Just have to desperately hope the people tasked with his campaign are up to it. To be honest, it'd be hard to find an easier opponent.
The Biden Presidency
- Thread starter Raoul
- Start date
Trump and Biden have each really had nothing to do for what is a campaign year. Trump is tied up in legal cases which won't hurt him a bit among his actual support-base and it is, I think, overstated as to how much the swing-voters will care. Biden has had a quantum primary challenge. In theory, he has been challenged, in reality, or technically, there has been no real challenge at all.
A lot was made of Biden doing very little, and that is factually true, but the same is true of Trump. You'd have to go hour for hour in terms of analysis with respect to 16 and 20 but I'm sensing the rallies are far fewer (or the coverage is much less).
Trump and Biden, each being closer to 80 than 70 (Biden 80?), have had a relaxing (despite the media coverage) year of politicking if you consider how daunting the 2016 and 2020 campaigns were in energy terms. This now puts a premium upon what are usually oversold debates. Energy levels, coherency, and general perception of the candidates along those lines, are now what will push it one way or the other.
12 years of establishment hands framed as anti-establishment (across party lines) is how I consider it, as of now, regardless of the winner later this year. The Supreme Court and various taxation laws are really the only things which move in any direction according to the winner (also the local judges across the nation). The primary economic policy of the US remains as it was, with alteration according to the institutional guidance, regardless.
To a domestic audience of Americans, I imagine a lot of what I just wrote would be greatly contested, but outside the US the world increasingly looks at a mono-institutional party as it judges the US in terms of trade policy and general war-economic positions (foreign policy). Domestically, Trump won't rip up Biden-economics because Biden has gone with a lot of inherited Trump economic policy (tariffs, wall-building, and every foreign policy position thereafter).
More interested in the policy, then, than the persona. What is on the lunch menu? What is the variance between the two candidates with respect to the actually important positions they take (not the cultural stuff but the economic which drives the cultural outcomes, generally, if not exclusively). Who will be framed as "enemy" (foreign)? We can expect "Iran-backed" to be heard countless times and Iran to be singled out along with China and Russia with respect Israel (if that is still ongoing by the year's end, which hopefully, it is not).
Trade policy is almost never done in depth. It was last time out. Semi-conductors, general American re-industrialization, and so on. A marked departure from the entirely symbolic politics of the Obama elections. Biden's plan, even if/when Trump attacks it, is basically a functional version of that which Trump's administration was pivotal in setting up (sans CHIPS but even that has a Trumpian echo because of the simultaneous containment policy, now economic, of China and Russia).
A lot was made of Biden doing very little, and that is factually true, but the same is true of Trump. You'd have to go hour for hour in terms of analysis with respect to 16 and 20 but I'm sensing the rallies are far fewer (or the coverage is much less).
Trump and Biden, each being closer to 80 than 70 (Biden 80?), have had a relaxing (despite the media coverage) year of politicking if you consider how daunting the 2016 and 2020 campaigns were in energy terms. This now puts a premium upon what are usually oversold debates. Energy levels, coherency, and general perception of the candidates along those lines, are now what will push it one way or the other.
12 years of establishment hands framed as anti-establishment (across party lines) is how I consider it, as of now, regardless of the winner later this year. The Supreme Court and various taxation laws are really the only things which move in any direction according to the winner (also the local judges across the nation). The primary economic policy of the US remains as it was, with alteration according to the institutional guidance, regardless.
To a domestic audience of Americans, I imagine a lot of what I just wrote would be greatly contested, but outside the US the world increasingly looks at a mono-institutional party as it judges the US in terms of trade policy and general war-economic positions (foreign policy). Domestically, Trump won't rip up Biden-economics because Biden has gone with a lot of inherited Trump economic policy (tariffs, wall-building, and every foreign policy position thereafter).
More interested in the policy, then, than the persona. What is on the lunch menu? What is the variance between the two candidates with respect to the actually important positions they take (not the cultural stuff but the economic which drives the cultural outcomes, generally, if not exclusively). Who will be framed as "enemy" (foreign)? We can expect "Iran-backed" to be heard countless times and Iran to be singled out along with China and Russia with respect Israel (if that is still ongoing by the year's end, which hopefully, it is not).
Trade policy is almost never done in depth. It was last time out. Semi-conductors, general American re-industrialization, and so on. A marked departure from the entirely symbolic politics of the Obama elections. Biden's plan, even if/when Trump attacks it, is basically a functional version of that which Trump's administration was pivotal in setting up (sans CHIPS but even that has a Trumpian echo because of the simultaneous containment policy, now economic, of China and Russia).
This could be shared in various threads such as the war in Ukraine or the conflicts in the Middle East, but I think there is something to talk about when Joe Biden has a group of weak people in his National Security Council staff.
A Lethal Attack in Jordan: Time to Punish Iran
Here is the paragraph that describes those people:
How and why has Biden not sacked Sullivan and co. is still beyond me. It should be very obvious enough that what that NSC has dictated in over 3 years is not helping Joe Biden at tackling issues from a position of strength.
A Lethal Attack in Jordan: Time to Punish Iran
Here is the paragraph that describes those people:
How and why has Biden not sacked Sullivan and co. is still beyond me. It should be very obvious enough that what that NSC has dictated in over 3 years is not helping Joe Biden at tackling issues from a position of strength.
Perhaps some administrations are reluctant to fire their appointees some of which are former colleagues, friends, selections by staff, so forth. That above I am sure there is a more stern person for that job, perhaps someone like retired General McKenzie or retired General Scaparotti, the latter having been the EUCOM commander in the recent past.
After the Biden administration echoes Trump’s restrictive trade views, European officials worry the U.S. isn’t what it used to be; ‘The honeymoon is over’
https://www.wsj.com/politics/policy/us-europe-trade-relations-849fe23a?mod=hp_lead_pos10
I agree with that. Plenty of good retired senior officers can do this kind of work with the NSC after they spent decades studying all of their potential opponents and building stronger coalitions. You can also add retired Admiral William H. McRaven on the short list as he was apparently considered for a really important position at the very beginning of the Biden administration.
To be very honest, I don't think that Sullivan should have had this job in the first place. Everything that has happened in the last 3 years only reinforces that view of him looking like a deer caught in the headlights.
That's the kind of general American back against the wall in the rising East and declining share of GDP, world, scenario I was alluding to in the above post. If a third candidate became president, they couldn't alter much of the economic policy, on some personal whim, because the constraints are borne of realpolitik and the general understanding regarding logistics in a changing world order. Sanctions on China and EU come under national security, which they admit for China, but not for the EU.
The economy being born is a sustainable high-tech economy with the ideal of equity to attenuate quality of life differentials. That is nationalist, as per each nation and its internal logistic, pre-neoliberalist labour power farming, but not nationalist as per 100 years ago wherein nationalism was code for hegemonic desire for this or that ethnicity to expand, militarily, across the globe.
Trump might be loud on cultural warfare issues, as he always is, and Biden soft on such, but each, to a foreign eye, are bound to a certain delimitating factor: the rise of the South and the general de-colonization of that region which is pressing ahead. Trump won't change much, again, to a foreign eye, if elected (will pull this or that state/federal judge card), because his legacy, of sorts, is the trade-logistic (sans trillion dollar tax-breaks) which Biden has manifested with CHIPS and various other initiatives. In foreign terms, a conclusion to two wars is inevitable because neither can continue and the situation is so dense now that no individual president is going to sweep in and change it on his/her own terms.
Different US president but same old man yelling at TV
About time.
Whether he gets credit or not doesn't really matter, what matters is if the voting public thinks things are getting better and TBH I don't think they do, prices are still a lot higher than they were and don't appear to be dropping much, rightly or wrongly Biden is blamed for that
....for what?
I don’t think he’s going to get any credit for economic data given that most people feel poorer today than during Trump’s time. This is mainly due to inflation and the cost of living .
The article is right there to read. I even gifted it, so it isn't paywalled.
I agree. My point is the narrative in media that there is imminent recession etc., despite the positive economic factors. What people "feel" of course is different. The administration is not ignoring grocery prices or the fact that inflation still is a factor.
So, exactly what the previous reports suggested. It would be REALLY cool to see what the next Republican president will do with these permanent changes too
Is lesser evil-ism the frog in a boiling pot? (Or indeed, the centrist on a warming planet).
So, exactly what the previous reports suggested. It would be REALLY cool to see what the next Republican president will do with these permanent changes too
Is lesser evil-ism the frog in a boiling pot? (Or indeed, the centrist on a warming planet).
Is just the "left" doing what the right would do to avoid the right to be in power. Working marvellously right-fully.
I am afraid that the lesser of the evils are so close that they are just neighbours...or roomies
You think that the right & left are basically overall the same thing or just on this specific issue?
I consider myself pretty decently left, heavily support the dreamers and so forth, but the level of immigration at the moment is pretty ridiculous, and something must be done that isn't "let anyone and everyone in". There clearly aren't enough resources to manage the order of magnitude more border crossings that are happening right now. I think it's naive to say that going from c. 500k border crossings in 2018 (the whole year) to over 300k in December alone is not something that will change the required response.
What do the great liberal sages of Redcafe suggest? As all anyone tends to do is complain and offer nothing constructive outside of the best quips of two evils or who is right-er.
What do the great liberal sages of Redcafe suggest? As all anyone tends to do is complain and offer nothing constructive outside of the best quips of two evils or who is right-er.
Tbh at this stage it’s hard to argue there’s any left or even liberals in mainstream America politics. The next election is a vote between reactionaries(Republicans) and conservatives(Democrats).
Bernie Sanders and AOC? But yeah, they are few and far between, and the ideologies on offer when Americans go to the ballot are indeed much closer than the impression you get from the media. Another key difference is between the one side that wants to govern, and the one that actively doesn't.
That I agree with. Which is why I find that "normal" right wingers in my country (Norway) who support the Republicans are fecking idiots considering the Democrats are far more aligned with them in reality! If you drop the Dems into Norway then they would definitely be on the Right.
100% but they represent a minority in the Democratic Party.
It's not very different from what's happening in Europe now, is it? If any, I'd say that the US are a bit late on schedule.
Bar Spain and Portugal (about which I don't have much information tbh) every single european country that doesn't already have a (rightwing) reactionary government, sees its so-called left hunting on the latter's ground.
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Sanders supports Biden for President and AOC voted for Pelosi for speaker. "True" left wingers call them both sell outs and hypocrites.
"True" left wingers that get elected to the House or Senate generally have the choice between ideological purity or enabling the lunatic Republican Party. They can try to influence the Democratic establishment in their direction, but the reality is that they are in a very small minority.
The numbers are startling and the issue is changing in fact, but this particular hill is one that the left seems determined to die on.
UK numbers suggest an increase in population to 74 million by 2036. That is 500'000 a year for the next 12 years. It would take every bit of money the govt could possibly raise and set aside to fund housing for just those new arrivals. Yet people continue to say it has no effect or is solely beneficial and it is racist to even discuss it.
Climate change will probably increase the flow of people by an order of magnitude given the failure to prevent CO2 emissions globally.
Maybe but I’m not even expecting any performative border photo shoots from AOC this time around. Her and Sanders can’t even say what’s happening in Gaza is potentially genocide which is mad given the ICJ ruling.
Ultimately these two(AOC especially) are struggling to deal with the contradictions of hold left wing views and always voting Democratic. Which imo makes them useless for a future political alternative.
True although this bill kind of shows that while Republicans don’t want to govern. Democrats do want to govern like Republicans.
I think it’s worse in the US because it’s still a global empire. They can inflict far more damage compared to other countries.
Is their support for US Republican due to the “culture war” and wanting to “own the libs” ?
We’ve had something similar in the UK with the Tories trying their best to sound like a off brand version of Trump(The reality is Sunak would fit perfectly into the Democratic Party).
The U.S. just desperately needs to have more relevant parties. The two-party system is terrible, because you often end up in these situation, where you have a trade off between values and pragmatism. The Democratic party could easily be split in two (call them 'Corporate Dems' and 'Progressive Dems'), and the Republican party could probably be split in three ('MAGA', 'Traditional conservatives', and 'Libertarians'). If these options were actually on the ballot, you could also get a better sense for what is really popular. Instead people are forced to vote for the lesser of two evils, and the parties often can't agree amongst themselves.
Such discussion needs to be pre-qualified with understanding how much immigration is required. If people can't be bothered to answer that question how can they moan about too much immigration.
Reality is the US and UK have a growing elderly population that requires immigration. Either we make people work longer, ship out the elderly to Rwanda, make having more children profitable, or fill the gaps with immigration. It's that simple and the other concerns such as infrastructure go along with that decision.
Sanders is an independent, he ain't in the Democrat party!
Such discussion would then also need to be pre-qualified with an understanding that you cannot solve demographic problems by increasing the population unless you have cured ageing because the people you bring in today will then need looking after. It is a Ponzi/Pyramid scheme solution.
Also the UBI people assure us that following advances in AI and automation there will be no work for huge numbers of people. Both these things can't be true at the same time.
Yeah, I’d say that’s pretty accurate!
You're correct it causes further issues down the line but realistically the resources available can keep up this scheme for all of our lifetimes. Realistically what is the other option? It's a global issue and no one really has a better answer. Raising the retirement age is the only valid alternative I've seen and you can only do that so much.
Technology in time might help with some of the jobs immigration fills but you still need enough people in work to sustain the economy and more importantly pensions.
The biggest unsustainable Ponzi scheme of them all, in reality, though probably not in our lifetimes, a form of UBI is needed, it's the only way in which capitalism can survive IMO
I believe that the left doesn't exist anymore in most of any relevant party in any relevant country in the west, specially in US.
Also that often times, the party that are suppose to be closer to the left (even if they are far far far away) adopts policies that the right would adopt to scrap votes from them alienating the left voters pushing the spectrum more to the right and the narrative to normalize right wing policies that stays as the new normal
In conclusion in US: Absolutely left and right are different, but there are 2 right wing parties and seems it will be the lesser of the 2 evils for ever what it means that US will have an evil government forever, just less evil
You're painting this bill as a "more resources" bill when it's crystal clear that the criticism is from its sweeping changes to law.
The bill doesn't have a cent to help Dreamers or anybody else (which is usually the liberal side of a bipartisan immigration "compromise" effort). Apart from shoveling resources to a famously sadistic agency, it also gives the president unlimited deporting authority, violating international conventions about refugees by deporting them without hearing. It also makes the legal bar to asylum even higher than the already existing high one.
So yes, my answer would be to let a lot of them in, to follow international obligations related to refugees, and to allow them to look for jobs instead of the economically and politically counterproductive strategy of having them do nothing, either in awful homeless shelters or in expensive luxury hotels, depending on their timing and luck.
More broadly: this clip is from 7 years ago, in the aftermath of Charlottesville -
It has held up pretty well. As increasing parts of the world become parched barren wasteland, it will hold up even better. When the developed world deploys fences, drones, and machine guns (or outsources these with a nice dose of physical torture, like the EU) to keep the unwashed out and the emissions flowing, the resultant famine and murder will generate a sigh and shrug from liberals and a laugh and celebration from reactionaries.
The one prediction in that clip that fails is about the liberals, whom it suggests have no answer to the fascist position. Liberals in 2024 are to the right of Trump in 2017 on immigration, so they have found an answer - follow the fascists on a 7 year delay. You can already see that in @Don't Kill Bill post just above, they are now as clear-eyed about the invasion as the alt-right.
Turning the questions back to you:
1. When Trump or the next Republican uses the powers in this bill to permanently end asylum, what is the Democrat plan?
2. Why do you think it was important for Biden to make the criteria for asylum (already very difficult) even tougher? It is rare for those coming from the border to be granted that status. Do you support throwing people at risk back to the wolves? Does kicking them out without trail, a separate provision of the law, not satisfy blood-and-soil liberalism?
For a easy-to-understand example of what asylum law currently is, this tweet appeared while I was typing this post:
3. I understand the straightforward cost-benefit political analysis here. The public has moved hard right on immigration, so the president follows. But there is a cost, in that it affects a significant portion of the president's vote base. How do you think the many people affected by this should react to being thrown under the bus?
4. Since the dreamers, whom you heavily support, are already in the US, why do you think nothing is being done for them in this "compromise" by the party that champions them? Do you expect anything positive will happen for them in the next few decades? Do you think leaving their fate tied to the hope of an eternal Democratic White House is a good idea?
5. Don't kill bill seems to have a clear idea about what the US and other (historically and and currently) massive contributors to emissions should do in the wake of the devastation of climate change, and he is unclear why the left is "dying on this hill". Do you agree that the 3rd world is disposable?
I am not disputing whatever good (or bad) the Biden administration had being doing, but this video and others alike can alienate a lot of people to vote for him. And rightly so. How a man that can have this discommection with reality can take decisions to lead the US
Firstly, thanks, that's the first post on here in quite a while that is an actual engagement, and super thoughtful and well-articulated.
As it happens, my personal position on immigration is pretty simple: the more the merrier. I think I've mentioned before, but my country is in a self-imposed death spiral because it's tiny, the current government's entire raison d'etre is xenophopic protectionism and the aging population is retiring and there's no labour market to fill the social security. Same problem in most western nations, though not all. What we need more than anything is immigration - particularly of young, hungry workers that want to start things. But, the government is elected by primarily old, second or third generation 'locals' that believe the country is for them and everyone else can f*ck back off. Sounds familiar right?
There are only two solutions to the demographic bomb that is starting to go off - AI solves all our ills and we can introduce a UBI sufficient to make everyone comfortable (yeah not so likely) or we leverage immigration to move workers to places they're most needed.
The US has slightly better demographics than say, Italy or Germany, but still not sufficient. Plus it's an enormous country, physically, has tons of resources and most importantly - has towns all over the place that are dying. Ie, perfect places to setup new immigrants. Obviously there are huge issues with the current economy and what jobs that necessitates and rewards, but the opportunity is there.
So if I were in charge, I'd mobilise a huge hiring spree, get good people in the right roles in immigration processing and massively expand the function so it could not only deal with the influx but deal with it faster, as well as helping locate people where they're most needed. Further, while I'm in charge, I'd force elite universities to massively increase their admissions and issue loads more international visas and subsequent work visas to get in and keep more of the best young minds.
However, people with my views aren't in power, nor have power. Instead, the Biden adminsitration is crippled by a house that would never, EVER provide more funding for handling border crossings and immigration. The GOP want to see huge lines, people in cages, over-worked, stressed border agents doing horrible things. That's their whole schtick. Further, Biden himself is supposed to be there representing his constituents. And more and more, Americans are sounding like people from my little country: America for Americans. The days of the huddled masses are over, I'd wager less than 50% of under 35 year-olds even know what the inscription is on the statue of liberty, and probably think it was built in the bronx.
So, that's where I sit in terms of what I expect from Biden. As I've tried to articulate, I want a totally different world. But given Biden's actual ability to do anything coupled with what his potential voters WANT from him on immigration - and most importantly given the alternative in November - I totally understand why things are playing out like they are.
There is a world where a huge media campaign highlighting that (reminder
America is built on the backs of immigrants. It is an immigrant country. Most of the most major brands have had immigrants at the forefront of success. Athletes, rock stars, movie stars all come from a huge diverse melting-pot of places. Even just calling out the actual demographics of the place would probably shock some people. We could feature amazing stories of asylum seekers bravely giving up their whole lives to see safety in the US and then turning that into amazing contributions to society. But that's all hard. Maybe the next generation will be better, we have to hope so.