Joe Biden, Senator from Citibank (oops, DELAWARE), to Run for President

A Guardian commentator states:

on an ideological scale, Harris ranks as the second-most progressive senator, behind Warren but ahead of Sanders.

He cites this chart:
https://voteview.com/congress/senate

However, I find his claim hard to believe.

Assigning votes cast across 13 years (for Sanders, three years for Harris) to a single grid point each on a four-axis scale, with no explanation provided of the context of or riders attached to each bill, seems a very poor method of evaluating the ideology of the voter.

Analysing the bills initiated, drafted and promoted by each would be a better marker, and assessing Harris' ideological record as a prosecutor and AG against Sanders' ideological record as a congressman would provide a deeper understanding than only examining Harris' public actions during the three years she has been marketing herself for VP/POTUS.

don't you people sleep?!

if you sleep, you die

To be clear, as has been made apparent in this thread, I also hate his policy positions and believe that in a good and just world, we'd be getting ready for a big guillotine party of both candidates and all their cabinets in November, but y'know, we live in fucking hell.

I'm also starting to get the impression that Dan S is actually Joe Biden. Any time any criticism is lobbed Biden's way, Dan S goes 'c'mon.'

C'mon what? Just embrace the fact that we have two party apparatuses that don't give a flying fuck about the people of this country?

The higher you ascend any party chain of command the grosser it looks. At the local level I have respect for several state rep candidates, sorry.

This entire thread since 2018 or so is pretty easily reduced to two arguments which wouldn’t have much to do with each other in a slightly better timeline:

1. Joe Biden is an acceptable alternative to Trump, let’s get this done so we can make sure RBG isn’t replaced by someone else off the federalist society’s a-list

2. Joe Biden is a horrible human being arrgh omg america deserves this shit fuck everything arrgh we’re doomed

2 is more exciting hence the overwhelming majority of posts devoted to it, despite the mind-numbing repetition

― sound of scampo talk to me (El Tomboto), Thursday, 13 August 2020 bookmarkflaglink

It's actually not the correct reading. 2 is more like Biden isn't progressive enough on the policy front. Him being a terrible person complements the lack of vision.

I know excitement is a measure in US discourse but the good, boring, strong liberal policy would be good right now, rather than "my tweets will be boring and will be posted once a month".

this is certainly a clever thing to post to a thread three times

― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.)

i hope sic keeps posting it, maybe eventually it will start sinking in

"don't you people sleep?!

― TikTok to the (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn)"

no, it's kind of an issue

"The higher you ascend any party chain of command the grosser it looks. At the local level I have respect for several state rep candidates, sorry.

― TikTok to the (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn)"

this is actually what gives me hope, without the party and chain of command we would be doing a lot better than we are now. the failure is a failure of institutions and a failure of leadership.

"I know excitement is a measure in US discourse but the good, boring, strong liberal policy would be good right now, rather than "my tweets will be boring and will be posted once a month".

― xyzzzz__"

look, you thick bastards, i'm not "excited", i'm acutely suicidal and i have been since tuesday afternoon. i'm not saying that as a threat or as a cry for help. i'm doing the best i can with the kind support of the many, many people who love and care about me. i bring it up to point out how utterly absurd most of the pro-biden arguments being advanced in this thread are for me to read.

It’s important to wait for the one term President to be elected before exerting pressure.

― Donald Trump Also Sucks, Of Course (milo z), Wednesday, August 12, 2020 11:34 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

i'm not sure just saying biden sucks over and over again counts as "exerting pressure"

― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Wednesday, August 12, 2020 11:40 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

OTM. By all means, exert pressure on the campaign now, until election day, and (God willing) afterwards! We're all in this together. When I say "Let's get Biden elected and take it from there," I mean that the election is the main priority. None of the rest will matter until he's in office.

Also, to be perfectly honest, all of the negative energy on this thread makes me nervous and uneasy. Not because I think ILX is representative of the electorate, but because I want and need to feel hope for the future, and right now, Biden is our best shot at it. He's by no means perfect, but he's the only path forward. Let's make him a tool of our desire for something better.

xp I'm sorry, Kate.

hey kate, wrong thread and I'm sure you know this already but on the off chance that a nudge from the outer world may help motivate: if you're having thoughts of self harm, please try to reach out to a friend or a local organization that can talk you through it?

yeah, again, not a cry for help or a threat. just, like, part of the systemic breakdown of US national norms and institutions over the course of my lifetime, and _particularly_ over the past four years, has been a dramatic diminishment in the amount of resources available to those suffering with acute mental health problems. anybody working in mental health, anybody who is _dealing_ with someone who has mental health issues, knows this. you're trying to help people you care about and you reach out an increasing amount of the time, you know, there's nothing. us mentally ill folks have relied on "mutual aid" for a long time, and everybody's resources are overstretched, everybody is trying to do too much with too little and just desperately trying to hold on, hold it together, in the hopes that things will somehow get better.

and when people tell me i'm supposed to place my trust and hope in biden/harris, honestly? i find that incredibly, deeply painful.

I'm sorry it's painful to you, but I don't know what our alternatives are. Where should we be putting our trust and hope?

You don't need to and shouldn't put your trust and hope in politicians. Save that for yourself and your loved ones.

People should vote for candidates that most closely align with them, campaign to get them elected, and hold them accountable to their campaign promises if they win.

And, to be clear, "putting your trust in" a politician is not the same thing as believing the empirical evidence that shows the vast majority of political candidates attempt to follow through on their campaign promises, even if the y end up unsuccessful.

That's probably good advice.

I'm sorry it's painful to you, but I don't know what our alternatives are. Where should we be putting our trust and hope?

― jaymc

Gonna be honest here, it seems kinda weird to me that you're asking for life advice from a woman who has just told you she is acutely suicidal. That seems like a kinda bizarre response.

kate i'm right there with you (to be clear i don't feel suicidal but i do feel like i'm in hell at times). i never expect to get the candidates i want but that doesn't make internet or irl conversation about this pair any less alienating. i'm resolving to stop reading this thread today.

I'm sorry, Kate. I'm not asking for life advice. I'm sorry you're hurting, and I wish you well.

Also planning to bow out of this thread for a while.

I think one reason this thread often comes across as tiresome is that there's no genuine counterweight to the most virulent anti-Biden stuff. There is no pro-Biden contingent on ILX. Afaik no one who regularly posts on this board even LIKES Joe Biden. I doubt any regular posters have ever voted for him in a primary. I don't see anyone saying they think he will be a particularly good president even by that very shitty standard. The absolute most complimentary thing it seems anyone is willing to say is that he's a thoroughly replacement-level Democrat who might be able to unfuck some of the things that have gotten fucked over the past four years, and the vast majority of that will no doubt come from a potential Dem-majority Senate and any actual competent people he more or less accidentally surrounds himself with (e.g. Liz Warren).

i have yet to personally meet anyone who is excited about joe biden as a person or as a candidate, merely that he is there. He is the Diet Mr. Pibb of politicians.

"He's by no means perfect"

as always, i wish people would stop saying this when "He's by no means the very worst" is what they mean.

what gives me hope is the rise and rise of popular protest movements. black lives matter particularly, but also the women's marches, extinction rebellion, the water protectors of standing rock, etc etc. yes joe biden is a shell of a man and only progressive if you squint hard, and maybe not even then, but popular protest stands a chance of filling this empty vessel with a sense of purpose. maybe the way popular protest steered lbj towards policies he didn't campaign on (disclaimer: i have never read a word of robert caro)

Caro's an analyst of concentrated power: its use and its dissipation. He has no interest in mass movements (not a knock against him, just noting this fact).

caro's central argument w/r/t lbj, as i understand it, is that lbj possessed purpose, and that obtaining power revealed that purpose. that lbj was, in many senses, an extraordinary man.

Yep -- a thesis he tested in The Power Broker.

(which I'm reading and loving the fuck out of)

yeah, not sure biden is an extraordinary man. but i do think popular protest has the potential to move his administration to do extraordinary things.

I read somewhere between half and 2/3 of The Power Broker and I loved a lot of it too but ultimately it kind of wore me down, as Moses became more powerful it just felt like the story was page after page of him being a colossal asshole and fucking people over, ad nauseum.

the power broker was one of the best books i've ever read

i read it during a city planning course, actually. warning, city planner 101 students: do NOT be like robert moses!

Well, Caro's alert to dialectics: NYC needed an asshole this monstrous to build those beautiful parks, swimming pools, beaches, and to devastate affordable housing for the poor.

(sorry, do not read unless you accidentally read the last two posts)

just to be clear, i read the power broker in a separate seminar class, while also taking a city planning class. so i felt like i was learning about the most evil of city planners while also these innocent simcity fans were in the dark

Reminds me I need to get The Power Broker off my shelf and actually read it one of these days ...

Marshall Berman, mostly writing about Modernism, reserved more vitriol for Robert Moses than pretty much anyone else.

popular protest stands a chance of filling this empty vessel

This I think is the most interesting thing about the Biden candidacy. The empty-suit metaphor has been used about lots of politicians and presidential candidates, but I can't think of another one where it was sort of the selling point, the best thing that can be said. Nobody talks or even seems to care about what Biden might actually think about anything. The assumption is just that since he's an empty vessel, there will be opportunities to fill him with other people's interests and priorities.

Like, if Trump is a human skin full of scuttling Void Crabs (per Chuck Tingle), then Biden can be our own human skin full of flowers and healthcare. (Or at least as much flowers and healthcare as can fit around all the Citibank receipts.)

yeah exactly. kate makes a good point that lbj's not really comparable. i think that's true, so sorry for the derail. i guess i'm thinking: biden's no progressive, but truly progressive things happen because of popular pressure, not because a saviour executive rides to the rescue. and biden - by my lights - seems like somebody who could be bent to a particular purpose if enough pressure is applied.

The last time I'll quote David Goddamn French:

These things are all true:

1. A mainstream Democrat chose a mainstream Democrat for Veep.

2. The mainstream of the Democratic party is left of where it was in 2016 and 2012.

3. If 2018 is any indication, many previously-red suburbs are left of where they were in 2016.

— David French (@DavidAFrench) August 12, 2020

But he already took healthcare off the table!

and the table is the

these people love using "left of Obama" and/or Clinton as the gold standard

Which people are you talking about?

David French?

overton window just big enough now for mass defenestration

I mean, if "less willing to vote for a congenital idiot and the party he represents" = "left of Obama", I'm on board

I kind of don't care where people end up wrt Obama's place on the political spectrum seeing as he isn't on the ballot

All the Power Broker/Robert Moses talk upthread made this mandatory. You're welcome.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XW0Dyxp3GjI