General Politics XII World • Page 301

One time i came in the politics thread on AP while i was in high school saying some dumb shit about World War II and got my ass whooped. Helped send me on a path towards better politics for sure. Especially posters like Dom (RIP Dom), who would take a long time to explain things clearly in a way I appreciated and try to (poorly) emulate now.

 

I think that a better approach for Dems would have been to say “yes we’ve only just started and accomplished a little of what we want to do for working people, but there’s still more to do and here it is” and unveiled some bold platform of economic populism. Instead, midway through Biden’s term the tone became “and that’s all you fuckers get” and it wasn’t enough to really help working people meaningfully when put up against the rising costs of living. That May 2022 tweet from Biden about balancing the budget or whatever someone shared was a really useful timestamp lol

Because that’s what they’re always going to revert to - they will entertain the working class when the economy/political circumstances demand it, but they aren’t actually committed to it. It doesn’t help that a significant portion of liberals completely abandon the project of holding their electeds accountable as soon as they are in office.

 

Even the name of these bills are a spit in the face to struggling voters. Most people did not feel the effects of any of these so-called successful bills. They’re all watered down half-measures and most people know it. Biden has been extremely unpopular since we left Afghanistan and they still paraded his grandpa ass around telling people he was the most progressive president in history. At a certain point you have to stop listening to The Daily my guy

 

Her economic plan was also super vague and piecemealed like okay you are going to help people start small business but how you do plan on helping people who just want a good paying job and not getting fucked by their corporate overlords.

She wanted to fix housing by this vague private/public partnership bullshit, its vague and doesn't meet people where they are at. Even her down payment assistance shit was littered with all these caveats on who would actually receive it.

Same with the price gouging shit, people would bring up the price of groceries and she would say we are going after price gougers but then link it to gougers during disasters (which is a problem) but that is not what people were asking about.

 

Will never forget one of Biden’s first acts as president was saying we were going to get $2000 checks and then revising that to “well, 600 dollars but 2000 if you add it to what Trump gave you already.” And then liberals told everyone they were stupid for thinking he actually meant $2000 checks

 

You have to be able to help all working class whether they own a home but struggling to keep it and pay their bills and groceries or if you are renter who keeps seeing their rent raised and have no prospect of owning a home. The segmentation of this just allows for people to put themselves into groups instead of seeing it as a collective issue.

 

she said she would investigate grocery stores and others that were price gouging, and it was a really popular idea! it polled really well when biden announced his task force on it, like universally 75%+ approval. and then shortly after she announced it, we didn't hear much about it again, I'm assuming the DNC consultants shut it down.

 

I'm trying to figure out how to phrase this not like a smartass, but I think millions of voters across the country just resoundingly expressed their opinion on how they feel about those Biden policies...

trying to point out to people now that they actually were good seems beyond pointless

 

I HAD FUCKING FORGOTTEN ABOUT THIS

THIS FUCKING PISSED ME OFF SO FUCKING MUCH

if this one thing were the reason trump won, then that motherfucker Biden got what he deserved

 

The thing with price gouging shit is why did she not campaign or highlight the work that Lina Khan has done with trying to stop the merging of grocery chains which allow for them to gouge people even more. Oh yeah thats because her brother in law is the head of Uber's legal department and would probably like her gone.

Lina Khan had to go on a media tour just to try and save her fucking job, which is wild because I have never seen a FTC Chair actually do that before.

 

Well I don’t really think those are the policies that voters thought of when they decided not to vote for Harris. Like I said, most voters probably don’t even really remember they were passed. Which obviously I get the point that then clearly they didn’t have that much of an impact, but that’s why the messaging would have been to tout the good things about them and release her own bold plans to expand off of what that started

 

I do think the number of voters who stayed home or didn't vote for president at all really is a reflection on Biden and his policies though

if she had made a strong case for how she was different than him - which I very much think she should have done - then we'd be having a different conversation now, but she definitely did not do that. I think her quote was "I can't think of a single thing"

 

My Question is how the hell do they think they’re going to round up and deport every person? It just seems insane to me…

 

The segmentation of support drives me insane because it easily allows people to group themselves and then immediately be able to go anti against other groups.

Even with things like student loan forgiveness, tie that with how you are going to help non-college youth/families and then how to bring down the cost of college for people who have not attended yet.

 

They've been living inside of existential dread their entire lives so I get it. This doesn't really feel like anything different to them.

 

If I can add any anecdote to what might’ve contributed to her loss: if she clearly had to talk about anything she was uncomfortable with, she malfunctioned and repeated herself. I would think for being a lawyer she could be much more natural, but you can see the political software loading when she has to be more off the cuff. It was PAINFUL listening to her talk about having a glock. The Stern interview sucked, as did the 60 Minutes one. I think that’s what contributes to the perception that she is inauthentic. Biden, when he was more cognitively fit, was SO GOOD off the cuff. She can’t fake that she doesn’t clearly have more liberal beliefs about something like immigration. She has a a record of being more liberal on policies than the ones she ran on, which is why, I think, that she couldn’t say anything else about immigration than talking about the border bill. She is so consultant-ified that she is afraid of saying what she really means.

Yes the economic conditions, some sexism, the media diet in the country, etc, all contributed. But, she was just…bad at this. The national spotlight makes her shrink and repeat herself over and over again.

 

I should start a non-profit that just hangs out in vape shop parking lots and hands copies of Chomsky and Zinn to every man who walks in.

 

Build Back Better is probably at least partly why there wasn't the predicted red wave in 2022. I do agree that this election was really a referendum on biden and his policies since Harris made no distinction between what she would do differently, that was her biggest failure. But again, i do not believe those policies were deciding factors. A lot happened after those bills got signed into law that were much more influential to how they voted

 

Same but mma fights and comedy clubs

 

They can't and so many of the large corporate and other special interests are going to lobby them to stop it because it will decimate entire industries.

 

They can't literally impossible to monitor illegal things lol

They'll just use it as a threat

 

that check thing is a perfect example though - Biden said he was going to do something, it was well within his power to do said thing, and for no reason whatsoever he goes back on what he said and does a completely different thing, and instead of just owning that and saying something like "yeah, I changed my mind because that's too expensive" or "the money just isn't there" he gave this long condescending bullshit answer about how actually what he has meant was blah blah blah and we had just misunderstood him because we are dumb idiots

He should have just done the fucking thing.

And if he wasn't going to do the fucking thing anymore, just say that.