From an outsider perspective, the Dems may be hopeless neoliberals, but isn’t it more:
R: hehe sure we will hehehe
D: here’s a set of policies that should improve things
Voters: too complicated, just say yes.
The Dems proposals are crumbs on what we should have. Universal health and education for example, never make it out of the primaries. Very few Democrats, really the ones that are Democrats so they don’t have to start a Social Democrat party, espouse that stuff. The rest of the party thinks a minimum wage increase will be enough and they can’t even get that done.
In reality we need real cost of living counterweights. Government run grocery stores and basic retail. Private businesses literally told everyone that abnormal inflation after the pandemic was just them price gouging. And we’re supposed to take a single policy that would have been good in 2005 as proof Democrats “get it”?
Fuck no.
Well said. I think they get that things have gone too far, but just don’t care / don’t know how to make it better at this point. And Dems definitely aren’t interested in listening to good ideas from the left, so…here we are.
Here’s what happens. Dems make a law proposal, but know that in order to get bipartisan support from the Rs, they’ll need to make some concessions, so they already soften the language from the start. Rs still find flaws in it, so the Dems add more and more water to the wine. But then when it comes to voting the Rs will still vote “No”, because their whole platform is based on no progress for regular people. They also need people to think that democrats are useless for them. So they flood the airwaves right after their no-vote shouting “why has nothing been done yet?” Dems can then say: “but you just voted no”, and the Rs will just say “because the proposal was bad” knowing that their base will not do any more investigation, nor will most of the media. The Rs have mastered the “never play defense” strategy.
I hate this defeatist shit. They aren’t that tough. We need to play politics like LBJ did.
I agree with you. But for that we need less spineless politicians on the left. We need people who stand for something.
Doesn’t it make you think though? How is it that internet comments can directly and easily point out the situation, politicians spend millions-billions and they have no clue? The only conclusions I can come to is the system is currently working as the political class wants it to.
The Democratic Party is about getting donations, not winning elections. 2024 was the Dems’ most successful Presidential campaign in history.
That’s true but Democrats also haven’t put their entire party weight behind anything that would meaningfully change the situation for Americans below the median income
Well fucking said. The Democrats need to BE fucking Democrats.
Free public housing. Rent is crushing us. The for profit home/apartment building corporations have failed at their job. Even if you are most gracious and say they are held back by red tape, guess who can cut through it?
This is a housing crisis. At least in the judge dredd universe they had the mega cities…
It’s more like the Republicans promise the moon even if they intend to shove the sun up your ass, while the Dems only promise what they think that they can accomplish, and often even that gets trampled by Republicans willing to break the government just to keep the Dems from doing anything.
The last time we had a Democrat who made big promises and ran on a campaign of hope and progress, we had the largest voter turnout ever recorded in the history of the country at that time. And then an even larger turnout for his second election. Cut to 2020, and we elected the VP of that guy largely on his relation to that former President and because he wasn’t the other guy, and in this past election we saw several million less voters than 2020 with notable drops in support in swing states amongst Democrats and unaffiliated voters after right wing politicians voiced their support for Kamala.
There’s also the issue to be had with the bias of media in the country and how that affects public perception. I still remember in 2016 when the news channels aired video of Trump’s empty podium for an hour instead of Bernie Sanders’ speech.
The time before that when we had a Democrat who made big promises and ran on a campaign of hope and progress he got re-elected three times and they had to make an amendment to stop it from happening again.
We can’t DOOOOOO anything because they’re meaner and stronger than we are! Even when they’re in the minority!
and in this past election we saw several million less voters than 2020 with notable drops in support in swing states amongst Democrats and unaffiliated voters after right wing politicians voiced their support for Kamala.
to be clear, this was most likely a fluke of the post covid times, this was a global phenomenon. Had covid not happened, there is a very high likelihood that kamala would’ve won.
It might have been the largest turnout at the time, but the largest so far currently is 2020 with 158,427,986 votes, which is almost 30 million more than 2012.
Biden had the biggest turnout and lead of all time.
Did you mean 2020 or 2024? I think you’re right that 2020 was the largest turnout ever, and we can only assume why, but the jump from 2004 to 2008 and then 2012 was massive, and the drop from 2020 to 2024 was massive as well. They were all in the figures of tens of millions of voters shifting one way or the other in almost every election from 2008 to 2024 except for Hillary vs. Trump, if I remember correctly.
My point is that Republicans campaign on change and appeal to emotion, and the last time we saw a Democrat campaign on a similar message, we saw some of the largest turnouts in US history. The facts are that the country consistently does better under Democrats than Republicans, but Republicans appeal to emotion in a way that Democrats don’t. Biden added, what, 500 million jobs to the economy in the past 4 years? But the majority of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck - even some of those making six-figure salaries - and so the lack of an appeal to their daily struggles disincentivizes them from supporting Democrats. The Republicans promise change, and even if it’s a bold-faced lie, people eat it up because the issues they face every day seem to fall upon deaf ears.
yeah sorry typo, the biden statement was the biggest indicator
No worries, I figured from the context that that’s what you meant.
I think COVID would be a pretty damn good guess why we had the biggest turnout ever.
Not really, it’s more like Dems give 5-10% of what they promise, and everything else is robbing from the working class to further cement the established power structure. That 5-10% is normally supposed to keep a lid on open revolt, but at a time when housing prices have doubled and food costs have tripled, that’s just not enough anymore.
Yea pretty much, Rs will line their pockets in the cruelest way possible through hate and fear and won’t even bother with breadcrumbs
Ds will line their pockets, but try to make sound policies and make gradual improvements that balances corporate interests with the peoples interest.
The sound policies are “too complicated” for the average voter and the whole “gradual improvements balanced against corporations interests” piss off those on the further left (Hence the whole bLuEmAGa bullshit)
There’s no balancing. It’s the people’s interests if a corporation isn’t inconvenienced.
Removed by mod
That’s correct. This is a rather old post when Dems had power but kept getting cock blocked in Senate Trump mostly won because he said yes and stupid people ate it up, so you version is much more apt for today.
I’ve noticed this a couple of times: Any time the top handful of comments under some given post doesn’t create the consensus reality “Dems are doing everything bad on purpose, don’t vote, Democrats are your enemy,” there’s a notable little flood of comments to try to create that consensus reality. You can see quite a lot of them in these comments. I predict that there will be a continued push of vigorous participation until that reality is created in the comments, maybe by a newer comment with fewer upvotes but with the desired anti-Democrat messaging taking over the top spot as this one ages out, and then a bunch of blander replies to that top-spot comment to push everything else lower down. And then, once that’s established, the little flood of activity that created 10 comments with the “right” message in the last hour will subside, and the comments will become a trickle again, with that persistent reality created in the top few comments, and this one buried down below.
The OP comment has a point. That’s why it got a bunch of upvotes.
This comment also has a point. That’s why it also got a bunch of upvotes.
That’s an exchange of views. It is healthy. The little floods of comments with the “right” messaging which tend to continue until they take over the consensus reality are less healthy, in my opinion.
No. My point is you should vote. You should be primarying every corporate Democrat. You should also be working on a third party for the next few years.
Corporate Democrats don’t want people to vote. Pelosi doesn’t care about you or me, she gets richer off her insider trading and the GOP policies or Dem policies. All they want is to get re-elected. Until that is threatened all we’re ever going to get from them is fake concern on talk shows.
Did you think I was disagreeing with you in some way? My reply was to a different comment. I agree with pretty much everything you just said. Well, maybe reforming the voting system before trying a doomed effort to switch “the left” to a progressive third party for the next few years, under a FPTP system… but other than that, yes.
Sorry I’m just so used to people trying to characterize my views on the Democrats as “Both Sides” or “Stay Home”.
In fairness, there are quite a lot of people saying that, who have poisoned the well.
I get your frustration. I don’t even like the Democrats, and I am constantly accused of all kinds of sins against leftism, just because I keep pointing out that not voting for them, in the current political climate, will make things 10 times worse.
I’m interested to note that the top-level narrative of the first few comments has coalesced exactly as I predicted it would. If you go back and sort by “top,” you’ll see what the actual consensus is… and yet, somehow there’s an opposite consensus that things reliably coalesce into after a while, when the comments settle down.
Biden did more to help the working class than any president in my lifetime. People are too stupid or don’t pay enough attention to realize it.
This is true, but only because every President since FDR did damage to the working class. Biden was absolutely a breath of fresh air, and it’s unfortunate that neither he nor Kamala were loud enough about it.
With the campaign Kamala ran, it would surprise the hell out of me if most voters understood the good that Biden did. To average people, it makes no difference to them that inflation is back to normal when the price impacts don’t go away. It was campaign malpractice to try and sit on past accomplishments without offering new initiatives to make things better.
What Kamala offered was too little, too complicated, and too quiet. All voters heard was that she would be the same as Biden, and that CEOs and neocon warmongers love her.
To average people, it makes no difference to them that inflation is back to normal when the price impacts don’t go away.
The price impacts were never going to go away! It infuriates me that people were dumb enough to believe this! It’s not how economics works and it’s not something the government can control!!!
It’s totally irrelevant whether or not these voters understand the underlying economics. What they know is that they can’t afford to make a car payment and buy groceries anymore, and they know that the Democratic messaging is totally inadequate and out of touch. If your political strategy requires voters to understand the underlying economics realities, then you damn well better be telling them what they should know.
What IS relevant is that the public couldn’t tell Trump and the Republicans were lying to them. It’s easy to tell people what they want to hear if you never intend to follow through.
Relevant to what? Kamala is running around with neocon warmongers and trying gaslight everyone about an ongoing genocide.
Generally speaking, most lies in politics aren’t disingenuous campaign promises. Trump is a special boy, but Republicans and Democrats are both usually pretty good at actually trying to fulfill campaign promises. The actual lies are mostly gaslighting about the motivations and ultimate aims of those policies. Republicans run on tax cuts and deregulation, and that’s exactly what they do in office. Trump actually does hate black and brown people and really plans to do mass deportations and insane tariffs.
Every interview with Harris felt like a stump speech. It was all carefully parsed corporate language that said almost nothing and came across as completely disingenuous. Meanwhile, Trump went off the cuff (and arguably the rails) in every interview, and that just codes as being more genuine.
That’s the disease if Democratic political consultancy. They parse up the demographics, figure out what each group does or doesn’t want to hear, then compute the perfect path to victory. It sounds reasonable, but requires extreme message discipline to pull off. The problem is that very few politicians can pull that off without coming off as manipulative. Obama was one of the few that could pull it off. Biden came close. Kamala wasn’t even in the right ballpark.
I don’t think the Democratic candidate mattered at all. Trump is a psychopath. Any sane adult should have beaten him. Harris wasn’t any different than Biden and he beat Trump. Something else happened. Misinformation, foreign interference, and disenfranchisement lost the election.
I agree, but I also think the Democrats could have run a candidate that did matter. Harris was just another useless establishment clone.
If you’re not happy that the price of everything went up while your wages didn’t, you’re stupid as fuck and you don’t know how anything works! Vote for us, moron!
If you didn’t realize that things were worse in every other modernized nation and that US policy avoided this, then you are pretty ignorant.
Shut up and be happy that you can’t afford groceries, peasant!
It simply isn’t realistic to expect a golden pony when the economy was mostly shut down for the past year and change.
Then don’t say it’s good when it ain’t.
Sorry you’re infuriated at the realities of life.
I remember what George Carlin used to say.
“Think of how stupid the average person is. Now, half the people are stupider than that.”
biden is extremely popular among blue collar workers, he really has done a lot. As well as a number of things for veterans as well.
biden is extremely popular among blue collar workers
Harris lost every tax bracket between $25k and $100k. The administration was only popular with white collar workers and with the folks at the very bottom of the income slope, and only relative to Trump.
Centrists don’t care. Lying means they don’t have to move to the left.
Harris lost every tax bracket between $25k and $100k. The administration was only popular with white collar workers and with the folks at the very bottom of the income slope, and only relative to Trump.
oh that’s weird, i thought i was talking about biden.
Then why didn’t Blue Collar Workers vote for his Vice President?
Because she has a vagina and is exactly not an old white guy.
Plenty of women winning seats in states Harris lost.
Slotkin beat Rodgers in Michigan. Fischer beat Osborne in Nebraska. Rosyn beat Brown in Nevada. Baldwin beat Hovde in Wisconsin.
Dems seem to confuse their habit of running weak national candidates at the top of the ticket with some generic social hatred of whatever gender or ethnicity those candidates claim. The idea that Biden - who was polling in the 30s against Trump by the time the party dropped him - would have outperformed Harris because he was a white man is absurd.
https://cawp.rutgers.edu/blog/congressional-statewide-results-women-2024
Women account for roughly 25-30% of the members of the house and Congress, and that’s a record high in both cases, there’s a roughly 20% gender gap in elected officials.
They’re at roughly 30% across the board for elected positions in the U.S.
Women candidates actually almost reached gender parity for the Democrats this year, so about half of candidates were women.
Republican candidates saw a drop from last time, and fewer of them won.
Republicans don’t support women like Democrats do, Republicans won everything this year
93 Women in the house are Democrats , and that’s les sthan half the Democrats, so even in an election in a party with near-parity gender representation in their candidates who have voted in record numbers of women, there’s still a gender gap in representation, but it’s close, I’ll give them that.
The Republicans regressed, they’re no where near gender parity, no surprise there.
And at the national level, the results speak for themselves. Misogyny was absolutely a factor.
Republicans don’t support women like Democrats do
They don’t pander to younger and browner women in the same way Democrats do.
But when push comes to shove, they support Wall Street.
Misogyny was absolutely a factor.
im not fully convinced, but then again, practically everything is a factor, i would argue it’s more of a trend, rather than a cause.
If the blue conservatives pin this on sexism or racism, they get away with keeping the status quo. The status quo is killing us.
Blue states need to replace First past the post voting and give 3rd parties equal access to the electoral process. Democrats believe in democracy right?
Sadly, they do not.
Blue states need to replace First past the post voting and give 3rd parties equal access to the electoral process. Democrats believe in democracy right?
fun fact, this may put the left is a position to never win an election again, there are definitely strategic states that would benefit, and i think a more generalized movement towards something IRV would be productive, it’s a rather unfortunate predicament we’re in.
That tracks
because voters are a largely uneducated block and will “vote for the other party because this one did bad” more often than not.
Just look at the history of basically all elections ever.
edit: to be clear, by uneducated i mean, uninformed on politics, not literally uneducated.
If you say so.
i do in fact, say so.
Detroit and its entire auto manufacturing industry swinging the state red +1.4%
Lol whatever you say buddy
oh weird, are we talking the 2020 election? Or are we talking this election?
People are too stupid or don’t pay enough attention
Biden ended a bunch of CARES Act provisions that benefited working families and children. Medicaid enrollment was cut. The monthly paid out child tax cut extension was ended. Mandated Paid Sick Leave ended.
That’s what people were stupidly noticing.
Meanwhile, greedflation jacked up the prices of consumer goods straight into 2023. Biden Dems were angry when people refused to stop paying attention to prices that outpaced salaries, while the Feds twiddled their thumbs.
Medicaid enrollment was cut.
By Congress, not Biden, though the Consolidated Appropriations Act as a demand by Republicans.
The monthly paid out child tax cut extension was ended.
Again Republicans voted against the reauthorization because they didn’t want to hand Democrats a “win”.
Mandated Paid Sick Leave ended.
This was only ever intended to be temporary as it only applies when there was federal or state quarantine in effect. Democrats in the House introduced the Healthy Families Act which would guarantee all workers 7 sick days a year. The act was filibustered by Republicans in the Senate.
Democrats are not the problem here.
Democrats are not the problem here.
no amount of facts are going to sway the ‘but both SIDES BAD UNNHH’ no matter how much you try to rub the data in their stupid faces.
A plurality of morons voted directly against their own best interests or there was some gigantic, undetectable fraud. Either way, country’s fucked.
It’s true that inflation outpaced wages, but this was only for a period following Covid. And while everyone pointed out when inflation pulled away, no one seemed to notice when wages bounced back.
Tens of millions of deaths globally will inevitably cause supply chain issues, and no amount of fiscal policy will prevent that scarcity. So people have to pay more for the same value. But things also recovered under Biden to more than compensate for that deficit. Here’s the growth rate of inflation and wages over the past four years:
To people literally dying of corporate capitalism, Harris’s mantra was, “Look at these charts, people — everything’s pretty good!”
I would say it’s more like, “Things aren’t as bad as the right would have you believe, and we have actually done a lot to prevent it from being worse.” She didn’t pretend America wasn’t struggling. I remember her talking about the rising costs of groceries frequently, and she advertised the planned first time homeowner tax credit as something intended to make housing more affordable. Trump’s solution was instead deporting a lot of residents working jobs that generated a lot of value relative to their wage, and making pretty much everything more expensive with tarriffs.
Biden? Are you sure it wasn’t the fuckwit Republicans in Congress? You might want to check your sources.
It’s hilarious that you replied to a comment about people “being stupid or not paying enough attenrion” and showed everyone you are one of those people.
The Legislative branch was responsible for the criticism you aimed at Biden, and guess what? Republicans controlled the House, and in the Senate, there are 49 Republicans, 47 Democrats, and 4 Independents.
Which means the Democrats had no legislative power at all in the House, and no meaningful power in the Senate.
Do you even know who introduced the CARES Act? Joe Courtney, a Democrat.
Do you even know who introduced the CARES Act? Joe Courtney, a Democrat.
Who signed it?
And this is why we lost. People are screaming for help, and Democrats just said “you’re wrong, everything is actually fine. It’s all in your head. Biden actually did help you! You were just too uninformed to notice it.”
They are not really lying, which is especially frustrating. But it wasn’t enough by a long shot.
Telling someone that can’t get out of a bog that you moved him a centimeter into the right direction will probably earn you some insults, despite the help.
The thing is that people somehow don’t seem to realise there’s a bog monster pulling in the opposite direction. Yes, it’s a problem that they only got pulled 1 cm in the right direction. Yes, it’s well worth criticising that it could have been 10 cm if the person doing the pulling hadn’t tied a hand behind their back. But 1 cm of movement in the right direction is still far better than 2 m of movement in the wrong direction because the bog monster gained the upper hand.
And the people standing on the sidelines saying “let go of their hand and grab mine! I’ll pull you in the right direction with both hands!” are also acting in bad faith, because if they actually had an interest in doing that they’d be grabbing onto the person who’s currently doing the pulling and pulling helping them pull rather than expecting the victim to release and flounder around for their hand.
The thing is that people somehow don’t seem to realise there’s a bog monster pulling in the opposite direction.
And we need to reach across the aisle to work with the bog monster! Don’t you support bipartisanship?
People act like Democrats were just ignoring what people wanted, while Republican politicians and judges were blocking them every step of the way. Just look at how many ways Biden’s school debt relief plans were defeated.
People act like Democrats were just ignoring what people wanted, while Republican politicians and judges were blocking them every step of the way.
Joe Manchin was a Democrat when he blocked BBB. He was a Democrat when he killed the expanded child tax credit and doubled child poverty in the US overnight. Sinema was a Democrat when she delivered the thumbs down that remains the party’s last word on the minimum wage.
We saw Democrats get in their own way over and over during this administration.
Ordering us to be happy when we saw what happened is no different than ordering someone who can’t afford groceries to be happy that the economy is working great for billionaires.
Manchin wouldn’t have mattered if there weren’t dozens of Republicans voting against it too.
Republicans voted with their party.
So did Manchin.
The Republican party is the problem. Manchin is irrelevant.
Manchin did what you wanted him to and so you’re deflecting.
Just look at how many ways Biden’s school debt relief plans were defeated.
Because Biden did it in ways the judges could block. Per the Department of Education, the executive has the authority to simply delete the debt and dare the judges to create new debt out of thin air.
Because Biden did it in ways the judges could block
What options are available?
Per the Department of Education, the executive has the authority to simply delete the debt
That doesn’t seem to be the case as “The president … can forgive debts only when Congress authorizes it” [1].
The president has the power to order the Department of education to delete the debt…
It doesn’t matter if the courts later turn around and go “that was illegal”, the debt is already gone and watching them try to create it out of thin air would be a wonderful tool to destroy the political legitimacy of the right-wing courts.
The president has the power to order the Department of education to delete the debt…
any sources to back this up? stating it as fact does not make it one.
He really doesn’t have that authority and the supreme court would have shut that down even faster.
He really doesn’t have that authority
He does, per Harvard Law School
supreme court would have shut that down
There’s not much the scotus can do once it’s already been deleted.
If they order Biden to just create new records of debt, he can ignore them. Even attempting that would help create political will to marginalize the SCOTUS. Not that Biden would never pack the court, because “it would make it political”
Absolutely fucking right.
"Your doctor won’t be able to offer you prenatal care or freeze your eggs for fertility treatment!
“I can’t afford rent or eggs and you think I have a DOCTOR? You think I can afford to even think about having a kid?”
“Look at the stock market though!”
We’re still drowning, but at least he tossed us some water wings.
You’re not wrong but their messaging was shit and Kamala did not run on Biden’s wins. She ran on his losses.
Also most progressive US president is a really low bar lol.
It’s complicated. Tl;dr: they’re both true.
What has he done for the working class?
the IRA includes long term tax benefits for basically everybody, most impact-fully, people in the lower income brackets. Both the CHIPS act and infra bill have provided for a lot of jobs. He didn’t kill oil, like trump seems to pretend happened. Im sure there are a number of other things i’m missing as well. Biden was an absolute legislation machine.
Notably, the economy is doing very well right now. Granted the perception tends to lag, that’s natural.
He didn’t kill oil, like trump seems to pretend happened.
The oil lobby has always (like, back to the 1860s always) broken Republican and states that produce large quantities of oil have historically tilted Republican as a result.
Biden didn’t need to kill oil. All he needed to do was be marginally less friendly than Trump or Bush. That provoked hundreds of millions in adversarial spending and billions in dark money, focused in states with big O&G industries.
fair point, that’s probably true. Unfortunately i’m not sure how relevant it is to rhetoric in general since they’re still just lying about shit like that anyway.
From a 2 second google search: Biden’s policies that have helped the working class include the American Rescue Plan, which provided direct financial aid and extended unemployment benefits, and the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, which aims to create good-paying jobs. Additionally, efforts to strengthen unions and raise the minimum wage have also supported working-class Americans.
I blame bernie for the good stuff myself.
Biden did more to help the working class…
What’s he doing right now?
Hiding under the desk?
That desk is carrying America, sir, show more respect
in my lifetime.
So we can safely assume you’re at least 8 years old since Obama obviously did less somehow despite literally being more leftist and having an entire social health program named after him.
Obama was really not that progressive once in office.
That’s some complex math you did to orient the subject to the guy you obviously don’t like and want us to agree with you about…
Whoosh.
Imo they were all trash and have been since Carter, gold-star failures all around. I dunno, that one could play the Sax alright, but that’s about it.
They all kept pot illegal, they all kept the drug trade going with negligence, they all kept wars going or ignored the warning signs of wars to come and instigated inequality. I’m not entirely certain Biden has even said the word trans despite you all shoving it in his mouth. Fuck the lot of the trust-fund wastes of space.
Decriminalizing marijuana isn’t something that the president can do through an executive action. Unless Congress does it (which was always unlikely), it requires the Justice Department to propose rescheduling followed by acceptance from the DEA (which is part of the Judiciary). The Biden administration has worked to reschedule it to schedule 3, which would make it legally available with a prescription. The DEA hearing for this was delayed to early 2025 however. It’s also worth noting that Biden pardoned and released thousands of people from federal prison for marijuana possession around a year ago.
Expecting the US to prevent other countries from going to war would require a level of intervention that could only be called imperialism, if it would even be possible. I would argue doing so would be endorsing oppression in some cases. Peace is an important goal but the price for it can only be so high.
I feel like the Biden administration actually accomplished a lot over the last 4 years against heavy resistance but no one wants to give them any credit. I was not expecting much but have been impressed whenever I look into things.
The president appoints the head of the DoJ and DEA. Just appoint someone who says “I’ll hold the hearing and we’ll have the judgement within the hour”. Instead they appointed someone who scheduled the hearing for after they’ll have been kicked out by Trump’s guy. There is no way to read that as anything but they never intended for it to be rescheduled at all.
Expecting the US to prevent other countries from going to war would require a level of intervention
Or just not sending them the weapons they’re using to carry out that war.
The president appoints the head of the DoJ and DEA. Just appoint someone who says “I’ll hold the hearing and we’ll have the judgement within the hour”. Instead they appointed someone who scheduled the hearing for after they’ll have been kicked out by Trump’s guy. There is no way to read that as anything but they never intended for it to be rescheduled at all.
I would consider that corruption. People should be appointed based on competency, not dogmatic loyalty to the person appointing them. Sidestepping the review process would open it up to challenge and set a precedent that would allow it and other drugs to similarly be casually reassigned based on the whims of whoever is in power in the future. It’s also almost certainly illegal, since the process for reassignment was part of the laws passed from Congress. Additionally, Biden first instructed the Attorney General to re-evaluate its scheduling in 2022, so it didn’t just start now. The review process just takes a long time I guess, but it’s fair to assume it hasn’t been a priority.
Or just not sending them the weapons they’re using to carry out that war.
If you mean Gaza, that started long before Biden’s presidency, and Hamas instigated the most recent conflict. If you mean Ukraine, that also started before Biden’s presidency, but I would consider leaving the country to conquest from Russia to be abandoning a responsibility to safeguard peaceful nations’ sovereignty. I would compare it to European nations appeasing Hitler by allowing him to conquer Austria and Czechoslovakia without consequences.
People should be appointed based on competency, not dogmatic loyalty to the person appointing them
People should be appointed based on what the people elected you to do, anything else is a betrayal of the constituents. If someone voted for you because they believed you would reschedule cannabis, and you don’t get it done, that is a betrayal of your voters.
Sidestepping the review process would open it up to challenge and set a precedent that would allow it and other drugs to similarly be casually reassigned based on the whims of whoever is in power in the future
And then they will face electoral consequences.
The review process just takes a long time I guess, but it’s fair to assume it hasn’t been a priority.
The review process takes as long as the head of the DEA wants it to.
Hamas instigated the most recent conflict
Israel instigated the conflict by ethnically cleansing a million Palestinians and driving them into Gaza, and then building a wall around it and responding to peaceful protests such as the march of return by shooting doctors, women, and children.
They were only able to do this and are only able to continue to do this because of American weapons and diplomatic support.
I would compare it to European nations appeasing Hitler by allowing him to conquer Austria and Czechoslovakia without consequences
The western allies who gave up Austria and Czechoslovakia were expecting consequences; they were expecting Hitler (and Poland, who also got territory from Czechoslovakia) to invade their common enemy, the USSR.
In any case, there’s a good chance we’ll get to see the consequences under the next administration. Spoiler:
spoiler
Russia isn’t going to invade Europe.
Biden did more to help the working class than any president in my lifetime.
Here’s how strikebreaking is actually good for the working class!
You mean the strike where Biden kept working with the union and got them what they wanted?
They wanted more than Biden took credit for.
Nope. He can do whatever and inflation erases all that and then some.
Take your statistics home and use them to line your hamster cage.
Ah yes, the inflation that started because of the pandemic, worldwide, all Bidens fault. Good job, you solved inflation!
If that was the case, address it. Somehow Biden et.al., thought ignoring it was fine and the people would understand.
That turned out to be not the case.
- Smart=knowing what caused it.
- Dumb=not knowing how to react.
He did address it. Inflation has returned to pre pandemic levels. If you bothered to look into it instead of repeating bullshit “facts”, you’d know that.
The problem? Americans don’t “feel” like it is better. “But prices didn’t go down!” No shit that’s not how inflation works.
So he didn’t make people feel inflation was behind them because prices aren’t down and your answer is “no shit? That’s not how inflation works?”
Because stop me if I’m wrong, but when prices go up and salaries don’t, then that’s having a lasting impact. And if you haven’t done anything about that lasting impact, you haven’t done enough, or convinced enough.
Anybody saying no shit too bad you’re too stupid to understand this deserves what they get.
I know I"ll get downvoted for saying this, but you’re right.
Stopping inflation without getting the prices to lower or the wages to raise is like…
Say you get stabbed by a psycho-killer, I shoot the killer in the fucking head and haul away his corpse.
Then I say “I have solved your stabbing issue” and call it a day.
This doesn’t change anything about the fact that at no point did I take you to the hospital to address the fact that you are bleeding out, and now you’re crawling around on the floor praying you can get to a phone to call 911 in time for the Ambulance to save your life.
Sure the killer’s gone, but I’ve done absolutely nothing about the fact that you’ve been stabbed and if you die I would then in fact be guilty of negligent homicide.
<.< You’re literally bitching that the thing that happened didn’t happen. I don’t have the answer you’re looking for, because it’s predicated on the thing that happened having not happened.
The lifeguard can’t save your son from drowning, he already did. I don’t know how else to say this.
It’s all about communication, not facts. That’s what you refuse to acknowledge.
Wait, you’re mad you didn’t get a good raise for a few years, and that’s somehow Biden’s fault?
Dude, greedy business owners keeping as much profit for themselves happens under every president.
I think you are confused as to what POTUS does. POTUS doesn’t set or approve your payroll.
Conservatives be all “market” this and “market” that. The markets biggest influences are on costs of goods and costs of labor, and when the market does what the markets gonna do, that’s the Democrats fault? Motherfucker, do you understand the society we live in?
I’m retired, I got a huge raise from Biden. Stop personalizing this, like I’m making an emotional plea. You got it wrong. Having the “facts” all lined up doesn’t win you the election, never will.
Fight for your faults and you get to keep them.
The job when running for president is to give people a vision of your leadership that excites them. If instead you spend your time and money against your opponent without making a case for yourself, you get lost elections.
Apparently none of the facts here can stop you from just oozing your feelings. So We don’t really see the point in trying.
Didn’t stop the voters’ feelings either.
Shockingly, being told you are doing better when you’re still paying more than you can afford for food and shelter doesn’t suddenly make it true and makes you mistrust the person telling you that.
Is the economy doing better on the macro scale? Yes, but when prices have only continued to increase from their COVID levels, the working class doesn’t see the improvement. We just keep seeing corps making record profits year after year while our savings (those of us who have any) disappears before our eyes.
Disregarding the feelings of the working class like you are doing is one of many reasons Harris lost. Feelings aren’t easily swayed by facts.
I’m just hoping the same stupid smart people who don’t recognize mass communication don’t get it wrong again next election.
Conversing with y’all, I’m not feeling hopeful.
BTW, didn’t want Trump, voted for Kamala, but I still think we deserved to lose. Our campaign sucked.
Ok, so: from a perspective of someone passing by and reading your comments here, you seem, at least, in the context of this particular thread, to not know how you should be reacting to some fairly obvious facts that are being clearly presented to you 🤔
Read more.
Or don’t. If that’s what you got so far I’m not sure you’ll do any better.
Address it? like by having the fastest recovering economy compared to every other country that was impacted by the global recession? Yeah, he should probably do something about it. /s
https://www.brookings.edu/articles/the-us-recovery-from-covid-19-in-international-comparison/
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/06/us/politics/inflation-biden-economy.html
but don’t let facts get in the way
It’s like starting all over from the beginning talking to you.
Those “facts” are only good for getting ELECTED if they are effectively communicated to the everyday person. Most people DON’T read the Brookings Institution, look up Federal Reserve or Treasury pages, or even read the New York Times. You have to explain those things in layman’s terms and tell them what the benefits are to them in plain language.
You yelling at them (or me) for not being smart is not going to end up with you winning the election. You’ll have an excuse. But you’ll still lose.
Either you can find a way to appeal to the common man, or you can continue to have an excuse to lose. And you will continue to lose if you don’t change your ways.
By the way, I’ll say it again because you don’t seem to have read very far in this thread; I voted for Kamala, I didn’t want Trump to win, but I think we deserved to lose because we ran an awful campaign.
Biden’s labor report card: Historian gives ‘Union Joe’ a higher grade than any president since FDR
Intellectual says he did a great job. Everybody on the couch with a Duff beer stand and bow before the great truth!
The nice thing about reality is that it’s the same whether or not you believe it.
And the reality is that Harris lost because her messaging entirely failed to account for the pain voters are still feeling. It’s absolutely astounding that you’re not getting this.
The reality of election outcomes are entirely based on what voters believe.
Democrats are forever divided between two masters. They want to make voters happy, and they want to make their sponsors happy. The Harris campaign seemed to think they had the first part nailed down, so they spent the last month of a three month campaign super serving their donors.
Democratic consultants are notorious for running campaigns aimed at the Democratic consultant class, and they did it again. Nobody with any involvement in the Harris campaign should ever draw a salary from the Democratic party again, but Democrats just keep rewarding failure. The consultants who made a fortune running Hillary’s campaign came back and made another fortune running the Harris campaign. Harris may have lost, but they didn’t.
Harris lost because people would rather believe Trump’s comfortable lies than the uncomfortable truth. No decent, thinking person should ever vote for Trump. It’s absolutely astounding that you’re not getting this.
But I do get that. However, I’m not sure what you think we can do about it. We do have people in society that have the job of influencing voters to vote differently. We all them politicians, and they influence votes through something called an effective campaign. I know that’s a weird concept for a lot of Democrats to grasp, but you should look into it.
I’m totally on board in saying that the voting public fucked up. However, I’m looking for solutions, not just someone to blame. I do not and will not believe that the American public was just unreachable - especially when the Harris campaign had so many gaping flaws. Some of us were watching in horror as Harris sunk her campaign and trying desperately to wake someone up. It’s nice to think that voters will bypass a shitty campaign to find the relevant information themselves, but it’s hardly realistic.
The uncomfortable truth is that capitalism doesn’t provide for all. Yet biden and Harris want to gaslight the populace that everything is doing great.
No decent, thinking person should ever vote for Trump.
And about a million fewer people than last time did vote for him. Unfortunately Harris and her campaign failed in their messaging so hard that 14 million people who voted for Biden stayed home.
This should have been an easy win, but Harris chose to be pro-genocide and pro-corporate so people had to hold their nose and vote for her. Americans are sick and tired of choosing the slightly less shitty of two very shitty choices so 15 million previous voters stayed home.
Yes. As long as you recognize that the reality you just spoke of is that one guy in an ivory tower thought Biden did a good job.
But Mr ivory tower is right. What do we do now that we know everyone really is too stupid to understand that? What do we do now that a bunch of ignorant assholes prefer the lies?
Well to start with you don’t disdain them.
You treat them like people, and you find out what their needs are, what their fears are. And you address those. Not like Trump did. Not fanning the flames of their worst emotions. But leading them. Like Obama did. Like Kennedy did. Inspiring them that you can change their lives for the better.
When someone’s worried that they’re not able to feed the children and you’re talking about climate change, you sound incredibly out of touch. When people are working two jobs and still can’t pay the light bill, and you’re talking about trans rights, you sound incredibly out of touch.
People don’t hate addressing climate change. People don’t hate trans people’s rights. What they hate is being ignored for those things. And Trump pointed them at that and made them mad.
Democrats are not selling themselves as the party of the poor or the middle class. They are selling themselves as the party of the fringe and the universities - and the poor and middle class feel betrayed.
If you’re suffering, it’s because you’re stupid. Vote for us!
you’re not even using the meme right
Tweeted by someone that voted against ranked choice voting lol
Removed by mod
No, it was definitely voted down in my state
Removed by mod
It was on the ballot in well over 10% of jurisdictions, this past year. People voted it down.
DC just voted it in so give us our damn representatives already you colonizers
Removed by mod
Removed by mod
Was a comment actually “Removed by mod”? I don’t see any record of that:
https://sh.itjust.works/modlog?commentId=15254569
https://sh.itjust.works/modlog/255265?page=1&actionType=All&userId=16128360
I’m the only mod here, and didn’t remove anything. @[email protected] has been banned by an admin, and when that happens Lemmy’s software (incorrectly) says “Removed by mod.”
I suppose this was because of a ban, which I don’t see from the “modlog” page for the community or the post: https://lemm.ee/modlog?page=1&actionType=All&userId=17647322
The original comment was something like “Nobody voted against ranked choice voting”.
Republicans: Pull yourself up by the bootstraps, kill all social programs, raise taxes on the 99%, kill public infrastructure, and lastly go fuck yourself (Republican voter base proceeds to cheer)
Democrats: Uhhhhh… Tax cuts for small buisnesses anyone? Oh wait the republicans are calling us communist for doing that. Well if we just compromise with them and allow sooome fascism we’ll be able to get some of our agenda across as well. (Leftists proceed to boo the Dems for being Fascism Lite™)
can i get an example of the “some” fascism?
Examples of Fascism:
- Funding "Israel"s genocidal “war”
- Funding dictators (ex: Saudi Arabia, Jordan, etc)
- Tax breaks for the wealthy in exchange for favors
- Compromising on the civil liberties of minorities
- Allowing states to establish Fascism
- Normalizing Fascist positions (ex: border, security, defense, etc)
- Actively fighting actural Leftists because they make the capitalist class feel uncomfortable
Allowing states to establish Fascism
puzzle me this one, mr philosopher, how do you end fascism, without more fascism?
By your logic the US banning slavery was authoritarian
i mean, that wouldn’t be authoritarian, if it had popular sentiment, and was cast into law by popular sentiment more broadly. And yknow, also went through the congress, and the executive, and most of the rest of the federal government. But nope we don’t know how the US federal government works here so we pretend like it works otherwise.
authoritarianism is a specific brand of dictatorship.
Giving support to Israel is one example that some people would likely provide. I would like to see as few war crimes as possible, and I’m not certain that Israel isn’t committing any (to put things very lightly).
israeli support is definitely one of them, but then again it’s the middle east. They don’t seem to like peaceful resolution to problems in general.
war crimes are definitely bad, but when you launch in invasion plan into a country by starting off with a little bit of terrorism, i feel like it’s pretty safe to say most bets are off the table by that point unfortunately.
ICE internment camps
You need to give examples that aren’t fascist.
well then we’re going into a very bad position for you my friend.
I bring you, voting.
Voting for only 2 people that are both owned by corporations lol, yikes
who else are you going to vote for bro. Some dude with no political experience lmao
To be fair, some people might say “Yes, I voted for Donald J. Trump”.
Trump actually had some political experience before 2015 though: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_career_of_Donald_Trump#1988_presidential_election
unfortunately those people would be wrong lol.
Also i wouldn’t consider campaigning to be political experience, i consider holding an office position to be actual experience.
Bipartisan war in drugs/police state
I guess the George floydd protests didn’t go far enough to get that change Obama promised.
i dont see how war on drugs/police existing are fascism.
Unless you mean to tell me there is a US state where the police run the government.
unsure what change we’re talking about with obama, but to be clear, the floyd protests were some of the largest and most significant protests in the history of the US. Although with a rather shitty mantra, so that didn’t help much.
Cheap #bothSides nonsense.
You mean
GqP: lol no plebe
Dems: if we can get the ability, that’s our goal. Aw fuck we’ve been cockblocked by the senate again. Sorry.
It doesn’t seem weird to you that there’s always some reason a Democrat prevents Democrats from accomplishing things when they have a majority? It’s been like two decades of this, bud. There’s always some reason for them not to fix anything.
I’ll vote Democrat every time because, although they barely do anything, at least they won’t actively make things worse. That choice fucking sucks though, so quit acting like Democrats aren’t trash. They are trash and the only reason to vote for them is because the other side is taking policy advice from literal Nazis.
I’ll vote Democrat every time because, although they barely do anything, at least they won’t actively make things worse. That choice fucking sucks though, so quit acting like Democrats aren’t trash. They are trash
Have you considered, y’know, participating in the party? It’s pretty easy to do. Or is it just like, “Feh. Muh. Bleh.” Which I totally understand. Things is complicated.
Have you considered, y’know, participating in the party?
Yes, just like the over 100,000 protest votes in Michigan during the primaries to protest the Palestinian genocide.
The DNC gave Michigan Muslims/Arabs the middle finger and said “We don’t need your votes, and we’re not changing course on Palestine.”
The DNC threw trans people under the bus literally the day after they lost the election, and continue to tell us that the reason the DNC lost is because they were too woke.
In 2016, we tried to get Bernie to be our candidate, and Clinton and the DNC did everything in their power to ensure that wouldn’t happen, because the DNC knows best. 🙄
Same in 2020, they had Bloomberg and Warren siphon votes off Bernie to split the progressive vote and seal the nomination for Centrist-Joe, who had to borrow policies from Bernie’s campaign to be popular enough to beat Trump. And then spent four years not enacting any of those policies.
Like, I’m so tired of hearing how it’s our fault, the voter’s fault, for the DNC being a shitty party. Hundreds of thousands of people protest voted during this primary, and the DNC ignored their voices, and now you’re condescendingly making a comment about people not being more involved with the party?
What a load of horse shit. The voters don’t need to engage with the party, the party needs to engage with voters, and since they raised over a billion dollars and spent a majority of it on Clinton’s 2016 political consultants… I’d say they have the resources to get off their fat asses, leave their liberal white porcelain towers, and come fucking talk to their constituents for once and figure out why they don’t represent us.
Oh, I forgot, because they’re too busy raising campaign money instead of changing campaign finance laws, and they’re too busy rubbing elbows with their colleagues across the aisle instead of getting things done, OH, or they’re on one of their numerous multi-week vacations at one of their second/third/fourth residential homes while their constituents are guaranteed no vacation time period. God, it must be so hard relating to a populace you literally share nothing in common with, why won’t the filthy poors just realize they’re inferior to these liberal elite who know best for them.
Or are we supposed to go participate as a PAC, should we all just be billionaires, since they’re the only ones the DNC will listen to?
“Participate,” what a joke.
“Participate,” what a joke.
I was actually asking the other guy. But uh, nice, uh . . rant.
I was actually asking the other guy.
Cool story, but I was talking to you.
But uh, nice, uh . . rant.
Says the troll out for his daily round of trolling, the legitimate only thing the sad troll can contribute to their sad, trolling existence.
You’re fun.
Still waiting for you to enlighten all of us about how to properly participate with the DNC, troll?
We’re waiting, c’mon Troll Genius, all of us morons need you to enlighten us, how do we participate with the DNC?
Well?
The members of my county Democratic party are insufferable.
They push the sane one out. Its by design.
If you don’t like things as they are, just singlehandedly change the party! Now the party is still shit like I want, but it’s your fault!
Then weren’t. They had a trifecta for 2 years and it became obvious that they were unwilling to actually fight. They gave up at literally the first sign of resistance. And they haven’t put forward anything that would actually change the system. Just a pay raise.
Then weren’t. They had a trifecta for 2 years and it became obvious that they were unwilling to actually fight.
You mean the term where the Dems passed the largest healthcare in 40 years with the passing of the ACA (Obamacare)? How is that not an achievement?
It was literally mitt Romneys Healthcare plan from Massachusetts. They didn’t even get a public option. It was the bare minimum because dems didnt want to mess with the insurance companies that line there pockets.
It was literally mitt Romneys Healthcare plan from Massachusetts.
I don’t care who gets the credit for the original model. Most Americans had FAR less healthcare options before the ACA.
They didn’t even get a public option. It was the bare minimum because dems didnt want to mess with the insurance companies that line there pockets.
You’re complaining about how it could be better. Do you not remember what life was like BEFORE the ACA?
- Being denied for a preexisting condition?
- Basic wellness care like mammograms not covered?
- Swiss cheese independent coverage chocked full of “gotcha” exclusions?
Could it be better? Sure. Was it so much better than the NOTHING we had before? Absolutely!
bud, that was 16 years ago and the situation has only worsened. maybe its time to stop trotting it out as some grand thing the democrats did and focus on what they’re doing today? which is essentially nothing.
and focus on what they’re doing today?
You mean like the recovery of the country from COVID with the American Rescue Plan Act, or Inflation Reduction Act, the CHIPs act, Student loan forgiveness? How about repeal of the homophobic “Defense of Marriage Act”? Maybe the Honoring our PACT Act which finally recognized the conditions we put our troops in and covering their health needs resulting from that exposure? Those kind of things?
Wow! and americans day to day finances havent improved at all! Imagine doing all that and still having people struggling… I wonder…
Lets go down the list shall we?
CHIPs act: surprise a bipartisan corporate give away.
American Rescue Plan Act: corporate give away mixed with one time stimulus for americans.
Inflation Reduction Act: I actually liked this bill mostly too bad it does nothing for the majority of americans w/ respect to inflation and cost of living.
Student loan forgiveness: oh you mean the thing biden has slow walked, only managing to clear 9% in 4 years, and is the direct architect of causing? oh you mean the man who also resumed payments for them despite record inflation?
Defense of Marriage Act: yup wonderful, good job dems! the only thing that doesn’t negatively impact your corporate donors you got done!
Honoring our PACT Act: Oh you mean health care in america is fucking horrible? color me surprised, yet another excuse to not actually fix our health care system.seriously man. think about these things before you post them. I’m not opposed to many of these bills but NONE of them improve the general well being of the american worker or their families.
Do people still need to worry about their health coverage if they lose their jobs? Yes? oh.
Do people still need to work multiple jobs to make ends meet in many areas? Yes? oh.
Do people still have no protections for medical, family, vacation? Yes? oh.
Do people still have to go into massive debt for an education? Yes? oh.
Do sexual orientations still have no protections within the workplace? yes? oh.Until the democrats begin addressing these issues for working americans they won’t have the support of myself or individuals like me. Don’t even get me fucking started on the widespread genocidal support, moral bankruptcy, and graft within the party.
How is that not an achievement?
Because the Dems let the GOP gut it to get it to pass. The ACA as it is now, and as it was passed back then, was not what we were promised, and we still haven’t gotten the ACA we were promised.
In fact, Harris dropped support for M4A and didn’t campaign on it, so is that an achievement too? The Dems giving up the fight before it even started? Like they did during this administration, literally bending over any time the GOP put up any kind of resistance to any of the Dems legislation?
The Dems let the Dems gut it. There wasn’t a Republican that supported it. The massive partisan wall that created is a huge reason why things are so fucked now.
The Dems let the Dems gut it.
I don’t disagree. The original had more stuff in it that I liked.
There wasn’t a Republican that supported it.
True. The GOP rejected it for many stupid reasons.
The massive partisan wall that created is a huge reason why things are so fucked now.
This statement confuses me. Are you suggesting the Dems should have let the GOP gut it MORE? Are you suggesting the Dems should have dropped the legislation altogether to “keep the peace”? What are you saying the Dems could have done so “things are so fucked now”?
Yes the Dems should have got some gop votes. It may have made the bill slightly worse, but not by much. In return the Democrats would have had far more negotiating power with there own members if there were a couple of the more purple Republicans that they could count on instead. It also would have prevented the bill from being a great campaign piece for Republicans, and it might not have resulted in one of the largest midterm swings ever.
Getting 95% of the ACA and a Congress that wasn’t deadlocked for the next 6 years would have been much better overall. A split government that functioned more like under Clinton or Bush would have been much better than what ended up happening. The decision to stonewall when they had power unsurprisingly backfired.
uhhhh, literally the bill was designed and discussed with the GOP they just refused to support it after they basically got it watered down. then there was the ol’ whats his face dem that refused to vote for it without removing the public option.
Yes the Dems should have got some gop votes. It may have made the bill slightly worse, but not by much.
…and…
Getting 95% of the ACA and a Congress that wasn’t deadlocked for the next 6 years would have been much better overall.
The GOP were looking to deny any Obama passage of positive legislation. Are you not remembering “make him a one term President” message from the GOP?
There was ZERO amount of cooperate the GOP were willing to have on any bill that would give Obama a healthcare win.
A split government that functioned more like under Clinton or Bush would have been much better than what ended up happening. The decision to stonewall when they had power unsurprisingly backfired.
“make him a one term President”
Because the Dems let the GOP gut it to get it to pass. The ACA as it is now, and as it was passed back then, was not what we were promised, and we still haven’t gotten the ACA we were promised.
Perfect is the enemy of good.
What Obama signed with the ACA was far better than the situation before it.
Right, must be why I don’t have health insurance via the ACA because it’s unaffordable.
I make too much to qualify for actual help, but not enough to actually afford their awful health insurance plans with deductibles that negate the entire point of insurance to begin with.
And it’s all about to be undone anyway, so let’s keep singing the praises of the Democrat’s least-failure in the last decade.
Perfect is the enemy of good.
Which must be why the DNC has adopted “Progress is the enemy of our money.”
Right, must be why I don’t have health insurance via the ACA because it’s unaffordable. I make too much to qualify for actual help, but not enough to actually afford their awful health insurance plans with deductibles that negate the entire point of insurance to begin with.
Are you possibly living in a state where your GOP leadership refused to extend Medicaid which was part of the ACA? If so, you can’t complain about what the ACA doesn’t do for you if your state chose not to use it.
I live in a blue state in the Northeast, we went to Harris, and we’ve had a Democratic governor since at least the mid-2000s.
So am I allowed to complain?
No, this happens in states like MA/NY/Cali too.
I’m so thankful my premiums doubled, now someone with a preexisting condition can pay $500 a month for a 50k deductible! So much hope and change!
I don’t think drumpf has killed a citizen without due process yet, but when he does he can thank Obama for paving the way.
Obama fucking sucked, but he was a charismatic media darling and liberals ate that shit up just like the cons do with drumpf.
I’m so thankful my premiums doubled,
Are you a guy? If so you many not know that men like us were paying FAR LESS for healthcare than women of our exact same age. I learned this when my woman co-worker (same age) and I were comparing pay stubs many years ago (and many years prior to the ACA). As a young 20 year old man I was paying $30/paycheck. She was paying $124/paycheck simply because she was a woman.
This is one of the things the ACA fixed, and I agree with it. Men pay the same as women under the ACA.
Another thing that the ACA fixed was “swiss cheese” insurance. Insurance policies were filled with tons of tiny exclusions where you would be paying for premiums for months or years and when you finally needed it for something big, they’d point out fine print and you’d have no coverage. The ACA stopped that and made all insurance plans have a basic level of coverage they couldn’t weasel out of. So you may have been paying cheap premiums before for insurance that would give you the finger when you needed it. The ACA fixed this. You’re paying now for coverage that actually covers what it says.
now someone with a preexisting condition can pay $500 a month for a 50k deductible! So much hope and change!
I don’t know how much you know about chronic health problems that were previously called “pre-existing conditions”. $500 a month for a 50k deductible would a godsend for many prior to the ACA. Treatment can cost literally millions of dollars, and if $50k covers that, its amazing.
You may not have a condition that needs this today, but you may in the future. You’d be thankful you would be covered by the ACA rules.
Obama had a 60 seat supermajority in the Senate.
It’s not a lack of ability. It’s a lack of will.
That 60 seat majority included Joe “totally a real Democrat” Manchin and a deceased Ted Kennedy, and they still passed the Affordable Care Act which was very much a “big fucking deal.”
The ACA was a national version of the Heritage foundation’s for profit friendly Healthcare bandaid that bent over backward to keep for profit insurer’s cut in and was initially instituted by a Republican governor. It didn’t even put us in the right direction, because the right direction is ending the role of private insurer middlemen in Healthcare, which is yet another national disease we suffer. It insured more people at the cost of expanding the profit base of the market capitalists, the enemies of almost everyone else whether they love that enemy or not.
The Democrats have never done what needs to be done, take some of the profit from the oligarchs that profit off society and only succeeded with societal infrastructure they don’t want to pay for, and give it to society through the commons.
Until a party starts addressing the greedy profiteer elephant in the room, nothing can improve, so nothing will improve until this gold plated cesspool collapses, almost certainly by the impacts of capitalist made climate change.
This system is comically too far captured by the capital market to have any reasonable hope for rehabilitation. It has protections upon protections, both through effective propaganda cannels and then force, to prevent any economic rehabilitation that doesn’t hand even more GDP to the 0.1% at everyone else’s expense.
The Affordable Care Act fell far short of being what we really needed, where millions still suffer with unaffordable premiums and worthless coverage. What we need is universal healthcare.
Joe Manchin wasn’t a god. They could have dealt with him if the political will existed, just like they could have dealt with Joe Lieberman back in 2009. Mobilize the people against him, Go after his financial supporters, go after his friends and family, make his life a living hell for defying the will of the Party and the People.
But Democrats will never do something like that
Or they could have bought a single Republican…
That probably wouldn’t work. They’d be outbid.
But you know what? Raising hell against Republicans is possible too - it’s possible to organize against them no matter which party they’re in. Go after them in their districts, go after their financial backers, go after the special interests that support them, go after the people that vote Republican, friends and family, I don’t fucking care, whatever it takes. Make them suffer our political wrath and they’ll fall in line.
If someone’s using it as an argument “Here’s why we need to get involved in political activism and improve the Democratic party,” then it makes perfect sense. Biden did good, but the Democrats are far from what we need.
If someone’s using it as an argument “Why not just abandon the idea of influencing politics at all, even if that means letting the Republicans have a turn smashing up the country we all live in to sell it as scrap for them and their friends while killing anyone who disagrees, because what’s the worst that could happen, Dems suck anyway lol,” they are either trying to help the Republicans or they’ve been fooled by the people who are trying to help the Republicans. They will, in the next few years, be able to have a terrifying and tragic object lesson in what the worst that could happen is.
Republicans: Yes (by eating 50% of you)
Thanos: Perfectly balanced, as all things should be
Don’t worry, Democrats have been doing everything they can to drop minorities after this election
I got the sense they were targeting trans people now, I feel like after undocumented immigrants they’re next.
Yeah first they went for the Latino population
Then the Afro-Americans
I guess it’s true what they say about liberals would rather side with the far-right than let the left take power. But Democrats are doing this in a veeeerrrrryyyy weird way by throwing the working class, lgbt and ethnic minorities under the bus.
throwing the working class, lgbt and ethnic minorities under the bus
Who do you think the left represents?
Those groups of people, among others. But the democrats are a right wing party. Sure, left of republicans, but still right wing.
So that’s precisely who you’d expect the dems to throw under the bus.
Republicans: No.
Democrats: “We would, but preserving the filibuster is more important”
deleted by creator
So this
But but Biden gave 11 billion dollars to Intel!
Tired of this narrative. Biden showed historic union support.
Lmao the bar is so low when you consider “first president to walk a picket line” to be historic union support. Was that before or after he broke the railroad strike?
He gave the rail workers everything they were striking for.
He didn’t make nearly as much noise about it which was a massive mistake which is why people like you keep not knowing about it.
He also promptly backstabbed them
Name one thing the US Government has done in your lifetime that you support.
One.
ACA.
But it could have been better. Like ALL things done, they are never perfect, they are never everything I want because I’m not the only person in the country, but if it moves the needle in the right direction I support it.
And the ACA was a compromise with Republicans. A lot was stripped out by Republican demand, and yet it was still such a massive improvement from the previous system.
the ACA was a compromise with Republicans
That’s the best part; none of the republicans voted for it and they immediately pledged to destroy it.
It’s a subsidy for health insurers that’s needlessly complicated and still makes healthcare inordinately expensive for most Americans, and required exactly as much buy-in from republicans as free healthcare would have: absolutely none.
Democrats had a supermajority and a massive mandate from the people, and chose to do what they thought the republicans would like. And then scratched their head when they got blown the fuck out in 2010.
. . . that the Democrats brought.
NOAA, NASA, USGS.
The United States Geological Survey (USGS), founded as the Geological Survey, is an agency of the U.S. Department of the Interior whose work spans the disciplines of biology, geography, geology, and hydrology. The agency was founded on March 3, 1879, to study the landscape of the United States, its natural resources, and the natural hazards that threaten it.
You’re either 145 or full of shit ;). Also while important initiatives hardly anyone gives a shit about them. They’re things you do when base needs are met and base needs are not being met.
While it IS true that you and I are both full of shit, and it is also true that I’m not 145 it is no less true that the USGS does a tonne of important survey work that makes so many other endeavors possible. It’s the sort of thing that governments should do. The ‘name one thing’ question implies that there is nothing that government does or has done that is of value. Which, to employ your terminology is even more full of shit.
That’s a long way to say you didn’t actually read what you were replying to, let me help by refocusing you on the point that individual was making:
Name one thing the US Government has done in your lifetime that you support.
You’ll note that the things you listed are probably not in your life time. 1970 would put you at a minimum of 54 meaning a 32% chance. Not that I particular care about your age. Just refocusing you on the actual spirit and letter of the statement. And the fact that 1970 being your most recent example should be what concerns you even more.
You’ll also note I agreed with you that they were important. just not as important as ensuring the quality of life of the average american which has declined economically far too much in the last 6 decades.
You’re so adorable when you get snarky. I see you don’t want something during my lifetime, but rather something recent. If you were better at understanding your own thoughts, I bet you’d be better at communicating them.
its cute to watch you try to defend your choices as being even remotely relevant. maybe if you were better at reading comprehension you wouldn’t be in this mess.
Have you ever noticed that your phrasing impacts other people’s response to you? Let’s try this, since we’ve already tried snarky, and it isn’t really working all that well, so let’s try something else. Here, I’ll try first: I appreciate that you want to engage in meaningful conversation. And I’ll throw in another, just for fun: You are right that I named federal government agencies, not actions taken by the US government. Tho’ I do have to point out that these agencies do things, and have done things, yes even during my lifetime, and perhaps even yours. Even recently.
NOAA was created by an executive order in 1970 and has never been established in law, despite its critical role.
Huh!
I don’t believe you are interested in a fair discussion.
Okay?
PACT Act.
The legislative push got a significant boost when Biden, who has said he believes his son Beau’s fatal brain cancer was caused by burn pit exposure, endorsed it at a State of the Union address, giving it the momentum needed to become law.
Democrats again
ug I really wouldn’t bring PACT up. just points out the massive issues with our health care system. its the type of legislation that never should need to be done in the first place. its highly specialized and is caused by the absolute wide spread disfunction they’ve caused health care to be.
Tremendous concision!
Shame no one will understand
