Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has endorsed President Joe Biden’s reelection campaign, a sign of the president’s strength in uniting his party to have the backing of one of its most liberal members
Old man who vaguely agrees with my politics and is just mildly disappointing or a literal shit filled dumpster fire? Hmmm tough choice.
How is Biden disappointing? Before he became President he gave every indication of being yet another appeasement-oriented centrist, but he’s actually gotten a surprising amount done. Biden has ended up being far better than I expected him to be.
He literally called Cuba “terrorist” just a few days ago, and did the same for Xi a little while before that. He also kept in place all of trump’s international sanctions, and even added new ones on top.
He seems to try really hard to be agitative, I don’t understand how someone could see him as “appeasement-oriented”.
Now imagine what he could accomplish if the people in this thread who complain so much actually went out and grassroots volunteered and got some progressives elected in their districts.
What has he gotten done that you support?
I’m pretty disappointed in the Inflation Reduction Act that actually prints a trillion more dollars.
We need inherent change in the government, we need congress to get off their asses and create good bills. We need to get away from the 4th branch of government.
Not print a trillion more $ that goes to government subcontractors and the top 1%
Well, there is an exhaustive list of everything he’s accomplished in his term so far; which is a lot.
You listed a lot of legislative issues there. What should the executive branch do for those issues? Veto the Inflation Reduction Act? Not enact bills passed by congress?
Before I start, let me say that Biden absolutely has my vote, because the alternative is the end of our democracy.
I’ll also say he’s away better than I thought he’d be.
But here’s how he’s a disappointment:
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He failed to appoint an attorney general that would give us a special prosecutor to go after Trump for the most egregious case of Obstruction of Justice in the history of the country, as laid out in the Mueller report. This was a matter of national security, should have been the first set of indictments against Trump, and should have happened a couple years ago.
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Student loans. Our economic engine requires a strong consumer class… Right now two generations of Americans are drowning in debt, and can’t buy goods and services from other Americans. It’s hurting EVERYBODY. Biden should be aiming to erase ALL student debt. Instead he’s taking half-measures that leave the United States still in crisis. And that’s BEFORE we talk about how weak his attempt to do this was, from a legal standpoint.
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Healthcare. We are still in crisis. The ACA was supposed to be a first step. Instead, it has been the only step, and Republicans continue to attempt to chip away at it. Why hasn’t Biden put out a universal healthcare plan? Or at least a public option? How can we ever make progress when he won’t even be the standard-bearer for these ideas?
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The Supreme Court was captured by fascist theocrats. Any future moderate (to say nothing of liberal) laws will be struck down by these assholes. Why is Biden not talking about packing the court until it once again reflects the values of the overwhelming majority of Americans?
I could go on, but the jist here is that the United States is in absolute crisis, and like Hillary before him, Biden is the “nothing will essentially change” or “incremental change” candidate. Not acceptable during an emergency.
Status quo keeps on truckin’ along.
Rich keep getting richer. Poor people? Well, who cares about them anyway.
Like I get that is what we probably are getting, and fine, he is better than whatever the republicans are putting forward, so I’ll vote for him.
But
Come on
I wish, so much, we had a better candidate
You need a better voting system.
Any single-winner system is inherently flawed, which is why presidential systems are just straight-up worse than parliamentary ones. They’re by their nature going to be less representative. A system where the president is largely a figurehead is far better, along with a legislature which is elected proportionally using something like Mixed-Member Proportional, Single Transferable Vote, or party-list PR.
But failing that, the bare minimum to call your system democratic is to use Instant Runoff Voting. First Past the Post is just straight-up not democracy. It’s a farce. The idea that two candidates with similar views both being very successful actually makes it less likely that either will win is an obvious complete failure of the system. (And, fwiw, you could have IRV presidential elections for a powerful POTUS while also improving congress by making it proportional, if you want to go a step further than just making Congress & President both using IRV, but not as far as the fundamental constitutional change required to make the president a figurehead.)
And how do you expect us to do that, revolt? Because it turns out elected officials are reluctant to make significant changes to the system that elected them from which they profit handsomely.
Suspending reality, it would be interesting if enough progressives moved to states like Wyoming (pop 580k) and the Dakotas (780k and 890k) to move them blue. Then vote in progressive senators. For reference, NJ alone has a population of 9.2m.
If that could happen It would be great to link senators to state population.
I don’t know how you achieve it, but if you haven’t got at least IRV, then electoral reform should be the top issue people push their elected representatives for. As I understand it, some states have already done it in some elections, so it’s not like it’s impossible. Without a functioning democratic system, you can’t ever get good outcomes on the things that actually matter. And with FPTP you don’t have a democratic system.
A parliamentary system with fully proportional representation would be best. The US is big though, so I think an electoral threshold of 4% may be needed. That, or require parties to fulfil the below condition before being able to participate in elections.
• They need enough support through party membership from the area’s population, as a % of the latter. On counties, this would be about 4%. On a state level, that would be 1%. On a national level, 0.25% would be enough.
You might think, why lower with each level? But the larger the population size is, the smaller the membership can be while remaining representative. This also stimulates smaller parties since now they have a chance to actually grow.
Electoral districts also need to be thrown away – counties, states, and the entire country, are where the elections get held in. Because of proportional representation, it doesn’t matter however you were to divide up areas: 25% of votes on one party means 25% of seats.
Lastly, force the Democratic and Republican Party to break up into separate parties with each no more than 20% of all seats. Or tell the parties that putting through with proportional representation as an agenda point will give them more votes. The Dems can argue, “One man, one vote”, the Reps can argue “America NEEDS to keep it Great! Vote the Dems away, get Proportional!”. Both should have this as agenda point.
I also think it critical that the supreme court of the US isn’t 7 judges. It worked for a country with 2 million people, but you lot are a country of 300+ million now. You need something like 100 members, and make the supreme court appointed by the judges themselves, who are chosen by multiple random ballots themselves.
The US Congress also could be expanded. Make the House go from 435 to 500 members, and the Senate to 250. They need to be updated for a big country.
It also makes it harder to manipulate politicians, since there are far more needed to bribe.
I have a whole writeup, if anyone is interested. I think that both Dems and Reps and anyone else can find themselves in it.
I think an electoral threshold of 4% may be needed.
I have absolutely no problem with such a threshold.
I also think it critical that the supreme court of the US isn’t 7 judges.
Okay so here’s a really controversial take. I think the problem with the SCOTUS actually stems from there being too many rights enumerated in the American constitution. I should note that I’m not a legal scholar, but I’ve read a lot of opinions from non-American lawyers who have explained this viewpoint, and it makes sense to me.
Where I live in Australia, our constitution is largely uncontroversial. It doesn’t say what rights people do and do not have, but really just lays out the basic functioning of our democratic institutions, like how elections work, how Government works, how the Commonwealth interacts with the States, etc. Rights are left to Parliament to implement. This has the interesting difference from America in that it means that our High Court decisions are largely far less political than SCOTUS’s. Because the High Court of Australia doesn’t get to make the inherently political ruling of deciding how to interpret individuals’ rights as laid out in the constitution. By putting the right to bear arms in the constitution, SCOTUS is inherently given the power to decide what should be a legislative matter of how much people are allowed to own guns. It’s what lead to the morally-good but legally-nonsense decision that lead to Americans having the right to abortion*, which itself stopped the legislature from ever feeling like it needed to do its job in relation to abortion protections, which is in turn what made the disastrous outcome of Dobbs possible.
This is, obviously, something so deeply ingrained that it would be basically impossible to change. Americans view their constitution almost like a religious text. Even though some of the founding fathers supposedly thought a constitution is something that should be basically rewritten from scratch every few decades, Americans view it as written in stone and as something that must not be changed except perhaps to enumerate more explicit rights. But fundamentally, a less politicised constitution would lead to a less politicised judicial system, which would allow each branch of government to do its part without encroaching on the others like they currently do.
I’m with you on increasing the size of the legislature though. 2 senators per state is far too few (and makes it impossible to reasonably add in a proportional system on a per-state basis). I have much the same feeling about my country. I’d like to see our Parliament almost doubled in size, especially if we were to move to a more proportional system (we currently have a proportional Senate, but use IRV for our House of Representatives).
* legally nonsense because if you look at how SCOTUS justified it in Roe, it just doesn’t make sense, legally. Somehow the right to an abortion is derived from…a right to privacy? That doesn’t make sense. And it makes even less sense when you consider that the right to privacy itself is somehow derived from the right to due process and equal rights under the law.
My only real misgiving with Biden is age, but I do still agree. With how crazy and dangerous Republicans have become however, we can’t afford to take any risks. We don’t just need to beat them, we need to beat them by the largest margins possible. We need to send a sharp condemnation. Biden’s incumbency advantage is indispensable for this.
You really don’t have any additional misgivings about a man who sold out the people of the United States to the credit card companies for a few measley hundreds of thousands of dollars, and who cosponsored a large percentage of why our student loan crisis is as bad as it is? There is a reason that all predatory credit entities are based in the state he represented for his entire political career. He doesn’t get a pass after decades of being a predatory corporate shill selling out the American people. How can the Dems not be capable of fielding literally anyone remotely electable if they weren’t competing opposite truly garbage candidates like Desantis and Trump? I have the same question for the Repubs, for fielding Desantis and Trump. And neither side actually solving abortion rights, gun rights, healthcare, etc when they hold all 3 branches because they are all afraid of losing their major wedge issues, without which they aren’t confident they can win elections.
The problem is really that the whole system is fucked up.
Elections being about “the lesser evil” instead of voting FOR what you actually want is just horrible - no wonder so many people are losing faith in democracy over there…
Biden was a clear “best choice” instead of a “lesser evil” for me. I think he’s a great guy doing a great job.
I want someone who wouldn’t have greenlit the Willow Project in the Arctic. We are way past making compromises in the climate emergency.
What exactly has Biden done wrong? He may not be as crazy left wing as you’d prefer, but really I don’t see why so many on the left are saying he’s so bad
Although I think Biden has overall done a good job I am disappointed that they’re running someone who is 80 years old. I would also like to see a general shift to the left, but at the same time I realize that the increased political division in the US makes this unlikely in the near term.
Giving up the incumbent advantage at a time like this is short sighted at best, and destructive and dangerous at worst.
Because he’s ancient. He’s a half century older than the majority of the voting population.
Why is this a bad thing, specifically? Like, articulate reasons that this is bad.
This comment will stay in the negatives, but anyone who is looking at this objectively knows you’re correct. They just don’t like it.
He ran on getting kids out of cages and there is still a giant open-air prison for refugees on the border. He busted the railroad union. Those are two pretty big issues for the left. He’s further right than Obama, and probably futher right than Nixon, if you compare their platforms. Fighting fascism by moving further right is a really bad way to fight fascism.
Biden has been great. The most transformative policies in 80 years. Great for the world.
I didn’t vote for Mr. Crime Bill '93 last time, and I certainly won’t be voting for the segregationist eulogizer the next time around; but y’know, feel free to shill for Jim Crow Joe to your heart’s content.
“The white conservatives aren’t friends of the Negro either, but they at least don’t try to hide it. They are like wolves; they show their teeth in a snarl that keeps the Negro always aware of where he stands with them. But the white liberals are foxes, who also show their teeth to the Negro but pretend that they are smiling. The white liberals are more dangerous than the conservatives; they lure the Negro, and as the Negro runs from the growling wolf, he flees into the open jaws of the “smiling” fox.”
– Malik el-Shabazz
You didn’t, but the black congressional caucus advised on it and supported it, as did the black community overwhelmingly at the time
It ended up being the bad choice, but it wasn’t a racist choice.
How is RFK Jr. the primary opposition? I know he wasn’t, but it feels like he was put there by the dem establishment as a threat. When I’m feeling like I would support any other democratic candidate to run in place of Biden, this barely younger absolute crank leans in and goes ‘anyone?’ Ah fuck, let’s go dark Brandon… if i have to… I guess.
it feels like he was put there by the dem establishment as a threat.
Hahahahahaha, no. He’s been entirely enabled by those on the right and their hangers-ons in the podcast dork-o-verse. He’s an entirely artificial candidate that only appeals to the fringe 5% or so that would have otherwise voted for Nader, or Jill Stein, or Kanye West.
I think he was actually bankrolled by Bannon and the like. I’m not sure why they thought a far right loon like RFK would weaken Biden. Like you said, his candidacy feels like a purposeful Biden advertisement.
Because they fundamentally don’t understand how left-leaning people think, which means they don’t understand what we want in a candidate. These are the same geniuses who convinced Kanye to run for president in 2020 because they thought he’d peel away the Black vote from the Democrats just because he was Black. (Did I mention they’re all racist AF, too?)
Yeah, the Democrats really fucked up by uniting against Bernie in 2020, and Warren fucked up by not getting behind him.
So we’re stuck with Biden, who aims too low on all our critical issues.
But it’s vital to understand that we ARE stuck with him. There’s no path to victory for anyone else in the party.
So it’s Biden or … A fascist takeover of the country.
Easy choice.
Painful. But easy.
Well that’s unfortunate. Wish we could find someone other than an old fucking white guy to represent us.
The fact that someone like Biden and Bernie exist in the same party tells you how awful the 2-party system is.
Too be fair - the Biden administration isn’t all bad and I think when they do something good we should acknowledge that so that maybe they keep doing good things. That doesn’t mean I don’t think there are better options, though.
I’m hoping for Newsom 2028. In the meantime, Biden will probably be infinitely better than the alternative in the general election.
I agree, but generally a party will back a sitting president of that party, additionally division of the Democratic party is what caused trump’s election in the first place.
I wonder if she’s being groomed to be the next candidate. I would like that a lot, but what the Democratic needs right now is unity, because the Republican party is very divided.
If the Democratic party needs unity when the Republicans are divided, when exactly would dissent ever be acceptable? Seems like this is just a pitch to always be unified, which in turn means never challenging the party establishment.
There are many that believe Biden won’t run and the seat is being saved for Gavin Newsom.
She understands that we are under attack by a global RW fascist insurgency. Keeping the GOP out of the WH will save democracy in the US and around the world. Any GOP winner would stand back and allow the russian terrorists to take Ukraine and beyond.
Yes, this is why we must unequivocally support the guy who couldn’t get any laws passed to protect against said RW fascist insurgency. The guy who can’t get his own party to pass voting rights expansion. The guy with no plan to counter the hijacked Supreme Court, and who has steadfastly refused to develop one. Yup, this is the guy that’ll stop American Fascism.
Always blaming everyone except for the actual fascists is exactly where the fascists want you.
No one’s blaming biden for the facists existence but are you expecting the facists to stop themselves? If not someones gotta do it, like maybe the commander in chief of the country under attack.
The filibuster exists. Biden isn’t all powerful. None of the things you mentioned would get past the current congress.
Biden isn’t perfect. But trump is the end of America. Vote Biden 24
If it were reversed, Trump would be bullying the GOP senators in his way (and he might even pull a couple of Democrat votes because they lack party unity)
Did anyone expect anything different? I don’t recall incumbent presidents ever having a real primary.
Jimmy Carter did-- Ted Kennedy challenged him for the 1980 presidential nomination. The result was them doing so much damage to each other that the ultimate winner of the primary (Carter) came out battered and bruised, giving Reagan the edge he needed to win the general. And we all know how well that worked out for the planet. (Spoiler alert: horrifically.)
That was the opposite tho…
That was “moderate” party leaders trying to sabotage a progressive at any cost.
That fucked America up reeeeeeeally badly. But the people who decided to do it got what they wanted: an excuse to tell voters that progressives can’t win.
That was “moderate” party leaders trying to sabotage a progressive at any cost.
Wait, what? I thought Jimmy Carter was considered really progressive for his time. And Ted Kennedy wasn’t some perfect progressive hero, he had some pretty major blemishes on his record like Chappaquiddik. So I always saw it as more pointless infighting than any kind of centrist-vs-progressive showdown like 2016.
Then again, my parents were in high school when all this was going down, so my knowledge is obviously pretty limited, lol.
hat was “moderate” party leaders trying to sabotage a progressive at any cost.
Wait, what? I thought Jimmy Carter was considered really progressive for his time. And Ted Kennedy wasn’t some perfect progressive hero, he had some pretty major blemishes on his record like Chappaquiddik. So I always saw it as more pointless infighting than any kind of centrist-vs-progressive showdown like 2016.
Then again, my parents were in high school when all this was going down, so my knowledge is obviously pretty limited, lol.
