The Biden Administration (No Lago)

[Kaelik]

It would actually kill me to go over literally all the cabinet positions and areas of horror on the transition team, but as a general update it's probably worth keeping track of at least some of the general ways that the Biden admin is going to suck a lot.

1) COVID incompetency. The worst imaginable caricature of the Biden admin is "they will literally do nothing at all different from Trump except tell people to wear a mask" and today Biden tweeted his first 100 days plan: a) Everyone wears a mask, b) Vaccinations, c) Reopen schools.

Which is just...... what would happen under Trump, but with masks. Biden has no plans to help anyone with any financial hardship in any way, he's going to open the schools.

2) Picking the worst of the potential picks for every position. So far his cabinet picks are torturers to be in charge of NatSec agencies, a guy who loves a rich white dude who's family owned slaves and who loves deportations to head DHS because he's "Latino", a Raytheon exec General to be the civilian oversight at the DOD, Mr. Monstanto to head Agriculture, the guy who's famous for taking oil money to liaise with climate activists who is making announcements about how he intends to be the voice of CEOs to the Biden admin ect. It's just really bad people everywhere, like taking bad Obama admin people and downgrading from there.

I expect a brief blip away from this with Doug Jones for AG, as he is the best anyone could hope for from the Biden admin and is a likely pick, but maybe not because Kamala Harris's sister is pushing her husband who literally spearheaded Uber's Prop 22 campaign to amend the state constitution so they can keep abusing workers.

3) Absolutely insanely fucking terrible factional politics/literal racist tokenism/pointless signaling. Marcia Fudge was campaigning for Agriculture, the place they put Mr. Monsanto. She has entire plans for it. She publicly expressed a preference for it. But she's black so she can't be in Agriculture, she has to be in HUD, a place she has no particular desire for. That's where the black people go, obviously! Marcia Fudge specifically talked about how dem admins should be putting black people where they are talented an appropriate, not always HUD and Labor, but sure Biden, just go off!

Meanwhile New Mexico Governor Grisham who has a Health background and was explicitly campaigning for HHS secretary was offered Interior because "she's from New Mexico" but there are two other New Mexico candidates for the position actually campaigning for it who have actual experience and desire. She turned it down, and the Biden team felt slighted so they went with another candidate for HHS. THEY FELT SLIGHTED THAT THEY IGNORED HER ENTIRE LIFE AND HER EXPRESS DESIRES AND SHE DIDN'T GO ALONG.

One of those other candidates for interior, Rep. Debra Haaland, has a huge wave of support from natives tribes who have collectively been writing letters to the Biden admin recommending her. She also has the support of the progressive wing of the dem party, many congress people expressly endorsing her, and even some republicans. She has experience in oversight of the national lands from her committee position and along with Udall is pushing for the position. But the Biden team is mad that the tribes support her and made that progressives support her, so they've been "anonymously" leaking smears against her to the press as "a member of the Biden transition team" for a few days now in preparation for picking someone that seemingly no one supports except apparently some people in the Biden transition team.

Absolutely love it when my democratic admin treats cabinet positions, some of the most important things in the nation, as a place to do racial signaling and/or pretend state signaling and/or to do your weird stunting on the Natives/Left to prove you won't give them anything even when it frustrates the rest of your coalition.

[MGuy]

Biden doesn't need to appease any of the left leaning people in the democratic party and he knows it. The leftist signaling is so obviously a joke Trevor Noah quipped about it on the daily show. The people dems want to appeal to are Republicans. Not leftists, not natives, and not environmentalists. The best any of us are going to get us acknowledgement that there are indeed problems and while they are going to do anything significant about them what are we going to do? Let Republicans win instead?

I'm more disgusted and frustrated by the continued defense of Biden and dem leadership than the predictable insufficient actions Biden was always going to take.

My concerns are with the Covid response. While I might've guessed in the past that dems would definitely get some more money out to people that more and more seems to either not be a priority (despite Pelosi guaranteeing we'd have something before next year as they let go of every piece of leverage they could've used to force Republican's hands) or not in the cards (considering their willingness to settle on a bill half the size of what was offered before that isn't going to put actual checks out there). Biden doesn't seem like he's poised to take any drastic measures to do anything to correct course which means we're very likely multiple months away, given the best conditions, from seeing them offer up anything at all.

Almost all of my neighbors are gone now. Each one evicted because they couldn't keep up with rent. If Biden has a plan to fix this it will take more funding than it would have taken just to give people what they needed several months ago and I'm not getting the sense that Biden or his team realize it or care. The plan seems to be Masks -> Vaccines -> ??? -> profit. If it's anything other than that then he and his team are doing a very very bad communicating it.

[Whatever]

https://twitter.com/ManDaveJobGood/stat ... 6956152832

[Orca]

What could Biden do with executive orders alone about Covid-19 within 6 months? I mean, short of McConnell having a coronary there's no getting anything meaningful thru the senate in that timeframe, and in a longer timeframe getting vaccines out to everyone is the big deal. I'm not sure how long it takes to get secretaries appointed and approved and policies changed through departments, but 'multiple months' seems likely.

[MGuy]

I do not know the limits of what executive power is at this time. It looks like you can do a lot of shit as president right now. Speculating on what could be done is pointless though because Biden has both said and shown he's looking to appease Republicans. Since that is a very clear priority then there is unlikely to be any action that really tests the limits of what could be done.

[Kaelik]

What could Biden do with executive orders alone about Covid-19 within 6 months? I mean, short of McConnell having a coronary there's no getting anything meaningful thru the senate in that timeframe, and in a longer timeframe getting vaccines out to everyone is the big deal. I'm not sure how long it takes to get secretaries appointed and approved and policies changed through departments, but 'multiple months' seems likely.

1) There is actually a currently ongoing set of runoff elections for the Senate so hypothetically the democratic President elect COULD tell people that if he controls the senate then the democrats will give people money. Now the main reason that won't happen is because absolutely zero democrats in leadership actually want to give people money, but it is a possibility to argue they will do that while control of the senate is still up for election.

2) "getting Vaccines out to everyone" is exactly what Trump was doing and would have done, hence "Trump but with masks" because the funding for vaccines already came in the COVID bills that Trump signed and people are already getting the vaccine right now under Trump.

3) You don't actually have to wait multiple months to do anything. You can appoint whomever you nominate for agency head as the Acting Head of the department with no senate confirmation on day 1 and then they can do that for a year before you just rename them. If the Senate refuses to confirm a Cabinet position or delays it literally doesn't need to cause you even a single second of delay. Now Biden won't do that because he doesn't feel any urgency to actually do anything and sees cabinet positions as rewards for supporters and places to signal not actual offices which can be used to do good, but it is perfectly possible to do that.

4) Executive orders could be used to declare a national emergency, take funds from the military, and spend them on literally anything. Biden will not do this because you don't take funds from the military, you give them more, but the option exists. There are also a variety of other things he could try to do with executive orders including eviction moratoriums, use the Defense Production Act to seize businesses and produce what is needed, put in place OSHA standards that require businesses to close unless they meet those standards, create a Postal Banking system and set literally whatever rules about how it lends including having it lend at 5% for the first 20k under COVID or something like that, ect. But doing these sorts of aggressive executive actions just isn't on the table once you've decided that everything has to be bipartisan and the only thing we are going to do is masks and vaccines.

[Pseudo Stupidity]

Biden is picking Lloyd Austin, a former general who is on Raytheon's board of directors, to be our secretary of defense. No issues could possibly arise from the secretary of defense being on the board of a military technology company.

[Kaelik]

Biden is picking Lloyd Austin, a former general who is on Raytheon's board of directors, to be our secretary of defense. No issues could possibly arise from the secretary of defense being on the board of a military technology company.

There's also a special waiver you have to do when you appoint a recently retired military person as the civilian control over the military. It's only been done three times ever by Truman after WWII (when there weren't as many civilians not recently retired to go around), by Trump, and now by Biden.

There's a special form that exists solely to tell Biden that what he is doing is absolutely fucking terrible and shouldn't be done and since literally any of our lives only Donald Trump has ever had to acknowledge this form before, but Biden is going to do it anyway because he is fundamentally a bad person and Democrats fundamentally don't believe in civilian control over the military and are all about selling the entire country to the military as much as possible.

[deaddmwalking]

Five Thirty Eight's Analysis of Cabinet Picks

Both the Black establishment and the Latino establishment within the Democratic Party have real clout, able to essentially force Biden to pick some Black and Latino appointees for key posts and to block some people they don’t want.
The progressive wing of the party doesn’t seem to have enough clout to get its people key jobs, but does have enough power to prevent Biden from picking people they strenuously oppose.
And other blocs in the Democratic Party, most notably anti-Trump Republicans or former Republicans who backed Biden, don’t have a lot of clout in the appointment process, at least so far. (We should note that this article refers often to stories first broken by The American Prospect and Politico in particular, as both outlets have done stellar reporting on Biden’s transition process.)

[Kaelik]

The Democrats are out to cause me as much suffering as possible, not letting me just be happy with the hope and eventual Doug Jones nominee, the lowest possible standard for the democratic party being met in exactly ONE single appointment.

Instead now they are floating Cuomo for AG. Cuomo who, I CANNOT stress this enough, is just Donald Trump with a D in front of his name. Yes that too! Whatever objection you were about to make. Cuomo does it too, brash angry yelling at reporters for being the enemy? Cutting healthcare? Targeting minorities with the police state? Personally interfering to make sure republicans control the legislature? Keeping things open when they should be closed killing people from COVID and then bragging about how good he is and profiting while allowing more people to die? Weird effusive pronouncements about how he's the least racist and most pro woman and gay candidate while advocating policies that target them? Undermining Covid safety measures on public television by broadcasting how he doesn't care and won't follow them? Personally making sure that we cut every part of the budget but the cops and that taxes are never raised on the rich under any circumstance?

Yes all that.

But the NYT has to write some anonymous Biden insider floating this fucker's name for AG because Doug Jones, by virtue of not being protested by the left for being literally the worst person Joe Biden could get to agree to it, proves that he is unacceptable and we need someone worse.

Edit: jesus christ a former member of cuomos staff came forward about his history of sexually harassing her and he leaked her private personnel file to the media in less than 24 hours.

[Lago PARANOIA]

So, it turns out that Biden is a white supremacist. Not a passive 'America is a force for good in the world' white supremacist you see from rank-and-file liberal Democrats, but a Richard Spencer-style 'Great Replacement' white supremacist.

From that leaked audio with Biden's chat with black activists, go to about 74 minutes in.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3G7n21 ... e=youtu.be

So, about that harm reduction:

[Kaelik]

That a guy who literally spent years fighting for segregation is a racist should not come as a surprise to anyone.

The only reason it would is because so many liberals put an inordinate amount or work into gaslighting people into believing the Joe Biden was just by golly as left as anyone else and really the best you could ever hope for because he was their only shot at beating Sanders and they hate the actual left and any opposition to the establishment of the democratic party.

But yes, it is definitely true that Joe Biden is intentionally explicitly thumbing his nose at even the "moderate" (read: corporate bought party hack) blacks like Clyburn since now that he's done using them he sees no reason to carry out any of his promises.

Almost like that was always the inevitable result of backing a lifelong liar who hates you and has only ever wanted to make life miserable for the poor!

[MGuy]

CNN had Sanders on not too long ago and in the midst of him telling everyone "We need to get money out to people right now!" they questioned him about how often he's had successful bills. I do not know if liberals hate the left. If presented with an easy choice of giving people money versus not giving people money they would tell you they are pro giving people money. However, it seems that if you add any layers on to that you lose them. In a normal world no person who wants to pretend that they care about people languishing in this country would spend their air time doing anything but pushing to get everyone on board with that. In real life that's the case.

I do not know if 'most' liberals hate leftists. Elitists of course hate leftists. Why wouldn't they? They make it obvious to anyone who hasn't bought in to what they say or who hasn't accepted 'Typical anti-left sentiment' as ok. People outside of the washington bubble I don't think hate leftists. When I talk to normal liberals I can get them to agree with me on most things. The issue is what they think is within the realm of possibility. For liberals 'right now' seems to be the only time that's ever existed and things like people's history, inclinations, and actually convincing people of anything seems to be off the table. It's a lot like talking to a Trumpist except that where a Trump supporter will drum up lies and present them as facts these more center leaning folks will look at the same facts I'm looking at and look at them in a fundamentally different way.

So I can talk to one of these people and we can both note that 'hey it's kind of fucked up that Biden keeps talking down to any activist/person that challenges him'. My take away will be that Biden is a prideful man who doesn't actually care about the people he's talking to. A liberal's take seems to be 'Eh, he's not Trump and that's all that counts'. Which is worrisome. It makes me 'feel' that my fellow Democrat is not as energized to remove someone like Biden from office. If these normal Democrats continue to shrug their shoulders at things like this, lack of competence among the dem leadership, etc then I, a leftist, am doomed to have to watch this cycle repeat over and over again. Does this mean that liberals hate leftists? I don't think so. Again, not most of them. I think it's apathy. The thing that people seem to be really offended by, the people I'm talking about, isn't whether things are truthfully looking bad for the future. They seem to really get uncomfortable confronting it. Confronting what Biden winning the primary (especially considering the story behind it) meant.

What would be better? Engaging with how their choices will only ever be decided by people who do not care about the poor or ignoring that and taking whatever surface level victory you can? I sometimes wonder if I weren't this fucking poor if I wouldn't take that second option. But I am poor, and I'd really like my neighbors to not disappear. So I'm going to keep telling people Biden is bad, help me vote for better people. At least when I have the time to. It'd be nice if more center leaning people wouldn't help propagate the propaganda that reduces our collective choices to people like Biden, Clinton, etc over and over again.

[Kaelik]

I do not know if 'most' liberals hate leftists. Elitists of course hate leftists. Why wouldn't they? They make it obvious to anyone who hasn't bought in to what they say or who hasn't accepted 'Typical anti-left sentiment' as ok. People outside of the washington bubble I don't think hate leftists. When I talk to normal liberals I can get them to agree with me on most things. The issue is what they think is within the realm of possibility. For liberals 'right now' seems to be the only time that's ever existed and things like people's history, inclinations, and actually convincing people of anything seems to be off the table. It's a lot like talking to a Trumpist except that where a Trump supporter will drum up lies and present them as facts these more center leaning folks will look at the same facts I'm looking at and look at them in a fundamentally different way.

Of course not most liberals anything specific. Most liberals are, to the extent they involves themselves in politics at all out side voting every four years, consumers and reflectors of their political leaders messaging, as most people of any political persuasion are. But that's why I didn't say "most" I said "so many" acted to gaslight in reference not to the average voter, but to the people with actual political influence and power, like Pelosi, like Obama, like MSNBC hosts, like Clyburn ect., who all acted to gaslight people on behalf of Biden as their only way to beat Sanders.

[Kaelik]

The Biden Admin has finally caved to the evil influence of literally everyone but the people on the transition team who were badmouthing her and appointed Haaland.

[Kaelik]

Biden advisors explaining to the media how hard and how verrrryyy long it will take to reverse trump immigration policies in direct rejection of Biden's promises. Because the correct amount of border militarization like police funding and bombing is always more than we have now so they can't actually do what is required, gutting dhs and tearing it apart. They have to find a way to hire more cpb agents fire none of them and do this in a way that produces a cpb that isnt engaged in a racial war when half of the current cpb belonged to a facebook group where the talked about how they are above the law and get to do racism no matter what.

Edit:to be clear what they said is "we arent going to do it right now"

I may have implied they will be working towards it or promising to do it in the future and they arent doing that. Nothing they are saying is incompatible with keeping all of trump's immigration rules like they also want to keep his tax cuts.

[Kaelik]

With Republican and Democratic leaders in the House and Senate far apart on how much they were willing to accept in new pandemic spending, Mr. Biden on Dec. 2 threw his support behind the $900 billion plan being pushed by the centrist group. The total was less than half of the $2 trillion that Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York, had been insisting on.

Mr. Biden’s move was not without risks. If it had failed to affect the discussions, the president-elect risked looking powerless to move Congress before he had taken the oath of office. But members of both parties said his intervention was constructive and gave Democrats confidence to pull back on their demands.

Love to hear that Joe Biden is emboldening democrats to back down and cave to McConnell. Definitely what I love to see in my president.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/21/us/p ... ogin=email

[The Adventurer's Almanac]

That's their fucking job at this point, as far as I'm concerned. I'm sick of these sycophants and grade-A elite assholes getting elected and turning around and saying "Sorry guys, we actually can't help you right now, but we can do it later! Just vote for me again! I need to leverage power for later!"
The same goddamn fucking schtick for over 40 years. American politics is no different from pro fucking wrestling. It's legitimately disgusting and infuriating how impotent these so-called "lefties" are.
One means-tested $600 check and that's it. Fuck.

[PhoneLobster]

They aren't impotent, "they", the liberals, are very effective at their one actual job. Never letting any of the actual left ever have any actual power at all. At any cost.

Well. The liberals just paid any cost. It turned out to be pretty expensive. It has certainly cost them their soul their fraudulent public image and their entire political future. Problem is it's probably going to cost a lot of others a lot of other kinds of future too.

[Kaelik]

Biden has taken to lying about his statutory authority to forgive student debt because he doesn't want to do anything at all that might help people.

Because the Biden-Sanders Unity Task Forces drafted a list of 277 actions Biden could take immediately as president without congress, Biden needs to start hitting back now on how he definitely can't do any of those things (because he won't do them.)

[MGuy]

The liberals just paid any cost. It turned out to be pretty expensive. It has certainly cost them their soul their fraudulent public image and their entire political future.

You have a surprisingly more positive outlook on the situation than I. Paid a cost? The Democrats? I don't really think so. If you imagine their job is to maintain this shitty system pretty much as is, then they've succeeded. If you imagine that they've sunk any capital to do so? Well that depends on if you think they 'really' care about holding power. Dems don't really care about winning elections. At least they don't want it anymore than say you want your favorite sports team to win. They'll give it the old try and if they lose? Well... next time buddy. Dems don't have a coherent ideological project they are working on. They only push what they believe is already popular (as long as it doesn't disrupt the job they actually get paid for). Any losses are unfortunate but ultimately meaningless.

And voters? Well... what're you going to do? Not vote and let the other guy's win?

[PhoneLobster]

They've thrown away their previously much talked up future voter base demographic. They do not have a next generation of voter base. They have been talking for years about how it was on it's way. Then it arrived, they spat in it's face and drove it out with fire and pitchforks preferring to cling on to the last gasps of the white upper middle class boomers.

They don't care about winning elections but the racket, and their personal liberal sense of identity relies on them being at least nearly viable as a party. Viable parties don't have an elderly, aging, shrinking and disloyal voter base. The democrats are now not viable for the next generation (which is now closer/here) for all the same demographic reasons they USED to say the Republicans were not.

A real permanent electoral cost has been paid to elect Biden, especially in the way it was done and with the lack of success they had in barely doing it. Other than, you know, the wide ranging policy cost in the form of you know, having him as president.

And yes, They WILL just not vote and let the other guy win. About half your country is already doing that what is so unbelievable about more of them doing it? Only the liberals (who keep losing with exactly this "who else can they vote for" reasoning) think (or pretend) that it is some sort of real path to victory. People really are just not voting for them and letting the other guy win in massive numbers all the time and barring a big change it is now going to be worse than ever.

[MGuy]

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.

I'm not sure how familiar you are with American politics but the "who else can they vote for" isn't just bad reasoning it is how the system is set up. We are locked in an eternal choice between these two parties and this is on purpose. Just try to think of a strategy that would give Americans a third choice and then I invite you to remember what happened in this last election from the top and the bottom. Sanders got fucking hosed in the primaries and his ideas are still being attacked in liberal media. User0017 was spending his free time launching easily debunkable and fallacious attacks on Sanders but had very little to actually say about Biden other than 'well he's not my first choice'. To these kind of voters its all aesthetics and this isn't me speculating. I don't know if you actually looked at the election thread when it started but his biggest leading issue with Sanders was that he was old and white. After kaelik complained about how bad Biden's cabinet picks are dead provided a link to an article that spent more talking about how diverse the picks were than on anything substantive about their political positions or even why Biden would float so many shitty people for these positions. Whatever image you think the Dems have is paper thin and the actual voters already know and accept this.

Still not convinced? Well there's nothing to be done. Whatever you think could happen is fucked not only because of how our electoral system is set up but because people who do actually vote (non voters are nonfactors) have largely accepted the red and blue teams as the only choices. The media reinforces this viewpoint as well. Currently the media is helping the Trump and the republicans by framing Trump's sudden push for 2k checks as 'reasonable' but for months they have not made Republicans actually defend why they refuse to give the american people more with any regularity what so ever. Pelosi back in April basically sold her last bit of leverage on the Republicans and told others who were rightfully worried she wouldn't be able to get anything more out of them to 'just calm down'. She has not paid any price in the media for being that inept and is going to continue being in a leadership position in her party. I am convinced that if Trump had actually been pushing for that 2k since the beginning he would've won in a landslide come the election.

The biggest problem is that there is no real left movement in this country. Without a big fucking movement, without a fuckton of people organized and able to command a massive amount of votes in key democrat holds nothing can change. Whatever the amount of people who might understand how fucked this all is it isn't enough to boast a tangible national presence. At least not in a way that can help anything. AOC and her ilk slipped in but as you can see two things are happening. One she's being regularly attacked by the establishment people and republicans with Ds in front of their name and she's being kept from being groomed for future leadership positions like getting on important committees. There are no electoral consequences for these shitty maneuvers because no one cares. A lot of Dem voters are either like my mom who just votes blue because she always has or they are like useroceans17 and have invested in repeating the cycle of getting one centrist dem after another and calling it progress.

[PhoneLobster]

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. And I'm telling you they don't have one in the next generation, they have at the very least turned the next thirty years into an uphill battle for even cosmetic survival.

Even a fake opposition needs SOME voters. In fact they need rather a lot of them. And if they cannot round enough up they can no longer perform their primary role of preventing rival more left wing parties from arising and replacing them.

I'm not suggesting this as a strategy. I mean I HOPE the accelerationists are right, because we are on their path regardless. But this is simply how political parties die and it's happening in front of us.

You have the same American Exceptionalist ahistorical idiot idea as always that the two party political dynamic only exists in the USA, has never changed and can never change (a very liberal idea actually, certainly promoted by them). Well shut your dumb fucking mouth it's rife world wide, yours is just a little different, the same thing happens even in countries like Australia and the UK. Just because we are slightly lax and let other parties pretend they matter doesn't mean it isn't the dominant dynamic in our systems in basically the same way. AND YET parties DO historically die and get usurped just like they have previously IN THE USA.

It's just not going to happen in a timely manner. But the democrats are FIRMLY on course to sputter out basically "this generation" (not that that is a meaningful time unit), just like people THOUGHT the Republicans were up until about four years ago, or up until the demographics of the most recent election shook out depending on intuition and gambling preferences.

They could try and turn it around, it's an uphill battle though and they are making every possible announcement of their intention to get out of their hole by digging faster instead. And hell, the Republicans could also try and turn around their current advantage. But I think they actually like winning.

[Kaelik]

an article that spent more talking about how diverse the picks were than on anything substantive about their political positions or even why Biden would float so many shitty people for these positions.

My favorite "diverse" Biden hire is that our concentration camps and deportations will be run by a white guy who's dad owned slaves, but it's good because he's a white guy who speaks Spanish, so that makes him a minority.