politics
Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!
Rules:
- Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.
Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.
Example:
- Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
- Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
- No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive. Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
- Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
- No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
That's all the rules!
Civic Links
• Congressional Awards Program
• Library of Congress Legislative Resources
• U.S. House of Representatives
Partnered Communities:
• News
view the rest of the comments
Obama had a 60 vote supermajority in the Senate before Ted Kennedy died, and after his death, Harry Reid said they'd wait for the Republican guy to get seated before voting on the ACA. SUPER. MAJORITY. When is a Democratic supermajority going to happen in the Senate again?
Yeah, they passed the HEROES Act in 2020 when there was no chance of it defeating a guaranteed Trump veto. Why didn't they pass it again when they had a trifecta 2021-2022? They'll pass doomed-to-fail symbolic legislation all day long, but when there's a chance at doing some real good, they always delay too long, deliver a gutted husk of what they promised, or apparently just forget to get around to it.
On student loans, Biden didn't promise full student loan forgiveness. In fact, he campaigned promising not to do any substantial student loan forgiveness. When his staff and influential people on the Hill finally convinced him to do something on federal student loans, it was not blanket forgiveness. It wasn't even the $50k that they thought they could realistically justify in court. It was $10-20k, and means-tested at that (because Dems can't do anything without their precious means testing to prove that they're financially conservative).
Bill Clinton signed the repeal of Glass-Steagall, with a 55/45 GOP majority in the Senate, and something like a 20-vote GOP majority in the House. He could have vetoed it if he wanted to, if he thought it wouldn't get overridden. This means either:
I'm not sure which option is more damning, but frankly I think both are true. The Clinton Administration explicitly pushed to the right (which they called "triangulation") after they got whooped in the '94 midterms, and the party has continued pushing right ever since.
On your argument that not voting for the Dems won't do any good: The only way to make a party listen to you is to withhold your votes; until you do so, they'll take you for granted. In the 80s, the radical right demonstrated that they'd sit out elections if they didn't have sufficiently fascist and/or stupid candidates to vote for - now they're running the show.
The problem is that the Democratic party establishment does not care if they are the majority. In fact, they'd prefer it if they weren't. They are first and foremost a fundraising operation. If they win, then they actually have to do something good for us, which generally runs contrary to the interests of the party's largest donors. They could have made PR and DC states in the first half of Biden's term - that would have been a lay-up, guaranteeing them some hope of competitiveness in the Senate in the coming decades. So why didn't they?
The result of what you're arguing for is a continuing leisurely descent into fascism, at which point we'd hopefully get a major correction. I'm saying let's cut out the slow leisurely descent part and get a new left-wing party that is actually left-wing. Because with two right-wing parties in power, there's no hope of turning left until they're gone.