President Biden saw his highest approval rating since November on Monday, ticking up to 43 percent. A new poll from the Financial Times and the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business…
I dont like biden. I approve of some of his policies. I dig forgiving student loans. I like the updated infrastructure plan, esp that it specifically targets the state that just had issues with their roads floading and is in desperate need of more jobs (VT). And i like the Texan high speed rail idea. Texas being annoying as shit aside, a high speed rail between two massive metropolises is exactly what we need. Not to mention the big 3 cities in TX already historically vote blue in the general so trying to energize that crowd ahead of the election seems a little optimistic, but not as misplaced as some would have u believe.
Biden is still Status Quo Joe to me. He still represents the continuation of neoliberal policies that keep us from addressing the climate crisis, but he does not represent a disruption to the democratic process but rather its continuation. With the youth being more aware of the climate situation, the draconian foreign policies we hold, and on the whole supporting a wider array of left leaning policies than any generation prior, biden is the only sane choice.
He still represents the continuation of neoliberal policies that keep us from addressing the climate crisis
Joe has done a TON for climate change. He wanted to do more (earlier versions of the infrastructure bill basically called for moving the entire grid to renewables), but he didn’t have the majorities. If we can deliver a majority in the house and Senate that doesn’t rely on Manchin and Sinema, you’ll see big climate change legislation with teeth, I can almost guarantee it.
Agree and disagree. If not Manshit and sEnema, wed find two other corporate dems to do the same. We need to primary the shit dems for progressives anytime we get the chance from the bottom up to really get climate action.
Joe tried more than he accomplished, but given that he accomplished more than Obama towards this end, id say thats a byproduct of the dems realizing they must cater to the new generation and i give the credit to the general culture shift. I dont think joe is the answer we’re looking for, but he is swayed by his consituents, regardless of what the lemmy FUD crowd will tell u.
So i do agree that for climate action we need the house to turn blue, but i also need it be said that the action they will accomplish will be less than needed, and they should be uncomfortably pressed on that fact. Over more than one election cycle, that is how we get what we want/need.
I don’t buy the self destructive theory of “the Dems just pull some people out of a hat to block legislation and only act like they want to solve the problem.”
That argument is basically built on a history of failure caused by razor thin margins. Margins that rely on Democrats in conservative areas that just barely won or have some fringe beliefs/interests.
Sinema was brand new and basically untested, Manchin has an interest in coal. It’s not exactly a mystery or a conspiracy why both of them stonewalled.
So i do agree that for climate action we need the house to turn blue
It’s more than that, we need a blue house and blue senate with a margin for some people to defect. We have a blue senate but we don’t have that margin.
I never agreed with folks that wanted to get rid of Manchin, I grew up next to West Virginia, we were lucky to have him for the votes he helped us on instead of another Ted Cruz. We would be far better off if we had even more “Sherrod Browns” (a “corporate dem” like Biden that’s willing to piss rich people off and demonstrated the “traditional democratic party” is not a bunch of sellouts). Flipping red seats is far more important than making the blue seats bluer.
Ooh! Productive disagreements based in good faith arguments! I love it!
The reason i buy into the “theory” in question is bc corporate democrats are notorious for playing the political game by ear and ammending their values to 1. Keep their voters backing, 2. Keep their owners happy.
Agreed on flipping the house, agreed on creating a tangible majority in the senate, agreed on flipping red seats. To this last point, based off of many many convos ive had with blue collar conservatives (who i think are either thr core of GOP support, or damn near), i feel like progressive candidates who arent afraid to get down and dirty on the grassroots level in red districts have a better chance of flipping those seats than so-called “moderate” dems. Per my experience, these right wing voters hate insurance conpanies, hate “the elite”, hate being unfairly taxed or otherwise “controlled” by their govt, and are willing to enact the policies we preach (single payer healthcare, wealth tax, lower taxes for their tax bracket and higher for the “elite” they hate, or even max wages) as long as they are stripped of the buzzwords they fear. Thru continuous conversation, even those buzzwords start to be less scary when the policies u preach are being espoused by someone they see as one of their own.
Disagree on making blue seats bluer. Largely bc of what i just said. To your credit, you bring up excellent points on manchin, i must admit i was ignorant about the situation u describe in WV. Great food for thought. Nevertheless, flipping red seats is not an either or situation with replacing the old guard with progressives. You have to remember the new guard coming into voting power prefers progressives.
The reason i buy into the “theory” in question is bc corporate democrats are notorious for playing the political game by ear and ammending their values to 1. Keep their voters backing, 2. Keep their owners happy.
I don’t think this is necessarily a bad thing, in fact I think it might be a necessary thing for any long serving politician. A politician should be there to represent the people that elected them more than themselves. The people in any given area change over time, as do their concerns and priorities.
If you go back and look at e.g. Bernie’s vs Biden’s record … it’s true Bernie has been a rock but it’s also true that Biden got a lot more legislation through. Biden (as with many other long time Democrats) is willing to compromise on some things if folks end up better than where they started. Bernie does this to some extent as well but not as much.
It’s a fine line to balance before you end up like many of those that Republicans have elected which just refuse to compromise on anything. It’s their way or the highway even when dealing with others in their party.
I guess what I’m saying is, I think you need to be able to sway a bit with the wind in politics to be able to keep the thing moving. Things are so messed up right now in part because congress is increasingly composed of hard liners that “have their views” and they won’t settle.
Thru continuous conversation, even those buzzwords start to be less scary when the policies u preach are being espoused by someone they see as one of their own.
I think that the United States isn’t as divided as it seems. I’ve similarly noticed in my various conversations people often say the same thing with a slightly different tilt that’s a long shot from the major divergence we see in elected officials.
I’m not sure how to undo that while Russia and China target the country with a continuous psyhop.
I don’t think progressive candidates are the only ones that can really break through to these folks. In some ways I think traditional Democrats have a better chance of breaking through because they’re not the ones that have been painted as the demons … they’re only demon adjacent.
A young Obama or Biden I think could reach a lot of people in my home state of Ohio. A young AOC … I think she would struggle in the same way that Clinton struggled, the propaganda and hate hose has been on for so long … I think it’s really hard for folks to bridge that gap.
Basically it’s just sad, lots of people are voting against their own interest because they’ve been convinced voting in their own interest is voting for some radical agenda.
You have to remember the new guard coming into voting power prefers progressives.
This is true and I don’t necessarily think it’s a bad thing. I would encourage those progressives to remain somewhat flexible though. We almost didn’t get the infrastructure bill and the inflation reduction act which are some of the best bills to come out under the Biden Administration because of progressive stonewalling in the opposite direction that Manchin was stonewalling.
I don’t want in fighting to make the Democratic party ineffective at governance similarly to how MAGA made the Republican party ineffective at governance.
Energizing the cities in Texas also forces the GOP to spend time and money defending their strongholds. Biden doesn’t need to win Texas, but if voters show up and elect more down-ballot representatives at state and local levels, that will be good for Texas and by extension the rest of the nation.
H. Clinton made the mistake in 2016 of not campaigning everywhere. DNC made the same mistake in many, many elections over the years.
The DNC needs to campaign in every possible place, obviously they need to have a bigger spend, and a bigger push in swing states, but the more they campaign everywhere, the more down ballot Dems get attention. They need more than a president to get shit done.
Start adding more progressives to the house and (maybe someday) the senate, and we’ll start turning this ship around.
Agreed. My local area put a progressive (u know, an actual one) in office a couple election cycles ago and shes been very popular with her constituents.
Progressives are so much easier to elect locally. It’s a much simpler sell to point out local issues with progressive solutions than it is to make larger, sweeping changes at a state or national level.
Energizing the cities in Texas also forces the GOP to spend time and money defending their strongholds.
If you look at the primary figures in Texas right now, Dem participation has completely tanked out. Collin Alfred got less than half the votes Ted Cruz racked in during the primary. The Dem polling locations were dead while Republicans stormed to polls to support their guys.
Its going to be a bloodbath in Texas come 2024. Again. Because Dems insist on running the most milk toast, uninspiring, “safe” hack candidates imaginable, for fear of some labor group or environmental movement accidentally forming around someone with a spine.
I dont like biden. I approve of some of his policies. I dig forgiving student loans. I like the updated infrastructure plan, esp that it specifically targets the state that just had issues with their roads floading and is in desperate need of more jobs (VT). And i like the Texan high speed rail idea. Texas being annoying as shit aside, a high speed rail between two massive metropolises is exactly what we need. Not to mention the big 3 cities in TX already historically vote blue in the general so trying to energize that crowd ahead of the election seems a little optimistic, but not as misplaced as some would have u believe.
Biden is still Status Quo Joe to me. He still represents the continuation of neoliberal policies that keep us from addressing the climate crisis, but he does not represent a disruption to the democratic process but rather its continuation. With the youth being more aware of the climate situation, the draconian foreign policies we hold, and on the whole supporting a wider array of left leaning policies than any generation prior, biden is the only sane choice.
Joe has done a TON for climate change. He wanted to do more (earlier versions of the infrastructure bill basically called for moving the entire grid to renewables), but he didn’t have the majorities. If we can deliver a majority in the house and Senate that doesn’t rely on Manchin and Sinema, you’ll see big climate change legislation with teeth, I can almost guarantee it.
Agree and disagree. If not Manshit and sEnema, wed find two other corporate dems to do the same. We need to primary the shit dems for progressives anytime we get the chance from the bottom up to really get climate action.
Joe tried more than he accomplished, but given that he accomplished more than Obama towards this end, id say thats a byproduct of the dems realizing they must cater to the new generation and i give the credit to the general culture shift. I dont think joe is the answer we’re looking for, but he is swayed by his consituents, regardless of what the lemmy FUD crowd will tell u.
So i do agree that for climate action we need the house to turn blue, but i also need it be said that the action they will accomplish will be less than needed, and they should be uncomfortably pressed on that fact. Over more than one election cycle, that is how we get what we want/need.
Eta: spelling
I don’t buy the self destructive theory of “the Dems just pull some people out of a hat to block legislation and only act like they want to solve the problem.”
That argument is basically built on a history of failure caused by razor thin margins. Margins that rely on Democrats in conservative areas that just barely won or have some fringe beliefs/interests.
Sinema was brand new and basically untested, Manchin has an interest in coal. It’s not exactly a mystery or a conspiracy why both of them stonewalled.
It’s more than that, we need a blue house and blue senate with a margin for some people to defect. We have a blue senate but we don’t have that margin.
I never agreed with folks that wanted to get rid of Manchin, I grew up next to West Virginia, we were lucky to have him for the votes he helped us on instead of another Ted Cruz. We would be far better off if we had even more “Sherrod Browns” (a “corporate dem” like Biden that’s willing to piss rich people off and demonstrated the “traditional democratic party” is not a bunch of sellouts). Flipping red seats is far more important than making the blue seats bluer.
Ooh! Productive disagreements based in good faith arguments! I love it!
The reason i buy into the “theory” in question is bc corporate democrats are notorious for playing the political game by ear and ammending their values to 1. Keep their voters backing, 2. Keep their owners happy.
Agreed on flipping the house, agreed on creating a tangible majority in the senate, agreed on flipping red seats. To this last point, based off of many many convos ive had with blue collar conservatives (who i think are either thr core of GOP support, or damn near), i feel like progressive candidates who arent afraid to get down and dirty on the grassroots level in red districts have a better chance of flipping those seats than so-called “moderate” dems. Per my experience, these right wing voters hate insurance conpanies, hate “the elite”, hate being unfairly taxed or otherwise “controlled” by their govt, and are willing to enact the policies we preach (single payer healthcare, wealth tax, lower taxes for their tax bracket and higher for the “elite” they hate, or even max wages) as long as they are stripped of the buzzwords they fear. Thru continuous conversation, even those buzzwords start to be less scary when the policies u preach are being espoused by someone they see as one of their own.
Disagree on making blue seats bluer. Largely bc of what i just said. To your credit, you bring up excellent points on manchin, i must admit i was ignorant about the situation u describe in WV. Great food for thought. Nevertheless, flipping red seats is not an either or situation with replacing the old guard with progressives. You have to remember the new guard coming into voting power prefers progressives.
I don’t think this is necessarily a bad thing, in fact I think it might be a necessary thing for any long serving politician. A politician should be there to represent the people that elected them more than themselves. The people in any given area change over time, as do their concerns and priorities.
If you go back and look at e.g. Bernie’s vs Biden’s record … it’s true Bernie has been a rock but it’s also true that Biden got a lot more legislation through. Biden (as with many other long time Democrats) is willing to compromise on some things if folks end up better than where they started. Bernie does this to some extent as well but not as much.
It’s a fine line to balance before you end up like many of those that Republicans have elected which just refuse to compromise on anything. It’s their way or the highway even when dealing with others in their party.
I guess what I’m saying is, I think you need to be able to sway a bit with the wind in politics to be able to keep the thing moving. Things are so messed up right now in part because congress is increasingly composed of hard liners that “have their views” and they won’t settle.
I think that the United States isn’t as divided as it seems. I’ve similarly noticed in my various conversations people often say the same thing with a slightly different tilt that’s a long shot from the major divergence we see in elected officials.
I’m not sure how to undo that while Russia and China target the country with a continuous psyhop.
I don’t think progressive candidates are the only ones that can really break through to these folks. In some ways I think traditional Democrats have a better chance of breaking through because they’re not the ones that have been painted as the demons … they’re only demon adjacent.
A young Obama or Biden I think could reach a lot of people in my home state of Ohio. A young AOC … I think she would struggle in the same way that Clinton struggled, the propaganda and hate hose has been on for so long … I think it’s really hard for folks to bridge that gap.
Basically it’s just sad, lots of people are voting against their own interest because they’ve been convinced voting in their own interest is voting for some radical agenda.
This is true and I don’t necessarily think it’s a bad thing. I would encourage those progressives to remain somewhat flexible though. We almost didn’t get the infrastructure bill and the inflation reduction act which are some of the best bills to come out under the Biden Administration because of progressive stonewalling in the opposite direction that Manchin was stonewalling.
I don’t want in fighting to make the Democratic party ineffective at governance similarly to how MAGA made the Republican party ineffective at governance.
Energizing the cities in Texas also forces the GOP to spend time and money defending their strongholds. Biden doesn’t need to win Texas, but if voters show up and elect more down-ballot representatives at state and local levels, that will be good for Texas and by extension the rest of the nation.
Huh…
Excellent points, truly didnt consider. Now if only we could get Joe to also go after WI, MI, and PA harder… i think those are key.
H. Clinton made the mistake in 2016 of not campaigning everywhere. DNC made the same mistake in many, many elections over the years.
The DNC needs to campaign in every possible place, obviously they need to have a bigger spend, and a bigger push in swing states, but the more they campaign everywhere, the more down ballot Dems get attention. They need more than a president to get shit done.
Start adding more progressives to the house and (maybe someday) the senate, and we’ll start turning this ship around.
Agreed. My local area put a progressive (u know, an actual one) in office a couple election cycles ago and shes been very popular with her constituents.
Progressives are so much easier to elect locally. It’s a much simpler sell to point out local issues with progressive solutions than it is to make larger, sweeping changes at a state or national level.
Bottom up, amigo! When the low level supports more progressives at higher levels, those endorsements from popular local officials will go a long way.
If you look at the primary figures in Texas right now, Dem participation has completely tanked out. Collin Alfred got less than half the votes Ted Cruz racked in during the primary. The Dem polling locations were dead while Republicans stormed to polls to support their guys.
Its going to be a bloodbath in Texas come 2024. Again. Because Dems insist on running the most milk toast, uninspiring, “safe” hack candidates imaginable, for fear of some labor group or environmental movement accidentally forming around someone with a spine.
That’s just because the Democratic Party sucks ass. Look at how they treated Beto.
He was just a big money sponge they could suck dry.