this post was submitted on 22 Jun 2024
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Biden has made significant progress for the average person during his presidency, which is disheartening given the potential for even greater impact. It seems he knows that simply meeting basic expectations will be enough to outdo previous leaders.
What potential? Without Congress or the Supreme Court, what potential things could Biden be doing that would have "greater" impact that he isn't doing?
Something that doesn't require a new law, and won't be shot down by a hostile conservative court?
Please give me examples.
Pretty sure the potential lies in changing this.
Vote. Not just for president, but for every office you're able to. Because this shit isn't just "Trump did it!" or "Biden didn't do enough!" It's also the legislators, and a lot of the judiciary they approved (and probably pushed during the Trump administration). Not to mention all the state and local reps that initiate most of the policies that affect people.
It basically all starts with Congress. We could fix so much shit if we ever managed to get a real majority (not 48 Dems and two 'not technically Republicans')
We would just change it to "we could fix so much shit if we ever managed to get a supermajority."
And then redefine "supermajority" to mean 67.
They can't give you any examples and neither can the dorkuses downvoting you. Biden has accomplished a lot with the maggats playing the "I don't wanna" game whenever a dem is in office. He not only had to dig us out of the hole the orange menace left us in, he also has to cure cancer, be the first human to step on Mars, etc and even then people will find something to bitch about.
With any luck (and a lot of hard work) we will have Biden for a second term and then a dem to replace him in 2028 so at least 12 years of the adults running things. Then maybe we can get some shit done and stop trying to tread water at best.
HRC will win the primaries in 2028 and we'll be having the same argument we're having now. Pro-corporate trash isn't doing the trick.
Biden could fix everything and walk on water and they'd still hate for some bullshit that isn't true or above their room temp iq.
He could get caught trying.
He could frame a big-picture vision of what he and Democrats value, expressed in terms that speak to Americans emotionally. He could push for policies that Republicans and the Supreme Kangaroo Court will shoot down, and then go to the American people and blame them for taking away good things that everybody wants.
The student-loan debt relief effort had about 1 1/2 of those things. The rest of the time he tends to talk about particular bills and policies. Republicans can stop those, and those things become dead letters, but dreams and hopes are evergreen.
It takes immense amounts of time and effort to bring new items like this forwards, so each item you choose to do means time and money that can't be used bringing a different policy forwards.
Based on that why should Biden waste his time developing and bringing forward policies that the Republicans are obviously going to immediately shoot down, it just prevents him from being able to work on things that might actually get passed
No, it really doesn't. I can think them up by the dozens. If they're not going to pass, there's no reason to lay all the groundwork. But they're still good for rhetorical purposes.
Sure you can think up the tag line line liner title for each item but what about all the details? How will they work the restrictions the requirements the funding. How much of that requires large amounts of work just to be shutdown and tossed by the Republicans
This is why Democrats struggle so badly, so I'll say it straight up: It's about sales. Reich is complaining that the public doesn't lose its shit over arcane policy details. Yeah, sit down for this truth bomb (/s): That's human nature. It's not fair. It's not right. It's not good. It's just the way it is. Complaining about it won't help, or change the content of headlines.
So somebody asks for examples of what can Biden do when he's blocked by Congress? I say: Sell, sell, sell. Get in the PR game. Put on a show that the people in the cheap seats can enjoy. (That is a metaphor for a rhetorical spectacle that even politically unengaged citizens will hear about.) Show everybody that the problem is in Congress.
What do the details matter? The headline is all that people will hear, and Republicans will block it, anyway. He needs to sell the perception that Democrats are trying. The details can come later, after they get the votes.
This is how you end up with poorly thought out legislation.
I'm doing 1000 calculations in my head and they're all wrong
How? Or, why does it matter? It's not going to pass the House.
Because any president doing this immediately comes across as a 5 year old pretending to have a magic wand.
I'm looking at the list of a dozen items you made - you can't just say "I want this" and not have a detailed plan for how it's meant to be executed - where the money comes from, what effects it's expected to have, etc.
When you are proposing legislation that you know won't be able to be made into law, you're just virtue signaling since even you believe there's no real-world impact. People are even frustrated with Bidens attempts as they are - I've definitely read frustrated comments here talking about how Bidens approach to relieving student debt is so poorly thought out that nobody will actually benefit.
I'll note that in 2016 the U.S. elected a petulant 5-year-old pretending to have a magic wand, so...
So we should do the same again?
We're very close to having one of those 5-year-olds with a magic wand get elected soon.
It's time for you to realize that the dynamics that you think are in place aren't, or don't work the way you expect them to. Maybe you should listen to some of the people you dismiss so easily.
Or maybe you and others on this thread should just go ahead and downvote anything that doesn't agree with you... and lose again.
I can't believe asking for how we'd pay for proposed policy changes and what they think the long term effects of their proposed policies will be is now controversial.
What a time to be alive.
Dozens? Off the top of your head? Name a dozen, for science.
Details, schmetails. The post is a complaint by Robert Reich that voters aren't paying attention to details. And ITT, plenty of Lemmings pointing out that Biden can't pass very many policy proposals, anyway. The idea is to sell the perception that Democrats understand and care about issues facing Americans.
The big picture comes first to get Democrats elected, then get down to the details.
This document should cover many of the points, so it'll be referred to a lot.
None of these were serious policy proposals, but intentionally glib, tossed-off ideas. The idea is that most non-political-nerds (I am one, no insult intended) don't pay attention to policy details. Tossing out hollow policy proposals that nevertheless excite people is only one possible tactic to address the important truth: Democrats need to get better at big-picture messaging, because they're failing to inspire people.
That's the thing though, you tossed out ideas that should matter to the American people if Democrats proposed them only to be opposed by Republicans, but we see that already has happened, and as far as I can tell, folks don't care.
The president doesn't have the power to do any of that.
Shame on you for saying that! I'm sure you'll be downvoted.
He's boring and uninspirational and isn't accomplishing anything of note... but you should not question any of that!
Just rah-rah until defeated, and repeat.
Maybe we could start by not aiding a genocide? Just spitballing here...
I'm just glad he's not using a sharpie to write "finish them" on bombs instead of pushing for a cease fire.
You mean the bombs Biden shipped to Israel? Did the sharpie make them extra deadly or something?
Lol bud all Biden's "resistance" to Bibi is going to disappear the moment the election results come in. And you'll still defend Biden anyway.