And his administration?

hadn't won the presidency

he was the king of the birther movement. that made him a cultural warrior to the base and a mainstay on right wing media.

republicans running in elections nationwide (including the 2012 repub presidential nominee) sought his endorsement more than they sought those from politicians.

dude really became the shadow republican party leader through anti-obama press hits and tweets.

he was so tapped into the republican base...that he won the 2016 repub primary by defeating the republican establishment and even *fox news (who wanted bush and then cruz). he even took out fox news biggest rising star during his run (megyn kelly). the base chose him over *everyone* (not just his primary opponents).

basically the entire animus of the republican base was a backlash to obama and trump was the clear embodiment of that.

in terms of major bipartisan legislation passed during their 1st term.

infrastructure, postal reform, vawa, innovation/competition act, etc.

legislation that any other administration would be championing and sealing up a 2nd term with.

but these arent front of mind issues that dominate the public discourse with so much other shit going on (inflation/gouging, russia/ukraine, etc).

and democrats just have no interest in media/info strategy to sell their wins/agenda so most people have no idea what theyre doing or why it would benefit them.

shit the bipartisan gun safety bill that was just signed...which would be hailed as a major triumph for any administration after decades of congressional gridlock...got completely drowned out by the supreme court overturning roe v wade.

landscape has changed post-Trump. I have higher expectations of what a Biden administration should be able to do than Obama’s pre-Trump, because 45 completely nuked the concepts around political capital, bi-partisan buy-in, unwritten rules that had never been broken, etc. The entire notion of playing fair is GONE. Obama had to work under the pretense of “reaching across the aisle”, and much of the criticism around him not doing enough is a result of that type of compromise.

So if Obama was in office NOW I’d have different expectations of him than in 08-16. His political capital back then was used up with the ACA.

There’s no way that Biden should have been this much more successful legislatively than Obama, on paper. BHO was playing it way too safe, even for a moderate.

Dem “majority” now in the Senate is Kamala as tiebreaker. Getting the infrastructure bill alone through (worth reading if you have mad extra time) was darn near a miracle. They packed a lot of policy/funding in there

Peace,

Spirit (Alan)
http://wutangbook.com

Or at least his admin is.

I know the popular thing now is to shit on any Democratic politicians except for the branch Bernidians, but I will argue both for the success of Biden and Obama. People who won't acknowledge the obstacles any modern Dem president faces are both willfully obtuse and usually politically ignorant.

*shrug*

I wonder if it's anything they do or don't do. I wonder if people see how the other side fights, and then see how democrats respond and generally operate. I wonder if they shit on them because they're actually paying attention.

Who exactly are you referring to here?

And it's funny when you say that there's a trend of "shitting on Democrats" when the main trend to be observed remains lame name-calling on people like Bernie Sanders (like you just did) - who is somebody who has actually been criticized for how close he is to Biden and how much he's trying to work with Biden to accomplish goals.

Incidentally, most of Biden's "progressive" accomplishments that you are lauding are ideas that he adopted from Bernie Sanders. But go off.

-->

...FUCK now I'm doing it

I think Biden beats trump easily in 16 if he runs.

would beat trump.

Also Biden was in politics for a long time and it seemed like he wanted to retire.

have been capable of beating and she COULD have won if she ran a better campaign at the end there.

Even with her bad campaign if Comey doesn’t drop that letter right before the election.

into crazy right-wing conspiracy territory?

the introduction of Sarah Palin as a legitimate candidate to the vice-presidency was a hi-five to the right-wing populist thought that embraced all the racial anxiety white folks had over the blk candidate.... imho

but she definitely gave dumb white folk a ton of confidence.

Karen with a 7th grade education “she makes me feel like I could be President”

that isn’t a good thing

No modern politician had tapped into the whole anti-elite, anti-intellectual, eternal grievance, the media's out to get you, post-truth.. fuck decorum, say exactly what you're thinking, thing quite like her.

when mccain lost, and everyone acted like she was a huge mistake, and republicans were talking about 'autopsy' and how they could make the party more inclusive... Trump saw the opposite. that she's where the energy of the party was and leaned into it.

it's hard to 'blame' mccain, because there were so many factors that led to Trump winning when he was never supposed to, but she was def the template.

Biden's more progressive than Obama?
Obama was a Reaganite.
Biden told Reagan he was too soft on black people.

These people are on crack

Really Really really great

May that continue to be the case

They are comparing 1st term accomplishments by Biden to Obama.

I do think Biden has accomplished more in his first term in regards to getting things through Congress but Obama was able to accomplish something more significant with healthcare.

A lot of the things progressives complained about (Afghanistan, drones, putting more money in the hands of people during an economic downturn versus corporations) Biden has addressed and things that were seemingly less commented on (Biden is super pro-union, Biden has put more black women in the appellate court than there have been black woman during the entirety of the court's existence, Biden has the most diverse cabinet in history, Biden has put the most diverse bunch of judges in the courts and has been doing it at a lightening pace, a motherfucking black woman supreme court justice), Biden has done that too.

Nobody's saying that Biden is the most progressive politician ever, nor that there arent still many areas that need work, but yes he is more progressive than previous presidents.

so all that representational/"diverse" shit is meaningless if their actual political beliefs aren't any different than the white folks that would otherwise be in the seats.

They aren't, so that's not "progressive".


If you think Biden is putting money in the hands of people over corps since he's been in office, I really don't know what you have been watching. This is the worst housing crisis in our lifetimes and it ain't close. There are forced food shortages that are caused solely by corporate supply chain controls (and yes the president has power to stomp that shit out, immediately). Dude didn't even give the stimulus funds to the public that he ran on.

Biden's DOJ *requested* this rightwing Supreme Court to protect police departments from lawsuits related to Miranda violations just two weeks ago.

That's saying nothing of all the money he's been throwing at police depts and the Military.

Biden is a right wing loon. Obama was center right.

Lol, no need to take this any further. Good day to you sir 🙂.

then, yes, we're just saying "anything"
FOH

...domestically he's been fucking awful as expected

I find the usage of that term very interesting

Headlines read...progressives criticize Biden...

AOC
Ilhan Omar
Warren...are Democrats

Why present it as waring factions within the party?
Joe is supposed to be the big tent guy

Why the separation?
When does the... establishment Democrats are happy...headline run...?
Is everyone not considered a progressive fine with what's currently happening?

the lunatics of the Republican Party.

I think he offered up Merrick Garland as a Supreme Court nominee as an attempt to appease the right instead of picking a black woman nominee and dive in head first to a cultural war with a GOP opposing the first black woman nominee.

At the time it made a lot of sense to put up Garland I think, in hindsight I see a different strategy of going to war would have either had the same result or even a win.

I do think the biggest mistake of Obama's term was not fighting like hell to get his Supreme Court nominee through.

Trump getting 3 Supreme Court nominees and a tax cut through really means his single term was a smashing success by GOP measurements.


**********
"Everyone has a plan until you punch them in the face. Then they don't have a plan anymore." (c) Mike Tyson

"what's a leader if he isn't reluctant"

as I mentioned in post 8. Biden should have lessons from both Obomas mistake and everything that happened with Trump against trusting the GOP to be anything but completely dishonest. All political decorum is GONE. Not to mention the fact that Obama had all the direct and indirect 'cism as a block to his political capital.

and in ways has been more progressive. I also think he is facing some challenges that Obama didn't face. Namely, I don't think Obama faced, FROM THE LEFT, the issue of framing everything as a failure. Let the left and the right tell it, Biden has no wins. Even the media is very invested in Biden as Jimmy Carter for some reason.

From the left Obama got a lighter touch, in fact, there were things he should have caught hell from the left (drones) that he got a pass on.

The other big thing is that neither Obama or Biden were elected to be these progressive firebrands. It the part that everyone misses. Biden was elected because he was the most boring candidate to take us back to the Halcyon days of god knows when. Obama faked people out because people assumed he was more progressive then he was because he was black, but he ran as centrist as well.

The problem is as much as the country wants a centrist, you have an other party that is so extreme there is nothing to be centrist too.

I don't know what the future holds, but I think what we currently have is unsustainable.



**********
"Everyone has a plan until you punch them in the face. Then they don't have a plan anymore." (c) Mike Tyson

"what's a leader if he isn't reluctant"

I wasn't really paying that close attention in 2009 and 2010 but I could tell that the Democratic Party and the Obama coalition were not on the same page to help push a more effective agenda. The party is run by a more centrist older group of white women and men, Clintonites mostly, who seek to triangulate rather than directly confront white supremacists.

America has imported more warlord theocracy from Afghanistan than it has exported democracy.

he was a Cuomo Bloomberg type Dem

rich mostly white Dems want tax cuts and racism as well, want to build types of walls

and throw the poor a few wins to keep quiet…

but Dems clowned him and spite kicked in and oddly the Dems had something
to pretend to fight against in him instead of actually doing better

https://www.cnn.com/2022/07/06/politics/anti-abortion-judicial-nominee-joe-biden-kentucky/index.html


The White House informed Kentucky Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear’s office in late June – the day before the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade – that President Joe Biden intended to nominate an anti-abortion Republican as a federal judge in Kentucky, according to emails obtained by CNN on Wednesday through an open records request.


https://www.politico.com/news/2022/06/30/biden-supports-filibuster-carveout-abortion-rights-00043409

President Joe Biden said Thursday that he would support an exception to the Senate filibuster to codify Roe v. Wade and federally protect access to abortion.

old white people have old white ways… lol

Everyone knows I can shit talk Obama's failures as good as anyone...but the issues today are straight up in-your-face fucking emergencies, the other side has gone all in on fascism, and....Biden is sitting on his hands. Like how do you have such a heads up on Roe and not have a fucking plan or messaging?

Everyone screaming he needs more seats is being willfully foolish.


No amount of seats are going to be able to undo what this court has done...and what they are going to do in October in giving even power to state Legislatures to control elections.

Cuz even if Dems miraculously keep both chambers (won't happen but still) and a Dem tri-fecta passes laws to say codify Roe and expend voting rights and restrict access to guns....or whatever things they claim they'd do have they had more seats...

This right-wing court will just strike them down.


Everyone and anyone knew what time it was with the court...all his political capital should have/should be spent on reforming the court or none of this fucking matters.


Plus you add little things like him being unable to sell what successes he's had, how indecisive he's been on shit like student loan debt, etc? There's reasons his approval numbers are in Trump land and its not fake news.


I know the cheerleaders don't like repeatedly hearing about reality, but not only is Biden on pace to be the biggest failure in modern times but he might fuck around and be the last Dem president for generations or...ever. No hyperbole. The coup is still happening.


I was convinced he'd lose to Trump...I was wrong, obviously.

But he was not the guy for this moment. And lets be real, its his whole team- the entire old guard.

Reading poems and listening to Lin Manuel and talking about deficit reduction while the ship is literally on fire and sinking.

https://cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/220715123924-01b-biden-mbs-fist-bump-super-tease.jpg