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Biden did more to help the working class than any president in my lifetime. People are too stupid or don't pay enough attention to realize it.
You're not wrong but their messaging was shit and Kamala did not run on Biden's wins. She ran on his losses.
Also most progressive US president is a really low bar lol.
People are too stupid or don’t pay enough attention
Biden ended a bunch of CARES Act provisions that benefited working families and children. Medicaid enrollment was cut. The monthly paid out child tax cut extension was ended. Mandated Paid Sick Leave ended.
That's what people were stupidly noticing.
Meanwhile, greedflation jacked up the prices of consumer goods straight into 2023. Biden Dems were angry when people refused to stop paying attention to prices that outpaced salaries, while the Feds twiddled their thumbs.
Medicaid enrollment was cut.
By Congress, not Biden, though the Consolidated Appropriations Act as a demand by Republicans.
The monthly paid out child tax cut extension was ended.
Again Republicans voted against the reauthorization because they didn't want to hand Democrats a "win".
Mandated Paid Sick Leave ended.
This was only ever intended to be temporary as it only applies when there was federal or state quarantine in effect. Democrats in the House introduced the Healthy Families Act which would guarantee all workers 7 sick days a year. The act was filibustered by Republicans in the Senate.
Democrats are not the problem here.
Democrats are not the problem here.
no amount of facts are going to sway the 'but both SIDES BAD UNNHH' no matter how much you try to rub the data in their stupid faces.
A plurality of morons voted directly against their own best interests or there was some gigantic, undetectable fraud. Either way, country's fucked.
It's true that inflation outpaced wages, but this was only for a period following Covid. And while everyone pointed out when inflation pulled away, no one seemed to notice when wages bounced back.
Tens of millions of deaths globally will inevitably cause supply chain issues, and no amount of fiscal policy will prevent that scarcity. So people have to pay more for the same value. But things also recovered under Biden to more than compensate for that deficit. Here's the growth rate of inflation and wages over the past four years:
To people literally dying of corporate capitalism, Harris’s mantra was, “Look at these charts, people — everything’s pretty good!”
It's hilarious that you replied to a comment about people "being stupid or not paying enough attenrion" and showed everyone you are one of those people.
The Legislative branch was responsible for the criticism you aimed at Biden, and guess what? Republicans controlled the House, and in the Senate, there are 49 Republicans, 47 Democrats, and 4 Independents.
Which means the Democrats had no legislative power at all in the House, and no meaningful power in the Senate.
Do you even know who introduced the CARES Act? Joe Courtney, a Democrat.
Do you even know who introduced the CARES Act? Joe Courtney, a Democrat.
Who signed it?
Biden? Are you sure it wasn't the fuckwit Republicans in Congress? You might want to check your sources.
This is true, but only because every President since FDR did damage to the working class. Biden was absolutely a breath of fresh air, and it's unfortunate that neither he nor Kamala were loud enough about it.
With the campaign Kamala ran, it would surprise the hell out of me if most voters understood the good that Biden did. To average people, it makes no difference to them that inflation is back to normal when the price impacts don't go away. It was campaign malpractice to try and sit on past accomplishments without offering new initiatives to make things better.
What Kamala offered was too little, too complicated, and too quiet. All voters heard was that she would be the same as Biden, and that CEOs and neocon warmongers love her.
To average people, it makes no difference to them that inflation is back to normal when the price impacts don't go away.
The price impacts were never going to go away! It infuriates me that people were dumb enough to believe this! It's not how economics works and it's not something the government can control!!!
Sorry you're infuriated at the realities of life.
I remember what George Carlin used to say.
"Think of how stupid the average person is. Now, half the people are stupider than that."
If you're not happy that the price of everything went up while your wages didn't, you're stupid as fuck and you don't know how anything works! Vote for us, moron!
It's totally irrelevant whether or not these voters understand the underlying economics. What they know is that they can't afford to make a car payment and buy groceries anymore, and they know that the Democratic messaging is totally inadequate and out of touch. If your political strategy requires voters to understand the underlying economics realities, then you damn well better be telling them what they should know.
And this is why we lost. People are screaming for help, and Democrats just said "you're wrong, everything is actually fine. It's all in your head. Biden actually did help you! You were just too uninformed to notice it."
They are not really lying, which is especially frustrating. But it wasn't enough by a long shot.
Telling someone that can't get out of a bog that you moved him a centimeter into the right direction will probably earn you some insults, despite the help.
The thing is that people somehow don't seem to realise there's a bog monster pulling in the opposite direction. Yes, it's a problem that they only got pulled 1 cm in the right direction. Yes, it's well worth criticising that it could have been 10 cm if the person doing the pulling hadn't tied a hand behind their back. But 1 cm of movement in the right direction is still far better than 2 m of movement in the wrong direction because the bog monster gained the upper hand.
And the people standing on the sidelines saying "let go of their hand and grab mine! I'll pull you in the right direction with both hands!" are also acting in bad faith, because if they actually had an interest in doing that they'd be grabbing onto the person who's currently doing the pulling and pulling helping them pull rather than expecting the victim to release and flounder around for their hand.
The thing is that people somehow don’t seem to realise there’s a bog monster pulling in the opposite direction.
And we need to reach across the aisle to work with the bog monster! Don't you support bipartisanship?
People act like Democrats were just ignoring what people wanted, while Republican politicians and judges were blocking them every step of the way. Just look at how many ways Biden's school debt relief plans were defeated.
People act like Democrats were just ignoring what people wanted, while Republican politicians and judges were blocking them every step of the way.
Joe Manchin was a Democrat when he blocked BBB. He was a Democrat when he killed the expanded child tax credit and doubled child poverty in the US overnight. Sinema was a Democrat when she delivered the thumbs down that remains the party's last word on the minimum wage.
We saw Democrats get in their own way over and over during this administration.
Ordering us to be happy when we saw what happened is no different than ordering someone who can't afford groceries to be happy that the economy is working great for billionaires.
Just look at how many ways Biden’s school debt relief plans were defeated.
Because Biden did it in ways the judges could block. Per the Department of Education, the executive has the authority to simply delete the debt and dare the judges to create new debt out of thin air.
Because Biden did it in ways the judges could block
What options are available?
Per the Department of Education, the executive has the authority to simply delete the debt
That doesn't seem to be the case as "The president ... can forgive debts only when Congress authorizes it" [1].
The president has the power to order the Department of education to delete the debt..
It doesn't matter if the courts later turn around and go "that was illegal", the debt is already gone and watching them try to create it out of thin air would be a wonderful tool to destroy the political legitimacy of the right-wing courts.
The president has the power to order the Department of education to delete the debt…
any sources to back this up? stating it as fact does not make it one.
much appreciated, thanks!
Absolutely fucking right.
"Your doctor won't be able to offer you prenatal care or freeze your eggs for fertility treatment!
"I can't afford rent or eggs and you think I have a DOCTOR? You think I can afford to even think about having a kid?"
"Look at the stock market though!"
biden is extremely popular among blue collar workers, he really has done a lot. As well as a number of things for veterans as well.
biden is extremely popular among blue collar workers
Harris lost every tax bracket between $25k and $100k. The administration was only popular with white collar workers and with the folks at the very bottom of the income slope, and only relative to Trump.
Centrists don't care. Lying means they don't have to move to the left.
Harris lost every tax bracket between $25k and $100k. The administration was only popular with white collar workers and with the folks at the very bottom of the income slope, and only relative to Trump.
oh that's weird, i thought i was talking about biden.
Then why didn't Blue Collar Workers vote for his Vice President?
because voters are a largely uneducated block and will "vote for the other party because this one did bad" more often than not.
Just look at the history of basically all elections ever.
edit: to be clear, by uneducated i mean, uninformed on politics, not literally uneducated.
Because she has a vagina and is exactly not an old white guy.
Plenty of women winning seats in states Harris lost.
Slotkin beat Rodgers in Michigan. Fischer beat Osborne in Nebraska. Rosyn beat Brown in Nevada. Baldwin beat Hovde in Wisconsin.
Dems seem to confuse their habit of running weak national candidates at the top of the ticket with some generic social hatred of whatever gender or ethnicity those candidates claim. The idea that Biden - who was polling in the 30s against Trump by the time the party dropped him - would have outperformed Harris because he was a white man is absurd.
If the blue conservatives pin this on sexism or racism, they get away with keeping the status quo. The status quo is killing us.
Blue states need to replace First past the post voting and give 3rd parties equal access to the electoral process. Democrats believe in democracy right?
Blue states need to replace First past the post voting and give 3rd parties equal access to the electoral process. Democrats believe in democracy right?
fun fact, this may put the left is a position to never win an election again, there are definitely strategic states that would benefit, and i think a more generalized movement towards something IRV would be productive, it's a rather unfortunate predicament we're in.
Sadly, they do not.
https://cawp.rutgers.edu/blog/congressional-statewide-results-women-2024
Women account for roughly 25-30% of the members of the house and Congress, and that's a record high in both cases, there's a roughly 20% gender gap in elected officials.
They're at roughly 30% across the board for elected positions in the U.S.
Women candidates actually almost reached gender parity for the Democrats this year, so about half of candidates were women.
Republican candidates saw a drop from last time, and fewer of them won.
Republicans don't support women like Democrats do, Republicans won everything this year
93 Women in the house are Democrats , and that's les sthan half the Democrats, so even in an election in a party with near-parity gender representation in their candidates who have voted in record numbers of women, there's still a gender gap in representation, but it's close, I'll give them that.
The Republicans regressed, they're no where near gender parity, no surprise there.
And at the national level, the results speak for themselves. Misogyny was absolutely a factor.
Misogyny was absolutely a factor.
im not fully convinced, but then again, practically everything is a factor, i would argue it's more of a trend, rather than a cause.
Republicans don’t support women like Democrats do
They don't pander to younger and browner women in the same way Democrats do.
But when push comes to shove, they support Wall Street.
That tracks
Detroit and its entire auto manufacturing industry swinging the state red +1.4%
Lol whatever you say buddy
oh weird, are we talking the 2020 election? Or are we talking this election?
If you say so.
i do in fact, say so.
We're still drowning, but at least he tossed us some water wings.
It's complicated. Tl;dr: they're both true.
What has he done for the working class?
the IRA includes long term tax benefits for basically everybody, most impact-fully, people in the lower income brackets. Both the CHIPS act and infra bill have provided for a lot of jobs. He didn't kill oil, like trump seems to pretend happened. Im sure there are a number of other things i'm missing as well. Biden was an absolute legislation machine.
Notably, the economy is doing very well right now. Granted the perception tends to lag, that's natural.
He didn’t kill oil, like trump seems to pretend happened.
The oil lobby has always (like, back to the 1860s always) broken Republican and states that produce large quantities of oil have historically tilted Republican as a result.
Biden didn't need to kill oil. All he needed to do was be marginally less friendly than Trump or Bush. That provoked hundreds of millions in adversarial spending and billions in dark money, focused in states with big O&G industries.
fair point, that's probably true. Unfortunately i'm not sure how relevant it is to rhetoric in general since they're still just lying about shit like that anyway.
From a 2 second google search: Biden's policies that have helped the working class include the American Rescue Plan, which provided direct financial aid and extended unemployment benefits, and the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, which aims to create good-paying jobs. Additionally, efforts to strengthen unions and raise the minimum wage have also supported working-class Americans.
Biden did more to help the working class...
What's he doing right now?
Hiding under the desk?
That desk is carrying America, sir, show more respect
I blame bernie for the good stuff myself.
Biden did more to help the working class than any president in my lifetime.
Here's how strikebreaking is actually good for the working class!
in my lifetime.
So we can safely assume you're at least 8 years old since Obama obviously did less somehow despite literally being more leftist and having an entire social health program named after him.
Obama was really not that progressive once in office.
That's some complex math you did to orient the subject to the guy you obviously don't like and want us to agree with you about...
Imo they were all trash and have been since Carter, gold-star failures all around. I dunno, that one could play the Sax alright, but that's about it.
They all kept pot illegal, they all kept the drug trade going with negligence, they all kept wars going or ignored the warning signs of wars to come and instigated inequality. I'm not entirely certain Biden has even said the word trans despite you all shoving it in his mouth. Fuck the lot of the trust-fund wastes of space.
Decriminalizing marijuana isn't something that the president can do through an executive action. Unless Congress does it (which was always unlikely), it requires the Justice Department to propose rescheduling followed by acceptance from the DEA (which is part of the Judiciary). The Biden administration has worked to reschedule it to schedule 3, which would make it legally available with a prescription. The DEA hearing for this was delayed to early 2025 however. It's also worth noting that Biden pardoned and released thousands of people from federal prison for marijuana possession around a year ago.
Expecting the US to prevent other countries from going to war would require a level of intervention that could only be called imperialism, if it would even be possible. I would argue doing so would be endorsing oppression in some cases. Peace is an important goal but the price for it can only be so high.
I feel like the Biden administration actually accomplished a lot over the last 4 years against heavy resistance but no one wants to give them any credit. I was not expecting much but have been impressed whenever I look into things.
The president appoints the head of the DoJ and DEA. Just appoint someone who says "I'll hold the hearing and we'll have the judgement within the hour". Instead they appointed someone who scheduled the hearing for after they'll have been kicked out by Trump's guy. There is no way to read that as anything but they never intended for it to be rescheduled at all.
Expecting the US to prevent other countries from going to war would require a level of intervention
Or just not sending them the weapons they're using to carry out that war.
Whoosh.
Nope. He can do whatever and inflation erases all that and then some.
Take your statistics home and use them to line your hamster cage.
Ah yes, the inflation that started because of the pandemic, worldwide, all Bidens fault. Good job, you solved inflation!
If that was the case, address it. Somehow Biden et.al., thought ignoring it was fine and the people would understand.
That turned out to be not the case.
- Smart=knowing what caused it.
- Dumb=not knowing how to react.
He did address it. Inflation has returned to pre pandemic levels. If you bothered to look into it instead of repeating bullshit “facts”, you’d know that.
The problem? Americans don’t “feel” like it is better. “But prices didn’t go down!” No shit that’s not how inflation works.
So he didn't make people feel inflation was behind them because prices aren't down and your answer is "no shit? That's not how inflation works?"
Because stop me if I'm wrong, but when prices go up and salaries don't, then that's having a lasting impact. And if you haven't done anything about that lasting impact, you haven't done enough, or convinced enough.
Anybody saying no shit too bad you're too stupid to understand this deserves what they get.
I know I"ll get downvoted for saying this, but you're right.
Stopping inflation without getting the prices to lower or the wages to raise is like...
Say you get stabbed by a psycho-killer, I shoot the killer in the fucking head and haul away his corpse.
Then I say "I have solved your stabbing issue" and call it a day.
This doesn't change anything about the fact that at no point did I take you to the hospital to address the fact that you are bleeding out, and now you're crawling around on the floor praying you can get to a phone to call 911 in time for the Ambulance to save your life.
Sure the killer's gone, but I've done absolutely nothing about the fact that you've been stabbed and if you die I would then in fact be guilty of negligent homicide.
<.< You’re literally bitching that the thing that happened didn’t happen. I don’t have the answer you’re looking for, because it’s predicated on the thing that happened having not happened.
The lifeguard can’t save your son from drowning, he already did. I don’t know how else to say this.
It's all about communication, not facts. That's what you refuse to acknowledge.
God you must be tired with all that goalpost moving.
Same message all the way through. You can be right, but if you don't communicate that adequately to the common people, you'll lose.
Wait, you're mad you didn't get a good raise for a few years, and that's somehow Biden's fault?
Dude, greedy business owners keeping as much profit for themselves happens under every president.
I think you are confused as to what POTUS does. POTUS doesn't set or approve your payroll.
Conservatives be all "market" this and "market" that. The markets biggest influences are on costs of goods and costs of labor, and when the market does what the markets gonna do, that's the Democrats fault? Motherfucker, do you understand the society we live in?
I'm retired, I got a huge raise from Biden. Stop personalizing this, like I'm making an emotional plea. You got it wrong. Having the "facts" all lined up doesn't win you the election, never will.
Fight for your faults and you get to keep them.
The job when running for president is to give people a vision of your leadership that excites them. If instead you spend your time and money against your opponent without making a case for yourself, you get lost elections.
Because stop me if I'm wrong, but when prices go up and salaries don't, then that's having a lasting impact. And if you haven't done anything about that lasting impact, you haven't done enough, or convinced enough.
Presidents don't have a magic lever to adjust for price of goods or price of labor.
They can implement price controls via executive order. They can also remove tariffs.
Remove the 25% tariff on Chinese goods, and then set prices of the biggest offenders to something punishing and watch the rest stop jacking up prices.
Price controls, rent controls, tariffs, company breakup, nationalization. Neoliberalism isn't and hasn't been the only state a capitalist economy can exist in.
Bully Pulpit. That's what you've got. So preach.
Apparently none of the facts here can stop you from just oozing your feelings. So We don't really see the point in trying.
Didn't stop the voters' feelings either.
Shockingly, being told you are doing better when you're still paying more than you can afford for food and shelter doesn't suddenly make it true and makes you mistrust the person telling you that.
Is the economy doing better on the macro scale? Yes, but when prices have only continued to increase from their COVID levels, the working class doesn't see the improvement. We just keep seeing corps making record profits year after year while our savings (those of us who have any) disappears before our eyes.
Disregarding the feelings of the working class like you are doing is one of many reasons Harris lost. Feelings aren't easily swayed by facts.
Disregarding the feelings of the working class
That's propaganda at work. don't worry, I'm certain this will all get better in six months when the prices double.
It might radicalize more people against the right, so we might get a net positive out of it.
But, yes we are in for some very bad times. It's a shame Harris just assumed progressives would vote for her while she happily marched rightward to try and pull Republican votes she was never going to get. She could have won if she hadn't taken progressives for granted.
Well now they've seen twice that it doesn't work, Wonder if those sort this out if we ever get another shot?
I'm just hoping the same stupid smart people who don't recognize mass communication don't get it wrong again next election.
Conversing with y'all, I'm not feeling hopeful.
BTW, didn't want Trump, voted for Kamala, but I still think we deserved to lose. Our campaign sucked.
Ok, so: from a perspective of someone passing by and reading your comments here, you seem, at least, in the context of this particular thread, to not know how you should be reacting to some fairly obvious facts that are being clearly presented to you 🤔
Read more.
Or don't. If that's what you got so far I'm not sure you'll do any better.
Address it? like by having the fastest recovering economy compared to every other country that was impacted by the global recession? Yeah, he should probably do something about it. /s
https://www.brookings.edu/articles/the-us-recovery-from-covid-19-in-international-comparison/
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/06/us/politics/inflation-biden-economy.html
but don't let facts get in the way
It's like starting all over from the beginning talking to you.
Those "facts" are only good for getting ELECTED if they are effectively communicated to the everyday person. Most people DON'T read the Brookings Institution, look up Federal Reserve or Treasury pages, or even read the New York Times. You have to explain those things in layman's terms and tell them what the benefits are to them in plain language.
You yelling at them (or me) for not being smart is not going to end up with you winning the election. You'll have an excuse. But you'll still lose.
Either you can find a way to appeal to the common man, or you can continue to have an excuse to lose. And you will continue to lose if you don't change your ways.
By the way, I'll say it again because you don't seem to have read very far in this thread; I voted for Kamala, I didn't want Trump to win, but I think we deserved to lose because we ran an awful campaign.
Biden’s labor report card: Historian gives ‘Union Joe’ a higher grade than any president since FDR
Intellectual says he did a great job. Everybody on the couch with a Duff beer stand and bow before the great truth!
you're not even using the meme right
The nice thing about reality is that it's the same whether or not you believe it.
And the reality is that Harris lost because her messaging entirely failed to account for the pain voters are still feeling. It's absolutely astounding that you're not getting this.
The reality of election outcomes are entirely based on what voters believe.
Democrats are forever divided between two masters. They want to make voters happy, and they want to make their sponsors happy. The Harris campaign seemed to think they had the first part nailed down, so they spent the last month of a three month campaign super serving their donors.
Democratic consultants are notorious for running campaigns aimed at the Democratic consultant class, and they did it again. Nobody with any involvement in the Harris campaign should ever draw a salary from the Democratic party again, but Democrats just keep rewarding failure. The consultants who made a fortune running Hillary's campaign came back and made another fortune running the Harris campaign. Harris may have lost, but they didn't.
Harris lost because people would rather believe Trump's comfortable lies than the uncomfortable truth. No decent, thinking person should ever vote for Trump. It's absolutely astounding that you're not getting this.
The uncomfortable truth is that capitalism doesn't provide for all. Yet biden and Harris want to gaslight the populace that everything is doing great.
But I do get that. However, I'm not sure what you think we can do about it. We do have people in society that have the job of influencing voters to vote differently. We call them politicians, and they influence votes through something called an effective campaign. I know that's a weird concept for a lot of Democrats to grasp, but you should look into it.
I'm totally on board in saying that the voting public fucked up. However, I'm looking for solutions, not just someone to blame. I do not and will not believe that the American public was just unreachable - especially when the Harris campaign had so many gaping flaws. Some of us were watching in horror as Harris sunk her campaign and trying desperately to wake someone up. It's nice to think that voters will bypass a shitty campaign to find the relevant information themselves, but it's hardly realistic.
Trump won in spite of being a convicted felon, fraud, and adjudicated rapist who nearly destroyed the country with his mishandling of the pandemic during his last presidency. The problem wasn't Harris's campaign.
It's nice to think that voters will bypass a shitty campaign to find the relevant information themselves, but it's hardly realistic.
That is literally the basis of democracy.
There is no "the problem". Societies and elections are too complicated for that kind of reductionist reasoning.
Take value judgements out of it, and the fundamental truth is that the Trump campaign attracted and energized more voters than the Harris campaign. What knobs and switches could we have played with to get a different outcome? That is all I care about, and I don't know how we are supposed to get better voters in less than four years with Republicans in power.
That is literally the basis of democracy.
Which is why democracy and capitalism are fundamentally incompatible, but that's a much deeper conversation.
No decent, thinking person should ever vote for Trump.
And about a million fewer people than last time did vote for him. Unfortunately Harris and her campaign failed in their messaging so hard that 14 million people who voted for Biden stayed home.
This should have been an easy win, but Harris chose to be pro-genocide and pro-corporate so people had to hold their nose and vote for her. Americans are sick and tired of choosing the slightly less shitty of two very shitty choices so 15 million previous voters stayed home.
Yes. As long as you recognize that the reality you just spoke of is that one guy in an ivory tower thought Biden did a good job.
But Mr ivory tower is right. What do we do now that we know everyone really is too stupid to understand that? What do we do now that a bunch of ignorant assholes prefer the lies?
If you're suffering, it's because you're stupid. Vote for us!
Well to start with you don't disdain them.
You treat them like people, and you find out what their needs are, what their fears are. And you address those. Not like Trump did. Not fanning the flames of their worst emotions. But leading them. Like Obama did. Like Kennedy did. Inspiring them that you can change their lives for the better.
When someone's worried that they're not able to feed the children and you're talking about climate change, you sound incredibly out of touch. When people are working two jobs and still can't pay the light bill, and you're talking about trans rights, you sound incredibly out of touch.
People don't hate addressing climate change. People don't hate trans people's rights. What they hate is being ignored for those things. And Trump pointed them at that and made them mad.
Democrats are not selling themselves as the party of the poor or the middle class. They are selling themselves as the party of the fringe and the universities - and the poor and middle class feel betrayed.
You're forgetting the part where they prefer the lies.
Turns out Carl Sagan's are rare, but practically anyone can be an Alex Jones.
No doubt, building is a harder job than destroying. Breaking is easier than making.
But they're both creative acts. They both "change things". It's on us to message the one that's productive.
Kennedy said "Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country!" Great speech phrasing, and he was an incredible speaker. But how do you sell that message?
You don't ignore or disdain. You include. It's hard damn work. But you can't win assuming the voters will just "get it."
Yeah, and your blasting everyone left of Hillary for not being Carl Sagan, and giving all the Alex Jones's a pass because we weren't nice enough to them.
It's not realistic, I'd even be willing to argue it's not logistically possible with the headwinds created by mass misinformation and a willful disregard for facts as the idiots seek solace in escapism.
