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

Beats some of the alternatives.

go fuck yourself spotify choad

Me?

yes

Why?

because you don't have anything valuable to say or think and you're dead weight.

Aimless, perhaps you didn't realize that a lot of people were motivated by voting against Trump.

Rather than writing him off as worthless because of legislation he sponsored 30 years ago, and viewing every action he takes through this historical lens, I'd prefer to be open-minded and let my criticism of him derive from the decisions he makes in the current moment and their real consequences.

― jaymc, Tuesday, November 24, 2020 1:15 PM (six minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Jaymc, unless he orders all people rotting in the carceral system since 1994 to be freed, this is a non-starter for anyone who calls themselves a leftist with a straight face. Unless he finds a way to fire the 17,000 cops that were added as a result of the 1994 bill, your proposition is a non-starter. And that's just two things I can think of off the top of my head.

Because history has consequences, Biden's actions in the past have dire consequences for the present-- ie, the legalized, state-sanctioned slavery that is built into the carceral system.

So please spare me the 'judge him by his current actions' crap-- there are many hundreds of thousands of people whose lives have been ruined because of this racist fuck's hard-on for "tough on crime" bullshit.

xp I'm sorry you feel that way, map.

(I get that KM's meltdown today is because he's - erroneously imo* - pattern-matching to his family's refusal to engage on substance. But he's matching to a refusal that he is just imagining will happen, and declining to provide substance on those grounds. Given his current family stress, this is more than understandable - but the "will not communicate" rhetoric is still coming from him! <3 <3, hugs to you Z)
*(okay, maybe milo would move a goalpost or three if in a frustrated mood at the time of reading)

you're right. i am a complete fucking mess right now, and that's probably clear. it's probably clear when someone mentions their mom 4 times within an hour on the joe biden thread. right after this meltdown, i proceeded to create two other meltdowns irl. so that's obviously me, not you all. i'm sorry for being antagonistic, for dumping a dozen posts in a row without listening or caring about the responses (something that people have confronted me about multiple times this month, unrelated to ilx or internet), and also for conflating disagreement with being dumb. i don't think anyone here is dumb, except for my mom (#5).

however, since i'm still in the meltdown afterglow, i'd like to point out that i would fucking shit my pants if any of the people i was yelling at today would, just for once, admit they were wrong on anything at all, rather than dodging everything by asking questions that don't have answers. and i will note that this kind of behavior is very common among people with rightwing brainworms. the first step toward brainworms is not being able to tell yourself that you're wrong. the second step is to find someone else who is the same way, and to make a pact to never be wrong, together. so perhaps it's not that strange that conflate the two - i am absolutely exhausted with "debating" with people who will never, ever, ever EVER admit they're wrong about anything, and will bend time and space itself in order to avoid doing so. it's one of the the things that makes me really mad these days.

in conclusion, i have mommy issues, and also death to all white christians

signed, a centrist

that took me literally 5 seconds

The question wasn’t “has this ever been said,” it was “who said it.”

ie is this said now in order to excuse and explain Biden’s past to make him more palatable to contemporary liberals. Which... seems to be the case. That Waksman piece is devoid of specifics and 538 is talking about how COVID pushed him left.

He “led the charge” on law and order - how is one just following the crowd and leading the charge? He didn’t give up his support for the Hyde Amendment until 2019.

Most of this supposed leftward movement appears to have come in the last 18 months as he decided to run for President. As I listed above, he wasn’t staking out the center of the party in the era when Mondale is the nominee and Biden is helping craft the crack/powder distinction.

xp I'm sorry you feel that way, map.

― jaymc, Tuesday, November 24, 2020 9:47 PM (one minute ago) bookmarkflaglink

i'm sorry i have to skip around your posts! sad all around

Waldman*

I like to see map telling a poster wo hasn't insulted them to go fuck himself minutes before KM offers that confession.

classic-era map lashing-out venom. what other of ilx's greatest hits shall we play?

I'm gonna to kindly suggest to posters that they step away from threads when they sense the urge to personally insult posters who haven't insulted them first.

KM, I will readily admit when I'm wrong, by the way. And I'm sorry you're having a tough time.

it's ok. i know everyone is. i really like your posts, even when i disagree with them. i'm sorry to put you in the same bin as people who don't listen or bend, i know you do.

Most of this supposed leftward movement appears to have come in the last 18 months as he decided to run for President.

Which should be taken as a small victory by the people who helped force him and the party there. Instead it's just an excuse for more self-righteousness.

Pushing centrists to the left is a good thing! We need more of it! The way to do it is not to constantly howl at centrists that they're irredeemable nazi serpents.

Which should be taken as a small victory by the people who helped force him and the party there. Instead it's just an excuse for more self-righteousness.

The mark of the true leftist is never reacting positively to anything. Things are always just as bad as they've ever been; the war is lost; despair and rage are the only permissible emotions.

xxposts And I often value your posts, too, partly because you bring a unique perspective to the conversation. I was raised by moderate Republicans of the old school model— neither of my parents were fans of Reagan, for instance— and both my sets of grandparents were die-hard leftists. One of my grandmothers was a card-carrying Communist Party member for many years. The radical genes skipped a generation, obviously, but there were some evangelicals in our orbit when I was growing up, and I despised them... seemed like a lot of mean-spirited bullshit to me then and now.

Pushing centrists to the left is a good thing if they actually begin to pursue left policy. Given Biden's nominees thus far, there is no reason to believe that's happened.

This is the corollary of the earlier "none of these people are confirmed" defense from criticism - when Biden actually strongly pursues good policy, I'll believe him. Until then it's just words and I'll continue to trust 50 years of action.

https://arc-anglerfish-washpost-prod-washpost.s3.amazonaws.com/public/UKYUMSDULUI6VKN5T6FVSMYA2A.jpg

Real world action is going to have to be compelling to promote anyone in this picture beyond "roast in hell forever."

this is going to be a fun 4 years

The mark of the true leftist is never reacting positively to anything. Things are always just as bad as they've ever been; the war is lost; despair and rage are the only permissible emotions.

― but also fuck you (unperson), Tuesday, November 24, 2020 1:58 PM (one minute ago) bookmarkflaglink

Perhaps it might surprise you to know that this is the biggest load of shit I've read all day.

Aimless, perhaps you didn't realize that a lot of people were motivated by voting against Trump.

So, if I read you correctly, you are saying that 80 million people decided that whatever Biden's failings might be, they concluded they would be better off with him as president than sticking with Trump. Now that you mention it, I think I endorse their collective judgment on this question, in spite of the possibility that Rahm Emanuel might replace some Trump toady in some position of power. Maybe he can replace Betsy DeVos.

I've heard it said that the best thing about being repeatedly hit over the head with a hammer is that it feels so good when it stops. I won't say Biden will cease all the hammering, but I greatly appreciate that the hammers will be smaller, lighter, and the blows further spaced apart. I expect this will free up some valuable time and attention that can be turned to other problems than just surviving Trump's misrule.

Earlier in the year, I thought it didn't matter a whole lot who the Democrats nominated, because I overestimated the strength of the anyone-but-Trump vote.

Disagree with this - the vote does seem to have been profoundly an "anyone-but-Trump" vote, rather than widespread enthusiasm for Biden amongst anyone but team-based voters, who ipso facto would have applied the same enthusiasm to the team no matter the name of the stadium.

But speculating on whether more people would have responded better to a more active campaign, to more engaged candidates, or to policies differing from "shut up or we'll shoot you," "we promise not to constrain corporations from damaging the biosphere in the most aggressive current manner," and "we absolutely will not improve the healthcare system during a pandemic that is killing 1000 ppl a day," is unproductively counterfactual. In my boundless, sunny optimism I say I reckon they would, you say they wouldn't have, job done.

Aimless, no one I know IRL actually likes Joe Biden.

I was going to vote for him, as a vote against Trump. And then the pigs shot a young Black man in a mental health crisis six blocks from my house the night before I voted. I'm just one person, but I couldn't in good conscience vote for Biden when the sound of that mother's screams were still reverberating in my skull.

Hey you know he ran on the public option, right?

xp uh wow I know I don't like to tell anyone not to post in this thread but map, maybe take a big breeak today

I am going to be honest and say that I don't know enough about some of the points against Biden that have been made in this thread. But most of them have to do with things he's said or done in the past, and I guess I'm not really interested in litigating it?

hey jaymc - I was going to add to my long post earlier than it's a bummer that your earnest efforts to engage and delineate a position itt get overwhelmed by the "stfu about Biden" posts, but figured I'd been typing long enough.

As noted, Biden's 50-year public record seems worth considering as some indicator on how he's likely to act in the future, especially with regard to how slow he is to adapt, how much his positions have seemed to be motivated by sincere will to do good for the most people, and to what degree his legislative will has historically been bound to the interests of donors, lobbyists, and corporations with actively anti-humanist agendas.

That said, I think "most" is a strong mischaracterisation of such citations itt. The preponderance of Biden actions posted about here is overwhelmingly things he does or says within 24 hours previous. In the last week or so, I've cited previous actions by new Biden appointees that give reason to fear that they will continue to act against the ideal of their departments, especially if they are currently employed to act against those ideals, but my only mention of "legislation he sponsored 30 years ago" was specifically in commending Biden for changing his position.

(xp - milo has now done so, but sincerely and validly in context by my read)

I admit I do hark back to some things he's repeatedly said during the campaign, but that seems pretty fair given it was (checks watch) a few weeks ago.

But speculating on whether more people would have responded better to a more active campaign, to more engaged candidates, or to policies differing from "shut up or we'll shoot you," "we promise not to constrain corporations from damaging the biosphere in the most aggressive current manner," and "we absolutely will not improve the healthcare system during a pandemic that is killing 1000 ppl a day," is unproductively counterfactual.

I don't see how you can look at the vote breakdown and think a farther-left candidate would have done better. If there's data, demographic or otherwise, that suggests that, I would love to see it. I want to believe that, but nothing in what we just went through gives me that hope.

But in your hypothetical, you're talking about a theoretical progressive candidate who was a smart enough political tactician and/or a charismatic enough figure to win the Democratic nomination in the first place, in which case we're imagining a candidate and campaign that didn't exist this year. So, yes, hard to say.

It would be nice to see that candidate and/or campaign sometime.

xp Thanks for responding thoughtfully, sic.

This thread is starting to feel like a bummer again, so I think I'm going to peace out for a bit.

“We will not improve the healthcare system in any way..” just sounds like someone who wasn’t remotely following the campaign. And to be confidently repeating that? Oof

it's probably clear when someone mentions their mom 4 times within an hour on the joe biden thread

irl lol

<3

I don't personally think Biden's Cabinet matters very much, because a.) I don't think the Democrats are going to get the Senate, so nothing much will happen for the next two years; b.) there's a pretty good chance the GOP gerrymanders its way to House control in '22

I'd think that if Biden is unable to get any real legislation passed, the identity of the people in charge of the federal departments would become proportionally much more important

it's actually the only thing that matters now; we're never passing legislation ever again because we will be fucked by the Senate forever

That's fine. I'm not going to worry about it, someone might as well.

*SPOILER* They are mostly going to be D.C. careerists with public-private revolving door experience and assorted think tank/Ivy League/corporate credentials.

Nearly all of them will have things on their resumes to be very mad about, if you so choose.

I choose yes

I love regurgitated leftovers, personally

You're in luck!

Tbh, I'm just somewhat relieved that Mayo Pete hasn't been named to anything yet. God I hate that guy.

I don’t even own a TV, man.

I don't see how you can look at the vote breakdown and think a farther-left candidate would have done better.

I don't know what vote breakdown you mean, and I didn't mention anything about a farther-left candidate.

(I'm increasingly unconvinced that left-wing and right-wing are practical terms in current usage, and internally aim to assess policies on whether they are good for most people, or good for very few people. But to mark someone as farther left than Joe Biden requires establishing Biden's position on the line between right and left, with at least one marker of scale.)

My impression of 2020 presidential vote results by demographic is that they tell us much less about the lead candidate, and more about the work done in individual states this year. Discussion in the AOC thread a week or so ago supports this, and points to further structural weaknesses in the DNC-led approach. But that's better litigated in the Democratic Direction thread, if you really do want to keep bringing it up (good though the general level of conversation has been itt today)

“We will not improve the healthcare system in any way..” just sounds like someone who wasn’t remotely following the campaign. And to be confidently repeating that? Oof

I heard and read Joe Biden confidently repeating during the campaign that we need to go backwards to fix the failings of the Obamacare system that was meant to be a compromise/stepping stone over a decade ago, and pledging to support the private insurance system as a core principle. Oof!

I don’t know what the tell you man. The public option exists, has been a long term progressive goal, would help a lot of people out and he ran on it. I don’t that the difference between that and M4A is the best reason to go all blackpill but w\e you do you Jack.

xpost

Biden has endorsed a public option, so that's a pretty good marker. If the House doesn't pass one by the end of the year with White House support, then you can definitely mark him down as M.I.A. on that front. (I'm not optimistic, fwiw.)

And your point about the Democratic Direction thread is well taken. I just tend to click on whatever's on top of new answers tbh.

Turnout in the election reached a 120 year high. The idea that a better candidate would have appealed to much larger numbers of voters seems like a stretch. otoh, a better candidate would have made a better president had they won.

Is Big Don actually Joe Biden

pics or gtfo

Big Don Gabbnebathy