I’m with you 98% of the time but this is such a bad take. Enough with these comments as if your politics don’t effect the rest of us.
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“Executive overreach” is a Republican talking point my dude. We need more executive overreach, not less.
Take it up with bobman, imo.
A truly horrible take. The power of the presidency should be dramatically curtailed. You think there will never be another POTUS you hate? You wish Trump had more power now?
I know you people will think “it couldn’t be worse”, so I’ll preempt that with, yeah, it could. His main goals of banning all Muslims who aren’t Saudi royalty, deporting all undocumented, and birthright citizenship would be happening in your world.
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I would absolutely not say that. There’s some trivial sense in which that is true (Obama eroded barriers to power and so did Trump), but I can’t, for example, recall Obama firing the head of the domestic intelligence service because he wouldn’t pledge personal loyalty, purging IGs, or subverting foreign policy to procure a smear campaign against a political opponent. Obama’s FBI was so independent of political control that it created dirt on Hillary and buried the dirt on Trump! Generally speaking, Obama (and Bush and Clinton, etc.) eroded separation of powers in ways that were dangerous, but not corrupt. That is, they extended or exceeded their powers to pursue legitimate policy aims. Trump is using his powers of office specifically to entrench himself in power (and his GOP allies are enabling him because they think it will entrench the party in power). That’s the existential threat to democracy.
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Leave it to Democrats to take seriously an intra-party complaint about executive power while right this very fucking second we have a president of the opposite party literally doing whatever the fuck he wants.
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That’s true. Obama’s overreach was not about winning elections. But it’s generally a bad take on what democracy is. The complete free and fair ability to elect kings is not really democracy. It’s certainly not freedom.
I’m a little irked by this response, because you know very well that I agree with it (I’m half a libertarian ffs!), but I also didn’t say anything that can be fairly construed as a take on what “democracy” is. My post was explaining why Trump’s abuses of power are existentially threatening to democracy of any type in ways that Bush’s or Obama’s were not. There is an interesting, but totally irrelevant argument about whether the Madisonian system of checks and balances is the right way to limit government compared to a more responsive, less deadlock prone Westminster system, and I know you favor drastically more localized and voluntary power structures. But all of those systems are intended to have built-in mechanics for removing bad leaders, and none of them can tolerate the leader interfering with those mechanisms.
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I wish that progressive Presidents had the power to change things for the better, not constantly be hamstrung by congressional filibusters and republican judges. It’s a rigged game.
You’re cool with John Roberts having the final say on both Obamacare and Trump’s travel ban?
WHEN THEY GO LOW WE GO HIGH!
I remain skeptical that a legislatively-hobbled Biden administration would voluntarily forego any given means of effecting its agenda. Governments aren’t especially good at ceding power — wouldn’t have thought you’d need much selling on that.
Your democracy, as I’ve said before, isn’t looking too hot either way, and it’s a mistake to identify Trump and Trump alone as the locus of the threat. If anything, Trump’s incompetence and personal cowardice have been a shield. Give us four years of President Lookfat and think about what kind of rough beast will be slouching towards Washington to be born after that. You could only pray they’d be as dumb as Trump.
None of which is very cheering or constructive, I realise. Not sure what I can do about that!
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Scenario: GOP president doing every crime imaginable with absolutely zero threat of accountability of any kind
Some Democrats: I can’t vote for Joe Biden because he will expand executive power too much
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That post was good and all, but of course it’s much more difficult for a less powerful leader to interfere with any checks and balances or mechanisms for removal. (I guess I reckon you agree with this - and yes, you are not the least freedom loving person in this discussion here.)
I agree with all of this but what’s Biden going to do other than pause the dismantling for 4 years?
Without winning the Senate, SCOTUS is lost for life either way. Biden’s climate change policy seems to be just acknowledging it exists because as recently as March he wouldn’t even commit to banning fracking. From his last debate with Bernie
During a heated debate exchange, the former vice president said he would oppose new hydraulic fracturing projects — a significant escalation for Biden that his campaign quickly reversed.
Can’t even get a commitment on one of the most basic steps to fight climate change without Bernie Sanders holding his feet to the fire, and even then his campaign immediately walks it back.
So let’s all vote for Biden to temporarily halt things like jailing political opponents and executive branch corruption and keep the seat warm for 4 years for Tom Cotton or whatever competent right wing ghoul comes in and finishes what Trump started in 2024.
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What is democracy?
It’s really not a bad take.
Only your most disaffected US leftist, divorced from reality, and probably with multiple mental disorders could equate GHW Bush with goddamn Trump and chin-scratchingly equate the two as common links in a chain. For foreigners that simply lack, shall we say, a knowledge of American socio-political context and history, it’s much more understandable they would make such a childish error. It also means that they should be silenced as children would be, while the US citizen who holds these beliefs should be gently shushed into padded rooms.
Honestly it’s probably likely that I’d vote for Biden in a normal timeline, and then spend the next four years twisting myself into knots justifying the fact that I voted for a likely sexual predator that is a Democrat in name only…
But 100k people have died; a large portion of them due to the sheer incompetence of our dear leader. Like, George fucking Bush could pull a Bobby Valentine, toss on a silly fake mustache and run under the name Jorge Bushano and I would turbo vote for him so damn fast because he’s not Donald Trump. That’s right, I’d vote the guy who completely mishandled Hurricane Katrina because he’s not Donald Trump.
The primaries are over. I’m not thrilled we are now left with a choice between Creepy Old Guy 1 and Creepy Old Guy 2, but that’s our reality. As far as I’m concerned, if you don’t vote for Biden (at the very least in a state that isn’t 100% either way) you’re saying that you’re fine with another couple 100k people dying.
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A reason to be optimistic that Biden would be better is that the Democratic party is not beholden to Biden in the way that the GOP is beholden to Trump. Trump gets away with what he does because GOP legislators ~unanimously cover for him. Biden doesn’t have that kind of hold of the Democratic party.
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Tell that to Tara Reade imo.
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