In addition to the structural bias that tilts the scales in favor of the most conservative areas of the country, I think a lot of people fail to realize that our country is a lot more right-wing economically than we care to admit. We have had decades of propaganda about free markets drilled into our populace and it has been very effective. I’m probably a good example of that, I grew up in a very conservative farming family and held very conservative beliefs both socially and economically until my mid twenties, and even then as I became more and more progressive and my views shifted farther to the left, my economic views still lagged behind. Even now I’ll be listening to things like [Citations Needed] or Know Your Enemy and they drop some bit of knowledge or history about various right wing economic propaganda that surprises me and makes me rethink some fundamental beliefs, and im probably somewhat exceptional when it comes to being willing to re-examine and question my world view. Most people don’t seem capable of that at least not to the same degree and their base assumptions are going to be skewed pretty far to the right, economically for the reasons I mentioned above. In short, WAAF.
That’s fine, a very reasonable position. But is it really any less counterproductive to point out over and over again that Biden is not as progressive as we wish he was, the policies are not as progressive as we wish they were, and society is not as progressive as we wish it was? On it’s surface it seems far more counterproductive to keep bringing that up over and over and over and over and over again. It’s virtually a settled accepted fact on this forum.
The problem is we have a huge range of political views here. Huge. Some people want to end capitalism. Ban landlording. Open borders. Virtually or entirely dismantle the police and military. Some want a much stronger state than we have. Some want to ban guns, some want revolution.
The delusion is that everyone is almost in complete agreement about everything and it’s just infighting.
All true on those issues. Not true with respect to Biden. I don’t think there is a single regular poster who would have picked him or wouldn’t instant swap him out if given the choice.
This cult of Biden schtick is pure delusion. It simply does not exist here at all.
Clearly. So let’s keep debating those things. But when someone says “maybe we shouldn’t have completely open borders” do we have people jumping in every single time saying OH I GUESS THAT MEANS YOU LOVE PUTTING BABIES IN CAGES FOREVER? I mean, everyone on this forum agrees that babies in cages in bad and we still seem to be able talk about it without accusing people of things they clearly don’t believe.
The president is doing a bad job, and you’re asking whether it’s more counterproductive to point out the bad job he’s doing, or to say that he’s doing a good job?
I also do not agree that it’s a settled accepted fact here that he’s doing a bad job. There are a bunch of people who want to point out individual things that Biden does that they think are good, and then get defensive when there’s pushback from people who think those things are actually bad. The defensiveness almost always takes the form of “listen nobody here likes Biden, why are you even bringing up how bad he is again”. And it’s almost always sandwiched between discussions of the good things Biden is doing. This thread for the past few hours has been exactly that.
Everyone knows that he was not anyone’s #1 pick. We had a bunch of polls. What’s happening is:
A: You love Biden. Nya nya nya.
B: I don’t LOVE him, we’re just friends.
A: Close enough.
Ok, childish exchange, but if you can’t get passed that…I guess this will just keep happening over and over.
Don’t we have a bunch of active threads on those topics? I try to focus on posting snarky comments and not engaging in substantive debate, do I don’t follow those conversations closely.
I’m not trying to continue replying to you like a vendetta, so I’m sorry if this is too much, but this is a really good example of you forming a consensus that I don’t agree exists.
There were long arguments about the kids in cages where one side firmly bought into the Biden rationale that we need to do thorough background checks of wherever these kids are trying to go, and if that means keeping kids in cages for weeks or months while we do so, then so be it. That’s fine if it’s your position, I think it’s a defensible one even if I think it’s wrong, but you don’t get to hold that position and also claim you’re against kids in cages.
To me, if you are not in favor of open borders or, at the very least, border enforcement that doesn’t go farther than setting a court date and sending people on their way, then you are by definition in favor of putting kids in cages.
I agree with your whole post. There were certainly people here arguing against this. There is not a consensus here on border policy/immigration other than everyone agrees Trump’s policies were bad.
I didn’t get to this part. Belongs in another thread, but the way I would put it is: If you don’t want open borders you support suffering people suffering more in order to protect something about your life (or I guess your country or race (not talking about you - just people who want closed borders)). It’s not a much kinder way of putting it even if I don’t specifically mention babies.
And, I don’t think it means a closed border person is a bad person. Our society makes people bad like that. We think paying someone to point a gun at someone else to keep them on the other side of “our” lines is normal because that’s the way it’s been for all of our lives (though you don’t have to go back far for that to have been different).
This is a great point and is certainly an improvement on the way I framed it. I think its healthier for the forum if we all stick to substantive comments like this instead if trying to divide the individual posters into Biden Lovers and Biden Haters which I think is a false dichotomy.
Yeah I agree with this thanks for improving on my post.
Uh he is?
Manchin has expressed opposition to core elements of Biden’s legislative priorities such as raising the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour, overhauling campaign finance and election law, enacting a House-passed bill to expand background checks, and raising the corporate tax rate from 21 percent to 28 percent.
Lol who said that.
I think the gist would things would not be any different under Bernie.
You even recently led directly to that when you said bernie’s impact would be on getting more progressive candidates in the future which means nothing for us right this second and what is happening.
I recently spoke to @Sabo and don’t think he is interested in more positing here. I’ll leave it to him to say why.
I will say, I am sure I am part of the reason. He represents the extreme left of the political spectrum and I am sure I mistook some of his genuine posting as trolling due to how far from my views he was. That said, he did do some serious trolling as well but it is maybe understandable given he was the target of a lot of ire.
I would be interested if he posted more but I’d hope someone with views so far from the mainstream would understand that people will have trouble accepting them and not to view pushback as stupidity.
If anything I have moved closer to his views over the past 6 months.
I talk to Sabo as well. Visited with him in person recently in our newly vaccinated world. Dunno if he’ll post again though.
Obamacare would have been overturned in 2017 if Manchin voted for repeal or a WV republican held the seat.
Manchin was a successful and well liked 2 term governor and is barely holding on to the seat. If he retired and his seat was an open election in 2022 it would be the single most likely state to flip with like a 70%+ chance of republicans taking it. I don’t know a ton about WV, but they don’t have a Dem House member and I’m guessing no state level dem official besides Manchin. So if he retires it’s basically somebody 80% of WV has never heard of trying to win a seat in a place where R beats D by a lot…, like 40%+.