The Biden Administration (No Lago)

MGuy · Post by **MGuy** » Fri Dec 25, 2020 4:17 pm

PhoneLobster wrote:
MGuy wrote:What I'm getting at is that the things you're describing aren't real costs. Dems don't need to expand their voter base.
They do however need to have a voter base at all.

You're telling me this and you're wrong. You haven't provided anything to back up your claims either. Tossing out American Exceptionalism, telling me that other countries exist, and strawmanning isn't really convincing.

You asserting that in one generation they will have no voters after they've doubled down on their current tactics and captured more votes than they ever have is a hard sell. Telling me you hope accelerationists are right when they haven't been isn't convincing. Assuming that I'm saying America 'can never change' instead of asking me if I actually believe that or if I believe that there is a way America can change suggests to me that you are prepared to argue as if I believe that, so much so that you don't need me to indicate that I actually do. You make broad appeals to history without demonstrating how past historical events actually line up with the current situation in a way that makes them applicable.

It's all really a bad look from my perspective. I actually talk to American voters and non voters when I go to the local meetings. I actually am heavily invested in what the political landscape here is and not so much with the goings on in Australia. That much is true. But I also don't try to tell an Australian and insist that my perspective on their politics is somehow more salient and I definitely wouldn't try to do so unless I'm prepared to give a really good argument for why that is so.

PhoneLobster · Post by **PhoneLobster** » Fri Dec 25, 2020 8:15 pm

MGuy wrote:I actually talk to American voters and non voters when I go to the local meetings.

So. Anecdotal evidence. I'm talking about the demographics of surveys of voters. The information is out there and prominently so. If you really care about this you've seen the same surveys and information as me repeatedly all ready. The demographics and trends are damning from a strategic stand point. I feel no need to point out specific results because ALL of them are damning, you only need to have seen any. But no. You know some voters personally. And that trumps every survey that clearly indicates that the only demographics the party has are dying white people that would rather vote Republican and reluctant college graduates, which isn't a viable base.

But I also don't try to tell an Australian and insist that my perspective on their politics is somehow more salient and I definitely wouldn't try to do so unless I'm prepared to give a really good argument for why that is so.

I've seen enough american's on the internet to know that isn't a sign of intellectual integrity, it just means you know nothing and don't care about anything outside your borders.

In the rest of the world we actually care about and know about things that happen in other countries. And your lack of interest and knowledge is NOT an argument in your favor. In fact it IS another common defense of American Exceptionalist arguments you rube.

MGuy · Post by **MGuy** » Fri Dec 25, 2020 8:32 pm

So I actually reference things that happened, an actual increase in voters toward the party (a statistic you can actually see), and all of that but you take the part where I also mention that I actually interact with people on the ground so my info isn't just staring at numbers and you make 'that' my argument. Well... That's cool.

PhoneLobster · Post by **PhoneLobster** » Fri Dec 25, 2020 9:28 pm

So you think the last election result was good for the democrats? The election that also saw Trumps vote grow? The election where the record turn out, the much prophesied thing that was until that very moment supposed to be a sure indication of a democrat landslide... actually split far too well to the benefit of Republicans. The election close enough that we know any single factor falling in favor of Trump, especially a big one, like say, no virus, would have seen him wipe the floor with democrats, that election?

Your ACTUAL take on the election is limited to "Biden got (in flat numeric terms) more votes than Clinton". That is the stupidest most childish take possible. You wonder why I treat your take with such disrespect? When it's like that? Of course I treat it like the drivel it is.

Biden lucked out, and even then in a way that only gave him a hollow victory. The figures and the trends surrounding the result are all bad news for even the mid terms much less the next presidential and beyond.

But at least you backed down from your childish American Exceptionalism where your nation is special and cannot possibly be understood or commented on by outsiders... no wait...

You know you are basically using and feeding exactly the liberal arguments that keep your nation an isolated backwater with no public medical care right?

MGuy · Post by **MGuy** » Fri Dec 25, 2020 10:03 pm

myself wrote:What I'm getting at is that the things you're describing aren't real costs. Dems don't need to expand their voter base. They are just fine exactly where they are. If they believe they need more voters then they will try to get them from Republicans. If that doesn't work well then Republicans win, fuck everything up more, and then they get another chance in the next election cycle. Clinton lost last election and what did they do? They made sure Biden was the next one at bat. Biden got more votes than anyone in history because it turns out Republicans are worse in ways that are very obvious to even common Americans and people get desperate to get any other alternative in.

So this is what I've said that I guess you're wanting to argue about. Your last few responses have been tantamount to making anecdotal evidence the sum total of my argument and saying you essentially don't need to back up your assertions with evidence. This second one is an argument against... I don't know actually. I'm not sure what you're making the case against here. I didn't make an argument about whether the election results were 'good' for dems. I had already said that I think Trump could've won the election. I never wondered why you are disrespecting my point because I assume by now that you actually can't help yourself in online discussions and have just accepted that as part of your personality. I have no idea why you think I backed down from anything and let me tell ya, I'm not curious about it either.

As far as I can tell you're looking for a specific argument to rail against. Since I'm not making the argument you really want me to, you're trying to hamfist my point into points you're ready to attack so you can argue against it. I'm afraid I'm not interested in participating my guy.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Sat Dec 26, 2020 3:01 am

If you two are just going to argue about elections maybe you could do that in the election thread instead of in the thread about things that politicians actually do with power.

MGuy · Post by **MGuy** » Sat Dec 26, 2020 5:58 am

He's trying to argue that the Dems will cease to exist within our lifetime. So there'd need to be a thread about whether or not the Democratic party will exist in 30 years. I brought up the last election to demonstrate that not only do they have enough voters to exist, that they retain them without changing strategies.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Sat Dec 26, 2020 6:28 am

MGuy wrote:He's trying to argue that the Dems will cease to exist within our lifetime. So there'd need to be a thread about whether or not the Democratic party will exist in 30 years. I brought up the last election to demonstrate that not only do they have enough voters to exist, that they retain them without changing strategies.

I actually did follow the conversation, I just don't care about people arguing about whether democrats will exist in 30 years, or in fact if they will have power in 5 years and this thread is about the next 4 years and the specific things they do, not really about prognosticating about election results.

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Sun Dec 27, 2020 12:38 am

Kaelik wrote:I just don't care about people arguing about whether democrats will exist in 30 years, or in fact if they will have power in 5 years and this thread is about the next 4 years and the specific things they do, not really about prognosticating about election results.

I do think that it's kind of relevant to discuss whether the Biden Administration is going to lead to the end of the Democratic Party.

First of all, let's talk about the Democratic Party of the past 10 or so years. For all of the talk about the End of the Republican Party, the fact remains that the Democrats have been sucking total ass. Obama went from a comfortable legislative supermajority to its lowest state in 80+ years. Had Hillary Clinton continued Obama's trend, the Democratic Party would've easily been at sub-Millard's Whig levels, if not at sub-FDR's pre-1937 GOP levels right now.

Now, Trump happened and the Democrats did have 2018 to pad their margins, so Biden is not starting from as bad of a electoral position as he could have. However, Biden is also inheriting a worse political situation than Obama did in 2014 or Hillary did in 2016 -- and he's a much less talented politician than either of them.

His and the Democrats' only hope for not getting completely destroyed is to go all-in on reinforcing his base and motivating rank-and-file partisans. Yet everything he's doing shows that he's completely uninterested in the health of his rearguard, going so far as to blame BLM activists for a disappointing 2020 downballot. So instead of sounding he alarms and going all-in on mollifying his base, he's going to continue going after Respectable Republicans.

To that end, discussing whether there's going to be a Democratic Party at all in 4-5 years is very relevant, because if the Democratic Party is going to die there's literally no better chance now than there has been in over 150 years. It's not like Clinton 1994 or even Harding 1920. The Democrats are in a bad spot and the next two cycles are going to be disastrous for them unless Biden pulls the mother of all rabbits out of his hat.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Sun Dec 27, 2020 1:01 am

Actually Lago that the death of the democratic party is not relevant to the conversation but that conversation once ignored is a jumping off point to you talking about a different thing you want to talk about is exactly the example of what I dont want.

Pick literally any thread in the universe but this one to talk about how you think elections more than 4 years from now are going to go. Or even elections in a few weeks! Just any other thread. That you can see a path to avoiding the point of this thread to get to that convo is not a good reason to have it here when you could have it anywhere else and I'm absolutely going to ban you from the thread if you post again about how you want to make this an election prognostication thread.

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Sun Dec 27, 2020 6:41 pm

Actually Lago that the death of the democratic party is not relevant to the conversation but that conversation once ignored is a jumping off point to you talking about a different thing you want to talk about is exactly the example of what I dont want.

The Biden Administration's actions are going to be directly based on trying to avoid electoral extinction to an extent not seen in over a century -- a task complicated by the fact that they really want to win with a coalition of Early Reagan Republicans (i.e. upper-middle class college-educated suburban whiteys) in the driver's seat but are ALSO unable to compete without their racially diverse working-class base.

All of the Biden administrations' more bizarre actions like appointing a black CIA lickspittle or Harris pretending like she had a multi-generational Kwanzaa tradition while Biden berates BLM activists has to be viewed in the light of 'the Democratic Party is on the brink of destruction and the architects know this'.

Otherwise Biden's actions aren't going to make any sense.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Sun Dec 27, 2020 9:19 pm

Nothing is more annoying to me at this moment than the fact that you had literally nothing to say about the current actions of the Biden transition at all until right after I asked people to stop talking about their election predictions in this thread, at which point it became super important for you to talk about election predictions in this thread. Leave.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Mon Dec 28, 2020 5:07 pm

The Biden transition has taken corporate capture to a new heights. Every major tech company has a representative on the transition staff, but corporate lobbying of their chosen buddies will be a fun addition. Amazon has hired Biden's White House Counsel's brother to lead their lobbying of the Biden admin.

This is the kind of absolutely corrupt bullshit that everyone now is just fine with when you nominate Biden, a Senator who's brother created a lobbying firm to lobby congress, and democrats had to commit themselves to the idea the Biden's son getting appointed to Amtrak by the democratic senate recommendation because he rides trains or gas companies hiring him for his name. Because liberals have to believe in the moral good of their leaders and can't just admit that actually their leaders and genocidal monsters out to murder us and the only argument in their favor is that they are less genocidal.

Family members lobbying each other on behalf of companies is now just a thing that isn't bad if you ask liberals and we are absolutely fucked forever.

Pseudo Stupidity · Post by **Pseudo Stupidity** » Tue Dec 29, 2020 2:54 pm

At least the direct payments might get bigger? No thanks to the Biden administration, but that's nice.

Being the Worst Child, my parents and I talked politics again over the holidays. Each and every criticism of the Biden administration, from their awful appointments to Biden's personally noxious behavior towards civil rights activists, was all treated with surprise and then brushed off as "at least he's not Trump." The predictable "we will vote for the bad guy and then be surprised when the bad guy is bad" thing is pretty frustrating. I guess there's always next election.

Whatever · Post by **Whatever** » Tue Dec 29, 2020 3:01 pm

1) Biden claims that he's in talks with high level Republicans and they're definitely going to work with him on infrastructure etc etc, they just need 6-8 months. So we're back to Charlie Brown and the football.

2) Biden is actually complaining about lack of cooperation from Trump/White House/DoD which means they're aggressively stonewalling him about *something* NatSec. Probably Russia but who knows if we'll ever find out for sure. Haha paper shredders go brrr.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Tue Dec 29, 2020 4:07 pm

Pseudo Stupidity wrote:Being the Worst Child, my parents and I talked politics again over the holidays. Each and every criticism of the Biden administration, from their awful appointments to Biden's personally noxious behavior towards civil rights activists, was all treated with surprise and then brushed off as "at least he's not Trump." The predictable "we will vote for the bad guy and then be surprised when the bad guy is bad" thing is pretty frustrating. I guess there's always next election.

Until voters understand that every single day Barack Obama walks around kicking every homeless person in america in the stomach laughing while he does it, we can never win the argument.

That's why people work so hard to do batshit crazy apologia for the terrible people in the democratic party by saying that Biden is as left as anyone else, or that Amy Klobucher is to the left of Bernie Sanders in the senate because she votes with democrats to approve Post Office nominees who want to privatize the Post Office and for military budgets.

As long as people don't realize that these people are our enemies we can never have the fight on policy in the first place. Maybe we would lose the arguments on policy, maybe everyone really is just so racist and contemptuous of the poor that they actually want everyone else to suffer forever. But we will never know the answer to that until we can break through the absurd propaganda that for example, a bunch of congress people who are all paid hundreds of thousands by insurance companies really do want what is best for poor people and that's why they oppose the M4A that 70% of people want.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Tue Dec 29, 2020 7:13 pm

Watch what happens to the "Space Force" an organization that breaks international law just by existing and serves absolutely no useful purpose, existing solely to justify more money being paid to Raytheon and Lockheed Martin, when Joe Biden is president.

The Democratic Minority Whip is currently opposing Sanders effort to get the Senate to vote on 2000 checks because he believe it is extremely vital we continue to fund the military as soon as possible even when doing so gives up leverage (because he doesn't actually want people to get 2000k checks.)

Kamala Harris has used her new found power and prominence as the number 2 Democrat in the country and still being in the Senate to............. Literally disappear and have no opinion on any issue for months.

angelfromanotherpin · Tue Dec 29, 2020 11:42 pm

Kaelik wrote:Kamala Harris has used her new found power and prominence as the number 2 Democrat in the country and still being in the Senate to............. Literally disappear and have no opinion on any issue for months.

Just curious, is there any number of her issue opinions from the last few months I can link to that will make you retract this statement? If so, how many would it take?

Or is this one of your many statements that becomes 'obvious hyperbole' when anyone calls you on them?

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Tue Dec 29, 2020 11:55 pm

angelfromanotherpin wrote:
Kaelik wrote:Kamala Harris has used her new found power and prominence as the number 2 Democrat in the country and still being in the Senate to............. Literally disappear and have no opinion on any issue for months.
Just curious, is there any number of her issue opinions from the last few months I can link to that will make you retract this statement? If so, how many would it take?

Or is this one of your many statements that becomes 'obvious hyperbole' when anyone calls you on them?

Indeed, who can tell whether I think Kamala Harris literally disappeared into nothingness and ceased to exist or if I was commenting on the fact that it's the middle of a filibuster for $2000 checks before the senate adjourns of the year and Kamala Harris, the incoming VP who previously was one of the three sponsors of the bill in May to do so doesn't have an opinion on the filibuster while the two other sponsors of that bill, Sanders and Markey, are currently engaging in an active filibuster to get that result.

It is really hard to tell if I think Kamala Harris literally doesn't exist or if this comment reflects the fact that Obama figuratively took over as Senate Minority Leader deciding and pushing legislation in 2008 after his election but Harris has lead no one anywhere since being elected as VP and has instead been significantly less involved in legislating than she was before being nominated as VP or winning the VP slot. It could be either of those things and they are both just as likely.

But hey, why not post online statements written by her staff and see if that does anything! I'm sure form press releases will convince me that a sitting senator who is the VP elect is working real hard on leading the senate and that's why she is too busy to support a filibuster to help the american people.

angelfromanotherpin · Wed Dec 30, 2020 12:23 am

No to the first, yes to the second. Also you expected people to read 'have no opinion on any issue' as 'not participate enough on a single very specific filibuster.' Got it.

Thanks for letting me know I was mistaken to consider taking any of your words at their plain meaning. Again. I don't know why I keep doing that.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Wed Dec 30, 2020 1:38 am

angelfromanotherpin wrote:No to the first, yes to the second. Also you expected people to read 'have no opinion on any issue' as 'not participate enough on a single very specific filibuster.' Got it.

Thanks for letting me know I was mistaken to consider taking any of your words at their plain meaning. Again. I don't know why I keep doing that.

Thank you for demonstrating that you will defend literally anything a democrat does no matter how craven and shitty, such as not engaging with any legislation at all at the very height of her Senate power when the senate is having the only open fight since the election and a bunch of democrats are going to team up with McConnell to kill $2000k checks so they can have their vacation.

MGuy · Post by **MGuy** » Wed Dec 30, 2020 6:26 am

Strategically there's no need for Harris to do anything right now. She's going on to be VP and has likely written off doing anything of import as a senator, especially with McConnell at the helm. Her mission now will be to build her personal profile. Since she already supported 2k checks months ago I imagine she has probably voiced support for it even now. What Harris could be doing is making a huge stink about it. As the incoming VP and with the historical significance that comes with it she could be doing a major media blitz to turn that attention currency toward keeping the 2k checks, and McConnell's refusal to budge on it, prominently in the news. That would be good to do and from my perspective if she were putting her back into it, it would buy her a lot of progressive credit. How effective the payoff would be for that is beyond me. Progressives are already pushing for it anyway after Trump put the option on the table.

The fact that she and others aren't doing that makes me believe that there's a calculation being done that makes it unnecessary. The bill got past the house and McConnell's going to not budge on this obviously. I can only guess at what's going through Harris's mind right now but it's possible that she's biding her time until the Biden admin is in power to then unleash whatever political capital she has to push for more generous public funding. After all doing so would make her look especially good. There's also no real pressure on these people to do more right now anyway. Currently the Republicans have made it very clear that they intend to obstruct whatever the Dems want to do and whatever leverage or opportunities Dems had to do anything about it are all gone. Voters 'see' that dems are willing to vote for 2k and don't think that they could've done any more than they have. It would be unreasonable in most casual observers of these processes to expect anything more to happen or to even have happened before now. She is already on record as having pushed for 3k, has definitely said she's still in favor of it by now, and has no strategic reason to do anything else (Most dems aren't ideologically driven so the primary goal isn't to actively help people). It's a hard sell to make any moral failures on her part given these circumstances. The case could be more easily made with Pelosi on this front given some of her atrocious maneuvering.

What will be interesting is what will happen if/when they control the senate, house, and presidency. Ideally a lot of the excuses will not be there. So far it is looking like Biden is still saying he is not seeking to fight Republicans. It's the same bipartisanship angle that has to date not worked. I suspect that won't change throughout Biden's term judging by how he aggressively resists changing his tune whenever challenged coupled with the fact that he is himself a conservative. If the Georgia election doesn't swing blue then all of the speculation will be pointless because we're going to get obstructionism anyway.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Wed Dec 30, 2020 10:12 am

MGuy wrote:The fact that she and others aren't doing that makes me believe that there's a calculation being done that makes it unnecessary. The bill got past the house and McConnell's going to not budge on this obviously.

This just isnt true.

Multiple republicans are on record supporting the 2k checks. They are right now hiding behind McConnell refusing to have a vote. However there are two other issues being forced onto a three way fork by Bernie Sanders. Trump vetoed the military spending bill amd senators want to go home but the session ends on January 3rd so they have to override the veto by then.

Sanders is forcing with a filibuster for senators to do one of four things:

1) just not override the veto on a military spending bill upsetting all their owners at Raytheon.
2) not have a vacation at all and literally stay in session until January 3rd which is unacceptable to selfish lazy congress people.
3) McConnell call a vote on 2k checks which if called will probably pass.
4) 60 votes including 8 democrats vote to stop this attempt to get people 2000k checks and instead give Raytheon their money and go home for vacation.

There are very few situations in which McConnell can be pushed but this an actual genuine one. McConnell acts as the voice of his caucus not as an iron fisted dictator, when they want to pass something he lets it pass and given this split they are willing to pass it if doing so is necessary to pay Raytheon and go home for vacation.

The problem is that eventually 8 democrats are going to team up with McConnell and republicans because they also value Raytheon money and vacations more than the american people which we know because the Minority Whip has already spent an hour arguing that Raytheon money is urgent and necessary and has to be passed as soon as possible and isn't this filibuster really treason against the US?

Harris as incoming VP who is currently in the Senate has a real role to play in speaking with force in the democratic senate on priorities and could prevent democratic defections.

The Adventurer's Almanac · Wed Dec 30, 2020 3:56 pm

angelfromanotherpin wrote:Or is this one of your many statements that becomes 'obvious hyperbole' when anyone calls you on them?

What the fuck has Kamala Harris does at all for people in 2020? This is a sincere and serious question.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Wed Dec 30, 2020 4:08 pm

The Adventurer's Almanac wrote:
angelfromanotherpin wrote:Or is this one of your many statements that becomes 'obvious hyperbole' when anyone calls you on them?
What the fuck has Kamala Harris does at all for people in 2020? This is a sincere and serious question.

To an extent, it makes sense that she hasn't done anything to help anyone. She's a senator! The senate sucks! The senate passes 7 laws by unanimous consent and churns out republican judges and that's it. The 7 laws are two super undefunded covid relief bills, the general budget, the military budget, and some corporate welfare shit.

99 times out of 100 Kamala Harris has no ability to do literally anything to help people besides "not object to a relief bill just like everyone else."

She has mostly sponsored good legislation, but that doesn't actually do anything because the senate doesn't pass good legislation. Of course, that sort of goes out the window when we are in the one out of 100 times that she actually could do something good and she's not doing it.

But in this case, Angel is just doing the thing he always does where he takes an obvious hyperbolic statement like "Kamala Harris literally disappeared" and then pretends that all things can only be literally true or outrageous lies that demonstrate the exact opposite of their claims.

So the fact that Kamala Harris has done exactly zero things to make life better for people and has deliberately withdrawn from her power in the Senate to promote good legislation doesn't matter. If Kamala Harris's staff has posted PR statements on her website that proves that Kamala Harris must be doing the maximum possible anyone could ever expect of her and it would be wrong to criticize her for her actions in deliberately not using her power to help people.