When Trump started separating families and we started seeing kids in cages at the border, the fundamental problem was that Trump did not, on a basic level, respect those kids’ humanity. He subjected them to conditions that he’d never in a million years accept for his own kids (maybe Eric). His rhetoric reinforced the fact that he fundamentally did not view the issue of kids in cages at the border in the same way I did.
Biden is the same. He has made some minor concrete improvements in the kids’ lives by putting them in nicer cages, but the entire framework through which he views the issue is the same. He does not respect the humanity of those children. He would never in a million years allow his kids to be in these camps for weeks or months in the middle of a fucking pandemic. The fact that his team is able to say with a straight face that they’re not raising the refugee limit because of the bad PR from the border shows that he has the exact same callous attitude towards these people as Trump. Not “kinda the same, but better”. The EXACT same.
You can say the same thing about lots of other things. Like, I’m sure that whatever Biden does in terms of Healthcare will be an improvement on whatever Trump would have done in term 2. But the fact that he sees insurance companies as playing any kind of role in healthcare is like, the very core of the issue. And he is quite literally no different than Trump in that respect.
I feel like a lot of people see issues like access to healthcare as some smooth continuum and if you’re at the “supports a public option” point on the continuum you’re basically as close as you can get to single payer and should be viewed as objectively making progress towards single payer. I don’t see it that way at all. If you’re in favor of keeping insurance in place in anything resembling its current form, you fundamentally do not view someone’s right to healthcare in the same way that I do. You’re not getting closer to what I want. You’re cementing injustices that are readily apparent to anyone who wants to look.
So when corporations say they’re angry about a proposed small tax increase, sure they’re telling the truth. But Biden views the role of corporate America in the exact same way that Trump did, which is the exact same way that Obama did, which is the exact same way that every other president did for the last 50 years. The marginal tax rates are window dressing. The man does not agree with us about what the problem is, and we’re arguing about whether his solutions are sufficient.
That’s the key. I’m not arguing you should be satisfied. Quite the opposite. I’m arguing those progresses aren’t the same as nothing. You seem to be arguing they are in many cases.
My position is that narrative matters more than policy. It’s good that the COVID bill represented a move away from austerity and a willingness to think bigger, if not big enough.
It’s all window dressing if any moves leftward represent an attempt to pander to the electorate and don’t represent a change in how Democrats think government should work, how they think the world works, what they are willing to sacrifice electoral gains for because it’s the right thing to do.
I guess it depends if you think gaining one yard on your own 5 yard line on 3rd and 20 is good. Pointing at the handful of empirically good things that have happened in the last 50 years seems like it is intended to placate those of us who want and demand more. That’s why you get such pushback on some of these takes. It feels like you are telling us we should be happy with the progess even if we didn’t get everything we wanted. Over the last couple days it has crossed my mind that isn’t what you are meaning perhaps.
It also isn’t clear to me we have made any progress on the really big issues in the last 50 years. On things like income inequality we have actually empirically gone backwards for example.
Just a note of appreciation for the level headed, and well argued, discussion happening. Really appreciate that everyone involved appears to respect each other, and their thoughts.
He probably is worried about losing support. Dems won over a lot of high income white people in the suburbs IIRC and they probably have disgusting views on immigration. America as a whole have disgusting views on immigration.
We only beat Trump by like 50k votes or whatever so dems are probably terrified of losing any part of their new coalition.
Honestly the white working class fully abandoning the dems IS terrifying. The new demographic shift is fucking super worrying. Losing working class people, blacks, latinos, and gaining the whites in the suburbs is NOT a good shift. Who knows how many of those high income people only defected because of Trump and plan on going right back to voting for someone who is slightly less disgusting/erratic
Then again if they don’t fix the voting laws none of it will matter anyways…
Good point. But doesn’t that means Dems should be targeting the working class and minorities rather than some marginal group of suburbanites scared of brown people?
He only shifted right for people who fell for his election shtick and believed he’s ever given much of a fuck about kids in cages or asylum seekers in the first place.
100%. They should release all the immigrants with an ankle bracelet and court date like Obama did, get the kids with their families, and then just keep passing popular shit.
And mostly importantly get competent people in there for messaging and winning elections. We need a ton of Stacey Abrams copies and people doing a ton of groundwork in 2022.
They still have broken brains and think they’re going to win over the racists by being horrible to immigrants and it will not work. If those white suburbans are going back to a reasonable Republican this border policy shit isn’t going to stop them, they will go back for the tax cuts and even more horrible treatment of immigrants by a Republican.
Honestly I also kinda feel like this is all futile anyways because they aren’t going to pass HR1 or any voting shit and we’re going to slide into decades of GOP rule and fascism.
The real optimal play would be to just release all these people with no paperwork so the GOP has a harder time hunting them down when they take back over. At least gives them a chance to have a decent life here and Dem states can protect them as much as possible.
And economic handouts aren’t bringing them back. It’s cultural at this point: they perceive the Democratic Party as thinking they’re worthless and so they’re gone as a voting bloc. Hate is stronger than economics.
This is what makes Biden’s political machinations much more understandable (to me), even if they’re disappointing. At times, deplorable.
I think many people just vote for the guy in charge if things are going well for them (“are you better off now than four years ago” will be a great play for Joe in 2024). Also, I don’t think blacks and Latinos really left the party. I think they saw their economic lot improve (all things being equal, greater wealth tends to make every cohort vote more conservatively), as previously racist policies become more attenuated and as they become more educated as a bloc, and voted to maintain the status quo. That same principle should apply moving forward into 2024 and augurs well for the incumbent. Of course, anytime broad demographic trends are set in stone, we all realize the stone is made of mud, and have to reset our priors every micro cycle to the new new normal.
I don’t think that necessarily follows. Biden and the Dems should be focused on cleaning the dirtiest room in the house first: COVID response. Once that issue is resolved and we are back to basically 2019 life, massive swathes of the public will have so much goodwill towards the President that he should be able to take more political risks; he will have a ton of capital to gamble with.
a) America is a declining empire, many people are going to getting worse off over time even if Dems help way more than Republicans would.
b) Republicans have convinced huge swaths of the population that relative prosperity is all that’s important, if things got better for you but Dems made things even better for Others then thats a bad outcome.
I mean I guess we will see. Trying to predict voters is tough. I was shocked and horrified when I was watching the live streams of the primaries with just how completely clueless 90% of voters are.
We will have to see if the white suburban voters stick with dems, if minorities go back to dems, if the new huge voting block of conspiracy theorists stick with Republicans now that Trumps gone. What the working class does after their economic situation is vastly improved.
2022 will be very interesting. Dems are passing some good economic reforms for the working class, and if the infrastructure bill is good it will be interesting.
2022 is basically our democracy on the line. If dems don’t pass voting reforms and lose a house of congress the voting laws will get so much worse dems will not be able to win regardless.
I mean, millions of people will look absolutely no further than “I don’t have to wear a mask at the grocery store”. All this highfalutin stuff doesn’t rate for anyone but inner circle very online politicos and the “I’ll vote third party bet” crowd of a few thousand (also lots of overlap in these two groups).
Let’s not forget that Clovis accused every single person agitating for immigration reform of not actually caring about kids in cages and only using it to score political points.
Dishonest participant? If I ever see you in public and you put out your hand I’d spit on that fucker and tell you to get the fuck out of my face. The only liar and the only sack of garbage here is you.
Secret inner heart convos are yawn. But if your take away from clovis’ posts is that he’s a bad person then you’re either a poor reader or a maniac of some kind. Imo.
