. All of them were mostly lucky. They had some special skills to take advantage of thier luck that others don't, but without the luck, they would be nobody. Stop praising people for the work of many and good luck.
But on the other hand, let’s not forget that there have been great presidents, and then there’s Ronald Reagan.
The ability to select a competent, effective cabinet is a quality of an excellent leader. In a simplistic sports analogy, being a star captain and team manager doesn't mean you score well on your own.
Trump had one single curveball thrown at him in 4 years which was the COVID-19 pandemic, and his ilk of sycophants and him couldn't get an effective national response and the competent people like Dr. Fauci were ridiculed.
In the various conflicts that have manifested in Biden's term, we can be confident that the people in charge of the respective office under Biden's command aren't there just to make money off of each crisis.
One can only select from what is available. And that is where the luck comes in. But they barely select the cabinet, thier staff do all the work, they just have to pick from a short list that the current political climate provide as possible options (congress has to approve them). Their primary staff are either people who joined on long ago, or just the people the party has deemed are having the most success.
And while you think trump's administration was ineffective, that is only true in the sense that he didn't do what you wanted. From the conservative point of view, he knocked it out of the park. His administration used the pandemic to further drive the voters to extremes, which his party needs to gain power. The supreme court (also mostly luck). The plethora of conservative federal judges. The rich got richer and the poor got poorer. The list goes own.
He supports one country clearly defending itself. Yay!
But then he turns around and supports a genocide.
You know that saying about building a thousand bridges and one goat?
Never build a goat before, is it like a bear?
Yeah but the goat gets stuffed differently.
Yes but with more updawg.
No, and now I'm curious as to what it is.
You build a thousand bridges, and nobody calls you Bridgebuilder.
But you fuck ONE goat...
My brother is a pretty decent backyard griller. He got himself a new weber and wanted to break it in with some lamb souvlaki. Well, he really fucked it up somehow. Thermometer in the wrong place, vents not behaving, I don't know but he figured it out for the next cookout. He did not appreciate me nicknaming the grill Lambfucker.
If a man builds a thousand bridges, and fucks just one goat, they don't call him a bridge-builder
Do they ever call me bakkoda the wall builder? Fuck no they don't. But ya fuck one goat...
Make Brandon Dark Again
People wouldn't say that if he wasn't up against Trump.
Don't you want to at least see Biden in a last term with nothing to lose besides legacy? He'll be term limited, plus his age... he'll do something crazy to be loved.
He'll make weed legal if it isn't by then... He'll forgive all the student debt this time.... He'll expand the Supreme Court... He'll do something worthwhile and he will continue to not be trump.
Plenty of things where he misses my ideal, but generally positive progress and we keep pressure on for more progressive choices. General progress...
This is basically the same argument people made about Obama's second term. "He had to pull back in the first term or he'd lose reelection! In his second term, that's when he'll do all the progressive things that he ran on!" Anyway, he didn't do any of those things, but we did find out he'd secretly put us all under mass surveillance.
Thanks Obama!
Best Republican president since Eisenhower.
He's been alright. I'm a strident leftist. The cynical part of me says his second term will be significantly less alright once he's not working for re-election. But he won't be worse than Trump.
Actually, 2nd term presidents have no incentive to hold back on their plans. It's not like they're going to get re-elected. Biden might go bigger and better before he dies.
It's the reason why term limits probably aren't that great of a solution to political problems.
Yeah. In general Democratic presidents don't need to attract the left into voting for them. They need to attract the moderates. People who traditionally might vote Republican, or these days just stay home.
They persist in thinking they need to attract the moderates, but I'm skeptical.
And with one post, you infuriated both the youngest- and the oldest generations.
The only thing I hate is the whole Israel thing and trump is NOT better.
A democratic pollster interviewed on NPR repeated a great quote from a focus group participant: "My hood didn't get any better under obama, or any worse under trump. What's biden got to do with me?"
I dunno. Maybe the hood got some infrastructure. Probably not but they came closer than any time since the 70s.
I dunno if 'you came closer to being helped then ever before' is a very persuasive argument, but without knowing where they were it's just like, an opinion man.
is the profiteer of a few wars on his election campaign now?
As an employee at Raytheon, Mr. President Joe Biden has my full support.
We live in the "imflamitory headline era". No one reads articles that say "Biden delivers infrastructure bill" they read articles named "Biden is crazy!" The news definitely skews peoples views. He's done a lot but doesn't get a lot of front page coverage.
No the fuck he has not, stop propagandizing us
Joe Biden is a hero for beating Donnie and making his win stick, which was harder than he made it look.
If Biden can put Donnie away for good, they will be making a monument to him.
I agree that he has been a good president - the most progressive president in 50 years (yes, I realize that's a bullshit statement since there have been no even-close-to-progressive presidents). For those who think he's demented, please listen to his interview on Conan O'Brien's podcast. He's phenomenally engaging and has a great wit and memory.
He hasn't though. He busted a union. The economy for the working class is awful.
IIRC they eventually got everything or mostly everything they wanted.
They got part of one demand (4 days of sick leave for some workers, iirc) out of 5 or 6 demands ( more pay, 15 days sick leave leave than they got, different scheduling that would allow for more time to inspect trains to prevent shit like East Palestine, Ohio, amongst other things). Absolutely not everything. He took away their right to strike and gave them the tiniest possible consession so that people would go and defend him by saying "ok. He crushed the strike, but he actually turned around and helped them get what they wanted after". Purely doing whatever is politically convient, just like him standing on the picket line with the auto workers only a few months later. Disgusting. Thank for reminding me why he sucks.
That’s a weird way to spell Independents.
Say the thing! Say the thing! Say the thing!
Grasping for straws
Look at all of this manufactured outrage! It’s glorious! So many people so upset over events that happen in a country they couldn’t have pointed to on a map six months ago, nor were even remotely aware there was even issues there.