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Biden - his time

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    He is not my guy. You know that.

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      Whose guy is he then? (and what have we been arguing about for the last 12 months?)

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        Originally posted by Tactical Genius View Post
        I note you are deflecting away from not answering my question about Obama and hip hop culture.
        I don't think it's my place to agree or disagree - to a black man - about what a black man says about other black men. a) he's entitled to his own beliefs and b) he knows a hell of a lot more about people's political motivations than I do.

        What I do believe is that looking for homogeneity in any group is proving foolish. Women voted for Trump the sexual assaulter. Latinx voted for Trump the family separator. Black men and Latinx men and White men may indeed have voted for Trump the strongman / machismo dictator. Everyone's reasons voting for him and against him are probably as different as the voters themselves.

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          Originally posted by Tactical Genius View Post
          As for the election, am I the only person surprised an unpopular presidential candidate with no base got a record number of votes. And his vice presidential candidate was such a disaster, she dropped out of the race before she lost her own state in the primary.
          I think your central problem is you are projecting your own dislike of Biden too far. He was VP to a two-term President who retained high approval ratings right to the end of his time in office. People were bemoaning that Biden didn't run four years ago because back then he was considered the best potential Democratic candidate. He won the Democratic primaries, which may not be an entirely fair popularity contest but is still that at heart. Unpopular goes way too far. The heaviest criticism that stands on a widespread level is Biden is uninspiring.

          As for his VP, she is of typical stock. Many other VP candidates down the years are defeated foes from the primaries. And, of course, noting that Harris' primary failure is an attempt to have it both ways - you can't rely on that and also claim the primary winner, Biden, as unpopular.

          That said, I'm sure ad hoc is right that the high turnout was mostly driven by Trump, both pro- and anti. But if Biden was genuinely unpopular, he would have lost because he wouldn't have got people's votes even with what the alternative was.

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            Originally posted by Tactical Genius View Post
            There is a good reason he has spent most of the election campaign hidden away from the media and giving very short speeches.
            Yup. There is. It was to starkly contrast him with Trump's laissez faire attitude to the pandemic. A pretty one-note election strategy, but this was a pretty extraordinary year to have an election in.

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              I’ve said it before. With this election you can pretty say anything that you want about what happened and find solid evidence to back it up. So trying to “prove” the validity/analysis of one viewpoint over another is pretty much a fool’s errand.

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                A centre-right candidate beat a hard-right candidate who is also a narcissist with a nasty demeanor. That's a net win that will curb the worst excesses of the authoritarian right but won't reverse the trend of greater material inequalities that has been continuous since the 70s.

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                  The Occam’s Razor in me boils it down to “Trump just about managed to piss off enough people”.

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                    Originally posted by Nefertiti2 View Post
                    Whose guy is he then? (and what have we been arguing about for the last 12 months?)
                    The argument most typically has been one side saying "the DNC let everyone down! It should have been a progressive! Bernie would have won!" and the other has been saying "That's a nice idea and all, but there are about 300 million people, 150 million of voting age, and you would be screwed to get more than 50 million voting for a leftist candidate". Also known as - living in America.

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                      Originally posted by caja-dglh View Post

                      The argument most typically has been one side saying "the DNC let everyone down! It should have been a progressive! Bernie would have won!" and the other has been saying "That's a nice idea and all, but there are about 300 million people, 150 million of voting age, and you would be screwed to get more than 50 million voting for a leftist candidate". Also known as - living in America.
                      Do you mean a “ leftist candidate “ or a candidate prepared to address the crisies facing the world and the US in
                      particular?

                      Because what astonishes me is the fact that you all feel so relaxed about the fact you’ve elected a waste of space.

                      Biden isn’t as uncouth as Trump. His corruption will exist within clear and acceptable American boundaries And he won’t play golf so much.

                      He is also going to do nothing about climate change, about the huge swathes of poverty sweeping across America, The fact that five companies control the means of communication and dominate the political discourse

                      I wouldn’t mind – it’s your country after all – but you dominate the world

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                        There seems to be a consistent confusion between what we (or most of us) see as the obvious answer to the US's and the world's problems and what people actually want to vote for. Same in the UK and in Australia, both of which in recent elections had choice between self-interest and broadly progressive polices and plumped for self-interest.

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                          Originally posted by Nefertiti2 View Post
                          He is also going to do nothing about climate change
                          https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/17/c...te-change.html

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                            Originally posted by Nefertiti2 View Post
                            Because what astonishes me is the fact that you all feel so relaxed about the fact you’ve elected a waste of space.
                            Should we be sharing more tweets?

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                              Originally posted by Nefertiti2 View Post
                              Because what astonishes me is the fact that you all feel so relaxed about the fact you’ve elected a waste of space.
                              But what are you suggesting that the US voting public should have done?

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                                Sharing tweets, linking to other comments is a form of education, yes

                                After Obama intrvened to ensured they were to given the choice between Biden and Trump they should have voted for Biden. But four years of "back to normal" with Pelosi as House Leader and DuPont advising on pollution is not going to save the planet.
                                People need to continue to campaign

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                                  I can't tell whom you're trying to educate here anyway. The number who think Biden is the answer to our troubles seems to be zero.

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                                    Originally posted by Bruno View Post
                                    I can't tell whom you're trying to educate here anyway. The number who think Biden is the answer to our troubles seems to be zero.
                                    In which case how do you think people should respond. What are the answers to our troubles? Because our troubles are big and getting bigger>

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                                      Speaking for myself, I think it's important that, for example, I hear about the people like the DuPont guy being placed on the team. Obviously my knowledge of this fact is not going to change anything, but I'd rather know (and be able to share) that information than not know it. The alternative would appear to be sticking ones head in the sand.

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                                        When there's an election on, we aren't supposed to say bad things about the lesser evil because elections. I don't hold with that approach myself, but there's a logic to it.

                                        But the election's over.

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                                          This is the kind of thing that i think is the best approach - be aware of the failings of the new regime, but don;t let up the struggle. The worst thing that can happen is to sit back and imagine that the work is now done. Some space opened up. Use it https://www.972mag.com/biden-palesti...ssives-israel/

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                                            Originally posted by Nefertiti2 View Post
                                            In which case how do you think people should respond. What are the answers to our troubles? Because our troubles are big and getting bigger>
                                            I'm totally in favour of protesting on the streets against Biden's environmental inaction and racism once Trump is out of the White House. I will encourage critical discussion of Biden in my seminars with students. But I'm realistic in believing Bernie would not have beaten Trump because too many centrists would have stayed at home, like they did in 2016 because they wouldn't vote for a woman.

                                            I would note that the media gave Biden a free ride compared to the airtime they gave to the smearing of HRC in 2016, but Bernie would have got the HRC treatment and worse.

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                                              Originally posted by Satchmo Distel View Post
                                              I would note that the media gave Biden a free ride compared to the airtime they gave to the smearing of HRC in 2016, but Bernie would have got the HRC treatment and worse.
                                              Yeah, the airwaves were full of Trump being his usual blustering inept self. Biden rode the usual Centrist strategy of doing the minimum and waiting for Buggins' turn but that would never be an option for Sanders. He'd have got both barrels, including from his own side.

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                                                No one is saying don't criticize Biden. No one is "relaxed" about him or thinks the work is now done. I wouldn't have judged criticizing him during the election either--people overestimate the potential impact of that.

                                                Progressives are losing the battle in the US at the local and state level. We owe the presidential victory to a historically terrible president devoid of political ability (beyond demagoguery) and common sense. We lost seats in the House ffs. We lost at the state government level.

                                                The American tolerance for authoritarian corruption is extremely high, unless you just want to call it ignorance. Why, because we're still a prosperous country. Trump's tin-foil rally audiences don't seem like the crucial problem, rather the polite upper-middle-class Americans who don't want their taxes raised. I personally know at least a dozen people like this: intelligent successful workaholics who still vote Republican and probably always will because socialism. If their taxes go up, their leveraged lifestyle is potentially unaffordable. I assume they're fine with an election getting stolen if they get to keep their shit. Not that Biden has much of a chance of raising taxes, and not that the proposed hikes would actually threaten their lifestyle (I wouldn't know, really), but that seems to be the logic.

                                                But I think it goes deeper than the tax question to "what it means to be American." Collectivism versus individualism. There are so many people who vote Republican because they feel it in their bones that the progressive way would kill off ambition, innovation, chasing the pot of gold, making your own way, achieving your potential, all that b.s. Successful people who look down on the less successful as ethically inferior, and they're especially contemptuous of the "PC" efforts to cut them down to size morally. Our culture is still addicted to an image of success way out of line with what can be enjoyed by more than a few. We'll need to change how people think, and I don't think we will until material conditions get a lot worse. Look at the stock market, everything's going great.

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                                                  Originally posted by Bruno View Post
                                                  Progressives are losing the battle in the US at the local and state level. We owe the presidential victory to a historically terrible president devoid of political ability (beyond demagoguery) and common sense. We lost seats in the House ffs. We lost at the state government level.
                                                  You appear to be saying that Biden and the like are progressive here?

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                                                    Not sure that he is saying that.

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