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| ▲ | brap a day ago | parent | next [-] | | I agree that both probably swing depending on who’ “winning”, although I bet that generally the Dems tend to be significantly less happy and therefore swing less, relatively. | |
| ▲ | pixelready a day ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | I suspect the results would be skewed significantly by whether or not the questions asked seemed overtly political in nature. If you probe people in general quality of life measures and carefully avoid loaded language, you’d likely find both sides are suffering in the US in real terms due to cost of living and loneliness crises. These are trends that have been prevailing since at least the 80s and were accelerated by mass media and the Internet. But tribal loyalty is a powerful force, so as soon as the questions or questioner appears partisan in any way, people form ranks for “their side” and you’d be hard pressed to get an honest response, least of all one that reflects badly on their team at the helm. | |
| ▲ | throwmeaway222 a day ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Can you give me a specific problem that is not based in reality that republicans discuss? | | | |
| ▲ | raw_anon_1111 a day ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | As someone who leans left. I doubt too many Democrats were excited about Biden. He was just “not Trump”. People actually liked Obama and Clinton. | | |
| ▲ | jacobolus a day ago | parent [-] | | Taking political constraints into account, the Biden Administration was just about the most successful and effective, in policy terms, of the past 50 years. Unfortunately the political landscape is pretty unfavorable, with GOP-supportive media, a GOP-aligned Supreme Court and super wealthy people, increasingly extremist state governments in many parts of the country, decades of corporate consolidation, weakening civic institutions, and an electorate that largely ignores the details. Biden himself was never a great orator and his public charisma suffered further with age, but as far as governing goes, he did a great job. Harris would also have been an excellent president. Unfortunately building and fixing things (or just keeping things working, negotiating compromises, and so on) takes a lot of time and effort, and doesn't make for great pithy slogans or rile people up. | | |
| ▲ | wrs a day ago | parent | next [-] | | The term was "excited", not "successful and effective". The excitement for Obama vs. Biden was not even close. ("Yes we can!" vs. "Let's elect our doddering but normal 80ish white guy, not the crazy 80ish white guy!") | | |
| ▲ | jacobolus a day ago | parent [-] | | I can't disagree with that. I was initially excited (and later pretty disappointed) with Obama, especially with the amount of time he wasted trying to engage with people obviously acting in bad faith, with the way he let himself be pushed around by folks who were aligned against his ideals, and with the extent to which he disengaged after leaving office. Clinton was sadly an even bigger disappointment. I had initially very low expectations of Biden, didn't vote for him in the 2020 primary, and was quite impressed with his actual governing. | | |
| ▲ | raw_anon_1111 21 hours ago | parent [-] | | What did he accomplish? | | |
| ▲ | jacobolus 21 hours ago | parent [-] | | What topic areas specifically are you interested in? I'm assuming you don't want a list of hundreds of bullet points of small legislative or administrative changes. The most newsworthy things are stuff like getting us out of the forever wars in the Middle East, standing up to Putin and rallying NATO and other allies to support Ukraine, making big investments in American manufacturing and alternative energy, working to reign in large corporations and protect consumers and the public in a wide variety of ways big and small, protecting workers' salaries and fair treatment, improving access to healthcare and keeping costs down, protecting women's access to healthcare despite a hostile misogynist Supreme Court, working to relieve punishing student loans (again with opposition from the Court), ... | | |
| ▲ | raw_anon_1111 21 hours ago | parent [-] | | The FTC and his war on corporations was a failure none of the lawsuits went anywhere and it made the environment worse for startups. Now VC funding is nowhere near the level it use to be outside of large AI companies because large tech companies are squeamish of acquisitions - lLimiting the path to successful exits. What they are doing now is hiring out all of the people they want from startups and leaving the undesirables in a lurch and decimating VCs investments - Google, Microsoft and Amazon have all used this playbook. The problem with “administrative changes” is that they can easily be undone. And he didn’t “protect women’s healthcare” at all. The red states are still seeing women die because doctors are afraid to perform abortions when the life of the mother is in danger and blue states aren’t - the status quo. The very reason that Biden is an inconsequential President was because everything he did was easily undone between his lack of willingness to step aside even though he and everyone else knew he should and trying to do things through executive orders. The Supreme Court is another symptom of old people not retiring when they should, dying on the bench allowing a Republican President to nominate replacements. | | |
| ▲ | jacobolus 20 hours ago | parent [-] | | You seem to be singularly focused on VC funding for startups and decision-making by managers inside large tech companies as your metric of how the US economy is doing. In my opinion this is a poor criterion for analyzing the success of national political parties, since political changes have only limited influence on these, and they are in conflict with improving many other parts of the economy affecting much larger numbers of people. By a wide range of economic metrics, the US economy during the Biden administration was incredibly successful. We somehow managed to reign in inflation caused by the follow-on disruptions coming from Covid pandemic and the Russia–Ukraine war, while maintaining full employment and avoiding negative economic effects expected by most economists. Real wages went up. Federal investments set up long-term gains for US manufacturing. The US economy did better than just about every other industrialized economy in the world during the same time period. Blaming Biden for the following administration doing everything it can to trash the economy and reverse every bit of progress he made is ridiculous. It's like blaming the fire department for the actions of an arsonist. Again, if you want sweeping legislation and long-term commitment to policy changes, you need to elect (and keep electing) enough votes in Congress. | | |
| ▲ | raw_anon_1111 20 hours ago | parent [-] | | How is employment doing these days in the tech sector? You know the sector that is been driving the stock market for over a decade? What did he do to rein in corporations? Are any of them less powerful than thet were in 2020? |
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| ▲ | raw_anon_1111 a day ago | parent | prev [-] | | Exactly what did he do that had any long lasting impact? Obama had the ACA. Biden in fact was the worse Democratic President for not stepping aside early enough and letting the DNC have a real primary. It was sheer selfishness and ego. Results count - not excuses. | | |
| ▲ | hedora 4 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Basically, take any transcript from the election where JD Vance or Trump said they were going to fix some US domestic crisis that Biden had created. They were lying through their teeth. Biden had already fixed the crisis. Trump's undone that work, and is now going around claiming to have fixed stuff. One example is how Trump is going to get a bunch of people to build factories in the US: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/C307RC1Q027SBEA Biden also got the inflation caused by Trump's ZIRP + deficit spending under control, despite digging us out of COVID. (The inflation surge during Biden's term had already been predicted by most economists by the middle of Trump's first term. NPR even ran a series about "printing unlimited money bad" in 2018 or 2019.) Also, Trump inherited the lowest crime rates in living memory, and then declared a national emergency about surging crime. | |
| ▲ | jacobolus a day ago | parent | prev [-] | | Biden came into office in the middle of a Covid crisis substantially caused by the previous administration (which he then was unfairly blamed for the effects of by people arguing in bad faith). During the first two years of Biden's presidency the Democrats had a tied 50–50 Senate (including 2 prima donna Senators who repeatedly undermined Democrats' legislative priorities) and a narrow House majority. During the second two years they had a 51–49 Senate majority and lost control of the House. They never had the votes for anything like the ACA. But within the very difficult constraints of a 50–50 Senate with no possibility of abolishing the filibuster (i.e. requiring 60 votes, and thus significant GOP support, to pass any legislation), the Dems were remarkably effective in 2021–2022, exceeding my expectations. If you want to see sweeping legislation, you have to elect a Congress that with enough votes to pass it. Blaming Biden for not having the votes is an expression of political cluelessness. | | |
| ▲ | r00fus 17 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | > During the first two years of Biden's presidency the Democrats had a tied 50–50 Senate (including 2 prima donna Senators who repeatedly undermined Democrats' legislative priorities) and a narrow House majority. Look up the Senate Parliamentarian and how the Democrats used them as an excuse to not get anything done. They could have played hardball with their rogue Senators but they didn't. | |
| ▲ | raw_anon_1111 21 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Again what did he do? The Covid vaccine was created and approved before he was elected. You really think people were excited about Biden like Obama or Clinton? | | |
| ▲ | 1659447091 21 hours ago | parent [-] | | > Again what did he do? Inflation Reduction Act [0][1] Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act [2][3] CHIPS and Science Act [4] He worked to use our tax dollars to spur re-investment in America. From factory construction and utility jobs to grid resilience and innovation. Not to mention that zero to few Republicans voted for these, yet they are the largest benefactors. Texas massive growth spurt in Green energy can thank Biden, but they won't even though they are happy to take the infrastructure investments and enjoy the cheaper energy and jobs. I'll just be happy if I dont have to deal with another Great Texas Freeze. Also, and even though, the coal mining communities didn't vote for him he made sure to single out investment specifically to coal communities "it announced $428 million in grants for 14 projects in coal communities, creating 1,900 jobs and leveraging $500 million in private investments." Those also include tax reform (to collect from super-rich tax evaders, expire the deep corporate tax cuts etc) and prescription drug reform to lower prices among other things like investing in green energy projects for low income communities. He brought investment back into this country without sucker punching our allies. Imo, that's what my tax dollars are for, for reinvestment back into building this country -- not to give rich business friends that donate meme coins to a family account extra large tax cuts or giving bonuses for rounding up brown people (including US citizens - google if you want links) and empower a federal immigration force to throw out any integrity and character they had before being told to make a spectacle. Anyway there is a lot in there is you care to read up on it. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inflation_Reduction_Act [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inflation_Reduction_Act#Projec... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infrastructure_Investment_and_... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infrastructure_Investment_and_... [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CHIPS_and_Science_Act | | |
| ▲ | raw_anon_1111 20 hours ago | parent [-] | | How is Intel doing these days? They have already kicked out one poor performing CEO and no company wants to use Intel for chip fabs. Nvidia is partnering with Intel on design - not fabrication. How much do you want to bet that in four years nothing he did will have made a difference and Trump is going to undo it? That wouldn’t have been an issue if Biden had stepped aside and announced he wasn’t going to run for reelection earlier. Again results count. The few things he “accomplished” are going to be undone because he didnt step aside. And all of his “prescription reforms” weren’t put into law and were easy to undo by the next administration. The Republicans no matter how hard they try can’t kill the ACA and are probably going to vote to increase funding. The ACA would have been a lot easier to kill if Obama hadn’t won reelection. Biden should have known he couldn’t win. | | |
| ▲ | 1659447091 20 hours ago | parent [-] | | What Trump does is on him, not Biden. You asked what Biden did. | | |
| ▲ | raw_anon_1111 20 hours ago | parent [-] | | The ACA is an accomplishment that stood the test of time. Everything that Biden did will be inconsequential because he didn’t step aside to try to secure what he did. Not to mention the Chips act just threw money at a flailing Intei without any strategy. There was a strategy behind Obama’s getting through the financial crises and the ACA | | |
| ▲ | jacobolus 20 hours ago | parent [-] | | The ACA was passed with 60 Democratic Senate votes and not a single GOP vote in House or Senate. Biden had a 50–50 Senate, counting Manchin and Sinema among the 50. If you think he "should have" passed similar legislation and consider his failure to do so to be some kind of failure of willpower, then you fundamentally don't understand how our political system works. If the Dems don't have the votes, it's nonsensical to blame them for not being able to pass legislation that is opposed by 100% of the GOP. The ACA was a big accomplishment, and it managed to go through during the exactly 72 working days since 1980 when the Democrats had such a majority in Congress and the Presidency. (We all owe an incredible debt of gratitude for that to Nancy Pelosi, who was personally responsible for getting it over the finish line after Ted Kennedy died in office.) If the Dems consistently had large congressional majorities, they could make much more progress. If you want to see that happen, make sure they get the votes. | | |
| ▲ | raw_anon_1111 19 hours ago | parent [-] | | I have repeatedly said what I think he should have done - announced after the mid terms that he wasn’t going to seek re-election, let there be a real primary and if another Democrat could have been elected they could have solidified the foundation he set. Excusing that is like commending a surgeon for saving a life and then not washing his hands during follow up and killing the patient allowing the wound to get infected. And why haven’t the democrats had a platform that could convince enough people to vote for them in the Senate since then? The Democratic majority didn’t happen by accident. Howard Dean pushed for the “50 state strategy” in 2008. The current Democrats are feckless | | |
| ▲ | jacobolus 18 hours ago | parent [-] | | In other words, you think the Dems "should" have won the election in 2024, and that they didn't was entirely down to on Biden's personal decisions. Because they didn't win that election, everything that the GOP and voters do afterward is now Biden's fault personally. The first part is a counter-factual hypothesis that seems wrong, which you keep insisting on without any evidence. The second part is thoroughly fallacious. To first order, the summary is that you don't think Biden or his administration deserves credit for anything they actually did, while simultaneously thinking they deserve blame for a large number of things that other people did that they were personally opposed to and worked against. | | |
| ▲ | raw_anon_1111 18 hours ago | parent [-] | | Do you really think that if there had been a real primary Kamala would have been the nominee? She was part of an unpopular administration and she couldn’t distance herself from it. You did see the first debate didn’t you? Could there possibly have beeb a worse strategy than what the DNC did? Biden doesn’t get a participation trophy for doing things that were innaffective. |
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| ▲ | gdulli a day ago | parent | prev [-] | | [flagged] | | |
| ▲ | a day ago | parent | next [-] | | [deleted] | |
| ▲ | abraxas a day ago | parent | prev [-] | | > Gay and trans people are not going back in the closet We do not know this and social progress can't be taken for granted. We've seen many countries regress rapidly when totalitarian regimes (especially theocracies) got their foothold in power. Directly (Iran) or by proximity (Poland). It's a naive story of the 90's that social progress is always upwards. Liberalism both social and economic is definitely on the back foot. | | |
| ▲ | gdulli 20 hours ago | parent [-] | | In the short term progress doesn't look linear, but women can vote, can open credit cards without a husband, interracial marriage isn't going anywhere. Despite the current drama I do believe that in the long term today's culture wars will sound just as quaint. | | |
| ▲ | monocasa 18 hours ago | parent [-] | | > interracial marriage isn't going anywhere The legal argument for in Loving v. Virginia was the same argument that was rejected when Roe v. Wade overturned in Dobbs. Thomas actually calls out the other major cases, basically asking for a chance to overturn those as well, specifically Griswold, Lawrence, and Obergefell. He's not going to overturn Loving given that hes in an interracial marriage himself, but whoever replaces him when he finally retires might, and he would have done all of the work getting case law to that point. |
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