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It's not just his age. I don't like Biden as a candidate or as a president. I want to vote for someone more progressive, and I wish he were a stronger competitor who guaranteed a victory. He is supremely beatable in November.
But hes the incumbent president, and there's no other Democrat who would be a better choice. Unless he dies or is otherwise incapacitated, he will be the nominee, and he's the best chance at keeping Trump, or any conservative, out of office.
This guy in New Hampshire, I've already forgotten his name and it's literally only a short scroll away, he isn't a serious contender. I don't care what he does because it is irrelevant.
I don't like him much, but he's a better president than I thought he would be. He's actually moved us down a more progressive path than I expected, especially considering he's had to fight every step of the way. He just never promotes any of it for some reason. The Inflation Reduction Act was a pretty good start on rebuilding our infrastructure even if the climate change goals were torpedoed by Manchin and even though Biden couldn't go as far as he wanted with his American Rescue Plan. He's been filling the federal courts with left-wing judges. He's done a huge amount to repair our international reputation after Trump threw it in the trash (although we'll see if that's still true considering Biden's Israel stance). He allowed Medicare to negotiate drug prices, which lowered the cost of insulin for millions of Americans. He got a ton of people's student loans forgiven, although not nearly as many as he wanted.
Do I wish we had an even better president? Absolutely. But he has been better than I expected and he has never had enough of congress on his side to get his agenda passed anywhere near the way he wanted it.
Build Back Better is the single largest investment in green infrastructure by any nation anywhere.
I want more, but I don't know that a more progressive president could have done better in this environment.
it's tax incentives for things those corporations were going to do anyhow.
you can see where biden really is on climate, with his actions pertaining to oil. His presidency has seen more oil released from the national stockpile than all others combined, he took the positive action of personally authorizing the Willow Project in alaska (drilling on national lands); and he's authorized increased production elsewhere.
also "this environment" was democratic control of both houses of congress (albeit with really narrow margins)
Absolutely not. I can only really say for sure about the one aspect I'm familiar with, but I can assure you that the "Build America, Buy America (BABA)" requirement included in the funding that was approved in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, would 100% not have happened otherwise.
In fact, it's going to be a massive ~~pain in the ass~~ undertaking to get contractors to comply with it in general. There is zero chance that they would have done so otherwise.
Also, most (if not all, I'm not sure) of the money from the BIL for infrastructure projects will go into contracts that pay prevailing wage to workers. If you're not familiar with prevailing wage, it's pretty fucking high. Much higher than a contractor would ever choose to pay a (non-union) worker.
Contractor pay has nothing to do with the environmental aspects of their legislation. The environmental things are all basically subsidizing companies for things there already doing or going to.
Further, even the act itself recognizes it’s all going to corpo pockets:
Ignore the bit about “highest labor and enviro standards”, it’s bald faced bullshit. BABA is subsidizing corporations.
Yes, that translates into American job, however… do you really think these corporations are going to be paying most of this subsidy into wages?
It’s like how Teslas were 50-60k cars and subsidized with tax. Tesla to buy it, but then suddenly dropped to 40k when people couldn’t afford it anyhow. Or federal school loans directly subsidizing the high cost of tuition.
It’s all just corpo pork. Pure and simple.
Who said I was only talking about the environmental aspects? Also, you're acting like I wrote the fucking legislation, I didn't even say if I support it or not.
Prevailing wage is an entirely different thing, and sure I guess you can choose to ignore it, but it's not a bad thing.
(emphasis mine), Is the comment I was replying to- talking when I was speaking about the environmental aspects of the legislative agenda. Both my comment and the original comment were both in the context of green infrastructure.
are you saying I'm being unreasonable for assuming you were responding to me about my comment in kind? It's fine if you want to talk about your pay raise. (I presume.) But like... that's not what this conversation is about... so you're changing the subject.
Biden's record on the environment is bad. You getting better pay for a few jobs doesn't really change that record. The fact is climate change is an existential threat to humanity on a global scale, and Biden has done fuck-all to deal with it before it gets worse. On balance, he's made the situation worse; and has increased the inertia in fighting oil and transitioning to a carbon-neutral economy, which we kind of have to do in the next year or two before things get even more fucked than they already are.
If you don't support at least the parts you keep wanting to distract us with... why the fuck do you keep defending it? Actually, right now I'm assuming you're just a troll.
Build Back Better was killed by centrist darling Joe Manchin.
Do you mean some other piece of legislation?
The best way to get more left leaning candidates is to move the Overton window left by destroying the repubs at the polls time after time.
Right. This isn't a sprint, it's a marathon. One of the most frustrating things I've seen progressives do is not get everything they want and then rage quit politics without realizing that this is even worse than only getting some of what you want.
In one respect, I wish progressives could be more like Republicans. After Roe v Wade, Republicans didn't rage quit politics. They pushed for abortion bans, lost, tried again, lost, and repeated until they got some small concession. Then they used that to slowly, over 50 years, build until they overturned Roe.
Now, obviously, I disagree with their goals. However, I can admire the long term effort put into this. If progressives could do this (with much better goals, of course), we might be able to do some amazing things. Yes, it would be slow at first and that can be frustrating, but imagine if we could have a country 30-50 years from now as far to the left as the Republicans are to the right (but much more sane).
I don't like his position on Israel, but I believe any other position would be political suicide, and with fascist traitors waiting in the wings for a second try, he can't afford to rock that boat. He's doing pretty well, considering how divided the country is, and the hand he was dealt.
Something has to give; our democracy is fraying. If not Orange Stalin, we are in serious danger that the next Republican will be someone more clever, but just as amoral. God forbid we see another Nixon.
Except that Biden himself says 50 other Democrats could beat Trump.
That’s because you fuckers want Biden and aren’t even willing to try and get someone better.
You guys are all so scared of what will happen when you fail that you don’t give yourselves a chance to succeed
I mean, if we had a young, progressive leader with the backing of the DNC, I'd support that candidate. Is Johnny Milquetoast that candidate? This isn't a wide open primary where there is no incumbent.
And yes we're scared of failure. Biden is hardly the leader we need, but Trump attempted a violent coup and sold state secrets to foreign governments. He is a racist, xenophobic fascist who has said in court that he can assassinate his political rivals with immunity from prosecution, and that fucker put 3 justices on the supreme court.
This is not a fuck around and find out situation.
Sounds like you guys should really run a good candidate instead of bypass congress twice to give weapons to israel to kill brown children.
Sounds like you’re not interested in countering their point, you just want to climb up on a soapbox and rant about “you guys” this and “you guys” that all day. Lemmy is for discussion, you’re looking for a blog.
Not sure if just naive or they are shrub.
Ah, so the penny drops. You hate Biden for his support of Israel. I get that. Israel is engaged in a genocide, and I wish we had a president, or a populace, with the political will to stop it. Are any of the democratic primary challengers running on that?
Israel should be stopped. The people of Gaza deserve the same human rights as every other human on the planet.
But universal human rights aren't on the table. We're not going to stop supporting Israel. Trump won't stop supporting Israel. Well, actually, he might if someone pays him enough, but guaranteed the resulting clusterfuck would be a disaster of at least equal proportion. And the damage Trump would do in every other aspect of human life makes that a nonstarter.
I'd be pretty surprised if Marianne Williamson was pro-war.
Is she the candidate you support?
Look, I agree with most of her political positions, but she's not a viable candidate. I can't think of a way to describe her that isn't reductive or condescending. The kindest words that come to mind are "talk show," "pseudoscience," and "nutty."
I welcome her support to the policies she likes, because those are the policies I like, but I don't trust the train of thought she took to get there. If she were running for state or local government, I might vote for her, but I wouldn't phone bank or donate to her campaign. I just don't know how to look someone in the eye and say she's a serious person.
Having said all of that, her platform is peace in general, peace as a priority. And while I can agree with that on principle, it isn't a plan but a goal. She wants Israel and Hamas to reject the evil psychic forces drawing them to war and dismantle their bonbs to make garden planters. She isn't running in opposition to Zionism or promoting a two state solution. She doesn't know how to get them to heal their hearts and end the violence, but she's sure that's what she wants.
So you're probably right, but I don't really count that because it's not a serious campaign. Anyone who offers criticisms without alternative solutions is just trying to get a little publicity.
No, I don't support Williamson. She was more coherent on some issues than I expected in 2020, but on whole she's not a serious candidate with real solutions that should run anything. Also, for a peace candidate, Williamson actually wasn't initially as unequivocal about the war as you'd expect. She got there eventually, but it should have been a simple answer. It's not a complex question, cease fire and no more arms for ethnic cleansing. If they won't stop, start the sanctions. "What about Hamas" went out the window with the 5,000th civilian casualty.
No one but Biden has a serious campaign on the Democratic side (and third parties have never been viable). All the people who could have put forth a serious campaign deferred to him when it wasn't as clear how weak a candidate he was. He should have stepped aside from the start, but his extreme support for Israel's ethnic cleansing has turned a potential for weakness into terrifying danger. However, since modern political custom dictates that incumbents should never be opposed by their own party, he gets to make the decision for all of us and we're just stuck with him.