Watching the Biden broadcast about gas prices and Biden said “more gas has been pumped in my first year” and my Mother in Law burst out “That’s because Trump fixed it”. I let it go as I was packing stuff up and wasn’t going to get into a argument.
But the idea that the President has a button that fixes or fucks up whatever economic things they want and he just pushes them on a whim is so deeply embedded in people.
Fun times driving back from Arkansas and watching prices bounce from 3.50 to 4.50 to 5.50 and now back down to 4.00 in the span of a couple hundred miles.
I posted an article in the LC thread about weird gas stations in LA that are always $1.50 more than anywhere else. Zikzak thinks they’re laundering money.
But anyway the best part of the article was the reporter only counted a few people actually using the station over the course of a few hours, but in that time three news crews pulled up to take B-roll of the sign with $7.99 prices.
Her second sentence doesn’t even track from the first. Like, why are reports of those facilities being attacked “probably” bullshit? I guess because they garner more empathy? Are reports of an airport or nuclear plant being attacked also “probably” bullshit?
I mean the whole thing is pie in the sky. You asked what they should do, I said what I’d do. This is never happening because they’re a shitty party trying to court center-right votes rather than make meaningful progress, because they can’t get out of line from their corporate donors.
Maybe the GOP bought a couple gas stations in Los Angeles so that every time a Democrat is president they can set the price arbitrarily high and get the news crews out to film it so that Tucker has some fun b-roll to play with.
Assume that Manchin and Sinema are what they are and Biden and leaders in Congress have applied maximum pressure to move them as far as they can be moved. Given that assumption, plan a realistic Democratic strategy. I don’t think that’s a crazy assumption to ask people to incorporate into their plans of what they would do.
Keep in mind that at the beginning of the discussion I said something to the effect of, “eDems would never do this because xyz, but what I’d do is…”
In the current environment if you just plugged me in as POTUS or as the architect of the Democratic Party strategy, I’d probably end up settling on a strategy where it’s talked about vaguely, acted on via EO as much as possible early in a term after an election, and never handed to the other side as an issue in an election - they’ll have to try to bring it up. It seems like drafting some conflicting EOs and letting the conflict play out through the courts could tie the issue up for a while and perhaps prevent implementation of those laws. Strategically, time is on our side, as the moral arc yada yada.
Before elections I’d be cancelling student debt, dumping oil out of the SPR (in the current environment), trying to get the child tax credit restored, etc.
Pocket book issues in the 6 months leading up to an election, mostly via EO because Congress is doing nothing then.
After the win, when putting a big bill on the table to address “everything” spending related, I’d add stuff like this in and make Manchin try to pick it out piece by piece if he was so inclined. I’d figure if we throw everything good in, he’s not going to be able to get every last bit of it out, and we’ll make progress year by year.
It’s slow, but let’s not kid ourselves, part of the reason the GOP is making progress in this fight is that they were willing to invest in school board and dog catcher races for 10+ years to soften the ground and build a bench and influence the very local decisions.
What enrages me more is being lectured on this forum that I don’t think these people have earned the right to be treated seriously. Did you know that makes me the one who is ACTUALLY closed minded!
