One pollster sees “flashing red” signs on youth turnout as Gen Z and millennial voters, who are not satisfied with either party, could again play a decisive role in the next election.
Is that really the fault of Biden though? His first two years were held hostage by Manchin and Sinema and now he no longer has a majority in the house. The president can only sign bills into law not make them out of thin air. I am not a huge Biden fan as I think he is too old to lead but I think he has done ok under the conditions he has.
Agreed that the bOtH sIdEs argument is utter bullshit.
However, Roe was never actually codified into law because it was a reliable rallying cry for Democratic politicians. Put another way: Democrats never seriously pushed to make Roe an actual law because it was politically beneficial to the party in elections.
Democratic politicians have bleated about protecting abortion rights for decades, but simultaneously completely ignored actually protecting abortion rights with laws.
Democrats never push to do anything that upsets the status quo. They are cowards. And any democrat who does push that agenda, is labeled some sort of extremist socialist nutjob.
The DNC is almost exclusively just neoliberals at this point.
To be clear, they’re better than the GOP, but that’s also like saying Mussolini was better than Hitler because Mussolini didn’t execute as many people.
Exactly. The DNC only cares about the top 10% (their donor base).The RNC only care about the top 1% (their donor base).
Everyone else is basically voting for people who hate them and have zero interest in making this country better for the majority. If you don’t make like 200k+ a year, our political system basically thinks you should fuck off and die because you’re a waste of human flesh.
Channel your outrage in a way other than voting for a party making things worse. I get you want progress but the options are very very slow progress or regression…don’t vote for regression.
there is no productive way to channel it politically. everyone who is in office and running for office is 100% about maintaining the status quo because it benefits the top 10% to the detriment of everyone else in USA society.
the issue is our progress is so slow and our problems are mounting so fast, that it basically seems like we are back sliding… and we are
hence why homelessness, drug use, etc are all rising. if you aren’t in the top 50% of incomes you can’t afford basic shelter or medical care, and you need to be in the top 20% to afford quality shelter and medical care.
Short of revolution voting is all we have. I understand apathy. I was like that in my 20’s…but I can promise that the right can and will make things worse.
If anything, I’m more apathetic now than when I was in my 20s. I know the right wing will make things worse, but if the left wing doesn’t make things better then we’re still backsliding. Just slower.
There have never been 60 Senate votes to enshrine abortion. The last time Democrats had 60 Senate votes at all was for 2 months early in Obama’s first term – and many of those senators were Manchin style conservative Democrats.
If there were 50 votes in favor of ending the filibuster, then we might actually have enough. But we don’t have that either.
If not like voters were unaware of this either. The pro lifers made abortion a constant topic of discussion. If the electorate wanted Roe enshrined, they would’ve voted for more Democrats, and Democrats who won primaries would be pro choice.
The unfortunate reality is there’s never been enough votes to do so.
I completely agree that both parties aren’t the same, but the data shows that people don’t believe elections are a way to effectively create change. If people don’t think voting will help, they’re less likely to vote. It’s not that people like Republicans more than Democrats, it’s that they don’t like government.
I know several people like this. It’s so hard to explain to them that a vote for the status quo is better than letting things get even worse. If we don’t halt the degeneration we can’t ever turn things around. You can’t push something up without first stopping its fall.
I think the hardest part is that the feedback loop for voting is too slow for people to see its effects. It took decades of consistent voting by conservative Christians to get Roe v. Wade repealed. The urgency of the messaging around voting during election season makes it seem - to a politically-uninterested observer - like each election is an end unto itself.
What really matters with voting is doing it consistently. It should feel like doing your taxes, not like an epic struggle for the future of the country. The idea that a single election will produce the kind of systemic change I think most people want to see is just wrong.
Well, decades of semi-consistent voting (wasn’t so consistent in 2006 or 08, just to grab two elections off the top of my head), and a couple billion dollars in dark money thrown at judges and law schools and think tanks to launder all their extremist garbage, which is something the left doesn’t really have
Elected conservatives consistently work towards what they run on. Elected Democrats have this nasty habit of showing extremely public contempt for progressives, and then if they try to do anything at all toward fixing what they just showed contempt for, doing so quietly, all the while demanding fawning praise from progressives.
Progressives see what voting gets them. Republicans didn’t keep the public option from coming to the floor for a vote. Republicans didn’t give a cutesy thumbs down to increasing minimum wage. Republicans didn’t systematically rip BBB apart over the course of months. Progressives see Democrats have the means to improve things and find enough no votes to prevent that improvement, in some cases being gleeful about it. Every time they have a medical expense that their garbage insurance denies, they remember giving Democrats a supermajority and watching them find the votes to kill the public option. Every time they can’t make ends meet, they remember giving Democrats a majority and then watching Sinema’s thumbs down. Every time they spend too much for daycare, or can’t afford to put their child in pre-k, or can’t take medical leave, or afford community college, they remember giving Democrats a majority and watching Democrats dismantle BBB without any help at all from Republicans, extremely publicly over the course of months. And those scars reopen.
Democrats wonder why they don’t get immediate enthusiastic lockstep voting from the electorate. They never expect it from the elected.
Instead of spending 4 years saying we can’t do anything, maybe he should have taken a page out of trumps book and churned out so many executive orders the Republicans couldn’t keep up with trying to fight them all.
Maybe he could have used his influence to empower local political efforts where impact can be more powerful.
There’s plenty of things that could be done, but we excuse inaction.
You realize Biden broke Trump’s record for executive orders and appointments, right?
He did a ton of work, most of which was reversing Trump’s damage to Federal agencies like the EPA.
He also gave out stimulus. Student loan forgiveness was struck down by the Court, but they are putting together a secondary option. They’ve started to look into re-scheduling marijuana.
I don’t love everything he’s done. I could point to the railworker strike or foreign policy in the middle east as things I don’t like. But he has far exceeded my expectations for both accomplishing goals and for those goals being further left than I expected. He’s only done “nothing” if you decide to conveniently ignore all that he’s done.
You are fighting the battle of the informed. The attitudes in these comments are assumptions of the uninformed. Regardless of sides, thank you for your work.
So going back to ops comment - What has he done to improve your quality of life?
Normal people don’t give a shit about appointing judges or making their electricity more expensive through EPA regulations. They want something that increases the money in their pocket or makes their lives easier.
The overwhelming majority of people aren’t buying new EVs and getting a $7,500 credit.
Trump wanted to do the stimulus check too.
If we had Build Back Better (that is such a stupid fucking name) he would have actual tangible accomplishments. Like he could say do you remember when you were paying $300 a week for child care and now you’re paying $100 a week? How about those $300 a month checks were sending because you have a kid? How about that parental and family leave?
Unfortunately, even with his extreme deal making acumen, he couldn’t get his “friend” and member of his own party to vote for it so he has nothing to run on.
Normal people 100% care about appointing judges, because that has a huge impact on everyday life. We just saw the Supreme Court overturn Roe V Wade last year (filling the country with thousands of unborn children every year is going to effect everyone). This year they overturned affirmative action and student loan forgiveness. The reason Miranda Rights and gay marriage exists is because of Supreme Court decisions. Tons of state courts have had huge impacts on the drawing of districts over the last decade, either supporting or trying to eliminate gerrymandering. If you don’t think appointing judges impacts you, you need to go back to your 3rd grade social studies course.
The EPA helps to protect the air we breath, the water we drink, and the soil we grow our food in. If your electricity gets more expensive, blame your local provider for not seeing the writing on the wall in the last 40 years and switching to renewable and cleaner energy sources. Or blame yourself for not investing in solar. I don’t want to breath pollution just so you can get a few dollars off your electric bill.
Also you’re ignoring how Biden literally sent out stimulus checks. That is the single most direct thing a president can do.
There was the management of the oil reserves at the start of the Ukraine war, and the pressure he put on gas companies to stop price gouging. Even if you don’t drive, the price of gas effects everything you buy.
What are you looking for from the president? Head pats? Magicka tricks? Do you want him to fix your municipality’s terrible zoning laws? Do you want him to tell you it’s okay to be racist or bigoted?
Medicare for All (or at least substantially improving the ACA or some other mechanism of making health care cheaper)
Card check (or how about just not fucking over the rail workers?)
Paid paternal/family/sick leave
Guaranteed vacation time
$15/hr min wage
Student loan forgiveness
Free/reduced price college
Free/reduced price childcare
Child tax credit
Expanding the earned income tax credit
Medicare being able to negotiate drug prices (all drug prices now, not five different drugs a couple years from now)
Marijuana legalization
Universal Pre-K
Some sort of substantive action on climate change - for example: “We’re going to build 20 new nuclear plants in the next 10 years.” - “ICE vehicle sales will be mostly banned after 2035.” - “We’re going to build 15 new 1000 megawatt or bigger offshore wind farms and we’ve bypassed the normal red tape so they’re starting to be built right now.”
Some sort of substantive action on housing being expensive - maybe withhold federal funds from states/municipalities that don’t relax their zoning for more and multi unit building. Maybe have the federal government directly start building stuff.
Etc…
We did get that tax credit that brings down the cost of an EV to a price most Americans still can’t afford, so that’s good. (Sarcasm)
Marijuana legalization polls at like 70%+ including a majority of Republican voters and still zero movement there for some reason. Among Democrats it’s like 80%.
You just listed a ton of things that the Exexutivr Branch does not have the power to do. That applies to Medicare for All, Paid Leave, Vacation Time, Minimum Wage, Free/Reduced College/Childcare, the Child Tax Credit, expanding the EET Credit, universal pre-K, marijuana legalization, and allowing Medicare to negotiate with drug manufactures. You need to blame Congress, not Biden.
Biden has taken some measures on a lot of those fronts. He sponsored the bill you referenced that allows Medicare to start negotiating some drug prices. He directed the FDA to start reviewing Marijuana for rescheduling, which is as much as the Executive branch can do without further input from Congress. That’s pretty far from the “0 movement” you claim. The DoE tried Student Loan forgiveness and that just got shut down by the Judicial branch, and they have started the process to try again with a different law. The US President is not a dictator and can’t just implement these policies unilaterally.
I agree that I didn’t like the handling of the rail workers strike, but the unions ended up getting what they asked for.
Housing affordability is typically a local zoning and supply issue, though there are bills pending in Congress to address corporate investment in the housing market. I don’t know what you expect from the Federal Executive branch there. The federal government can’t just start building stuff on the whim of the president. They can build on federal land (within limits defined by Congress). Even Congress would probably struggle to do much with local building because that’s not their jurisdiction.
I’m going to assume you’re not American because you clearly don’t understand how the US government works. You’re just blaming everything on the President.
If you’re going to wait for Congressional action to do any of that stuff, in our anti-majoritarian system that is stacked against the Democratic party, then you’re going to be waiting multiple decades at least.
Just take the Supreme Court for example. Let’s say their was some sort of huge political/cultural shift and the median Congressman was Bernie Sanders - unless we get lucky and a few Supremes die, then there will be Federalist Society veto on progressive legislation even a decade or two or three from now.
All of these changes will have to be shoved through the executive branch somehow. The Supreme Court will have to be ignored.
Or we’ll just have to wait a generation or two or more. The climate change stuff can’t wait.
So you’re suggesting that Biden just seize power? Just ignore the courts and Congress.
That would lead to an impeachment. Either Harris sides with Biden and continues what he did, then gets impeached herself, or Harris sides with Congress and tries to take power. What it effectively biols down to is Biden and someone else acting as commander-in-chief, and who wins is determined by the Pentagon. At best, you are advocating for a military coup, and more likely a civil war.
If Congress gets turned progressive, they can suddenly enact a ton of policies. Of the Supreme Court tries to intervene, there is the option to expand the court (as has been done before) or the option of impeachment (has not been done, but… Maybe).
So the answer isn’t just to sit at home blaming Biden for not starting what would effectively becoming WW3, but rather to vote in every election- primaries, state, local, mid-term, etc.
Trump honestly barely got anything done during his presidency, most of his executive orders were struck down. What he did get done (Supreme Court justices and tax cuts) was just what literally any Republican with a majority in Congress would have done. Biden has gotten more actual legislation passed than Trump did, and his attempt to legislate by executive order (student loan forgiveness) was as ineffective as Trump’s attempts.
A lot of trump’s executive orders got headlines for being struck down once, and then way less coverage when they tweaked them slightly and got them approved
It’s okay to criticize your party. You can vote for the lesser evil while still calling out the “evil” in the party you voted for. Hell I’d say it’s pretty important to be willing to hold ones leaders feet to the fire.
But it doesn’t mean everyone who is critical is voting Republican.
The Democratic Party treats women as incubators. Ones they can scare into giving them fundraising dollars by doing exactly nothing to stop republicans.
His first two years were held hostage by Manchin and Sinema
Yeah, but during the Georgia runoffs, Biden and party leaders kept encouraging people across the country to donate by saying “50 is enough to pass the party platform”.
So either they had no idea Sinema or Manchin would obstruct, or they knew it and lied to voters.
So trying to blame those two now makes the party look inept at best
I’m pretty sure blaming Manchin must be electoral strategy. He’s much more conservative than the average Democrat, but he’s still by far the most liberal senator that’s ever going to get elected in West Virginia, and the blame lets him campaign in a deep red state about how he owned the libs.
I don’t think they’re lying, but them blaming him does help Manchin, and Manchin is the only chance Democrats have in West Virginia. For example, Manchin is to blame for concessions in the infrastructure bill, but Trump won West Virginia with 69% of the vote. The alternative to Manchin wouldn’t be a liberal who would pass an infrastructure bill with a greater commitment to green energy, it would be a far right senator who wouldn’t pass an infrastructure bill at all. Manchin is an net positive at the moment for Biden’s agenda, and progressives being so angry at him means he can campaign on not bowing to the far left agenda or whatever. Ideally there would be enough Democratic senators that Manchin wouldn’t matter, but anyone saying he should be primaried is honestly just delusional about who can get elected in West Virginia.
Similar to the other comment, “fault” doesn’t have a ton to do with it. Things needed to get done, and didn’t, so they still need to be done, and they (Biden and the Dems) aren’t capable of making it happen. That doesn’t really leave any good options but it’s not going to stop people from looking for one. This one is going to be the bad kind of exciting again.
2024 is going to age me 15 years, the shit that scares me is if the economy takes a serious hit from financial fuckery like in 2008. Im afeared that would make those who voted Biden in 2020 out of disgust to want give Trump another try
I always vote, because I’m lucky enough to get paid time off work for it and little to no wait time.
Some people have to take a day off work and wait 4-8 hours in line.
We could sit around and complain about nonvoters, or we can try to increase voter engagement. But the party needs to make that choice too, and they’re not really great at the second option.
I’ll tell you: it’s because the vast majority of politicians that we electour system railroads us into choosing between and electing are essentially useless grifter assholes, and are, with a few exceptions, either deeply uninspiring or straight up never follow through on things they campaign on. And our entrenched two-party system only makes it worse. And then there’s lobbying.
That’s the rub though. Trump makes people feel like they are doing something. That is far more motivating and powerful of a reason to vote for him than voting for Biden, who is the equivalent of sitting in traffic.
People want the country to fucking do something. Even if it is driving off a cliff.
People don’t have to vote for trump if they are disillusioned, they just don’t vote. If someone has to take a day off of work when they are already struggling for people who dont do shit for them in either direction, then why go vote? And i know what you are going to say, but maybe you should blame the system and fight it (cause you need more then just voting anyway) then the people who are being beaten by the system trying to survive. It honestly it amazing to me that people like you cannot fathom the apathy and lack of energy as the real issue. For some people it is a big issue to vote because of the systematic issues put before them, because Republicans and Establishment Dems alike know that if they vote they loose. Do you think i want trump to win? Im a Nonbinary autistic living with my trans wife. But you better fucking believe im going to call out the dems for this bullshit. If they fought just as hard against anyone slightly progressive from getting on ballots as they did for people to vote more easily then things would be different, but they enjoy their money just as much as the Republicans, their grift is just nicer in comparison to literal nazis. And they use that against us over and over but in 2016 they miscalculated (of course they did they are more out of touch each year). I hope a Republican doesn’t win but im not going to be shocked if they do and the dems are more to blame for this then voters who can’t vote for a variety of reasons.
A lot of us (on both sides of the political spectrum) would prefer a president who prioritizes individuals over corporations. But I guess you’re free to have a different opinion, even if it makes you a bootlicker.
This decision literally prioritized individuals. If trains stop moving, people die.
I know you straight up don’t believe this, but cities run out of food within 48-72 hours. Hospitals run out of resources faster. Every single union member knew way their job entailed day 1.
This is personal to me, too, since my friend and neighbor works for that union. They got sick days, within weeks of the deadlock being broken by the gov.
Is that really the fault of Biden though? His first two years were held hostage by Manchin and Sinema and now he no longer has a majority in the house. The president can only sign bills into law not make them out of thin air. I am not a huge Biden fan as I think he is too old to lead but I think he has done ok under the conditions he has.
It’s not his fault, but it explains why people don’t think voting will help.
That attitude is why Rowe v. Wade is gone now. The Parties are NOT the same!!!
Agreed that the bOtH sIdEs argument is utter bullshit.
However, Roe was never actually codified into law because it was a reliable rallying cry for Democratic politicians. Put another way: Democrats never seriously pushed to make Roe an actual law because it was politically beneficial to the party in elections.
Democratic politicians have bleated about protecting abortion rights for decades, but simultaneously completely ignored actually protecting abortion rights with laws.
Democrats never push to do anything that upsets the status quo. They are cowards. And any democrat who does push that agenda, is labeled some sort of extremist socialist nutjob.
This is why so many of us are outraged.
The DNC is almost exclusively just neoliberals at this point.
To be clear, they’re better than the GOP, but that’s also like saying Mussolini was better than Hitler because Mussolini didn’t execute as many people.
Exactly. The DNC only cares about the top 10% (their donor base).The RNC only care about the top 1% (their donor base).
Everyone else is basically voting for people who hate them and have zero interest in making this country better for the majority. If you don’t make like 200k+ a year, our political system basically thinks you should fuck off and die because you’re a waste of human flesh.
Channel your outrage in a way other than voting for a party making things worse. I get you want progress but the options are very very slow progress or regression…don’t vote for regression.
People are outraged because laws and public opinion have a statistical correlation of 0, unless you sample exclusively from the very top of the socioeconomic strata. That’s a very reasonable thing to be irate about in a country that’s ostensibly a democracy.
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there is no productive way to channel it politically. everyone who is in office and running for office is 100% about maintaining the status quo because it benefits the top 10% to the detriment of everyone else in USA society.
all i can do is fix up my house. lol
Gen Z + Millennials = 142 Million
Gen X + Boomers = 134 Million
The youth of this country has been conned into thinking they have no power. Boomers don’t want you to vote.
If the best we can do is very slow progress it’s no wonder people don’t think voting is effective
the issue is our progress is so slow and our problems are mounting so fast, that it basically seems like we are back sliding… and we are
hence why homelessness, drug use, etc are all rising. if you aren’t in the top 50% of incomes you can’t afford basic shelter or medical care, and you need to be in the top 20% to afford quality shelter and medical care.
Short of revolution voting is all we have. I understand apathy. I was like that in my 20’s…but I can promise that the right can and will make things worse.
If anything, I’m more apathetic now than when I was in my 20s. I know the right wing will make things worse, but if the left wing doesn’t make things better then we’re still backsliding. Just slower.
There have never been 60 Senate votes to enshrine abortion. The last time Democrats had 60 Senate votes at all was for 2 months early in Obama’s first term – and many of those senators were Manchin style conservative Democrats.
If there were 50 votes in favor of ending the filibuster, then we might actually have enough. But we don’t have that either.
If not like voters were unaware of this either. The pro lifers made abortion a constant topic of discussion. If the electorate wanted Roe enshrined, they would’ve voted for more Democrats, and Democrats who won primaries would be pro choice.
The unfortunate reality is there’s never been enough votes to do so.
I completely agree that both parties aren’t the same, but the data shows that people don’t believe elections are a way to effectively create change. If people don’t think voting will help, they’re less likely to vote. It’s not that people like Republicans more than Democrats, it’s that they don’t like government.
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I know several people like this. It’s so hard to explain to them that a vote for the status quo is better than letting things get even worse. If we don’t halt the degeneration we can’t ever turn things around. You can’t push something up without first stopping its fall.
I think the hardest part is that the feedback loop for voting is too slow for people to see its effects. It took decades of consistent voting by conservative Christians to get Roe v. Wade repealed. The urgency of the messaging around voting during election season makes it seem - to a politically-uninterested observer - like each election is an end unto itself.
What really matters with voting is doing it consistently. It should feel like doing your taxes, not like an epic struggle for the future of the country. The idea that a single election will produce the kind of systemic change I think most people want to see is just wrong.
Well, decades of semi-consistent voting (wasn’t so consistent in 2006 or 08, just to grab two elections off the top of my head), and a couple billion dollars in dark money thrown at judges and law schools and think tanks to launder all their extremist garbage, which is something the left doesn’t really have
conservatives are more far-sighted than the democracts, yes. that is why they have been so much more successful.
they are also far more willing to lie, cheat, and steal. The democrats won’t.
Elected conservatives consistently work towards what they run on. Elected Democrats have this nasty habit of showing extremely public contempt for progressives, and then if they try to do anything at all toward fixing what they just showed contempt for, doing so quietly, all the while demanding fawning praise from progressives.
Progressives see what voting gets them. Republicans didn’t keep the public option from coming to the floor for a vote. Republicans didn’t give a cutesy thumbs down to increasing minimum wage. Republicans didn’t systematically rip BBB apart over the course of months. Progressives see Democrats have the means to improve things and find enough no votes to prevent that improvement, in some cases being gleeful about it. Every time they have a medical expense that their garbage insurance denies, they remember giving Democrats a supermajority and watching them find the votes to kill the public option. Every time they can’t make ends meet, they remember giving Democrats a majority and then watching Sinema’s thumbs down. Every time they spend too much for daycare, or can’t afford to put their child in pre-k, or can’t take medical leave, or afford community college, they remember giving Democrats a majority and watching Democrats dismantle BBB without any help at all from Republicans, extremely publicly over the course of months. And those scars reopen.
Democrats wonder why they don’t get immediate enthusiastic lockstep voting from the electorate. They never expect it from the elected.
Instead of spending 4 years saying we can’t do anything, maybe he should have taken a page out of trumps book and churned out so many executive orders the Republicans couldn’t keep up with trying to fight them all.
Maybe he could have used his influence to empower local political efforts where impact can be more powerful.
There’s plenty of things that could be done, but we excuse inaction.
You realize Biden broke Trump’s record for executive orders and appointments, right?
He did a ton of work, most of which was reversing Trump’s damage to Federal agencies like the EPA.
He also gave out stimulus. Student loan forgiveness was struck down by the Court, but they are putting together a secondary option. They’ve started to look into re-scheduling marijuana.
I don’t love everything he’s done. I could point to the railworker strike or foreign policy in the middle east as things I don’t like. But he has far exceeded my expectations for both accomplishing goals and for those goals being further left than I expected. He’s only done “nothing” if you decide to conveniently ignore all that he’s done.
You are fighting the battle of the informed. The attitudes in these comments are assumptions of the uninformed. Regardless of sides, thank you for your work.
So going back to ops comment - What has he done to improve your quality of life?
Normal people don’t give a shit about appointing judges or making their electricity more expensive through EPA regulations. They want something that increases the money in their pocket or makes their lives easier.
The overwhelming majority of people aren’t buying new EVs and getting a $7,500 credit.
Trump wanted to do the stimulus check too.
If we had Build Back Better (that is such a stupid fucking name) he would have actual tangible accomplishments. Like he could say do you remember when you were paying $300 a week for child care and now you’re paying $100 a week? How about those $300 a month checks were sending because you have a kid? How about that parental and family leave?
Unfortunately, even with his extreme deal making acumen, he couldn’t get his “friend” and member of his own party to vote for it so he has nothing to run on.
Normal people 100% care about appointing judges, because that has a huge impact on everyday life. We just saw the Supreme Court overturn Roe V Wade last year (filling the country with thousands of unborn children every year is going to effect everyone). This year they overturned affirmative action and student loan forgiveness. The reason Miranda Rights and gay marriage exists is because of Supreme Court decisions. Tons of state courts have had huge impacts on the drawing of districts over the last decade, either supporting or trying to eliminate gerrymandering. If you don’t think appointing judges impacts you, you need to go back to your 3rd grade social studies course.
The EPA helps to protect the air we breath, the water we drink, and the soil we grow our food in. If your electricity gets more expensive, blame your local provider for not seeing the writing on the wall in the last 40 years and switching to renewable and cleaner energy sources. Or blame yourself for not investing in solar. I don’t want to breath pollution just so you can get a few dollars off your electric bill.
Also you’re ignoring how Biden literally sent out stimulus checks. That is the single most direct thing a president can do.
There was the management of the oil reserves at the start of the Ukraine war, and the pressure he put on gas companies to stop price gouging. Even if you don’t drive, the price of gas effects everything you buy.
What are you looking for from the president? Head pats? Magicka tricks? Do you want him to fix your municipality’s terrible zoning laws? Do you want him to tell you it’s okay to be racist or bigoted?
Things Biden shoulda/coulda done
Some sort of substantive action on climate change - for example: “We’re going to build 20 new nuclear plants in the next 10 years.” - “ICE vehicle sales will be mostly banned after 2035.” - “We’re going to build 15 new 1000 megawatt or bigger offshore wind farms and we’ve bypassed the normal red tape so they’re starting to be built right now.”
Some sort of substantive action on housing being expensive - maybe withhold federal funds from states/municipalities that don’t relax their zoning for more and multi unit building. Maybe have the federal government directly start building stuff.
Etc…
We did get that tax credit that brings down the cost of an EV to a price most Americans still can’t afford, so that’s good. (Sarcasm)
Marijuana legalization polls at like 70%+ including a majority of Republican voters and still zero movement there for some reason. Among Democrats it’s like 80%.
You just listed a ton of things that the Exexutivr Branch does not have the power to do. That applies to Medicare for All, Paid Leave, Vacation Time, Minimum Wage, Free/Reduced College/Childcare, the Child Tax Credit, expanding the EET Credit, universal pre-K, marijuana legalization, and allowing Medicare to negotiate with drug manufactures. You need to blame Congress, not Biden.
Biden has taken some measures on a lot of those fronts. He sponsored the bill you referenced that allows Medicare to start negotiating some drug prices. He directed the FDA to start reviewing Marijuana for rescheduling, which is as much as the Executive branch can do without further input from Congress. That’s pretty far from the “0 movement” you claim. The DoE tried Student Loan forgiveness and that just got shut down by the Judicial branch, and they have started the process to try again with a different law. The US President is not a dictator and can’t just implement these policies unilaterally.
I agree that I didn’t like the handling of the rail workers strike, but the unions ended up getting what they asked for.
On climate change, Biden has done a ton. https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2023/04/20/fact-sheet-president-biden-to-catalyze-global-climate-action-through-the-major-economies-forum-on-energy-and-climate/. Is it enough? Hell no - to be honest it’s probably too late to actually do “enough”. But even some of what he has done has already been undone by the Judicial branch: he stopped leasing federal land to oil companies, but the judicial branch has been starting and stopping that through appeals.
Housing affordability is typically a local zoning and supply issue, though there are bills pending in Congress to address corporate investment in the housing market. I don’t know what you expect from the Federal Executive branch there. The federal government can’t just start building stuff on the whim of the president. They can build on federal land (within limits defined by Congress). Even Congress would probably struggle to do much with local building because that’s not their jurisdiction.
I’m going to assume you’re not American because you clearly don’t understand how the US government works. You’re just blaming everything on the President.
I understand how the US government works.
If you’re going to wait for Congressional action to do any of that stuff, in our anti-majoritarian system that is stacked against the Democratic party, then you’re going to be waiting multiple decades at least.
Just take the Supreme Court for example. Let’s say their was some sort of huge political/cultural shift and the median Congressman was Bernie Sanders - unless we get lucky and a few Supremes die, then there will be Federalist Society veto on progressive legislation even a decade or two or three from now.
All of these changes will have to be shoved through the executive branch somehow. The Supreme Court will have to be ignored.
Or we’ll just have to wait a generation or two or more. The climate change stuff can’t wait.
So you’re suggesting that Biden just seize power? Just ignore the courts and Congress.
That would lead to an impeachment. Either Harris sides with Biden and continues what he did, then gets impeached herself, or Harris sides with Congress and tries to take power. What it effectively biols down to is Biden and someone else acting as commander-in-chief, and who wins is determined by the Pentagon. At best, you are advocating for a military coup, and more likely a civil war.
If Congress gets turned progressive, they can suddenly enact a ton of policies. Of the Supreme Court tries to intervene, there is the option to expand the court (as has been done before) or the option of impeachment (has not been done, but… Maybe).
So the answer isn’t just to sit at home blaming Biden for not starting what would effectively becoming WW3, but rather to vote in every election- primaries, state, local, mid-term, etc.
Trump honestly barely got anything done during his presidency, most of his executive orders were struck down. What he did get done (Supreme Court justices and tax cuts) was just what literally any Republican with a majority in Congress would have done. Biden has gotten more actual legislation passed than Trump did, and his attempt to legislate by executive order (student loan forgiveness) was as ineffective as Trump’s attempts.
A lot of trump’s executive orders got headlines for being struck down once, and then way less coverage when they tweaked them slightly and got them approved
You are so right. So let’s vote for the party that treats women as an incubator instead of a person.
It’s okay to criticize your party. You can vote for the lesser evil while still calling out the “evil” in the party you voted for. Hell I’d say it’s pretty important to be willing to hold ones leaders feet to the fire.
But it doesn’t mean everyone who is critical is voting Republican.
Yep.
Never criticizing your own party is how the republican party became what they are today.
We might not be able to change that, but we can try to prevent it from happening to the only other option in general elections.
The Democratic Party treats women as incubators. Ones they can scare into giving them fundraising dollars by doing exactly nothing to stop republicans.
Yeah, but during the Georgia runoffs, Biden and party leaders kept encouraging people across the country to donate by saying “50 is enough to pass the party platform”.
So either they had no idea Sinema or Manchin would obstruct, or they knew it and lied to voters.
So trying to blame those two now makes the party look inept at best
I’m pretty sure blaming Manchin must be electoral strategy. He’s much more conservative than the average Democrat, but he’s still by far the most liberal senator that’s ever going to get elected in West Virginia, and the blame lets him campaign in a deep red state about how he owned the libs.
So…
You think the national party decided to lie about Manchin so that he could obstruct them…
And the goal was to make sure Manchin gets elected again, so he can continue not supporting the party?
I don’t think they’re lying, but them blaming him does help Manchin, and Manchin is the only chance Democrats have in West Virginia. For example, Manchin is to blame for concessions in the infrastructure bill, but Trump won West Virginia with 69% of the vote. The alternative to Manchin wouldn’t be a liberal who would pass an infrastructure bill with a greater commitment to green energy, it would be a far right senator who wouldn’t pass an infrastructure bill at all. Manchin is an net positive at the moment for Biden’s agenda, and progressives being so angry at him means he can campaign on not bowing to the far left agenda or whatever. Ideally there would be enough Democratic senators that Manchin wouldn’t matter, but anyone saying he should be primaried is honestly just delusional about who can get elected in West Virginia.
This is just called “being a politician”
Similar to the other comment, “fault” doesn’t have a ton to do with it. Things needed to get done, and didn’t, so they still need to be done, and they (Biden and the Dems) aren’t capable of making it happen. That doesn’t really leave any good options but it’s not going to stop people from looking for one. This one is going to be the bad kind of exciting again.
2024 is going to age me 15 years, the shit that scares me is if the economy takes a serious hit from financial fuckery like in 2008. Im afeared that would make those who voted Biden in 2020 out of disgust to want give Trump another try
Voting for the GOP will make things happen but in the wrong direction. Driving off a cliff while still moving is not very desirable in my book.
Stop trying to make every criticism of the Democrats some GOP reverso hot-take. It’s fucking brainless and stupid.
The issue is turnout.
I always vote, because I’m lucky enough to get paid time off work for it and little to no wait time.
Some people have to take a day off work and wait 4-8 hours in line.
We could sit around and complain about nonvoters, or we can try to increase voter engagement. But the party needs to make that choice too, and they’re not really great at the second option.
…but what’s the root cause of low turnout?
I’ll tell you: it’s because the vast majority of politicians that
we electour system railroads us into choosing between and electing are essentially useless grifter assholes, and are, with a few exceptions, either deeply uninspiring or straight up never follow through on things they campaign on. And our entrenched two-party system only makes it worse. And then there’s lobbying.Or, the shorter version: public opinion and the passage or rejection of laws in America have a statistical correlation of 0, unless you sample from the very top end of the socioeconomic scale
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That’s the rub though. Trump makes people feel like they are doing something. That is far more motivating and powerful of a reason to vote for him than voting for Biden, who is the equivalent of sitting in traffic.
People want the country to fucking do something. Even if it is driving off a cliff.
People don’t have to vote for trump if they are disillusioned, they just don’t vote. If someone has to take a day off of work when they are already struggling for people who dont do shit for them in either direction, then why go vote? And i know what you are going to say, but maybe you should blame the system and fight it (cause you need more then just voting anyway) then the people who are being beaten by the system trying to survive. It honestly it amazing to me that people like you cannot fathom the apathy and lack of energy as the real issue. For some people it is a big issue to vote because of the systematic issues put before them, because Republicans and Establishment Dems alike know that if they vote they loose. Do you think i want trump to win? Im a Nonbinary autistic living with my trans wife. But you better fucking believe im going to call out the dems for this bullshit. If they fought just as hard against anyone slightly progressive from getting on ballots as they did for people to vote more easily then things would be different, but they enjoy their money just as much as the Republicans, their grift is just nicer in comparison to literal nazis. And they use that against us over and over but in 2016 they miscalculated (of course they did they are more out of touch each year). I hope a Republican doesn’t win but im not going to be shocked if they do and the dems are more to blame for this then voters who can’t vote for a variety of reasons.
Biden campaigned as the guy who can reach across the aisle to get things done. He can’t even get his own party on his side.
The down votes don’t make it less true guys.
It’s not mine. I’m not a union buster.
Do you support what he did to remove the railroad unions right to negotiate?
Yes. Unequivocally.
A lot of us (on both sides of the political spectrum) would prefer a president who prioritizes individuals over corporations. But I guess you’re free to have a different opinion, even if it makes you a bootlicker.
This decision literally prioritized individuals. If trains stop moving, people die.
I know you straight up don’t believe this, but cities run out of food within 48-72 hours. Hospitals run out of resources faster. Every single union member knew way their job entailed day 1.
This is personal to me, too, since my friend and neighbor works for that union. They got sick days, within weeks of the deadlock being broken by the gov.