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Thank you. Great points.
Heh, told ya we often agree. Even though I'm not a fan of Democrats or biden. It's hard to say his administration hasn't been consequential in many good ways. There was only one Democrat I remember liking less than Biden in 20. And that was culty Gabbard. I've honesty been surprised. No small d democratic government can be perfect. Outside of some Optical missteps surrounding current events in Israel. His administration has been surprisingly decent.
You’re right. I also haven’t voted for a Democratic President that I couldn’t criticize. They’re just better than Republicans. Obama addressed the housing market bubble by bailing out the banks when he could’ve issued the same relief to those who were exploited. It would’ve addressed the issue while leaving the future interest losses as the predatory lenders’ problem. Clinton jacked corn farming by renewing overproduction incentives that led to high fructose corn syrup undercutting the price of sugar. He also signed the US - China Trade Agreement that redefined American consumerism to its current state of poorly made plastic junk filling our homes and landfills.
However, if we could keep turnout high for multiple consecutive Democratic wins, we’d see some more progressive candidates compete in the primaries. It would likely have the added benefit of pulling Republican candidates off the cliff to capture more of the moderate votes.
The bank bailout started before Obama was elected or even took office. I absolutely agree that he shouldn't have just continued the policy. And that he should have pushed more to get relief to the actual people hurting it and not just the banks. But again it comes down to the fact that the president is largely a diplomatic figurehead. Without a lot of power outside of War etc for the executive branch in general. When it comes to things like that he had to do what he could as fast as he could with the Congress he had. He absolutely should have at least vocally pushed for it though.
This I agree with though. Never in my lifetime have we had multiple consecutive Democratic presidencies. Excluding things like two-term presidents. I'm talking like Reagan bush Etc. For the record it's been nixon/ Ford, Carter for 4 years, Reagan for eight and Bush for another four, Clinton 48, Bush for eight, Obama for eight, Trump for four, and now Biden for four. Every 4 to 8 years we tend to flip fascist and people wonder why no progress is being made. Because we're having to fix the damage the fascist did before we can even try to improve things and it's a hole that just keeps getting deeper and deeper and deeper every 8 years.
The worst part of it, so many people are solely focused on presidential elections. Which don't get me wrong the presidency is absolutely nice to have. If you had a majority Democratic House and Senate there is still a major amount a president Trump could block. But we struggle so hard to even have the presidency let alone solid control of the house or Senate for any length of time. And all of it arises from people allowing perfection to be the enemy of achievable.
I couldn’t agree more. Besides presidential election turnout directly impacting downballot success, the attendance for midterm elections is abysmal. The highest turnout group is consistently retirees, who are all at the conservative “got mine, screw you” point in their lives.
With that being said, we do an embarrassingly poor job of educating the youth on the function of our government. Most can’t name the three branches, let alone tell you what they do, or articulate the difference in Federal vs. state oversight. They just blame the president for repealing abortion rights, keeping marijuana a criminal offense, high gas prices, expensive fast food, and unacceptable behavior of local police. None of which are under the oversight of POTUS, and most of which could be affected by actively participating in voting in local, state, and congressional elections.
Yep. The president is merely our top diplomat. Yes he runs the executive branch and has some power over it. People are so uneducated attributing so much more to him than he ever had power to really influence or control. It's supremely easy for the armchair analysts to squeal about genocide Joe. Without understanding the near Century long effort and ties with Israel involved. That he cannot just pull out the rug from that on his own. And without consequence. That's a job for Congress.
And yes political education is abysmal in the United States especially. With lots of propaganda and lies being taught as facts. It's the reason we're all told not to discuss politics and why we continue to keep it taboo. Because so many people don't understand, rather relying on emotion. It makes it near impossible to have an actual productive discussion. By design.
He could amend support against Congress if the State Department returned findings of war crimes in their report. Moving without that, and against Congress, would be unfounded.
He controls the State Department. Like sure, theoretically they just do their job producing an independent report that gets to his desk and then he finds out what it says for the first time, but realistically no, they support what the White House says. That's why there's so many people resigning.
You guys had a whole good back and forth about real things that were done and matter and then deviated into "Biden actually has no power so nothing is his fault" on the things that he does, unquestionably, have power over.
My comments are in no way absolving Biden of blame or responsibility. My point is in identifying the problem, and neither Biden, nor any President, would deviate from Congress and the State Department in this scenario. He directly oversees the State Department, and can replace Blinken if he’s failing in his duties.
The recent resignations are a perfect example of the issues within the State Department. Members have spoken out about editing or outright removal of provided intelligence in the report on Gaza. Biden needs to press Blinken for an accurate and conclusive report, or replace him with someone who will.
I just don't think this is Blinken's doing, or more accurately I think he's doing exactly the job Biden is asking of him. But I'd be happy for him to be the fall guy to mark a pivot. Whatever it takes to right the ship.
That’s just as possible. I just want to see Biden address the claims of manipulation and suppression of truth in the State Department report with a mandated reassessment. They can’t return another inconclusive report after those who resigned went public.
I've read his autobiography focusing on this period, iirc according to him his advisors said there were basically only three options.
Bail out the banks who had a part in causing the issue and subsequently failed. (His least favorite but what he ultimately picked)
Bail out the mortgages of the people who were at risk of foreclosure. (His favorite option)
Complete nationalization of failed banks with extra actions like forgiving all at risk mortgages (He was tepid on this)
The problem was that those solutions are in order of increasing expense and decreasing likelihood of Congress's will to pass. Meanwhile the economy was burning down and his advisors were saying we could have another great depression if action wasn't taken immediately.
That’s interesting. I may read his autobiography myself. Personally, I’d have preferred to see him try to pass mortgage relief through Congress and fail, than to go right for the bank bailout. I can see how timeliness was his priority, but our unhoused numbers and housing market would look very different had mortgage relief passed.
Oh yeah in hindsight most people would say they'd prefer the mortgage bailout rather than the bank bailout. But when you're a young president in your first days of office and people with economics degrees are screaming about how it's all burning down..
I understand why he did what he did, should've definitely still tried to of gotten way more mortgage relief afterwards though.
I just wanted to note that it wasn't exactly the sneering "Yes let me fuck over the working class as much as possible for my neoliberal values" as some people claim.
I was unaware of the motive, and assumed it was related to the Citigroup members of his cabinet. It’s nice to know the inside track. I’m still critical of the decision, but at least I understand it better now. My previous perspective always conflicted with my understanding of his leadership.