1990 points 11 hours ago 👋 🦕3 🍆 🇺🇸 🗽
There’s no reason why Trump should lead in any poll or be a threat in the general election. Biden has accomplished more than any president since FDR. In 2022 alone, Biden and Dems did the following:
- passed the Inflation Reduction Act, the biggest investment in fighting climate change in history
- passed the bipartisan infrastructure bill, the largest investment in infrastructure since Eisenhower
- passed the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, breaking a 30-year streak of federal inaction on gun violence legislation
- signed the CHIPS and Science Act into law
- took out the leader of al Qaeda
- ended America's longest war
- reauthorized and strengthened the Violence Against Women Act
- signed the PACT Act, a bill to address veteran burn pit exposure
- signed the NATO accession protocols for Sweden and Finland
- issued executive order to protect reproductive rights
- in the process of canceling $10,000 of student loan debt for borrowers making less than $125,000 and canceled $20,000 in debt for Pell Grant recipients
- canceled billions in student loan debt for borrowers who were defrauded
- nominated now-Supreme Court Associate Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson to replace Justice Breyer
- brought COVID under control in the U.S. (e.g., COVID deaths down 90% and over 220 million vaccinated)
- formed Monkeypox response team to reach communities at highest risk of contracting the virus
- unemployment at a 50-year low
- largest one-year deficit reduction in U.S. history
- limited the release of mercury from coal-burning power plants
- $5 billion for electric vehicle chargers- $119 billion budget surplus in January 2022, first in over two years
- united world against Russia’s war in Ukraine
- ended forced arbitration in workplace sexual assault cases
- reinstated California authority to set pollution standards for cars
- ended asylum restrictions for children traveling alone
- signed the Emmett Till Anti-Lynching Act, the first federal ban on lynching after 200 failed attempts
- Initiated “use it or lose it" policy for drilling on public lands to force oil companies to increase production
- released 1 million barrels of oil a day for 6 months from strategic reserves to ease gas prices
- rescinded Trump-era policy allowing rapid expulsion of migrants
- expunged student loan defaults
- overhauled USPS finances to allow the agency to modernize its service
- required federal dollars spent on infrastructure to use materials made in America
- restored environmental reviews for major infrastructure projects
- Launched $6 billion effort to save distressed nuclear plants
- provided $385 million to help families and individuals with home energy costs through the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program. (This is in addition to $4.5 billion provided in the American Rescue Plan.)
- national registry of police officers who are fired for misconduct
- tightened restrictions on chokeholds, no-knock warrants, and transfer of military equipment to police departments
- required all federal law enforcement officers to wear body cameras
- $265 million for South Florida reservoir, key component of Everglades restoration
- major wind farm project off West coast to provide electricity for 1.5 million homes
- continued Obama administration's practice of posting log records of visitors to White House
- devoted $2.1 billion to strengthen US food supply chain
- invoked Defense Production Act to rapidly expand domestic production of critical clean energy technologies
- enacted two-year pause of anti-circumvention tariffs on solar
- allocated funds to federal agencies to counter 300-plus anti-LGBTQ laws by state lawmakers in 2022
- relaunched cancer 'moonshot' initiative to help cut death rate
- expanded access to emergency contraception and long-acting reversible contraception
- prevented states from banning Mifepristone, a medication used to end early pregnancy that has FDA approval
- 21 executive actions to reduce gun violence
- Climate Smart Buildings Initiative: Creates public-private partnerships to modernize Federal buildings to meet agencies’ missions, create good-paying jobs, and cut greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions
- Paying for today’s needed renovations with tomorrow’s energy savings without requiring upfront taxpayer funding
- ended Trump-era “Remain in Mexico” policy
- Operation Fly-Formula, bringing needed baby formula (19 missions to date)
- executive order protecting travel for abortion
- invested more in crime control and prevention than any president in history
- provided death, disability, and education benefits to public safety officers and survivors who are killed or injured in the line of duty
- Reunited 500 migrant families separated under Trump
- $1.66 billion in grants to transit agencies, territories, and states to invest in 150 bus fleets and facilities
- brokered joint US/Mexico infrastructure project; Mexico to pay $1.5 billion for US border security
- blocked 4 hospital mergers that would've driven up prices and is poised to thwart more anti-competition consolidation attempts
- 11 million jobs—more than ever created before at this point of a presidency
- record small business creation
- banned paywalls on taxpayer-funded research
- best economic growth record since Clinton
- eliminated civil statute of limitations for child abuse victims
- announced $156 million for America's first-of-its-kind critical minerals refinery, demonstrating the commercial viability of turning mine waste into clean energy technology.
https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/14je97i/democrats_warn_party_the_threat_of_trump_winning/jpkqa15/
This is not a good response. Can we get bought off for so little? Does some walking around money for me personally matter more than the big stuff governments are supposed to handle?
A reply elsewhere in here is much better:
We're not here to give good responses. Joe Brandon owes me six hundred dollars.
Literally yes, sending people checks is better than most of this shit. A bunch of this is the sort of shit Obama did during the Great Recession instead of being bold and doing big infrastructure projects. He decided to do mayoral shit like fill in a bunch of potholes instead of presidential shit like huge public works projects that would create tons of jobs and get lots of attention.
I mean:
The point is that a check is not much, either. "I'd rather have scraps from a fascist than neoliberal tweaking around the margins" is not a comparison we want to make. The answer is that both are woefully insufficient.
When leftists say "both sides are too terrible to vote for, but I do like that check from the fascist" it suggests we're not all that interested in what's good for everyone, which is a pretty core part of any flavor of leftism.
Put differently, if I'm talking to some Biden lib whose #1 priority is access to abortion, I sound like a fucking crank if I write off whatever they think he's done with "well Trump cut me a check." A better answer is that Biden isn't going to guarantee access to abortion, and here's Yellow Parenti to tell you why.
I want to make something abundantly clear: one of the most central underpinnings of Marxism is that humans are fundamentally selfish. No one is here because they are interested in doing what's best for everyone. What we want is not what's best for everyone. In fact, there are losers under the transition to communism: the bourgeoisie.
We are all here because a 19th century German man realized we are stuck in a prisoner's dilemma, he crunched the numbers, and he came to the conclusion we could get the majority of a society a much better deal by working together instead of competing against one another. Selflessness has nothing to do with it. That's liberal nonsense. We are all here because we think on some level we can get a better deal for ourselves and the people that matter to us.
Checks are more meaningful than all of this other shit listed because it's actually tangible. I saw the money hit my bank account. I got the check with Donald Trump's goofy ass signature on it. I held that. No one sees the bureaucratic bullshit Biden is trying to market. The impact of a lot of it is due to the economies of scale of saving every American $5. How much do you think normal people notice $5 in annual savings spread out over the year? People notice what is tangible, material in their lives. This list is fucking loser shit because the vast majority of it is not material in anyone's life. And that's why Joe's numbers are so weak, because people's lives have gotten materially harder while he has been president.
Furthermore, half of the shit on this list is for NYT freaks. How does killing the head of Al Qaeda--who probably 95% of the of the population couldn't even name--affect regular peoples' day-to-day lives? Even more of this shit isn't even "I did something," it's "I temporarily prevent the GOP from doing something." That's not giving people anything. You know what it's called when you pay so something bad doesn't happen to you? Extortion. You tell me: do you think people would rather be given $2K or extorted? Which of those do you think the would rather vote for?
I don't think that's correct. If I'm mistaken and Marx did make a point to talk about this, you'd find plenty of disagreement from anarchists, and they would cite anthropological research that holds more weight than pure theory anyway.
To be overly brief, Marx believed that humans are selfish when scarcity is present, and that capitalism induces scarcity. We live under capitalism and you are talking about capitalist democratic elections. So yes, for all intents and purposes, humans are selfish.
If human nature isn't naturally selfish, why do anarchists believe in horizontal structures? Why can't you just make a selfless man king?
This runs counter to the
material I've read about pre-capitalist societies. I'm inclined to go with Graeber as his work has the benefit of 100+ years of real-world research Marx did not have access to.
I think it's more accurate to say:
I'm not an anarchist, but I imagine they'd say power can corrupt even if people are not categorically selfish, and they would imagine a scenario where a reasonable person would disagree with even a benevolent king and would not want to be subjected to that sort of authority.
Trump getting those checks out says to everyone "the government can do something for you, it is literally able to write a check", that is insanely impactful.
It's not an answer to "look at everything Biden has accomplished!!", though. We are trying to say he's accomplished little of note, and what has been accomplished is nowhere near enough. "Trump gave me $2000" does not communicate that.
If you want to say "the government could cut you a solid check in perpetuity, as a real solution instead of a temporary bump, so why settle for this shit?", just say that.
Cutting checks into perpetuity is not a solution either. The point is NOTHING this election does will offer a solution . Also what do you mean "we are trying to say....communicate that"? Very few if any of us here are interested in communicated anything to the american people on who to vote for in 2024. We don't have solutions or anything to communicate that has to do with "pushing Biden left" or stopping trump.
We are among open communists, saying "trump gave me 2k" is a jokerfied admittance that Trump is going to be viewed more directly as helping people than Biden. The statement "Trump gave me 2k" is true and conveys something of more substance than any of that Biden list. No one is interested in what Biden could do better, its rearranging deckchairs on the Titanic
I'm not talking about telling people who to vote for in 2024, and I'm not talking about pushing Biden left. I don't know where any of that is coming from.
I'm talking about how to radicalize libs, something posting can and has done. "Trump gave me $2K" is not a good way to do that. "Biden is not going to do shit to address climate change, or imperialism, or the hollowing out of the working class" is the direction to go.
Posting here is not radicalizing libs, we may joke about it, but there are no libs here.
Some libs do wander in here, but sure, there aren't many. People do repeat/share stuff they see on here elsewhere, though. I know I'm not the only one that steals funny stuff from the depths of the internet and sends them out on group chats with people I know in person.
$2,000 directly transferred to my bank account is so much more useful than empty promises or means-tested social programs that will be gutted after the next election.
For you it's just a little extra disposable income. For others it's more than a series of tax breaks for low income families. Plus it proves there's nothing really stopping Biden from giving people checks too. There's nothing stopping any of them. So the bare minimum is a check.
This. That money was life-changing for many people.
$2000 is not life changing money for anyone in the U.S. It's get you out of a jam money, sure, but think of how quickly that gets eaten by rent, bills, or paying down some outstanding debt.
It's very helpful in the moment, but it's a temporary bump, not a long-term solution.
No one is saying it is long-term. They are literally saying the temporary bump is more than Biden has given.
The comment I replied to said it was "life changing" money, which means a long-term solution to one's problems.
Leftists almost never accept the argument that X policy from Democrats is better than Y policy from Republicans if the Democratic policy is woefully insufficient. So why are we hung up on praising a woefully insufficient check from Republicans, even if Democrats didn't match it? It's just contrarianism.
I think you are not understanding that people are not making serious ethical arguments. It is an american election, its all jokerfied irony shit. No one is praising shit.
Also life changing doesn't mean long-term. Enough to not have to pay rent late for the first time in years is life changing even if it doesnt stay that way, the government showing it can do something for you is life-changing, etc.
People are making serious arguments when it suits them and pulling the "forget about it, Jake, it's shitposting" when they don't have decent reply or when writing one is too much effort.
And what do you see every single time people on the internet try to one-up each other with ironic jokes? Inevitably some folks start repeating that stuff earnestly. I'd rather do bits with a better foundation so you avoid that.
The serious arguments came in because you responded seriously. Of course people are gonna back up and say "wait that money was pretty significant for some people"
So yeah, it's not all shitposting.
And I pointed this out elsewhere, but "wait Obamacare was pretty significant for some people" gets you called a lib, and you get a thousand serious (and correct!) arguments about Obamacare was nowhere near enough. But somehow "wait $2K was pretty significant for some people" is Real Material Analysis.
It's just contrarianism. Either they both fall under "not nearly enough to give anyone credit" or they're both real material benefits that people respond to.
You are complaining about how you perceived people's comments in jest to be, and now expect a totalizing "all shitposting or all serious"
That's not what I did and not at all what I'm saying.
we're talking about [stifles laugh] voting here. and not "voting for Trump"— just "not voting for Biden". Matt Christman did a write-in for Hillary in 2020, I wouldn't consider him "bought off" by her
but I do get your point that in terms of response messaging it's going to sound bad to a liberal