One pollster sees “flashing red” signs on youth turnout as Gen Z and millennial voters, who are not satisfied with either party, could again play a decisive role in the next election.
Is that really the fault of Biden though? His first two years were held hostage by Manchin and Sinema and now he no longer has a majority in the house. The president can only sign bills into law not make them out of thin air. I am not a huge Biden fan as I think he is too old to lead but I think he has done ok under the conditions he has.
Agreed that the bOtH sIdEs argument is utter bullshit.
However, Roe was never actually codified into law because it was a reliable rallying cry for Democratic politicians. Put another way: Democrats never seriously pushed to make Roe an actual law because it was politically beneficial to the party in elections.
Democratic politicians have bleated about protecting abortion rights for decades, but simultaneously completely ignored actually protecting abortion rights with laws.
Democrats never push to do anything that upsets the status quo. They are cowards. And any democrat who does push that agenda, is labeled some sort of extremist socialist nutjob.
The DNC is almost exclusively just neoliberals at this point.
To be clear, they’re better than the GOP, but that’s also like saying Mussolini was better than Hitler because Mussolini didn’t execute as many people.
Exactly. The DNC only cares about the top 10% (their donor base).The RNC only care about the top 1% (their donor base).
Everyone else is basically voting for people who hate them and have zero interest in making this country better for the majority. If you don’t make like 200k+ a year, our political system basically thinks you should fuck off and die because you’re a waste of human flesh.
Channel your outrage in a way other than voting for a party making things worse. I get you want progress but the options are very very slow progress or regression…don’t vote for regression.
there is no productive way to channel it politically. everyone who is in office and running for office is 100% about maintaining the status quo because it benefits the top 10% to the detriment of everyone else in USA society.
Short of revolution voting is all we have. I understand apathy. I was like that in my 20’s…but I can promise that the right can and will make things worse.
the issue is our progress is so slow and our problems are mounting so fast, that it basically seems like we are back sliding… and we are
hence why homelessness, drug use, etc are all rising. if you aren’t in the top 50% of incomes you can’t afford basic shelter or medical care, and you need to be in the top 20% to afford quality shelter and medical care.
There have never been 60 Senate votes to enshrine abortion. The last time Democrats had 60 Senate votes at all was for 2 months early in Obama’s first term – and many of those senators were Manchin style conservative Democrats.
If there were 50 votes in favor of ending the filibuster, then we might actually have enough. But we don’t have that either.
If not like voters were unaware of this either. The pro lifers made abortion a constant topic of discussion. If the electorate wanted Roe enshrined, they would’ve voted for more Democrats, and Democrats who won primaries would be pro choice.
The unfortunate reality is there’s never been enough votes to do so.
I completely agree that both parties aren’t the same, but the data shows that people don’t believe elections are a way to effectively create change. If people don’t think voting will help, they’re less likely to vote. It’s not that people like Republicans more than Democrats, it’s that they don’t like government.
I know several people like this. It’s so hard to explain to them that a vote for the status quo is better than letting things get even worse. If we don’t halt the degeneration we can’t ever turn things around. You can’t push something up without first stopping its fall.
I think the hardest part is that the feedback loop for voting is too slow for people to see its effects. It took decades of consistent voting by conservative Christians to get Roe v. Wade repealed. The urgency of the messaging around voting during election season makes it seem - to a politically-uninterested observer - like each election is an end unto itself.
What really matters with voting is doing it consistently. It should feel like doing your taxes, not like an epic struggle for the future of the country. The idea that a single election will produce the kind of systemic change I think most people want to see is just wrong.
Well, decades of semi-consistent voting (wasn’t so consistent in 2006 or 08, just to grab two elections off the top of my head), and a couple billion dollars in dark money thrown at judges and law schools and think tanks to launder all their extremist garbage, which is something the left doesn’t really have
Elected conservatives consistently work towards what they run on. Elected Democrats have this nasty habit of showing extremely public contempt for progressives, and then if they try to do anything at all toward fixing what they just showed contempt for, doing so quietly, all the while demanding fawning praise from progressives.
Progressives see what voting gets them. Republicans didn’t keep the public option from coming to the floor for a vote. Republicans didn’t give a cutesy thumbs down to increasing minimum wage. Republicans didn’t systematically rip BBB apart over the course of months. Progressives see Democrats have the means to improve things and find enough no votes to prevent that improvement, in some cases being gleeful about it. Every time they have a medical expense that their garbage insurance denies, they remember giving Democrats a supermajority and watching them find the votes to kill the public option. Every time they can’t make ends meet, they remember giving Democrats a majority and then watching Sinema’s thumbs down. Every time they spend too much for daycare, or can’t afford to put their child in pre-k, or can’t take medical leave, or afford community college, they remember giving Democrats a majority and watching Democrats dismantle BBB without any help at all from Republicans, extremely publicly over the course of months. And those scars reopen.
Democrats wonder why they don’t get immediate enthusiastic lockstep voting from the electorate. They never expect it from the elected.
Instead of spending 4 years saying we can’t do anything, maybe he should have taken a page out of trumps book and churned out so many executive orders the Republicans couldn’t keep up with trying to fight them all.
Maybe he could have used his influence to empower local political efforts where impact can be more powerful.
There’s plenty of things that could be done, but we excuse inaction.
You realize Biden broke Trump’s record for executive orders and appointments, right?
He did a ton of work, most of which was reversing Trump’s damage to Federal agencies like the EPA.
He also gave out stimulus. Student loan forgiveness was struck down by the Court, but they are putting together a secondary option. They’ve started to look into re-scheduling marijuana.
I don’t love everything he’s done. I could point to the railworker strike or foreign policy in the middle east as things I don’t like. But he has far exceeded my expectations for both accomplishing goals and for those goals being further left than I expected. He’s only done “nothing” if you decide to conveniently ignore all that he’s done.
You are fighting the battle of the informed. The attitudes in these comments are assumptions of the uninformed. Regardless of sides, thank you for your work.
So going back to ops comment - What has he done to improve your quality of life?
Normal people don’t give a shit about appointing judges or making their electricity more expensive through EPA regulations. They want something that increases the money in their pocket or makes their lives easier.
The overwhelming majority of people aren’t buying new EVs and getting a $7,500 credit.
Trump wanted to do the stimulus check too.
If we had Build Back Better (that is such a stupid fucking name) he would have actual tangible accomplishments. Like he could say do you remember when you were paying $300 a week for child care and now you’re paying $100 a week? How about those $300 a month checks were sending because you have a kid? How about that parental and family leave?
Unfortunately, even with his extreme deal making acumen, he couldn’t get his “friend” and member of his own party to vote for it so he has nothing to run on.
Normal people 100% care about appointing judges, because that has a huge impact on everyday life. We just saw the Supreme Court overturn Roe V Wade last year (filling the country with thousands of unborn children every year is going to effect everyone). This year they overturned affirmative action and student loan forgiveness. The reason Miranda Rights and gay marriage exists is because of Supreme Court decisions. Tons of state courts have had huge impacts on the drawing of districts over the last decade, either supporting or trying to eliminate gerrymandering. If you don’t think appointing judges impacts you, you need to go back to your 3rd grade social studies course.
The EPA helps to protect the air we breath, the water we drink, and the soil we grow our food in. If your electricity gets more expensive, blame your local provider for not seeing the writing on the wall in the last 40 years and switching to renewable and cleaner energy sources. Or blame yourself for not investing in solar. I don’t want to breath pollution just so you can get a few dollars off your electric bill.
Also you’re ignoring how Biden literally sent out stimulus checks. That is the single most direct thing a president can do.
There was the management of the oil reserves at the start of the Ukraine war, and the pressure he put on gas companies to stop price gouging. Even if you don’t drive, the price of gas effects everything you buy.
What are you looking for from the president? Head pats? Magicka tricks? Do you want him to fix your municipality’s terrible zoning laws? Do you want him to tell you it’s okay to be racist or bigoted?
Medicare for All (or at least substantially improving the ACA or some other mechanism of making health care cheaper)
Card check (or how about just not fucking over the rail workers?)
Paid paternal/family/sick leave
Guaranteed vacation time
$15/hr min wage
Student loan forgiveness
Free/reduced price college
Free/reduced price childcare
Child tax credit
Expanding the earned income tax credit
Medicare being able to negotiate drug prices (all drug prices now, not five different drugs a couple years from now)
Marijuana legalization
Universal Pre-K
Some sort of substantive action on climate change - for example: “We’re going to build 20 new nuclear plants in the next 10 years.” - “ICE vehicle sales will be mostly banned after 2035.” - “We’re going to build 15 new 1000 megawatt or bigger offshore wind farms and we’ve bypassed the normal red tape so they’re starting to be built right now.”
Some sort of substantive action on housing being expensive - maybe withhold federal funds from states/municipalities that don’t relax their zoning for more and multi unit building. Maybe have the federal government directly start building stuff.
Etc…
We did get that tax credit that brings down the cost of an EV to a price most Americans still can’t afford, so that’s good. (Sarcasm)
Marijuana legalization polls at like 70%+ including a majority of Republican voters and still zero movement there for some reason. Among Democrats it’s like 80%.
You just listed a ton of things that the Exexutivr Branch does not have the power to do. That applies to Medicare for All, Paid Leave, Vacation Time, Minimum Wage, Free/Reduced College/Childcare, the Child Tax Credit, expanding the EET Credit, universal pre-K, marijuana legalization, and allowing Medicare to negotiate with drug manufactures. You need to blame Congress, not Biden.
Biden has taken some measures on a lot of those fronts. He sponsored the bill you referenced that allows Medicare to start negotiating some drug prices. He directed the FDA to start reviewing Marijuana for rescheduling, which is as much as the Executive branch can do without further input from Congress. That’s pretty far from the “0 movement” you claim. The DoE tried Student Loan forgiveness and that just got shut down by the Judicial branch, and they have started the process to try again with a different law. The US President is not a dictator and can’t just implement these policies unilaterally.
I agree that I didn’t like the handling of the rail workers strike, but the unions ended up getting what they asked for.
Housing affordability is typically a local zoning and supply issue, though there are bills pending in Congress to address corporate investment in the housing market. I don’t know what you expect from the Federal Executive branch there. The federal government can’t just start building stuff on the whim of the president. They can build on federal land (within limits defined by Congress). Even Congress would probably struggle to do much with local building because that’s not their jurisdiction.
I’m going to assume you’re not American because you clearly don’t understand how the US government works. You’re just blaming everything on the President.
If you’re going to wait for Congressional action to do any of that stuff, in our anti-majoritarian system that is stacked against the Democratic party, then you’re going to be waiting multiple decades at least.
Just take the Supreme Court for example. Let’s say their was some sort of huge political/cultural shift and the median Congressman was Bernie Sanders - unless we get lucky and a few Supremes die, then there will be Federalist Society veto on progressive legislation even a decade or two or three from now.
All of these changes will have to be shoved through the executive branch somehow. The Supreme Court will have to be ignored.
Or we’ll just have to wait a generation or two or more. The climate change stuff can’t wait.
Trump honestly barely got anything done during his presidency, most of his executive orders were struck down. What he did get done (Supreme Court justices and tax cuts) was just what literally any Republican with a majority in Congress would have done. Biden has gotten more actual legislation passed than Trump did, and his attempt to legislate by executive order (student loan forgiveness) was as ineffective as Trump’s attempts.
A lot of trump’s executive orders got headlines for being struck down once, and then way less coverage when they tweaked them slightly and got them approved
It’s okay to criticize your party. You can vote for the lesser evil while still calling out the “evil” in the party you voted for. Hell I’d say it’s pretty important to be willing to hold ones leaders feet to the fire.
But it doesn’t mean everyone who is critical is voting Republican.
Similar to the other comment, “fault” doesn’t have a ton to do with it. Things needed to get done, and didn’t, so they still need to be done, and they (Biden and the Dems) aren’t capable of making it happen. That doesn’t really leave any good options but it’s not going to stop people from looking for one. This one is going to be the bad kind of exciting again.
I always vote, because I’m lucky enough to get paid time off work for it and little to no wait time.
Some people have to take a day off work and wait 4-8 hours in line.
We could sit around and complain about nonvoters, or we can try to increase voter engagement. But the party needs to make that choice too, and they’re not really great at the second option.
I’ll tell you: it’s because the vast majority of politicians that we electour system railroads us into choosing between and electing are essentially useless grifter assholes, and are, with a few exceptions, either deeply uninspiring or straight up never follow through on things they campaign on. And our entrenched two-party system only makes it worse. And then there’s lobbying.
That’s the rub though. Trump makes people feel like they are doing something. That is far more motivating and powerful of a reason to vote for him than voting for Biden, who is the equivalent of sitting in traffic.
People want the country to fucking do something. Even if it is driving off a cliff.
People don’t have to vote for trump if they are disillusioned, they just don’t vote. If someone has to take a day off of work when they are already struggling for people who dont do shit for them in either direction, then why go vote? And i know what you are going to say, but maybe you should blame the system and fight it (cause you need more then just voting anyway) then the people who are being beaten by the system trying to survive. It honestly it amazing to me that people like you cannot fathom the apathy and lack of energy as the real issue. For some people it is a big issue to vote because of the systematic issues put before them, because Republicans and Establishment Dems alike know that if they vote they loose. Do you think i want trump to win? Im a Nonbinary autistic living with my trans wife. But you better fucking believe im going to call out the dems for this bullshit. If they fought just as hard against anyone slightly progressive from getting on ballots as they did for people to vote more easily then things would be different, but they enjoy their money just as much as the Republicans, their grift is just nicer in comparison to literal nazis. And they use that against us over and over but in 2016 they miscalculated (of course they did they are more out of touch each year). I hope a Republican doesn’t win but im not going to be shocked if they do and the dems are more to blame for this then voters who can’t vote for a variety of reasons.
2024 is going to age me 15 years, the shit that scares me is if the economy takes a serious hit from financial fuckery like in 2008. Im afeared that would make those who voted Biden in 2020 out of disgust to want give Trump another try
His first two years were held hostage by Manchin and Sinema
Yeah, but during the Georgia runoffs, Biden and party leaders kept encouraging people across the country to donate by saying “50 is enough to pass the party platform”.
So either they had no idea Sinema or Manchin would obstruct, or they knew it and lied to voters.
So trying to blame those two now makes the party look inept at best
I’m pretty sure blaming Manchin must be electoral strategy. He’s much more conservative than the average Democrat, but he’s still by far the most liberal senator that’s ever going to get elected in West Virginia, and the blame lets him campaign in a deep red state about how he owned the libs.
I don’t think they’re lying, but them blaming him does help Manchin, and Manchin is the only chance Democrats have in West Virginia. For example, Manchin is to blame for concessions in the infrastructure bill, but Trump won West Virginia with 69% of the vote. The alternative to Manchin wouldn’t be a liberal who would pass an infrastructure bill with a greater commitment to green energy, it would be a far right senator who wouldn’t pass an infrastructure bill at all. Manchin is an net positive at the moment for Biden’s agenda, and progressives being so angry at him means he can campaign on not bowing to the far left agenda or whatever. Ideally there would be enough Democratic senators that Manchin wouldn’t matter, but anyone saying he should be primaried is honestly just delusional about who can get elected in West Virginia.
A lot of us (on both sides of the political spectrum) would prefer a president who prioritizes individuals over corporations. But I guess you’re free to have a different opinion, even if it makes you a bootlicker.
This decision literally prioritized individuals. If trains stop moving, people die.
I know you straight up don’t believe this, but cities run out of food within 48-72 hours. Hospitals run out of resources faster. Every single union member knew way their job entailed day 1.
This is personal to me, too, since my friend and neighbor works for that union. They got sick days, within weeks of the deadlock being broken by the gov.
If he gets supermajority in senate and majority in house pretty sure you’ll get student loan relief, increased taxes for wealthy, expansion of ACA/Medicaid, and increased minimum wage. Otherwise, nothing will happen due to filibuster.
Most of the country is pretty strongly brainwashed against anything that helps reduce wealth inequality as socialism/communism/librul. If you want to improve your QOL your generation will have to vote as a uniform block and take what you deserve.
Your personal desire for QOL improvements is not on the top of my priority list. Until United v Citizens is overturned and we get ranked voting, nothing will ever change. Even then, the US is the only country in the world that had to have a Civil War to decide if slavery was bad. And 30% of the country still refers to that conflict as a “lost cause” and the “war of northern aggression”. There are plenty of societies elsewhere that have more empathy for fellow citizens. If you’re looking for personal QOL improvements without having to take them for yourself, I don’t think this is the best environment for you.
Thankfully you aren’t the final say in prioritization of legislation. You think you’ve got it alllll figured out, yet here you are thinking dems are actually going to overturn citizens united, a move that would eliminate their stranglehold on us politics and end their days of being able to legally accept bribes while pointing at Republicans for their inability to do anything. Ranked choice voting is something each state will have to address on their own. There are many states that prohibit voter initiatives from getting ballot access through signatures. There are multiple states that have passed legislation banning ranked choice voting. Focus your efforts on things you can actually have an impact in driving.
Where did I say Democrats will overturn Citizens v United? And I understand how ranked choice voting works, I’m the one that brought it up. Do you even vote? Or do you spend all day complaining about a capitalist system that doesn’t satisfy your QOL enough?
If he gets supermajority in senate and majority in house pretty sure you’ll get student loan relief, increased taxes for wealthy, expansion of ACA/Medicaid, and increased minimum wage. Otherwise, nothing will happen due to filibuster.
Lol no he won’t. Democrats will do what they always do and find just enough no votes. They could have abolished the filibuster and accomplished everything they wanted last session. But that would require them to vote as a uniform bloc, and that’s just what Democrats demand of their voters, not their elected.
He’s done a few things that have helped a lot of people and tried to do more but Republicans and their pet SCOTUS have prevented some.
But a bigger question when voting has always been “who will hurt me less?”. And I know a LOT of people who suffered under Trump and who are currently suffering under DeSantis and many of his like-minded bigoted cronies in other states. So for me, there’s no consideration for not voting. I know what happens if the worse party/person wins so even voting for someone that sucks is better than helping an intolerable choice succeed by apathy.
Primary voting makes me feel a bit better. But that just changes it to fuck am I tired of my candidate losing the primary election. But unless you like somebody in the top two the most strategic option is always going to be voting for the candidate you hate the least. First past the post is just a garbage voting system that discourages voting because the most effective voting strategies feel bad.
It’s especially infuriating because the Dems don’t have to do anything to earn votes. All they have to do is be slightly less crazy and anyone who doesn’t want outright facism has no choice but to vote for them, whether they accomplish anything or not.
ETA: ok, “slightly” in this context is doing a lot of heavy lifting lol, Dems are a lot less crazy!
All they have to do is be slightly less crazy and anyone who doesn’t want outright facism has no choice but to vote for them, whether they accomplish anything or not.
And what’s worse, they know it. What’s even worse than that is they only have to lose once and are still playing the “well, the other guy is worse you have to vote for us” game. It’s unconscionably dangerous.
Exactly. There’s basically two parties right now: the one running around setting things on fire, and the one beholden to corporate interests that won’t let them use a fire extinguisher or a water hose.
Is starting fires worse than letting an already started fire continue to burn? Yes. Are the currently burning fires going to be extinguished either way? No.
I think people are getting to the point where they want the president to just do whatever, the courts be damned.
Like maybe if the court says that you can’t do your DACA or Clean Power Plan or student loan forgiveness you just tell the court to go fuck itself.
Or maybe if members of your own party sabotage your signature legislation you punish them.
Or maybe if you run as a guy that can get things done because you’re a deal maker that’s been in DC for a hundred years and everybody in the Senate is your friend… then actually get something done.
This is a really dangerous thing for people to want since we will most assuredly have a Republican president at some point again.
Biden has proven that he is a deal-maker by getting a LOT of shit done that frankly should not have been possible. He basically single-handedly brokered every deal made so far.
Biden got you a day in court for Student Loan debt, which is as far as he, personally could take you.
To go any further on either option requires Congress. Biden has gotten numerous things through Congress that are mind-boggling considering the hostile environment.
I understand you’re sad about not achieving policy victories but it would behoove you to learn how the US government actually functions, and maybe even to participate in it.
Biden could just pick a different mechanism (i.e. not the emergency declaration) and do student loan forgiveness again.
He could just ignore the court’s ruling. Seems like a very low priority thing to start a constitutional crisis for, but he could do it if he wanted to.
I don’t care about student loan forgiveness that much. I don’t even have student loans. It’s just indictive of everything else he’s failed on.
I’m not going to suck his dick because he got Medicare drug prices negotiation (on five specific drugs starting a year or two from now) or a $7500 tax credit on an EV I still can’t afford even with a $7500 tax credit or a $1400 stimulus check that he said would be $2000 and Trump indicated he wanted to do as well or an infrastructure bill that I can’t really specifically point to anything it’s doing.
Here is what a normal, not political, not terminally online person thinks: Biden was elected and nothing in my life has gotten better. Everything seems more expensive.
At the current moment, not a lot. What they needed to do was a whole lot of prevention of what we all saw that was coming and stop the republicans from changing and breaking the rules. A good analogy I read once was that you can build a fortress or a wall very strong, but given enough time without maintenance and active defense it will always be overcome. Our government is that fortress, and everyone has just assumed the power inherent in it is enough to stop bad actors and that everyone is acting in good faith, abandoning the wall and letting it be sabotaged. We need(ed) active defense of our democracy and the DNC refuses to.
They weren’t. My other main criticism of the democrats is how bad they are about publicizing when they do good things, but mostly their almost complete lack of pointing out where the republicans are being awful and fucking over the working class. There is so much material to go after the republicans on, and they do nothing with it. The republicans on the other hand will hammer on Dems all day long om shit that isn’t even real, get their base all riled up and angry to vote. If the Dems used people’s anger and upsettedness at the republicans to drive people to vote we wouldn’t be in the place we are today, they would have been able to have control of the government.
At the current moment, not a lot. What they needed to do was a whole lot of prevention of what we all saw that was coming and stop the republicans from changing and breaking the rules. A good analogy I read once was that you can build a fortress or a wall very strong, but given enough time without maintenance and active defense it will always be overcome. Our government is that fortress, and everyone has just assumed the power inherent in it is enough to stop bad actors and that everyone is acting in good faith, abandoning the wall and letting it be sabotaged. We need(ed) active defense of our democracy and the DNC refuses to.
That is absolutely false. The average American does not vote for candidates you want, which is why the candidates you want generally get blown out in elections.
In what way? If you are going to make such a bold and outlandish claim, back it up.
The candidates I want never see general elections. They get quietly pushed to the side at the National Convention after months to years of tampering by DNC officials. This isn’t speculation, this is a fact that has been widely reported on.
I support this. While the GOP base continues to shrink and die off, the Dems are doing no favors but continuing to make a vast swath of voters feel unrepresented. I was 18 when Obama came around in his first run and I felt represented then. I don’t think I’ve felt represented personally since then.
This is not an endorsement of the GOP. Just an echoing of the general feeling of invisibility.
I voted for him twice, but I have come to believe Obama did far more damage than good. And, his shameless narcissism and unwillingness to do anything of consequence, except kneecap the left, in his post-presidency have really turned me off.
I don’t know why any millennial would have any faith in the Democratic Party to substantively improve their futures, after having been bamboozled by Obama.
Because we don’t have any other choice in a first past the post system
I mean, I still don’t have any faith in the current Democratic party as a whole, but I think our best hope is primarying as much corruption out as we can and just using the party as a vehicle for decent leaders
The party leadership is corrupt. It regularly works against the interests of its voters in favor of its donors and its prerogatives. It is almost impossible to primary against the DNC’s backroom choices.
The party is a vehicle for donors and the entrenched class of managers and consultants who rely on it to ensure their own continued paychecks and influence.
Glad you know added that last sentence, but I know manny young liberals who tell me they will vote for Trump or DeSantis because Biden hasn’t gotten enough done. Republican obstructionism works and it’s scary.
You know a lot of young republicans who say their liberal so they don’t get ostracized by their friends, who are looking for any and every excuse to vote how they really want.
Yes. All he has to do is tie federal aid to states and cities/towns to density/zoning requirements.
My state passed a law two years ago that citys/towns that have public transit stops must have minimum density requirements around those transit stops… or they get zero state aid for their budgets anymore. The law was pushed by the governor primarily.
Guess what happened? every city/town that has those stops (except like two super wealthy ones who are suing the state over the law, because they don’t want the horrible ‘poors’ who only make 100k/yr moving there) is building 100s to 1000s of new units of housing.
It is really that simple.
The sad thing is the USA is full of brilliant people who can fix our country and make it great. We know what the policy solutions are and that they work. We simply lack the political will make those changes because our politicians are lazy, stupid, and cowardly, and so our most of our voters.
everyone lost their shit in my state when the govt pushed it. then he campaigned and he convinced the legislators and he got the votes. It took years. it was controversial, it’s still controversial. lots of old shithead people regularly protest the new housing, but guess what? state money talks a lot louder to cities/towns than a bunch of angry old people.
The role of the president is to coerce and push congress to codify his agenda. If he can’t do that he’s not doing his job.
But you’d rather make excuses for him than hold him accountable.
I’m sorry but you’re being very disingenuous if you think any number of Republicans would go for what you are asking, and you blame Biden because of it
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Is that really the fault of Biden though? His first two years were held hostage by Manchin and Sinema and now he no longer has a majority in the house. The president can only sign bills into law not make them out of thin air. I am not a huge Biden fan as I think he is too old to lead but I think he has done ok under the conditions he has.
It’s not his fault, but it explains why people don’t think voting will help.
That attitude is why Rowe v. Wade is gone now. The Parties are NOT the same!!!
Agreed that the bOtH sIdEs argument is utter bullshit.
However, Roe was never actually codified into law because it was a reliable rallying cry for Democratic politicians. Put another way: Democrats never seriously pushed to make Roe an actual law because it was politically beneficial to the party in elections.
Democratic politicians have bleated about protecting abortion rights for decades, but simultaneously completely ignored actually protecting abortion rights with laws.
Democrats never push to do anything that upsets the status quo. They are cowards. And any democrat who does push that agenda, is labeled some sort of extremist socialist nutjob.
This is why so many of us are outraged.
The DNC is almost exclusively just neoliberals at this point.
To be clear, they’re better than the GOP, but that’s also like saying Mussolini was better than Hitler because Mussolini didn’t execute as many people.
Exactly. The DNC only cares about the top 10% (their donor base).The RNC only care about the top 1% (their donor base).
Everyone else is basically voting for people who hate them and have zero interest in making this country better for the majority. If you don’t make like 200k+ a year, our political system basically thinks you should fuck off and die because you’re a waste of human flesh.
Channel your outrage in a way other than voting for a party making things worse. I get you want progress but the options are very very slow progress or regression…don’t vote for regression.
People are outraged because laws and public opinion have a statistical correlation of 0, unless you sample exclusively from the very top of the socioeconomic strata. That’s a very reasonable thing to be irate about in a country that’s ostensibly a democracy.
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there is no productive way to channel it politically. everyone who is in office and running for office is 100% about maintaining the status quo because it benefits the top 10% to the detriment of everyone else in USA society.
all i can do is fix up my house. lol
Gen Z + Millennials = 142 Million
Gen X + Boomers = 134 Million
The youth of this country has been conned into thinking they have no power. Boomers don’t want you to vote.
If the best we can do is very slow progress it’s no wonder people don’t think voting is effective
Short of revolution voting is all we have. I understand apathy. I was like that in my 20’s…but I can promise that the right can and will make things worse.
the issue is our progress is so slow and our problems are mounting so fast, that it basically seems like we are back sliding… and we are
hence why homelessness, drug use, etc are all rising. if you aren’t in the top 50% of incomes you can’t afford basic shelter or medical care, and you need to be in the top 20% to afford quality shelter and medical care.
There have never been 60 Senate votes to enshrine abortion. The last time Democrats had 60 Senate votes at all was for 2 months early in Obama’s first term – and many of those senators were Manchin style conservative Democrats.
If there were 50 votes in favor of ending the filibuster, then we might actually have enough. But we don’t have that either.
If not like voters were unaware of this either. The pro lifers made abortion a constant topic of discussion. If the electorate wanted Roe enshrined, they would’ve voted for more Democrats, and Democrats who won primaries would be pro choice.
The unfortunate reality is there’s never been enough votes to do so.
I completely agree that both parties aren’t the same, but the data shows that people don’t believe elections are a way to effectively create change. If people don’t think voting will help, they’re less likely to vote. It’s not that people like Republicans more than Democrats, it’s that they don’t like government.
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I know several people like this. It’s so hard to explain to them that a vote for the status quo is better than letting things get even worse. If we don’t halt the degeneration we can’t ever turn things around. You can’t push something up without first stopping its fall.
I think the hardest part is that the feedback loop for voting is too slow for people to see its effects. It took decades of consistent voting by conservative Christians to get Roe v. Wade repealed. The urgency of the messaging around voting during election season makes it seem - to a politically-uninterested observer - like each election is an end unto itself.
What really matters with voting is doing it consistently. It should feel like doing your taxes, not like an epic struggle for the future of the country. The idea that a single election will produce the kind of systemic change I think most people want to see is just wrong.
Well, decades of semi-consistent voting (wasn’t so consistent in 2006 or 08, just to grab two elections off the top of my head), and a couple billion dollars in dark money thrown at judges and law schools and think tanks to launder all their extremist garbage, which is something the left doesn’t really have
conservatives are more far-sighted than the democracts, yes. that is why they have been so much more successful.
they are also far more willing to lie, cheat, and steal. The democrats won’t.
Elected conservatives consistently work towards what they run on. Elected Democrats have this nasty habit of showing extremely public contempt for progressives, and then if they try to do anything at all toward fixing what they just showed contempt for, doing so quietly, all the while demanding fawning praise from progressives.
Progressives see what voting gets them. Republicans didn’t keep the public option from coming to the floor for a vote. Republicans didn’t give a cutesy thumbs down to increasing minimum wage. Republicans didn’t systematically rip BBB apart over the course of months. Progressives see Democrats have the means to improve things and find enough no votes to prevent that improvement, in some cases being gleeful about it. Every time they have a medical expense that their garbage insurance denies, they remember giving Democrats a supermajority and watching them find the votes to kill the public option. Every time they can’t make ends meet, they remember giving Democrats a majority and then watching Sinema’s thumbs down. Every time they spend too much for daycare, or can’t afford to put their child in pre-k, or can’t take medical leave, or afford community college, they remember giving Democrats a majority and watching Democrats dismantle BBB without any help at all from Republicans, extremely publicly over the course of months. And those scars reopen.
Democrats wonder why they don’t get immediate enthusiastic lockstep voting from the electorate. They never expect it from the elected.
Instead of spending 4 years saying we can’t do anything, maybe he should have taken a page out of trumps book and churned out so many executive orders the Republicans couldn’t keep up with trying to fight them all.
Maybe he could have used his influence to empower local political efforts where impact can be more powerful.
There’s plenty of things that could be done, but we excuse inaction.
You realize Biden broke Trump’s record for executive orders and appointments, right?
He did a ton of work, most of which was reversing Trump’s damage to Federal agencies like the EPA.
He also gave out stimulus. Student loan forgiveness was struck down by the Court, but they are putting together a secondary option. They’ve started to look into re-scheduling marijuana.
I don’t love everything he’s done. I could point to the railworker strike or foreign policy in the middle east as things I don’t like. But he has far exceeded my expectations for both accomplishing goals and for those goals being further left than I expected. He’s only done “nothing” if you decide to conveniently ignore all that he’s done.
You are fighting the battle of the informed. The attitudes in these comments are assumptions of the uninformed. Regardless of sides, thank you for your work.
So going back to ops comment - What has he done to improve your quality of life?
Normal people don’t give a shit about appointing judges or making their electricity more expensive through EPA regulations. They want something that increases the money in their pocket or makes their lives easier.
The overwhelming majority of people aren’t buying new EVs and getting a $7,500 credit.
Trump wanted to do the stimulus check too.
If we had Build Back Better (that is such a stupid fucking name) he would have actual tangible accomplishments. Like he could say do you remember when you were paying $300 a week for child care and now you’re paying $100 a week? How about those $300 a month checks were sending because you have a kid? How about that parental and family leave?
Unfortunately, even with his extreme deal making acumen, he couldn’t get his “friend” and member of his own party to vote for it so he has nothing to run on.
Normal people 100% care about appointing judges, because that has a huge impact on everyday life. We just saw the Supreme Court overturn Roe V Wade last year (filling the country with thousands of unborn children every year is going to effect everyone). This year they overturned affirmative action and student loan forgiveness. The reason Miranda Rights and gay marriage exists is because of Supreme Court decisions. Tons of state courts have had huge impacts on the drawing of districts over the last decade, either supporting or trying to eliminate gerrymandering. If you don’t think appointing judges impacts you, you need to go back to your 3rd grade social studies course.
The EPA helps to protect the air we breath, the water we drink, and the soil we grow our food in. If your electricity gets more expensive, blame your local provider for not seeing the writing on the wall in the last 40 years and switching to renewable and cleaner energy sources. Or blame yourself for not investing in solar. I don’t want to breath pollution just so you can get a few dollars off your electric bill.
Also you’re ignoring how Biden literally sent out stimulus checks. That is the single most direct thing a president can do.
There was the management of the oil reserves at the start of the Ukraine war, and the pressure he put on gas companies to stop price gouging. Even if you don’t drive, the price of gas effects everything you buy.
What are you looking for from the president? Head pats? Magicka tricks? Do you want him to fix your municipality’s terrible zoning laws? Do you want him to tell you it’s okay to be racist or bigoted?
Things Biden shoulda/coulda done
Some sort of substantive action on climate change - for example: “We’re going to build 20 new nuclear plants in the next 10 years.” - “ICE vehicle sales will be mostly banned after 2035.” - “We’re going to build 15 new 1000 megawatt or bigger offshore wind farms and we’ve bypassed the normal red tape so they’re starting to be built right now.”
Some sort of substantive action on housing being expensive - maybe withhold federal funds from states/municipalities that don’t relax their zoning for more and multi unit building. Maybe have the federal government directly start building stuff.
Etc…
We did get that tax credit that brings down the cost of an EV to a price most Americans still can’t afford, so that’s good. (Sarcasm)
Marijuana legalization polls at like 70%+ including a majority of Republican voters and still zero movement there for some reason. Among Democrats it’s like 80%.
You just listed a ton of things that the Exexutivr Branch does not have the power to do. That applies to Medicare for All, Paid Leave, Vacation Time, Minimum Wage, Free/Reduced College/Childcare, the Child Tax Credit, expanding the EET Credit, universal pre-K, marijuana legalization, and allowing Medicare to negotiate with drug manufactures. You need to blame Congress, not Biden.
Biden has taken some measures on a lot of those fronts. He sponsored the bill you referenced that allows Medicare to start negotiating some drug prices. He directed the FDA to start reviewing Marijuana for rescheduling, which is as much as the Executive branch can do without further input from Congress. That’s pretty far from the “0 movement” you claim. The DoE tried Student Loan forgiveness and that just got shut down by the Judicial branch, and they have started the process to try again with a different law. The US President is not a dictator and can’t just implement these policies unilaterally.
I agree that I didn’t like the handling of the rail workers strike, but the unions ended up getting what they asked for.
On climate change, Biden has done a ton. https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2023/04/20/fact-sheet-president-biden-to-catalyze-global-climate-action-through-the-major-economies-forum-on-energy-and-climate/. Is it enough? Hell no - to be honest it’s probably too late to actually do “enough”. But even some of what he has done has already been undone by the Judicial branch: he stopped leasing federal land to oil companies, but the judicial branch has been starting and stopping that through appeals.
Housing affordability is typically a local zoning and supply issue, though there are bills pending in Congress to address corporate investment in the housing market. I don’t know what you expect from the Federal Executive branch there. The federal government can’t just start building stuff on the whim of the president. They can build on federal land (within limits defined by Congress). Even Congress would probably struggle to do much with local building because that’s not their jurisdiction.
I’m going to assume you’re not American because you clearly don’t understand how the US government works. You’re just blaming everything on the President.
I understand how the US government works.
If you’re going to wait for Congressional action to do any of that stuff, in our anti-majoritarian system that is stacked against the Democratic party, then you’re going to be waiting multiple decades at least.
Just take the Supreme Court for example. Let’s say their was some sort of huge political/cultural shift and the median Congressman was Bernie Sanders - unless we get lucky and a few Supremes die, then there will be Federalist Society veto on progressive legislation even a decade or two or three from now.
All of these changes will have to be shoved through the executive branch somehow. The Supreme Court will have to be ignored.
Or we’ll just have to wait a generation or two or more. The climate change stuff can’t wait.
Trump honestly barely got anything done during his presidency, most of his executive orders were struck down. What he did get done (Supreme Court justices and tax cuts) was just what literally any Republican with a majority in Congress would have done. Biden has gotten more actual legislation passed than Trump did, and his attempt to legislate by executive order (student loan forgiveness) was as ineffective as Trump’s attempts.
A lot of trump’s executive orders got headlines for being struck down once, and then way less coverage when they tweaked them slightly and got them approved
You are so right. So let’s vote for the party that treats women as an incubator instead of a person.
It’s okay to criticize your party. You can vote for the lesser evil while still calling out the “evil” in the party you voted for. Hell I’d say it’s pretty important to be willing to hold ones leaders feet to the fire.
But it doesn’t mean everyone who is critical is voting Republican.
Yep.
Never criticizing your own party is how the republican party became what they are today.
We might not be able to change that, but we can try to prevent it from happening to the only other option in general elections.
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Similar to the other comment, “fault” doesn’t have a ton to do with it. Things needed to get done, and didn’t, so they still need to be done, and they (Biden and the Dems) aren’t capable of making it happen. That doesn’t really leave any good options but it’s not going to stop people from looking for one. This one is going to be the bad kind of exciting again.
Voting for the GOP will make things happen but in the wrong direction. Driving off a cliff while still moving is not very desirable in my book.
Stop trying to make every criticism of the Democrats some GOP reverso hot-take. It’s fucking brainless and stupid.
The issue is turnout.
I always vote, because I’m lucky enough to get paid time off work for it and little to no wait time.
Some people have to take a day off work and wait 4-8 hours in line.
We could sit around and complain about nonvoters, or we can try to increase voter engagement. But the party needs to make that choice too, and they’re not really great at the second option.
…but what’s the root cause of low turnout?
I’ll tell you: it’s because the vast majority of politicians that
we electour system railroads us into choosing between and electing are essentially useless grifter assholes, and are, with a few exceptions, either deeply uninspiring or straight up never follow through on things they campaign on. And our entrenched two-party system only makes it worse. And then there’s lobbying.Or, the shorter version: public opinion and the passage or rejection of laws in America have a statistical correlation of 0, unless you sample from the very top end of the socioeconomic scale
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That’s the rub though. Trump makes people feel like they are doing something. That is far more motivating and powerful of a reason to vote for him than voting for Biden, who is the equivalent of sitting in traffic.
People want the country to fucking do something. Even if it is driving off a cliff.
People don’t have to vote for trump if they are disillusioned, they just don’t vote. If someone has to take a day off of work when they are already struggling for people who dont do shit for them in either direction, then why go vote? And i know what you are going to say, but maybe you should blame the system and fight it (cause you need more then just voting anyway) then the people who are being beaten by the system trying to survive. It honestly it amazing to me that people like you cannot fathom the apathy and lack of energy as the real issue. For some people it is a big issue to vote because of the systematic issues put before them, because Republicans and Establishment Dems alike know that if they vote they loose. Do you think i want trump to win? Im a Nonbinary autistic living with my trans wife. But you better fucking believe im going to call out the dems for this bullshit. If they fought just as hard against anyone slightly progressive from getting on ballots as they did for people to vote more easily then things would be different, but they enjoy their money just as much as the Republicans, their grift is just nicer in comparison to literal nazis. And they use that against us over and over but in 2016 they miscalculated (of course they did they are more out of touch each year). I hope a Republican doesn’t win but im not going to be shocked if they do and the dems are more to blame for this then voters who can’t vote for a variety of reasons.
2024 is going to age me 15 years, the shit that scares me is if the economy takes a serious hit from financial fuckery like in 2008. Im afeared that would make those who voted Biden in 2020 out of disgust to want give Trump another try
Yeah, but during the Georgia runoffs, Biden and party leaders kept encouraging people across the country to donate by saying “50 is enough to pass the party platform”.
So either they had no idea Sinema or Manchin would obstruct, or they knew it and lied to voters.
So trying to blame those two now makes the party look inept at best
This is just called “being a politician”
I’m pretty sure blaming Manchin must be electoral strategy. He’s much more conservative than the average Democrat, but he’s still by far the most liberal senator that’s ever going to get elected in West Virginia, and the blame lets him campaign in a deep red state about how he owned the libs.
So…
You think the national party decided to lie about Manchin so that he could obstruct them…
And the goal was to make sure Manchin gets elected again, so he can continue not supporting the party?
I don’t think they’re lying, but them blaming him does help Manchin, and Manchin is the only chance Democrats have in West Virginia. For example, Manchin is to blame for concessions in the infrastructure bill, but Trump won West Virginia with 69% of the vote. The alternative to Manchin wouldn’t be a liberal who would pass an infrastructure bill with a greater commitment to green energy, it would be a far right senator who wouldn’t pass an infrastructure bill at all. Manchin is an net positive at the moment for Biden’s agenda, and progressives being so angry at him means he can campaign on not bowing to the far left agenda or whatever. Ideally there would be enough Democratic senators that Manchin wouldn’t matter, but anyone saying he should be primaried is honestly just delusional about who can get elected in West Virginia.
Biden campaigned as the guy who can reach across the aisle to get things done. He can’t even get his own party on his side.
The down votes don’t make it less true guys.
Do you support what he did to remove the railroad unions right to negotiate?
Yes. Unequivocally.
A lot of us (on both sides of the political spectrum) would prefer a president who prioritizes individuals over corporations. But I guess you’re free to have a different opinion, even if it makes you a bootlicker.
This decision literally prioritized individuals. If trains stop moving, people die.
I know you straight up don’t believe this, but cities run out of food within 48-72 hours. Hospitals run out of resources faster. Every single union member knew way their job entailed day 1.
This is personal to me, too, since my friend and neighbor works for that union. They got sick days, within weeks of the deadlock being broken by the gov.
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If he gets supermajority in senate and majority in house pretty sure you’ll get student loan relief, increased taxes for wealthy, expansion of ACA/Medicaid, and increased minimum wage. Otherwise, nothing will happen due to filibuster.
Most of the country is pretty strongly brainwashed against anything that helps reduce wealth inequality as socialism/communism/librul. If you want to improve your QOL your generation will have to vote as a uniform block and take what you deserve.
Let’s say they get a super majority and those policies still aren’t pushed through. What would you say we all do then?
You just got student loan relief again FYI.
Your personal desire for QOL improvements is not on the top of my priority list. Until United v Citizens is overturned and we get ranked voting, nothing will ever change. Even then, the US is the only country in the world that had to have a Civil War to decide if slavery was bad. And 30% of the country still refers to that conflict as a “lost cause” and the “war of northern aggression”. There are plenty of societies elsewhere that have more empathy for fellow citizens. If you’re looking for personal QOL improvements without having to take them for yourself, I don’t think this is the best environment for you.
Thankfully you aren’t the final say in prioritization of legislation. You think you’ve got it alllll figured out, yet here you are thinking dems are actually going to overturn citizens united, a move that would eliminate their stranglehold on us politics and end their days of being able to legally accept bribes while pointing at Republicans for their inability to do anything. Ranked choice voting is something each state will have to address on their own. There are many states that prohibit voter initiatives from getting ballot access through signatures. There are multiple states that have passed legislation banning ranked choice voting. Focus your efforts on things you can actually have an impact in driving.
Where did I say Democrats will overturn Citizens v United? And I understand how ranked choice voting works, I’m the one that brought it up. Do you even vote? Or do you spend all day complaining about a capitalist system that doesn’t satisfy your QOL enough?
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Nice try Mitt Romney. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/debunking-the-myth-obamas_b_1929869
And yet Republicans have never ever held a supermajority in the past 106 years since cloture was added to Senate rules.
Republicans win when they do nothing. They just need to obstruct.
You’re implying that the worst thing that Republicans have done in over a century is to obstruct. Seems to me that they’ve done much worse.
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Lol no he won’t. Democrats will do what they always do and find just enough no votes. They could have abolished the filibuster and accomplished everything they wanted last session. But that would require them to vote as a uniform bloc, and that’s just what Democrats demand of their voters, not their elected.
He’s done a few things that have helped a lot of people and tried to do more but Republicans and their pet SCOTUS have prevented some.
But a bigger question when voting has always been “who will hurt me less?”. And I know a LOT of people who suffered under Trump and who are currently suffering under DeSantis and many of his like-minded bigoted cronies in other states. So for me, there’s no consideration for not voting. I know what happens if the worse party/person wins so even voting for someone that sucks is better than helping an intolerable choice succeed by apathy.
If he’s the DNC nominee, I’ll still vote for him in the general election, but holy fuck am I tired of voting for the candidate that I hate less.
This, so much this. Fuck, it should have been Bernie.
Primary voting makes me feel a bit better. But that just changes it to fuck am I tired of my candidate losing the primary election. But unless you like somebody in the top two the most strategic option is always going to be voting for the candidate you hate the least. First past the post is just a garbage voting system that discourages voting because the most effective voting strategies feel bad.
sad Massachusetts noises
It’s especially infuriating because the Dems don’t have to do anything to earn votes. All they have to do is be slightly less crazy and anyone who doesn’t want outright facism has no choice but to vote for them, whether they accomplish anything or not.
ETA: ok, “slightly” in this context is doing a lot of heavy lifting lol, Dems are a lot less crazy!
The bar for quality may as well be a speed bump, tbh
And what’s worse, they know it. What’s even worse than that is they only have to lose once and are still playing the “well, the other guy is worse you have to vote for us” game. It’s unconscionably dangerous.
Exactly. There’s basically two parties right now: the one running around setting things on fire, and the one beholden to corporate interests that won’t let them use a fire extinguisher or a water hose.
Is starting fires worse than letting an already started fire continue to burn? Yes. Are the currently burning fires going to be extinguished either way? No.
And the fires aren’t even metaphorical sometimes.
Eventually they’ll run out of fuel. Which is only reassuring if you’re not the fuel.
Very well summed up
It’s not very well summed up lol. It’s totally ignorant of how the American government functions, at a basic constitutional level.
How exactly are democrats supposed to pass these sweeping reforms?
I think people are getting to the point where they want the president to just do whatever, the courts be damned.
Like maybe if the court says that you can’t do your DACA or Clean Power Plan or student loan forgiveness you just tell the court to go fuck itself.
Or maybe if members of your own party sabotage your signature legislation you punish them.
Or maybe if you run as a guy that can get things done because you’re a deal maker that’s been in DC for a hundred years and everybody in the Senate is your friend… then actually get something done.
This is a really dangerous thing for people to want since we will most assuredly have a Republican president at some point again.
Biden has proven that he is a deal-maker by getting a LOT of shit done that frankly should not have been possible. He basically single-handedly brokered every deal made so far.
Exactly! Biden gets stuff done.™ That’s why we have free community college and no student loan debt today.
Biden got you a day in court for Student Loan debt, which is as far as he, personally could take you.
To go any further on either option requires Congress. Biden has gotten numerous things through Congress that are mind-boggling considering the hostile environment.
I understand you’re sad about not achieving policy victories but it would behoove you to learn how the US government actually functions, and maybe even to participate in it.
Biden could just pick a different mechanism (i.e. not the emergency declaration) and do student loan forgiveness again.
He could just ignore the court’s ruling. Seems like a very low priority thing to start a constitutional crisis for, but he could do it if he wanted to.
I don’t care about student loan forgiveness that much. I don’t even have student loans. It’s just indictive of everything else he’s failed on.
I’m not going to suck his dick because he got Medicare drug prices negotiation (on five specific drugs starting a year or two from now) or a $7500 tax credit on an EV I still can’t afford even with a $7500 tax credit or a $1400 stimulus check that he said would be $2000 and Trump indicated he wanted to do as well or an infrastructure bill that I can’t really specifically point to anything it’s doing.
Here is what a normal, not political, not terminally online person thinks: Biden was elected and nothing in my life has gotten better. Everything seems more expensive.
This brings us closer to fascism. Ignoring the law to do whatever you want is a great way to collapse democracy.
At the current moment, not a lot. What they needed to do was a whole lot of prevention of what we all saw that was coming and stop the republicans from changing and breaking the rules. A good analogy I read once was that you can build a fortress or a wall very strong, but given enough time without maintenance and active defense it will always be overcome. Our government is that fortress, and everyone has just assumed the power inherent in it is enough to stop bad actors and that everyone is acting in good faith, abandoning the wall and letting it be sabotaged. We need(ed) active defense of our democracy and the DNC refuses to.
How, exactly, were they supposed to do these things without control of the government?
They weren’t. My other main criticism of the democrats is how bad they are about publicizing when they do good things, but mostly their almost complete lack of pointing out where the republicans are being awful and fucking over the working class. There is so much material to go after the republicans on, and they do nothing with it. The republicans on the other hand will hammer on Dems all day long om shit that isn’t even real, get their base all riled up and angry to vote. If the Dems used people’s anger and upsettedness at the republicans to drive people to vote we wouldn’t be in the place we are today, they would have been able to have control of the government.
I do agree that whoever writes talking points for Dems should have been fired and the land salted behind them like 20 years ago
At the current moment, not a lot. What they needed to do was a whole lot of prevention of what we all saw that was coming and stop the republicans from changing and breaking the rules. A good analogy I read once was that you can build a fortress or a wall very strong, but given enough time without maintenance and active defense it will always be overcome. Our government is that fortress, and everyone has just assumed the power inherent in it is enough to stop bad actors and that everyone is acting in good faith, abandoning the wall and letting it be sabotaged. We need(ed) active defense of our democracy and the DNC refuses to.
Running electable candidates who actually want change would be a good start.
You need to change the minds of a lot of Americans to accomplish that.
Just the ones at the top.
That is absolutely false. The average American does not vote for candidates you want, which is why the candidates you want generally get blown out in elections.
In what way? If you are going to make such a bold and outlandish claim, back it up.
The candidates I want never see general elections. They get quietly pushed to the side at the National Convention after months to years of tampering by DNC officials. This isn’t speculation, this is a fact that has been widely reported on.
Ribbit
I support this. While the GOP base continues to shrink and die off, the Dems are doing no favors but continuing to make a vast swath of voters feel unrepresented. I was 18 when Obama came around in his first run and I felt represented then. I don’t think I’ve felt represented personally since then.
This is not an endorsement of the GOP. Just an echoing of the general feeling of invisibility.
I voted for him twice, but I have come to believe Obama did far more damage than good. And, his shameless narcissism and unwillingness to do anything of consequence, except kneecap the left, in his post-presidency have really turned me off.
I don’t know why any millennial would have any faith in the Democratic Party to substantively improve their futures, after having been bamboozled by Obama.
Because we don’t have any other choice in a first past the post system
I mean, I still don’t have any faith in the current Democratic party as a whole, but I think our best hope is primarying as much corruption out as we can and just using the party as a vehicle for decent leaders
The party leadership is corrupt. It regularly works against the interests of its voters in favor of its donors and its prerogatives. It is almost impossible to primary against the DNC’s backroom choices.
The party is a vehicle for donors and the entrenched class of managers and consultants who rely on it to ensure their own continued paychecks and influence.
Glad you know added that last sentence, but I know manny young liberals who tell me they will vote for Trump or DeSantis because Biden hasn’t gotten enough done. Republican obstructionism works and it’s scary.
I question how liberal they truly are
@CylonBunny
@YoBuckStopsHere @aniki
You know a lot of young republicans who say their liberal so they don’t get ostracized by their friends, who are looking for any and every excuse to vote how they really want.
Let’s be honest here.
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It’s a kbin thing.
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Too busy given money to Israel
I don’t think I like that paint color so I am going to repaint it with Diesel and light a match.
But he passed an infrastructure bill that will fix roads that should have been fixed already.
You think Biden can unilaterally lower housing prices in two years??
Yes. All he has to do is tie federal aid to states and cities/towns to density/zoning requirements.
My state passed a law two years ago that citys/towns that have public transit stops must have minimum density requirements around those transit stops… or they get zero state aid for their budgets anymore. The law was pushed by the governor primarily.
Guess what happened? every city/town that has those stops (except like two super wealthy ones who are suing the state over the law, because they don’t want the horrible ‘poors’ who only make 100k/yr moving there) is building 100s to 1000s of new units of housing.
It is really that simple.
The sad thing is the USA is full of brilliant people who can fix our country and make it great. We know what the policy solutions are and that they work. We simply lack the political will make those changes because our politicians are lazy, stupid, and cowardly, and so our most of our voters.
lol, what a joke, you think he even has the authority to do that? and do you realize the absolute shitshow of a right wing wave we’d have if he tried?
it’s his fucking job to do that.
everyone lost their shit in my state when the govt pushed it. then he campaigned and he convinced the legislators and he got the votes. It took years. it was controversial, it’s still controversial. lots of old shithead people regularly protest the new housing, but guess what? state money talks a lot louder to cities/towns than a bunch of angry old people.
The role of the president is to coerce and push congress to codify his agenda. If he can’t do that he’s not doing his job.
But you’d rather make excuses for him than hold him accountable.
Yeah, votes, so he can’t do it
I’m sorry but you’re being very disingenuous if you think any number of Republicans would go for what you are asking, and you blame Biden because of it