He was allowed to talk freely for like 5 minutes a few days ago and he told a story about dropping off a dead dog at a voter's doorstep or something.
based anti-Karen praxis https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/feb/16/joe-biden-dead-dog-republican-young-politician
Well there isn’t much to discuss. US politics is completely apolitical for the average voter because you just get the same policies, the difference is in the entertainment value. We’re really just voting for our favorite senile old man American Idol style
IDK where he stands politically, but I remember before the 2020 election John Mulaney basically said exactly that on SNL and a ton of libs were up in arms about how Biden would be different
Seven to nine years of Twitter will do that
It's a bit better here, but there's still too many Twitter genes for it to get totally shaken off I think
Whenever Joe Biden's senility is not on screen, all the other characters should be asking, "Where's Joe Biden's senility?"
Sorry for the ignorance, but where is this from? Or referencing?
I think as far as people on the left are concerned, it doesn't reveal anything surprising. The President was always a figurehead and Capital was always running the show. Seeing the empire administered by the bureaucracies, lobbies, think tanks, and corporations instead of on the direct orders of some guy in a suit might be shocking to some liberals (and therefor, might have some rhetorical use), but it is about the least shocking thing in the world from our perspective.
As far as the people on the right go, Biden can't be portrayed as the personification of evil if it's clear he doesn't even know what day of the week it is. Every failure of the administration needs to be a deliberate act of malice aimed at god-fearing white conservatives in particular. The "Biden's asleep at the wheel" narrative isn't particularly useful for them because once you remove the "great man" from the picture, all you're left with are the underlying systems to analyze. I'm sure it comes up a lot in memes and stuff, but it isn't a thread that any reactionaries with institutional power are particularly interested in unraveling.
Like, if the man at the top doesn't actually matter, what has changed about the justice department or the armed forces between Trump and Biden's administration? Neither Liberals or Conservatives are interested in opening this can of worms because doing so undermines the perceived power of the elected office, and by extension, the perceived power of the electoral process and the perception that we live in a democracy at all. The President must have agency, because if he doesn't, what the hell are we even voting for?
So from the Liberals, we hear the narrative of a cool and collected Biden staring Putin in the eye and winning in a battle of wits when in actuality the Pentagon and NATO are just acting on their own initiative doing whatever the hell they want, and doing it very sloppily. From the Conservatives, we hear that Biden is an evil Globalist mastermind trying to start World War Three while deliberately tying the hands of any patriots who want to prevent the coming White Genocide / Sharia Law / Stalinist Totalitarianism.
We're just left sitting here like, :yea:
What are you asking for? Do you want us to have a minimum amount of "draw a clock" memes on the site at all times? Do you want us to call a meeting of all leftists and put out some propaganda?
We've had senile presidents before though. Reagan was gone during his first term. It's been discussed for decades. But certainly there is some state of the site/internet where you feel that the topic of discussion is discussed enough and I'm asking what that looks like. How are you gauging that it's not a continual topic of discussion? You don't see any recent threads about it so that means it's not being thought about?
I think you're answering your own question. It was everywhere. We got our digs in. We got bored because it wasn't moving the needle and we got some new material. The right definitely does still crack the same joke about him not knowing what day of the week it is. Clock memes have gone the way of gritty memes. We don't have a thread about it everyday for the same reason we don't re-litigate the primaries everyday. The West Wing Thing mentioned it just the other week. It comes up, it's just that we don't have a 100 post discussion about it everyday.
We talk about the Fed and interest rates more because it's currently more relevant given all the inflation stuff. America having a bad president isn't an important historical development. It's always been that way. It's not unexpected.
I agree. The pushback you are getting in this thread for a perfectly valid question is really weird to me.
It's a person asking us why we don't talk about the thing they want to talk about more. It's not the subject that bothers me it's the implication that because OP isn't seeing constant threads about it then it means nobody cares and is okay with it and we're actually all liberal for not talking about it more.
In your OP you said leftists no longer mention it. Now you're more specific saying it's about the media. What media? Podcasts? Jacobin? MeansTV? Breadtubers?
Biden is another bad president. If you think he's uniquely evil or the first president with health issues then you're just plain wrong. Trump wasn't uniquely evil either. You are not the first person to experience living under a shit capitalist government.
You didn't outright call anyone a liberal you just implied that not seeing what you see is like being a liberal.
You feel like you're being gaslighted? I'm agreeing that he's senile. I just don't understand what you're complaining about. You want more discussion about it. Okay, how are you gauging the level of discussion? You don't see enough threads on hexbear.net about it? Are you suggesting we're not talking about it on purpose, just to vex you or that we're too liberal to tell the truth? Are you not seeing enough about it on reddit? Is it the lack of mainstream media coverage you're talking about?
I keep asking you what you want or how you're coming to your conclusions and you aren't explaining. You just keep saying it's not being talked about enough. Are you under the impression that talking about stuff is the engine of history? Like if we talk about it more then Biden will go away and we'll only have 35 year old presidents from now on? It's America. We don't need anymore Presidents. It's a bad form of government regardless of who plays the figurehead.
Because utlimately, you're talking about a symbol of decline, not something that is actually increasing the rate of decline by a significant degree. As PorkrollPosadist said, the presidency has always served the interests of capital. Sometimes actively, sometimes with a president who is senile or simply uninterested im the job.
The blob got used to regarding the office of President as vacant when Trump was in power. Biden is senile? Keep regarding the presidency as vacant. Honestly they prefer it this way now.
yeah I loved my grandparents and hate seeing people rag on the elderly
Is everything that’s discussed just a temporary meme?
Yes. Welcome to the Spectacle.
Literally this. We all have fish bowl memories. Remember how big of a deal the Israel-Palestine conflict was again for like, a week? We just are being moved on to and off of whatever the big spectacle is for the current time period
People joke about “oh things are getting contrived this season” or whatever as a joke comparing real life to a Netflix show or whatever but it honestly does feel like we’re just reacting to the medias packaging of real world events as episodic experiences, we take part in “the discourse” and then nothing fundamentally is addressed and everyone forgets when the next thing comes down the pipeline
Yeah I think thats pretty much the point or at least part of it, it’s just keep shit moving, keep constantly throwing shit out there so we can’t address anything, lose steam and revolutionary energy and they keep getting to do what they want
younger ones raised in this culture will become immune to the chaos.
:bugs-no: The younger generations will not know anything else. Growing up on it, this seems normal and focusing on a news story over time will become less and less likely. The medium is the message, and the medium is headlines.
optimism isn't believing in miracles, it is thinking specific events can go our way. B and R can improve the quality of life for many African countries, so I am optimistic about that. Anarchists and MLs have found more online spaces(not twitter) and IRL they work together at, that's what I'm optimistic about.
I've lost a lot of the "zoomer cavalry will save us" mentality over time, but I feel like what is actually significant about the current and coming generations is that they aren't being bought off on the system like the boomers were during the latter half of the 20th century. Like, that was the deal: you don't try to do socialism or communism like the Soviets, and we'll give you a cut of the profits for staying with us. And they took that deal and their lead-contaminated brains were fully broken.
However, with the current generations - to a lesser extent the millennials, and to a greater extent Gen Z and Alpha, there isn't really that same cut of the profits from the ruling class anymore. They took the carrot on that stick while they were stripping the copper out of the walls. So what happens if you don't have a carrot to dangle anymore and only have a great big stick in the form of anti-China, anti-communist propaganda? I guess we're collectively going to find out, but I'd be surprised if Gen Z and Alpha ended up exactly the same as the boomers. Treat-obsessed, absolutely, almost every American who isn't fighting for their life in poverty working three jobs every single day is, but if the treats decline, then what happens?
they aren't buying the same lie as boomers, but media poisoning and horse and circus politics are probably here to stay for a long time unless things get a lot worse really fast. Your daily life has to be uncomfortable regardless of place in social hierarchy outside class, E. I white straigth men need to be in direct pain, not hidden, before the news poisoning and talk and forget stops. and then racism usually takes hold instead. critical thinking skills are the cure.
Ora so funny to see the people who claim they aren’t sheep get so mad they piss themselves about random things their media tells them to be mad about and then drop it instantly when it stops for the next thing.
Biden is seen in the eyes of non-engaged liberals as some kind of friendly grandpa. At least that's what I've heard whenever he's even mentioned. His senility gets brought up by the right-wing a lot and so liberals will hear that and immediately think you're a part of the right-wing when you say it. I see more leftists talking about how Biden is basically carrying out Trump policies, but that never seems to work. Similar things were said with Obama carrying out Bush policies and people refused to believe it because they loved Obama so much.
As soon as someone thinks you're right wing for criticizing the dems: "first of all fuck the dems, fuck the republicans and fuck america. Now that we got that out of the way...."
Tribalism. You're either one of us or you're a fascist right-winger.
You can see the attraction of this to the liberal mind. It's very satisfying to tell people off like this. They really do believe they're better people than everyone else, and that this enables - nay, obligates - them to make decisions for us. Because we're all too dumb to make the decisions that they would make in our place.
He's not the first or the last senile president because that's what you get when you live in a system that ultimately tends towards upper class old people running the show.
Honestly I just don't see it having legs as a talking point. I mean, where do you go? If you focus too much on the individual you basically run the risk of the same old Trump bullshit, focusing on an admittedly powerful individual as opposed to the system itself is gonna lead people, even if you convince them you are right, to figure that getting rid of that person is the most important thing.
Better to focus on what the govt as a whole is doing really, kids still in cages, wars, country still very polarised etc.
It’s such a firehouse of awfulness. It just a ceaseless stream of insanity.
because he's not trump. Biden is seen as a return to normalcy despite continuing the worst of trump's policies and escalating where trump was seen as soft
the worst thing trump did in the eyes of liberals was be crude and obnoxiously ignorant even though his policies aligned with theirs at least 90%
who was talking about Biden's senility in the first place? Only leftists correctly pointing out how he was a senile manufactured DNC candidate against Bernie and reactionaries hoping to sway votes for trump.
plus most left criticisms against Biden arent him being senile, its against his terrible policy decisions in his 40+ years of being in office and I haven't seen any leftists stop pointing them out
it doesn't matter if he's senile if he keeps pushing for the interests of the good liberal kind of capital, :vote: or you'll get another trump
Because he (and by extension his senility) is irrelevant to leftists. We know the puppet does not rule. It's just a talking point we use to cause disillusionment amongst liberals, we don't really care otherwise.
It’s just a talking point we use to cause disillusionment amongst liberals
:jesse-wtf:
Since when do "we" have the ability to cause disillusionment amongst liberals? Nah, the guy is clearly showing signs of early senility and that's not some thing far leftists dreamed up as some kind of tactic. And puppet or not, anyone who thinks figureheads esp at the level of POTUS are irrelevant doesn't understand the power of figureheads in bourgeois politics.
I didn't say we were very successful at causing disillusionment. Obviously, it's not some tactic we dreamed up since we barely give a shit anyway, it's more like we know he's going senile and we bring it up when it's convenient so as to cause disillusionment. We might succeed, we might fail. I didn't say POTUS was an irrelevant figurehead in general, just to leftists. Of course, he is very relevant to ignorant libs, hence leftists bringing up his shortcomings in conversations with libs and even then, we focus mostly on his misdeeds and not his senility.
Think about it this way, does the US give a rat's ass about human rights? No, yet it professes to be an ardent defender of it. Same principle here, it's just our version of concern trolling.
I still can't believe libs gaslit the entire nation in to thinking Biden has always had a significant stutter despite decades of footage with little to no evidence of him ever having one until recently when the sun downing claims started going hard.
Is it a step too far to want a head of state to be able to use their brain meats for most of the day?
most of the white left exists as polite cover for the democrat party.
also notice the same activists promoting "harm reduction" and "holding biden's feet to the fire" are notably silent after the election
Because Biden is a swamp creature. He's one of their own. Reporting on his senility would be playing right into the hands of the chuds.
There is obviously a cabal of insiders who stay out of the spotlight who are manipulating Biden. There's no way he comes up with this stuff himself.
Let's go Brandon is more about mocking the pro-regime media who lied to cover up a chant at a NASCAR race. Seeing such an obvious lie in public really riled up the fascists, since they believe that the media deceives them all the time. Seeing such an in-your-face, we-dare-you-to-talk-back-to-us-peasant moment really energized them and fed into all their worst fantasies about how America really works behind the scenes. All those conspiracy theories about George Soros being a nazi collaborator, Agenda 21, Great Replacement, Great Reset, QAnon, etc.
Biden isn't the imperial rot, just like Trump wasn't the imperial rot. They are merely symptoms. The very system of bureaucracy, policy making, and enforcement is the imperial rot. You could take out Biden and put in AOC and it wouldn't matter. It likely wouldn't have mattered, other than to the careers of a bunch of campaigning insiders, if Bernie got in. The gears and logic of empire run irrespective of the spectacle of the presidency, and that is what the left should be pointing out, not who happens to be strapped to the wheel this year and how much they are drooling.
Again, no. Individual capitalists and Republican politicians didn't want Trump in, but capital, by and large, didn't care. You are mistaking capital for individual people, capital for capitalists. Capital gutted the regulatory apparatuses regardless. And it didn't affect the gears and logic of empire in the slightest, Trump still did the drone strikes, sanctions, and black ops that all presidents do. Hell, they even prevented him from actually pulling out of Afghanistan, which is something he very nearly did, but again, it didn't and doesn't matter because Afghanistan in the big picture of empire and capital expansion doesn't matter, especially with the mess we left there.
What matters to capital is competing against China, which is arguably a war that we have already lost, and the flailing of the elites is them attempting to continue military hegemony even as our economic hegemony begins it's decline. And yes, the gears occasionally shake, but by my count the U.S. still controls the majority of the globe militarily, we are still the ones sending weapons to Ukraine and patrolling the South China seas. It is only when war comes to the U.S. that I will say that the gears of empire have shuddered to a halt, otherwise everything else is shock doctrine and even blowback is in our favor.
Yeah, it's almost as if all aspects of the spectacle of electoral politics, including the media apparatus occurs and is completely disconnected from the mechanisms of capital accumulation. Both leftwing and right-wing media are capital, but so is Trump, which was proven by the policy decisions he made, none of which were friendly to the other team, which is labor. The media weren't even really against him other than rhetorically, they were giving him so much free air time and he was fantastic for ratings!
Capital doesn't only rely on stability. It mostly relies on periods of stability with periods of disruption. The only part that changes is what group of capitalists maintains their reins during those periods of disruption. (Which is what Milton Friedman says drives innovation, but I completely disagree with that, unless you just mean innovations of grift). Labor also requires stability in order to organize the large groups of people necessary to create and enforce it's theoretical hegemony, but it also relies on disruption to cause material needs stop being met to create solidarity. The creation of the Soviets was directly tied to centuries of peasants staying in their singular communities decimated by war, while strong unions were made by a generation of proletarian workers, again decimated by war, being in the same industries as their parents. Things are going to likely need to get far worse before they get better.
The rate of profit hit rock bottom in the 70's and has been bouncing around, with a few exceptions (tech bubbles and expropriation) since then. The senile U.S. president is simply an indication that the actual politics of capital does not require the active participation of the electoral wing of the executive branch.
