What actions do you believe a Biden administration would take regarding ICE, the prison industrial complex (which includes excessive policing and brutality), the climate emergency, and election integrity (including the post office)? In general, what do you think it would look like?
What do you mean when you say the plan is to hold his feet to the fire, if that is the plan of anyone here? What does that actually look like? What steps would you take?
What are the minimum acceptable actions the administration can take, and what will your actions be if the minimums aren’t met?
What will you do if it becomes clear the 2020 election is being sabotaged? I don’t know how it isn’t already clear, but maybe there is some level of clarity beyond this?
How will you know that point has been reached, that time has come, and what will be your response?
If Biden wins I’ll threaten to not vote for Democrats unless they do those things, unless of course the Republican who runs in 2024 is a really bad person.
I doubt he’d abolish it, but I do think he’d improve it beyond where it was in 2016, the year before Trump took office. Beyond that I think it depends on Congress. I don’t think he’d veto anything the Democrats passed through Congress to further improve it, including abolishing it. I don’t think he’d push for that, and he might try to block it, but if it passed he’d sign it imo.
If Democrats take the House, Senate and White House, and nuke the filibuster, I think we’d get immigration reform. I’ve believed for a while that the most important part of the equation to create a better system is to drastically expand legal immigration and make it function more efficiently. I’m not sure what the maximum amount of people we can take in per year is without creating too much chaos, as it would depend on available housing, jobs, etc. But we should aim for that number and go from there, and we should aim to have that many people in as quickly as possible.
That would virtually eliminate undocumented immigration, and at that point we could figure out what was reasonable in terms of border security to prevent criminal trafficking or terrorism, which IMO should be handled out of like the FBI or something and probably requires somewhere between 1% and 10% of the manpower we currently have policing the border.
I would be somewhat surprised if he was a leader on any change involving the prison industrial complex, but I don’t think he’d veto anything. I think he will be involved in putting together a bill to address police brutality and improve racial justice and equality, and I think he’ll take a lot of input from the black community on this.
You could make an argument that he might be able to get a better bill done than just about anyone, not because his preferred bill is likely to be best but because a more centrist white man is going to have an easier time winning broad support for this type of bill than just about anyone else.
I think he’ll listen to experts and work with a Democratic Congress and sign whatever they pass.
I think a Democratic Congress will pass HR1, he’ll probably be leading the charge on it and sign it. I think he’ll restore the post office and push to expand mail-in voting going forward, because why not?
This is in reference to me talking about being demoralized by what’s going on and knowing it can’t change right now. So what I mean is that if we have big protests after a high profile killing of a person of color under a Biden presidency, I don’t think he’d use the feds to forcefully disperse the crowds. I think he’d call for calm from both police and protesters, and call for their free speech to be protected. At that point we have a lot of power if we just refuse to accept no for an answer, keep showing up to protest, keep calling the White House, Senators, Representatives, etc, and demand progress from him. I think he’s going to be on board for it though.
So essentially what I’m saying is that the only thing I can see keeping me away from these types of protests for the rest of my life is COVID-19 in the short/mid-term future. In the mean time I’ll donate as I can, advocate for change IRL and on social media, and make it a top 3 voting issue and essentially a litmus test for my vote in any race. Once it’s safe I’ll be out protesting whenever needed/possible.
That’s hard to say, I could go into what I currently support myself (universal body cams, no qualified immunity, higher degree of responsibility and punishment for police than citizens with regard to violence/use of force, federal laws governing the use of force by law enforcement, an independent investigative authority for these cases (could be FBI), community investment, and redesigning smaller police forces that are not patrol oriented and basically only respond to violent crime while social workers/etc respond to other incidents).
But I know less about a lot of this than others, and I’m way way way less personally or directly impacted. So my intent is to listen to experts and listen to the communities who are impacted, hear what they want, hear how they feel about whatever is passed, and do my best to support them and be an ally. So it’s possible a bill with everything I want passes and I end up realizing it isn’t enough and staying in the fight, or it’s possible a bill with less passes and they say “We didn’t actually want/need these other parts,” and I say okay, cool.
The same actions I laid out above regarding protesting/donating, voting decisions, speaking out, etc. This is a top issue for me, it’s a litmus test in the primaries, and it’ll be that way until we win the issue.
It’s already clear, and I’m honestly not sure what I can do in the short-term. I plan on calling my senators and representative within the next couple days. I am thinking about calling the state AG asking them to sue, calling the governor to ask him to ask the AG to sue, etc. I’m going to see if there are local plans in place to help people get ballots turned in (assuming it’s legal), and if that’s the case I’ll probably volunteer in some capacity if I can do so distanced (like driving around to pick up ballots and drop them off). But, I’m not sure what’s legal so I need to check.
As the election nears if/when it is sabotaged (when seems like an inevitability), I guess I should be careful how I word this on a public forum on which I don’t have anonymity.
Many people will be in streets somewhere. If it’s an issue of the gerrymandered and GOP controlled Pennsylvania state legislature refusing to certify the election, many will be in Harrisburg. If it’s an issue of Trump refusing to leave office, they’ll be in DC. Those who are unable to get to those places will protest locally.
I think it’ll be blatantly obvious.
Well if the GOP starts talking about not certifying the election, I imagine a lot of people will be in Harrisburg at the state capital the next morning. I also imagine that they will not accept no for an answer under any conditions.
Like he’d sign bills that gave them lots of money to improve conditions in prisons for innocent people and there’s no way those cops would spend that money on dirtbikes to chase people in the desert this time because they’d be working for a Democrat.
I’m bitterly fatalistic about things at this point, but one thing people can and should do is get themselves into a safe community where they can hunker down with mutual support to ride things out as best as possible. While I am very pessimistic about everything on the national level, many states and cities will remain reasonably tolerable, and strong local communities will likely endure. We’re heading for shittier times, but probably not the end times. Plan accordingly.
Toomey: Staffer politely said they’ll let him know. But we all know he’s a piece of shit.
Casey: Went to voicemail
Boyle: Staffer said he doesn’t think there’s enough time to impeach the Postmaster General, but he’ll pass him along. We chatted a bit about my voting options - he suggested in person.
State AG: Left a voicemail
Governor: Rang for three minutes, nobody answered
Sec of State: Staffer said they’ll pass it along.
A lot of the of the primary avenues (protesting, advocating, calling people, donating to righteous causes)
have already been discussed. I wonder what we have access to individually that might be career or context-specific? In addition to the above, my main opportunities are:
Job 1: Child/adolescent psychologist - connect disadvantaged and minority youth/families with community resources to strengthen their well-being, social capital, and ability to pursue change.
Job 2: Professor - I don’t explicitly discuss political ideation, but I teach a science and compassion-focused curriculum that emphasizes human service. I also offer extra credit for voting, which I gave to 97 students in 2018. I’ll be doing the same this semester.
I post this story with full approval of the young man in question and while protecting his confidentiality.
I had a teenage male client who struggled with severe depression as well as some considerable prejudice re: his sexual identity. While developing a suicide prevention/safety plan, we charted a list of life events and goals that he was looking forward to. In particular, he told me that he would be having a bonfire at a friend’s house. He’s staunchly drug-averse, so I assumed this meant your typical “burn a couple of pallets and sit around” type of affair.
He came back in a couple days later, looking and feeling much better. When I asked him how the bonfire was, he told me:
“Oh, it was awesome. We stole a bunch of political signs and burned the shit out of them. It felt so good to do something.”
I do not push politics as a clinician, but I thought of all of you. We are not the only ones fighting.
How does getting full approval work? Do you ask for blanket permission to share or do you ask for a specific purpose, such as telling his story on a political forum?
