Unironically yes. Democrats are no saints, but republicans are just straight up evil, and actively attempting to dismantle what little democracy we have.
Can you please explain your comment further? What do you mean by “fair”. Can you provide examples of how the GOP was trying to make elections “fair”, and contrast with what the democrats are attempting to do?
Except - Trump owns the courts thanks to Bitch McConnell and his justice stealing, and the Republicans don’t give a shit about the rule of law anyway.
What are a bunch of lawyers going to do in the face of a crowd of well armed republicans determined to fight to put Trump in the presidency? Jan 6 was a shitshow and they were lucky it was disorganized.
True, but if we expanded our scope to all the space dust in the cubic light-year the sun occupies the center of, we will have enough material to build between 10-29 solar systems, complete with their own stars, so that’s probably enough material.
But we could build a Ringworld, and then we can spin it for gravity, add shadow squares for a day-night cycle, and not have to rely on artificial gravity generators to prevent us from falling into the sun!
Depends how you do it, if its just a thin reflective foil focusing light on a few collectors then we could probably do it inside a century on just the worlds current production capacity. (baring actually getting all the foil there and engineering collectors and so on, just talking making the foil itself here)
People said we couldn’t vote for Sanders because Floridians wouldn’t vote for a socialist. Biden lost Florida by a wide margin, because Trump painted him as a socialist.
Can we go further than that? I think we should try to convince him to build his own gaudy brass-plated mech, then laugh at him when he shuffles up a slow ramp to get inside the thing and it malfunctions in the process. Then he’ll try to convince Elon to buy it in order to afford his next appeal.
They say Biden is building a mech, that’s what he’s doing folks. Your tax money, his mech. I’ll tell you I know a lot about mechs we could build a beautiful mech but no. It needs to be gas. Biden wants nuclear I want gas, we’ll get gas back in America that’s your jobs in honduras
Now, listen, I don’t… because, folks, have you heard, I don’t know if you’d, maybe you hadn’t heard this one. But people are saying, good people, saying he’s building a robot. You know, like King Kong, a real… it’s yuuge, folks, really big. And it’s coming out of your tax dollars. Now I don’t know if… because when I was telling Valerie about this, because it’s really gotten to the point, you know, you walk down the street and they’ve got his face just posted up everywhere, Obama’s… sad. Very sad, folks, and it’s just the beginning, won’t be long before they’re breaking out the prayer mats in elementary schools, folks, and I could have told you that fifteen years ago, that we’d get to this point, and now they have this giant robot… well, maybe we’ll have to get one for me, right folks? Only we’ll make it run on coal, folks, clean burning coal, get some good hardworking Americans to keep their jobs, and we can have it up at the border - boy, that’ll keep them back in their country, folks, and they can keep lying and stealing and raping over there, keep it outta the States. I said we should get a giant robot, I told John Kelly - crooked John Kelly, he’s just no good, and Hilary and Obama and they’re just, they’re out to get me and you gotta put a stop to it.
We could have just ran a popular candidate that helped people for four years instead of spending that time what to do about the unpopular candidate not being able to decisively beat the worst president in the history of America.
A random empty suit off the street would easily beat trump.
Biden took the biggest action on climate change in US history; the goal of the climate bill is to put us on track for a 40% reduction in US emissions by 2030. It’s way too late but that’s clearly not Biden’s fault since he started fighting for it basically as soon as he got into office, and managed to achieve passed legislation which is several standard deviations above the norm for “let’s ignore it until we’re underwater and on fire” US politician status quo.
Biden ordered the forgiveness of half a trillion dollars in student debt, about a third of the current total balance, and the Supreme Court told him no. He’s still managed to forgive $144 billion worth of it even against stiff Republican “no we need that money to give to Wall Street criminals pls” resistance.
Biden introduced a bill to legalize marijuana federally, which the Republicans killed in the senate.
Biden achieved the lowest unemployment in 20 years after having been handed an economy that was still digging out from the apocalypse that was 2020.
Wages at the bottom end of the economy have actually been growing, outpacing inflation, every single year that he's been president. The top 10% of wage earners actually have lost some ground, it's true -- that probably makes "wages are growing" not feel true to most Lemmy users, because for tech workers, they're shrinking. But the majority of US wage earners have been making more and more year by year. $15/hr is the new unofficial minimum wage in a lot of sectors. That's not enough, but it's sure as shit better than when he came in and unemployment was 6% and a lot of people and businesses were still dependent on Covid-aid stimulus payments.
So Biden should never lose not just one election ever again, 4 times over, right? Literally just this week he gave out another 6 billion dollars in student loan relief.
(Him being unpopular as parent comment said, I'll kind of agree with, but that's because our news media doesn't bother to make any of the above clear to anybody or consider it as relevant to talk about as "BIDEN'S DOG FARTED it smelled really bad does this mean he's in trouble in the election? Find out more")
Biden took the biggest action on climate change in US history; the goal of the climate bill is to put us on track for a 40% reduction in US emissions by 2030
Mostly by corporate subsidies for things they were either already doing or wanting to do.
Simply removing government subsidies from oil would be very nearly sufficient to that end, too. But instead Biden’s admin has released the most oil from the national reserve than all other presidents combine; he -personally- approved the willow project permits; when everyone expected it to be dead (despite promising no new drilling on public lands,); and oil production in the highest it’s ever been.
Biden ordered the forgiveness of half a trillion dollars in student debt
The vast majority of which should have been forgiven decades ago, and wasn’t because of scammy loan services. Who are still being scammy loan servicers.
Biden introduced a bill to legalize marijuana federally, which the Republicans killed in the senate.
A bill that was going to go no where, and he’s dawdled on legalization/reschedualing since. The only real action is pardoning nonviolent weed charges. Which is good for those affected, but not nearly as impactful as you might think (most drug convictions are state charges.)
Biden achieved the lowest unemployment in 20 years after having been handed an economy that was still digging out from the apocalypse that was 2020.
Unemployment only measures those who don’t have jobs but want them. A lot of people that left after Covid never came back- they fully retired.
Also most jobs that came back are current either about to be massively laid off (tech,) or were very low paid service industry.
Wages at the bottom end of the economy have actually been growing, outpacing inflation,
This is a lie. Wage growth cs inflation is still net down, even if you only restrict it to Biden’s time in office. Compared to since I’ve been working? lol you don’t want to know that statistic.
Mostly by corporate subsidies for things they were either already doing or wanting to do.
This statement is, as far as I can tell, simply made up. Here's a quantitative comparison of what they were already doing or wanting to do, versus the plan after the climate bill.
Simply removing government subsidies from oil would be very nearly sufficient to that end, too.
Good luck with that. Pop quiz: Which industry gives a fuck of a lot of money to congress? Follow-up question, in order for something that's a good idea to become law, does it have to (a) go through congress or (b) nothing further, being president means you get everything you want with no other branch of government involved?
It's common knowledge that the climate bill is not nearly enough action. But, it's also clear to me looking at it that (a) it was extremely impressive to be able to get that amount of climate improvement through the current US government to become law, and (b) giving Biden shit for it because the rest of government blocked him from doing more, seems almost guaranteed to weaken his ability (or anyone else's) to do more with a second term.
This whole mythology that "well we have to give Biden a hard time over the climate, because he's already attempting to do a lot but more action is needed, and if Trump wins and reverses every small bit of progress anyone's been able to make then that's just the price of environmental success" is, to me, not very sensible. It's like shooting allied soldiers to help win World War 2. It's like not bringing a parachute because you're really really sure you don't want your plane to crash. It doesn't make any fucking sense.
he -personally- approved the willow project permits
To me, "does he care about the climate?" boils down to, what has he done for the climate, and the best way to measure that is with the emissions impacts of his actions.
Doing more and blocking more development projects on top of that sounds like a great idea, yes.
The vast majority of which should have been forgiven decades ago, and wasn’t because of scammy loan services.
Glad we're in agreement that it's good to have an American president who's finally doing good things instead of just neoliberal horror! Yes, it's nice. I would like to see more of these things happen.
To me, “does he care about the climate?” boils down to, what has he done for the climate, and the best way to measure that is with the emissions impacts of his actions.
You mean like releasing more oil from the reserve than every other president combined?
His actions are clearly not for climate advocacy, but rather using American tax dollars to enhance profits of his largest donors.
As for the school loans, the point there is a central accusation: he doesn’t do enough. He does just enough to mollify you while with the other hand funneling money into corporations.
He does just enough to mollify you while with the other hand funneling money into corporations.
As with a lot of things you're saying, this one seems to be simply made up. The reality is actually the complete opposite -- Biden is spending literally trillions of dollars on things like the climate bill and student loan forgiveness, and funding it by raising taxes on corporations. His budget for 2025 is set to do more of the same. By way of example, Amazon went from having a $1.2 billion tax credit to now paying $3 billion per quarter after Biden's 2022 corporate tax reforms.
It is interesting, you accuse me of arguing in bad faith.
Yet do nothing about blatant insults, blatantly bad faith accusations- and indeed engage them here. (how else am I to interpret the threat of AI mod tools?)
Further you mention your mod status, to what end? Chill the conversation?
And mentioning “AI Tools”/ presumably programmed by you or somebody in such a manner as to confirm your own bias.
I disagree with you. I think Biden is beholden to his corporate donors.
However, I hold nothing but contempt to those who engage in such forms of “persuasion”, and especially those who also hold authority.
I am acting in bad faith? Get a mirror. How else am I suppose to take that comment? Or any one else here?
As for his track record on student loans… student loans are themselves part of the problem. They’re subsidizing the very problem. while private colleges/universitoes jack the cost of tuitions and public 4 year universities to follow behind.
If you think the trillions being funneled into student debt are actually a solution and not part of the very problem, think again. Schools- particularly private universities- have zero reason to address the core problem; they got paid their unaffordably high tuition. The loan servicers have no reason to address the problems- they too are getting paid.
Meanwhile, they failed to have loans forgiven- frequently by fraudulent means- yet they’re not being reprimanded (never mind facing a criminal investigation,).
As long as the loan forgiveness exists. As long as easy-to-get loans are available, schools will continue to raise costs.
You might say “oh, but they sued to stop it”, and yes. They did. They sued because of the difference between Making a lot of money, and making even more money. (And republicans sued because they’re republicans.)
Student loan forgiveness doesn’t solve the core problem- in fact, it justifies the core problem. (That is, greedy private schools jacking rates because they can.).
Was it necessary and appropriate for Biden to act? Yes. Absolutely. But it’s far from a solution. It’s like slapping a tourniquet on an arterial laceration - yes you have to stop the bleeding; but you can’t just leave the tourniquet on there. You have to go to the emergency room and deal with the giant cut before the lack of blood flow cause the limb to be lost.
Same goes with the EV subsidies mentioned by another user. Did they really make EVs affordable, or were they unaffordable in the full knowledge those subsidies exist? (EV subsidies have existed off and on for quite a while now.)
As for the tax rate on Amazon… last year they reported just shy of 150 billion in profit. They’re a company valued at 2+ trillion dollars. The way you’re trimming it makes the 36 billion seem large. It’s literally pocket change, and they benefit greatly from the infrastructure spending and significant other government spending.
Also, to address another point- as far as policy is concerned he has a very long history in government; he’s a very large figure in how we got here in the first place. He’s been in federal office for longer than I’ve been alive. The only reason he now gives a damn about climate is because his base demands it of him.
Same goes for Gaza. He’s a self-avowed Zionist. The only reason he’s now critical of what Israel is doing is it’s untenable to not be critical, and I don’t even know wtf he’s doing on immigration and border security.
Accusations of expecting him to manage things that are the jobs of congress is idiotic when he also takes credit for things like the Infrastructure act. He wants to take credit for their the good parts he can take credit for the bad, too, or for defending things that are literally his DoJ’s job to defend.
I can’t think of a single area where he’s not done a half-assed job. Don’t get any of this wrong, Trump would be worse in every aspect. Biden, however isn’t the guy that’s going to save us.
Edit:
I’ve given you a little constructive criticism on your overall debate strategy in one of the other threads,
That links to a reply to somebody else… if that advice was meant to me… I missed it. But this reply should address why I don’t think “his record is amazing” on school debt forgiveness. Federal school loans is a very large part of why tution has ballooned as much as it has. Forgiving school loans that should have been forgiven decades ago- including when he was Obamma’s VP, and including when he was a Senator- per the contractual agreement in the loan… is the bare minimum of effort. the only people made whole here are the crooks.
I am not a mod here; I think you have me confused with someone else. Have I given you the impression that I'm unable to argue for myself without resorting to asserting some sort of authority? I actually think this kind of disagreement is good for the discourse; I just think it would also be good to have a separate place that wasn't subject to shouty bad faith people clogging up the comments in quite so high a number.
It’s like slapping a tourniquet on an arterial laceration
Your whole student loan analysis I'll more or less agree with overall, and to some extent with its application to other domains. I do think if someone's artery is cut that you should usually put a tourniquet on. It seems like Biden's been putting tourniquets on, and the other group has been trying to fistfight him for doing even that much, and trying to go through the accident victim's pockets and threatening bystanders. And they have weapons. And, somehow, he managed to get some important tourniquets on even so.
You're making a completely valid presentation of why the patient isn't yet "fine" after the tourniquet. But going further from there to "I don't see why I should support the tourniquet guy over the give-me-his-wallet-and-empty-your-own-pockets-while-we're-at-it people" doesn't make a lot of sense to me.
You’re making a completely valid presentation of why the patient isn’t yet “fine” after the tourniquet. But going further from there to “I don’t see why I should support the tourniquet guy over the give-me-his-wallet-and-empty-your-own-pockets-while-we’re-at-it people” doesn’t make a lot of sense to me.
Yes, it’s a challenging environment. No question there.
The problem is he’s incapable of doing what needs to be done. Holding Trump up as an excuse for not finding the person who can (or rather people,) is also exactly how we got here. To continue the analogy, the wound is festering, we’re about to die if the proverbial leg not removed.
Biden is either incapable or unwilling, probably incapable; at a certain point you’ve done everything you can and need to step back or you become part of the problem.
I love how he throws that out like some kind of gotcha 😃
I mean, I think what he's trying to say is a little more coherent argument: That Biden's doing it wrong, and should be reforming the student loan services instead of doing programs to explicitly forgive portions of debt for specific borrowers. In which case my question would be this: The scorecard for this week is:
Biden: Gave $6 billion loan relief
FuglyDuck: Gave $0 loan relief
So it seems weird if FuglyDuck is giving Biden feedback on what is the right way to give student loan relief, like Biden's just fucking it up when it's so obvious that if FuglyDuck could get in there he could set everything right with a different approach. As we all know, getting big new things done in government is actually super simple.
Now I think it’s you being a bit ridiculous. By that logic, no American can ever legitimately criticize a Presidency.
There are reasons why Biden didn’t take other approaches available to him, and they aren’t laudable ones. His donors don’t want a precedent set that would make it easy for a future president to relieve even more debt.
Biden gets credit for what he has done, but ultimately the limit comes from what the establishment negotiates with the banks. It’s way past time for leadership that will remind the banks that they weren’t the ones elected.
Now I think it's you being a bit ridiculous. By that logic, no American can ever legitimately criticize a Presidency.
That's fair. I wasn't trying to say "you can't criticize the president because you're not in that position," but that is sorta what I said, and that's a little ridiculous, you're right.
What I was meaning to say has one important caveat though, see: So on overall greenhouse gas emissions, and on overall amount of money forgiven on student loans, Biden has a great record. The total number of tons and total number of dollars is moving more significantly in the right direction than anyone else who's ever been president. And, he objectively tried to do a lot more than he did, but had to pare it back because other powerful people in government told him no. All of that is a little hard for FuglyDuck to directly argue against, because it's... well, it's true. So he's doing a little rhetorical dodge where he picks some element that's one small-minority piece of the whole issue, and says if Biden really cared about student loans or climate or whatever, he'd have done this piece in a different fashion. So clearly he's doing damage on purpose and we need to not vote for him.
It's honestly a pretty solid strategy for FuglyDuck to focus in on single issues like that, because I don't really know the issues well enough to say he's wrong. So what I'm saying instead is, look, Biden achieved objectively a good overall record on this issue. To pick out some piece of his overall big picture and say, sure he's winning the game, but he obviously doesn't really care, or else this minority piece would be different, to me isn't reasonable.
It'd be different if FuglyDuck was saying "Sure, Biden achieved a significant success with the climate bill, but I still think he fucked up on decision X." That shows he's in it for some honest purpose even if he and I disagree on some details. The fact that he ignores me repeatedly when I'm referring to the bigger picture, and keeps insisting the individual issues are the only things that matter (and only the ones that happen to line up with his overall narrative), makes me a lot less trusting of the overall "Biden hates the climate" picture he seems to be trying to paint.
Now I think it’s you being a bit ridiculous. By that logic, no American can ever legitimately criticize a Presidency.
By all means criticize but don’t make it sound like he’s completely ineffective or gutless because he couldn’t squeeze out more given the extreme levels of obstruction from Congress and the clear conservative bias in the SCOTUS.
Oh yes. so because I’m not obscenely rich, I don’t get to have a say in how my tax dollars are spent, or the effort elected officials put into solving problems?
Ultimately he hasn’t forgiven any student loans that weren’t already supposed to be forgiven. the loan servicers used loopholes and gotchas to keep people indebted outside the spirit of the rules. many of those loans should have been forgiven back when Obama was in office. So you don’t get to make that argument either.
This has been a known problem for two or three decades. He’s only taking small steps to resolve it because the people it affected are very close to getting their pitchforks and torches for it. (proverbally speaking.) he’s taken almost zero action to actually resolve the problem- which is that tuition is ridiculously expensive. that’s the problem he should be fixing. (while yes, also honoring contract obligations. and throwing the book at people who failed to do just that.)
This has been a known problem for two or three decades
And Biden wasn’t President for two or three decades.
he’s taken almost zero action to actually resolve the problem
Funny how you people started pitching a fit whenever anyone suggested reforming tuition rather than one-time handouts. But now that Biden has actually started doing the handouts, now you’re pitching a fit that he isn’t reforming tuition.
Biden’s best move on climate was a subtle one that went almost unnoticed. The Democrats quietly slipped language into the inflation reduction act that reclassified CO2 as a pollutant, thus restoring the ability for the EPA to regulate it that has been stripped by the Supreme Court. That’s Republican level hardball that we almost never see from the Democrats.
LOL, read my post again. My entire point was that Biden used a clever ploy to give control back to the EPA after the SC killed it. Making CO2 a pollutant bypasses that ruling.
I joked elsewhere that I would like to mess around with a little AI moderation bot that tries to go beyond "is this racism" and into whether something is actually a productive part of the conversation.
I actually started messing around with such a thing tonight, no real idea whether it'll come to anything. But I thought you should know that it particularly liked this comment. "A clarification of their previous point in a concise and clear manner. It refrains from personal attacks, engages with the substance of the discussion, and ... maintains a respectful tone and effectively contributes to the discourse."
I've been so far resisting the incredibly childish urge to tell people I've been disagreeing with that the bot thinks they are wrong. What's the point. I will however tell you that it roasted FuglyDuck for his accusation of ad hominem being, itself, ad hominem (spending half his message saying he's not the guy who is X Y Z, instead of just talking about the subject matter).
You made a bot that tells you you’re good at arguing and other people are bad and wrong? Very normal and productive behaviour. Not a tool to reinforce your beliefs.
You sound like Donald Trump getting all upset on Truth Social that someone's subjecting his actions to legal scrutiny, when he should be able to go around being bullshit and lying and it's some incredible breach of justice if someone tries to tell him that he shouldn't.
Most regulatory agencies in the us are captured by the industries they regulate.
They’ve been largely ineffectual since bush junior.
Keep in mind almost all of them rely heavily on self reporting (“no benzene leaks here! Trust me bro!”). As long as they’re not setting lakes on fire or giving kids cancer at high enough rates doctors and civil liberties groups start taking notice, they’re going to get off with paying less than compliance would set them back.
This is an inevitable consequence of money in politics. And blaming while it absolutely isn’t fair to blame Biden for things republicans shit on….
… if you can’t be part of the solution, then, you bejng in office is part of the problem.
Perhaps a better way to say it, is that it isn’t that Biden is to blame for republicans being shit humans and the stuff they do.
He isn’t actively destroying America, no. As a country, we need more than he’s capable (or unwilling,) to provide. Intentionally or not, he and the other centrists are blocking progressives from fighting for what we do need. And by obstructing people that are capable… he’s becoming part of the problem.
Look at civil liberties and voting rights. Republicans are running roughshod over the American people. At the rate we’re going it doesn’t matter how unpopular Biden is… everywhere is going to be so gerrymandered that republicans win.
Or look at the documents case. It took over two and a half for them to get most the documents back- and they’re still missing a binder that was full of the “most sensitive intel on Russia”.
While the DoJ is nominally independent, one phone call. That’s all it would have taken.
“You have a week to get those documents back or I have your resignation. Get. It. Done.” Is entirely in his purview.
Maybe if they removed all the propaganda, you’d have a case. Removing only one side’s propaganda and not the other is still being compromised.
Especially if the propaganda on the side being removed is just a collection of true things, and the propaganda on the side being left up is about half lies.
Most if not all far-left rhetoric is easily disproven misinformation and propaganda. If they’re removing anything that’s demonstrably false, good for them.
I’ve yet to see that. Check the mod logs. There’s a lot of misinformation being removed that come from far-lefters.
Any of the centrist stuff being removed from what I see, is usually because they’re uncivil and being derogatory. Which is hard not to be when arguing with those people.
This is actually the first time it's been removed -- for some reason a bunch of copies of it going back a few days all got nuked at once this morning.
I actually don't really hard-disagree with removing it. To me it's extremely productive to the conversation and I didn't see the point in having to retype all that stuff out for every thread where the exact same arguments come out, but it is also clearly a repost; maybe it's better for the mods to just evenly apply all the rules to all the comments instead of trying to play the game of "well I feel this particular way about this particular comment so it can stay / so it has to go."
To me, I'm fine just rephrasing if it comes up in the future or linking to it or something. I don't get the feeling that mods are deliberately removing it specifically because of the viewpoint of it.
If your goal is to reinforce the pro-Biden crowd, good job. If your goal is to convince anyone who is anti-Biden, this won’t do.
Fluff has opposite effects for people with different biases. Someone with a bias in favor of what you’re saying reads all the fluff as “yup this is a metric fuckload of facts that weighs in favor of my heuristical understanding of the world”, while others would read it as “this person is obviously reaching and fluffing up the pro-Biden rhetoric, so is any of it impressive?”
I’ll be more concrete in my criticism, you mention both the climate action (materially important and good to mention) and also his failed attempt to pass marijuana legislation. Even bringing up marijuana legislation when the kinds of discussions we’re having are about genocide, climate change, employment, etc. seems out of place, but you bring up a failed attempt to do this comparatively extremely unimportant thing, it reads as you having an immense bias and reaching for anything you can. Same thing with his failure to get proper student loan relief to people.
Essentially the only actual legitimate win he has is the passing of the climate action. Wage growth and unemployment shrinking are parts of natural boom bust cycles, not any executive orders he’s put in place or action signed into law by Democrats.
For what it’s worth I’m not a moderate, I’m a socialist, so I’m not normally the “truth is in the middle of two positions” type of person, but your comment is the exception to the rule, where you’re not spewing out just straight falsehoods but you do have an obvious bias and are fluffing up his achievements more than deserved.
Marijuana legislation has less to do with marijuana as more to do with prisoners in prison for marijuana use, distribution, and or possession. It’s a step toward decriminalization of most drugs which accounts for up to 25% of state facility incarceration depending on the state. Why the fuck am I paying tax dollars to keep a drug user in a cell? Why would you want to pay to feed them 3 meals a day?
You missed the forest for the trees. He failed to get this passed. It’s absolutely fluff to reach to Biden’s failures in a list of his greatest accomplishments.
Obviously I agree on decriminalizing marijuana, but that’s not what my comment or the broader discussion was about.
I don’t know if you genuinely missed the point of my comment, or if you’re just arguing in bad faith.
Biden has given a massive boost to unions in multiple ways, restarted enforcement of anti-trust laws, eased enforcement of Marijuana laws / moved towards decriminalization, and has forgiven $138 billion in student debt.
I’m no fan of Biden and we should definitely demand better, but it’s ridiculous to claim he hasn’t done just one thing to make people’s lives better. This list is just off the top of my head, except the figure for student debt. I didn’t even include climate issues since there has been some bad to subtract from the good, but he’s been far better than any Republican would be.
Just appoint a head of the DEA who won’t arrest people for pot and pardon everyone in prison for possession/distribution. He chooses to allow the violence of criminalization to continue.
has forgiven $138 billion in student debt.
The overwhelming majority of that was due to a bush-era law.
We saw how much unilateral power the executive has under trump. We see how capable the democrats are of whipping the vote when it’s funding to bomb foreigners or lock them in cages. What would it take for you to realize they are not unable to do these things, but unwilling? I struggle to imagine a scenario that would prove that, which hasn’t already happened.
Any new DEA administrator would have to be approved by the Senate, and an an appointment that was a defacto decriminalization vote would not pass.
The bar that was set in this discussion was that Biden hasn’t done anything to improve lives. I have already made a comment elsewhere in this thread indicating that I do not suffer from the delusions you are putting on me. Biden absolutely should be doing more, that just wasn’t the bar presented.
Just appoint a head of the DEA who won't arrest people for pot and pardon everyone in prison for possession/distribution. He chooses to allow the violence of criminalization to continue.
You know he already pardoned everyone who was in federal prison for simple possession, 2 years ago, right?
And passed a bill for full federal legalization, which the Republicans defeated in the senate?
We saw how much unilateral power the executive has under trump.
Yes, Trump famously got everything he wanted. Ukraine never got their military aid that he tried to block, and the Department of Justice famously bent to his every whim and prosecuted his political opponents when he kept ordering them to. I remember it well.
We see how capable the democrats are of whipping the vote when it's funding to bomb foreigners or lock them in cages.
This is actually the most heinously dishonest of the things you've been saying but I have become discouraged and don't want to spend too much more time researching and illustrating why this is all wrong.
Family separation at the border was already dead when Biden took office; it only ran for about a year in the middle of his presidency. But Biden did start the task force to find the kids' families and reunite them. The flow of immigrant children was quite literally in the exact opposite direction of what you're saying under Biden: From being imprisoned in cages to being back with their families. Look up your own citation for it, I'm getting genuinely irritated that I have to spend time talking about this.
And passed a bill for full federal legalization, which the Republicans defeated in the senate?
The president doesn’t pass bills, and this one wasn’t passed by those that do pass bills. Tell progressives again that they don’t know how government works.
I'm gonna cut to the chase of a longer comment I typed out. The only part that really needs to be said:
"So, since there's no way to argue with it factually, the combatant seizes on a deliberate misunderstanding of what I was saying and tries to reframe the whole conversation around that misunderstanding, in order to create a thing to disagree about which isn't the factually-indefensible original thing to disagree about."
The rest and the context are pretty self-explanatory.
You wanted to give him credit for passing something that didn’t pass and that he can’t pass. If you don’t want people getting on your case for it, don’t tell others that they don’t know how government works.
He proposed legalizing it. Nothing passed. Proposals and failures are not accomplishments. He doesn’t get credit for BBB for the same reason: it failed.
You may be willing to give him credit for failures. I give him credit for his successes, such as selling weapons to Netanyahu for genocide.
You seized on literally the only thing in my long-enough-to-be-tedious list that was an attempt instead of an outcome, and are trying to spin it into me giving him credit only for failures. I'm almost impressed.
The first two items in my list represented the successful outcome of his second attempt at something, after the first attempt was blocked, but those $144 billion and 40% reduction numbers are the outcome (after the initial much bigger attempt). Then comes the attempt at marijuana legalization. Every other item is simply the outcome.
I think you should get some sort of award for how vaguely plausible you make this argument sound, given the yawning gulf between it and what actually happened, and the fact that the evidence for it not happening the way you said is literally just right up there in the comments up above (not buried away somewhere in some government document that there could be legitimate debate about how to interpret.)
You seized on literally the only thing in my long-enough-to-be-tedious list that was an attempt instead of an outcome, and are dealing with it as if giving him credit for that attempt was the only thing I'd done, instead of one attempt listed among a big group of demonstrated successes. I'm almost impressed.
The first two items in my list represented the successful outcome of his second attempt at something, after the first attempt was blocked, but those $144 billion and 40% reduction numbers are the outcome (after the initial much bigger attempt). Then comes the attempt at marijuana legalization. Every other item is simply the outcome.
I think you should get some sort of award for how vaguely plausible you make this argument sound, given the yawning gulf between it and what I actually said, and the fact that the evidence for it not happening the way you said is literally just right up there in the comments up above (not buried away somewhere in some government document that there could be legitimate debate about how to interpret.)
If you don’t want me pointing out when you call a failure an accomplishment, all you need to do is not call a failure an accomplishment. If you feel entitled to me addressing every last word of your comment, you should consider that I’m not here to fulfill your unreasonable sense of entitlement.
You can't meaningfully respond to the substance, so you're seizing on weird little trivialities -- out of this list of billion- and trillion-dollar scale good things Biden did, one and only one of them was merely a good-faith attempt to do something good, and it didn't succeed! Dude sucks.
That's a very bad argument, and I feel like I've spent entirely too much time at this point explaining why that is. Happier with that?
Well, I just re-read it, and you were right: it was tedious.
But since you asked: I’m not great with the implication that asking the DEA to look into descheduling is an accomplishment, either. You did ignore what the other commenter said about democrats always managing to find the votes to bomb foreigners, but I figured you wanted to focus on what you took exception to, and not start a slapfight over every last word in someone’s comment. I’m only saying this now because you asked, not out of any desire to provoke or indulge further combativeness.
I LOVE seeing this nonsense downvoted. It gives me hope that lemmy is not going to turn into an echo chamber for manufactured outrage and misinformation.
Distinguishing between far-left rhetoric and right-wing propaganda is virtually indistinguishable nowadays though. And I think the MAGA trolls want it that way.
Gotta love being called an evil shitlib for suggesting that Joe Biden isn’t turbo hitler and the current system, while flawed, can be improved and burning it all down would likely result in far more hardships than reforming what we’ve got.
Oh, come on. Centrists have been saying that everyone to their left is all the way to their right since before Clinton lost to every centrist’s second choice.
Do you have a source for this? Reddit's mods on big or politically-or-commercially-relevant subs were very clearly compromised, but I hadn't seen any indication of that on lemmy.world and I was kind of hoping that it would be a lot more resistant.
Do you have an example or two? I know the lemmy.ml mods are shit, that is not news to me, but I haven't seen this happen on lemmy.world that I can remember.
I don't actually think so. I mean, I don't agree with removing it as in my view it contributes positively to the discussion, but it's definitely a repost. Removing it doesn't seem obviously malicious to me.
Personally my feeling is that it's probably just because of mods having to deal with a tidal wave of malicious crap on any given day and so developing a short fuse for anything that looks bad-adjacent. To me, the underlying issue is that you have to have mods in this sort of underappreciated volunteer / unelected dictator role, where those two roles don't synergize well with each other, and neither one is really a balanced way of hitting the mark of what's needed.
But it is technically true that my stuff was just a copypasta becoming a low-effort fixture on several posts, and I do think your posts getting personally insulting and specifically accusing some of the probably-shills of being Russian assets when you don't really know, were a little out of line. IDK. Mostly I just think the whole model of "we have to have a person in the background deciding what statements are reasonable to be allowed and not" isn't the right way to go about it.
It’s not great, but it’s the only really effective model we have. AI just isn’t there, and opens up a whole new can of worms about the programming of said AI even if it were.
I think the issue is that the mods on .world are allowing their biases to affect their willingness to remove or ban something. There’s a lot more leniency for typically far-left viewpoints.
It's not great, but it's the only really effective model we have.
Yeah, agreed. It's a much harder problem than it seems like on the surface because it's by definition happening behind the scenes -- when everything's working, it looks like moderation is not needed.
AI just isn't there, and opens up a whole new can of worms about the programming of said AI even if it were.
Not sure this is true. I've been messing around with it seems surprisingly plausible to get it to work. Of course... how it works in practice is very very different from how it works playing around with it.
I think the issue is that the mods on .world are allowing their biases to affect their willingness to remove or ban something. There's a lot more leniency for typically far-left viewpoints.
I don't think this is true. Contrast it with lemmy.ml - the mods there are clearly just removing viewpoints they don't like. I haven't seen that on lemmy.world. You sent me examples, but as far as I can tell they are very clearly rule violations being removed, with the viewpoint of the comment not really being relevant.
Like I've been talking about "yay Biden" for weeks now, and not a word about removing anything until I started copy-pasting stuff.
Edit: Another example... just out of curiosity I just ran your user through my little moderation-tester, and my instant reaction looking at the first thing that came out was "man... I don't want to submit that to OpenAI; I'm gonna get in trouble with the content filter."
You sent me examples, but as far as I can tell they are very clearly rule violations being removed
Of course, but the rules are extremely broad. It allows for selective enforcement. While on .ml the mods ignore any pretext of rules and just blatantly censor, on .world if your comment breaks a rule, it is more likely to be removed if it is pro-Biden than if it is anti-Biden. That’s why I say the .world mods are more subtle about it.
Per rule 3, if you call someone an idiot, your post is in violation. If you call someone a tankie, your post is in violation. But guess which insult is almost always removed, and which insult is comparatively rarely removed?
You are right, but we’re kind of past the point where saying so is useful. But if Biden resigns and hands the reigns to Kamala, no way in hell should anyone accept another sham primary because she is an encombant. I’m so sick of these supposedly pro-democracy Democrats and their entire bullshit primary system.
Biden, for whatever reason, is an extremely unlikable president. Undeniably so. These two candidates might literally be the only two candidates that could lose to the other. Sad state of affairs.
He’s a proven leader, appeals to many on all sides of the political spectrum, and the supreme court has ruled they can’t keep someone off the ballot, and neither can states, so if the Senate Democrats don’t stop it then there’s nothing that can be done about it.
If the leader of an insurrection can be on the ballot, a foreign born American citizen can.
Yeah, that’s kinda my point. He’s ineligible, but so is trump. The Supreme Court said that only Congress can keep someone from running, and the current Congress won’t do it for trump, and may not do it for someone running as a Democrat, if they could beat trump.
He’s not running because he didn’t think he could, but the general hasn’t started, so he has time.
“gEnOciDe jOe” sure sounds a lot like a name a certain MAGA figurehead would have created, doesn’t it? I wonder where you got it from?
How about you take your manipulative propaganda elsewhere. Everyone has seen how often you’re banned for misinformation here, and if they haven’t, the mod logs are open to the public.
I think you know no one here is going to vote for him anyway, therefore it’s a safe bet to show “solidarity” and bag on him while you suggest others don’t vote. That way he still wins and you don’t come off as an obvious troll.
This is a time honored tradition. And you’ve been outed many times.
Ahh… got it! So… you’re just not that bothered by it that you ever once even thought to show outrage over it or even so little as being slightly annoyed by it, or bothered to spend any time in news articles about the genocide happening in Ukraine.
You’re just upset/outraged by Biden, not genocide.
Wow… defeating your entire premise has never been easier.
Personally I think Bernie would still easily steam roll trump and is far more popular than Biden. Only way he would run tho is if Biden stepped down which he won’t… but that’s sorta the problem
I don’t think you can say what Bernie would do if Biden stepped down, he has stated that he will not run precisely because Biden is running again and he doesn’t want to make any voters think he was an option, the incumbent is just automatically going to win the primary. He doesn’t want to sour any voters that really wanted him to win the primary when there is no chance he will win going up against an incumbent. If Biden stepped down and it was an open DNC primary then I think Bernie would almost certainly run again.
You are being weirdly stubborn in considering actual possibilities. I get that we are likely stuck with Biden but that’s because Biden is going to run again, not because there are no other options. Biden is not a good choice though and he should honestly step down, there are way better choices. Newsom would also be better than Biden and you could be sure if there was a primary with no incumbent in it he would be in there.
You are like a broken record. No democrat is going to run against incumbent it would be pointless, there is no chance they will win a dnc primary with Biden in the race. The incumbent always wins the primary and everyone knows that except apparently you, but that doesn’t make Biden the best choice, far from it. Especially with the dnc canceling primaries where progressives might actually win like NH. The Marianne williamson run was just a protest run, she didn’t think she would win.
The problem is Biden is running again despite him saying in 2020 that he would be a 1 term president.
If you have a working strategy to get there, I’m all ears. Despite Biden’s lack of popularity, the vast majority of Democratic voters seem to be in the “don’t challenge an encombant” camp.
Still not seeing a plan. My state hasn’t voted yet, and I won’t be voting for Biden, but I still know he is the nominee. It’s not even really possible for him to lose at this point, and everyone else has dropped out. The party could replace him, but I don’t see that happening without some kind of major medical episode.
No, you just keep ignoring it, I said it a long time ago…
A random empty suit off the street would easily beat trump
We run someone else in the general.
It cost a literal billion dollars for Biden to win his first presidential election. And that was by like 30k votes in a few states. He’s less popular now, especially in those states due to his actions in Israel.
Do you legitimately think a random American couldn’t be trump with a billion dollars?
Because it’s not going to be cheaper for Biden this time.
The DNC can list whoever they want there, regardless of what happens in any primary
The last three elections they’ve picked geriatric unpopular candidates and refuse to listen to voter feedback.
Sooner or later you need to realize:
“vote blue no matter who” is fucking you
The DNC needs voters more than voters need the DNC.
Hell, look at what Biden did in NH. He pulled out of the primary because the DNC yanked the delegates, then Biden spent a bunch on a write in campaign and bragged he “won”.
But I’m blocking right after I send this. You’re just repeating the same shit over and over again, it’s like talking to a brikwall.
The last three elections they’ve picked geriatric unpopular candidates and refuse to listen to voter feedback.
Those candidates were picked by voters, so this isn’t exactly true. They just lead voters by the nose through establishment bias in mainstream media.
The one place where I think this is true is with Kamala Harris. She solidly lost the 2020 primary, yet there is a chance that she will be the one to finish a Biden second term, and they will try to skip her next primary because they will call her an incumbent. That is the eventuality that we should be preparing to fight right now. The battle to replace Biden for 2024 was a worthy one, but we lost.
“vote blue no matter who” is fucking you
Did I say that? The second we have a red candidate that’s better than a blue one, I’m voting red. Third party strategies will fuck me worse.
The DNC needs voters more than voters need the DNC.
Meaningless drivel with no practical strategic relevance. It would be awesome if we could form an ideal party and get most Democratic voters to switch, but that’s a childish fantasy.
then Biden spent a bunch on a write in campaign and bragged he “won”.
Getting the most votes as a write in is pretty impressive honestly. The real scandal is that the DNC put a swing state in jeopardy to favor a deeply red state just to create a harder path for progressives. Hang them with that.
I can totally understand why you get non-answers to that non-question. I never said I was scared of Kamala. However, she came in close to dead last in the primary, and could very well end up being a Democratic presidential nominee after having been roundly rejected. I object to having the choice of US President whittled down to right-wing Satan and a tool of the oligarchs before we ever get to vote.
From the beginning of the 2020 primary, Kamala was clearly the establishment’s first choice, with all the establishment friendly publications putting out glowing praise daily. Biden was the backup who went from almost last (excepting Harris) to first place overnight when every single establishment friendly candidate suddenly dropped out and endorsed Biden. It was a brilliant strategy by establishment, but was more of a manipulation than a democratic victory.
Elizabeth Warren staying in even long after she had no chance was also extremely sus. She suddenly dove under the radar, but kept her hat in the ring to split the progressive vote until Bernie was done. There is no rational explanation except that she was motivated to sink Bernie by some carrot or stick from the establishment.
So no, after that circus of a primary, I’m not willing to hand over potentially four Presidential terms to the establishment.
Kamala is also a terrible candidate with an abysmal track record and zero charisma. Every word she says sounds like it came from a focus group and was delivered by a robot. Even as a token black woman, she is deeply unpopular with blacks, especially those in the civil rights movement. (I support promoting minorities in government, but If they don’t represent their groups with policy in addition to appearance then they are just a token.)
this is the shitty world we live in for 2024. Unless one of these geezers dies this is what its going to look like.
And no, a random empty suit off the street would not easily beat trump; when the corporate media aparatus is pointed at you things will always be like this because they want the worst guy to win, always.
Biden isn’t exactly my cup of tea but he’s more or less reasonable on the national field. And people should understand when you elect a president (despite what Trump would tell you), you are actually electing an administration, a structure of workforce based on certain values. As long as something crazy doesn’t happen that puts the speaker up there, for the most part it’s those ideas that are winning the elections.
The primary is performative, the DNC has been openly admitting they’re not interested in fair primaries go like a decade now, even openly saying if they don’t get the results they want, they’ll ignore results.
You might not have realized it yet, but you personally don’t need to understand something for it to be true
And people should understand when you elect a president (despite what Trump would tell you), you are actually electing an administration, a structure of workforce based on certain values.
A-fuckin-goddamn-men.
This is what I always had a problem with as far as Trump is concerned. Trump only cares about Trump and he also believes he knows everything. He hires “yes men” not people who will inform him, not that he’s the type to accept information from others (unless it’s a lie meant to disparage his opponents.) That’s way more dangerous to us than his stupid Twitter usage and drawing on weather maps.
It’s also why, although I don’t love Biden, I’m ok with him. I know he’s only responsible for putting the rubber stamp on ideas his administration is coming up with. He may issue initial goals, but the administration has the expertise and does the work and they don’t exactly seem like a bunch of ghouls in this administration.
I have a feeling all those crazy 2016 Clinton supporters were IP banned from most major social media sites.
So now they’re on Lemmy.
Theyre just as bad as trump voters. They don’t care about issues or what a candidate achieves if they win. They just want their “team” to win an election.
That’s their end goal, so if anyone ever says a negative thing about their teams candidate, they take it personal and say the worst thing you can ever do is admit any flaws.
It’s blind loyalty to a person. And that shit is fucking dangerous.
I just can’t support that shit. I paid attention in history class. If the only two political options are that far gone, there’s been other political parties in America before, and there can be again.
Can’t Biden just kill him? He has Presidential immunity. The Supreme Court doesn’t give a fig and Biden can do whatever he wants since they take 4+ years to eventually kick the can and further delay their decisions. By that time, Biden may well be 106 years old.
Also, Trump has stated the Vice President has the power to certify the election results or not. So now Kamala can just usher Biden into a second term, “if she has the courage”.
Like Mike Pompeo said, “There will be a very smooth transition to a second Biden Presidency…”
My fuck, if only the Democrats had the balls to use the Republican's own tactics against them
"Oh so since a president is, according to you, immune to all laws even after no longer being president, then Biden can just order a hit on Trump and all of you? Because as long as Trump isn't arrested and left unable to run, that seems to be what you are saying. You have til the end of May :)"
Yes yes, let’s not vote Biden, Trump would be a much better option to stop all of those genocides. ~ Says fucking no one…
Trump is friends with all of the dictators. If you want to actually make a fucking difference then protest and write to your local politicians to put pressure on Washington. You trying to push this pathetic “don’t vote for genocide” bullshit is going to do nothing but it worse. Moral superiority doesn’t mean shit if you fucking burn everything down because you can’t make a big boy decision. An American Dictatorship will do nothing but make the world a darker place, and it seems you and the rest of the rest of these “don’t vote Biden” chucklefucks are doing your damnedest to bring thst about…which in turn only makes me think that you aren’t American.
If you want to actually make a fucking difference then protest
I’ve been doing that.
Why are you wasting your time trying to shame powerless voters for not pledging to vote for Biden unconditionally instead of trying to get the people with power to see that if they don’t stop the genocide, they will lose reelection?
And what happens if they lose the reelection? What do you think happens? Wonderful, you get to pat yourself on the back for being so morally righteous that you helped usher in Project 2025 and the end of American Democracy. You get to tell everyone that maybe if they just listened to you then this would have never happened. Sound like success, don’t it? I can’t imagine how terrifying a Dictator controlling the world’s strongest military would be, especially if they push through Christian Rule, like they’ve always wanted to do.
Instead of trying to get your Senators and Representatives to put pressure on Washington, you’d rather just threaten to destroy the whole system if you don’t get your way. I “waste my time” so that other people might see how asinine this whole temper tantrum people like you are throwing. I fucking hate that the Gazan people are being murdered, raped, tortured, bombed, starved, and humiliated by the hands of the IDF, but I’m not going to burn my house down to protest it. There’s other ways to try and get Washington to help stop this, and destroying our way of life is not it.
There’s other ways to try and get Washington to help stop this
Unless you’re talking about direct action to stop arms manufacture/transport or do economic damage to israel, there’s literally not, that’s how representative democracy works, if you cannot make a credibly tell a politician they won’t get elected unless they do what you’re telling them, you are not represented.
That’s literally the only pressure we have on politicians.
This is true. Sadly, our system of representation is limited to two viable parties, one that’s Not Great, and one that’s Demonstrably Evil. If you send the message that you dont support the Not Great party by not re-electing them, the only thing that benefits is the Demonstrably Evil party.
Both parties have proven historically that they dont care about people who won’t vote for them by simply not engaging with groups they consider a lost cause. This frees up their time and money so they can gin up the groups that do (or might) support them.
The ONLY way to make sure you have the representatives you need is to start now and hope future generations will benefit. Establish a viable independent party starting in local elections - school boards, city councils. These people make decisions about local education and infrastructure that will directly benefit people in your community and prove that this new party truly has their backs. From there, this party and their reps will move higher up into state and federal governments with recognition and an established voting record.
True representation takes a lot of time and effort, and if we start now, maybe our grandchildren will have a better life. It’s a long game, like it or not.
I detest what’s happening to the Palestinians too, and what’s been happening to them for ages. But pretending that it’s the only thing going on in the world right now that needs to be addressed urgently honestly just belies an enormous lack of awareness of current global events.
And pretending that it needs to be a litmus test issue for whether people should vote for Biden is frankly idiotic, because I would bet my aggregate professional salary that Trump would have enthusiastically sortied several squadrons of B-52s to carpet bomb Gaza all Vietnam War style, and if you think that’s an improvement, you need your head examined.
That’s a big mistake. Dekocrats don’t lack balls to do what the republicans do, the just have a little bit of morals that the republicans completely lack.
Instead of threatening to kill Trump, should the SCOTUS rule in favor of immunity, Biden should threaten to kill SCOTUS. Then they’ll sit up and pay attention.
Throw trump in Guantánamo. If anyone in Congress says anything against it or tries to impeach, send them as well. When the SC even decides to hear a case against Biden, throw them in Guantánamo as well. And then, hopefully bring back some sane laws. SC has already decided they don’t really care what The Constitution says.
Honestly, if the Tribunal of Six decides that Trump has total, unequivocal, blanket immunity at any point before Jan 6, 2025, Biden should just sic Seal Team Six on him. It would be 100% legal.
That’s why they’re delaying all his cases. If they rule in favor of Trump, Biden will have the same immunity. If they rule against Trump, he probably loses the election. The only way for the fascists to win is to delay until past the election, preferably past the point when Trump is sworn in. And then on his 2nd day in office release their ruling that the President has complete and total power to do whatever he wants whenever he wants. All hail King Trump.
I really hope it doesn’t turn out that way, and at this point I think it probably won’t get to that point. But if it does, I genuinely don’t think there’s a way out of the situation without a civil war, and I say that because I am fully aware of how much of a psychotic toddler Trump is.
He used the government as a punitive instrument pretty much the entire time he was in office. Anything genuinely good and humane that occurred was done by accident. I will not be surprised if he tries to nationalize the state ANGs in blue states and straight up depose the state governments, and THAT would absolutely trigger serious, violent, and organized backlash.
I will not be surprised if he tries to nationalize the state ANGs in blue states and straight up depose the state governments
Agree.
and THAT would absolutely trigger serious, violent, and organized backlash
Disagree. Democrats are toothless. I bed Biden’s “robust” response to another attempted coup will be a strongly-worded letter. He shouldn’t be talking with lawyers, he should be talking with generals.
The “immunity” that Trump wants the USSC to give him is effectively intrinsic, monarch-caliber “I am the law” immunity - effectively, he is working to get the court to declare that he is somehow just above the law in a categorical sense. We are not talking about immunity in the context of its understood and agreed upon legal definition in the United States.
They won’t, because that’s insane. What they’ve done is make sure to the Supreme Court case will keep other federal trials on hold, and thus Trump won’t have a guilty verdict before election day. Trump can keep running and perhaps win, and at the same time the obvious and sane answer to the case will still come down.
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