President Biden was derided here for his naivete in saying that he believed that he could get some bipartisan legislation passed. He has been derided here “as the weakest” president in forever, but he got some strong legislation passed with only our caucus even with two problem senators. He has an amazing job record. The dog caught the bus and D voters are more motivated than R voters; look at what happened in Kansas. Yes, there is worldwide inflation and supply chains have been challenged by the pandemic, but President Biden has a strong record to run on. He got more accomplished with a more narrow and weaker majority than anybody had a right to expect.
Exhibit 1:
Biden’s a dinosaur in terms of contemplating today’s world. He believed he would get everyone together and be friendly and make deals, in part aided by the Republican “epiphanies” after the Trump cloud was off of their heads. He really did believe that the fever was about to break, and that he would be able to look people in the eyes and do the “I’m serious now” whisper and get good faith responses and compromise, as though this was still the 70’s and ruthless, endless, bottomlessly greedy corporate money wasn’t controlling politics like it is.
So now that he has very slowly recognized that his very naive Plan A did not work, he is relying on the other tricks from 50 years ago
Exhibit 2:
The President betrayed us by empowering Manchin and McConnell to drain his post-election momentum for the bipartisanship
Exhibit 3:
Biden made a grave error believing that bipartisanship was really going to work. And that his Senate tenure would be enough to sway sufficient enough numbers of Republicans and he would not have to " fight" people in his own party. He was naive
Exhibit 4:
After serving two terms as VP to Obama, I find it quite disturbing that Biden is only waking up to the problem now. No one can be that naive, that long. It is willful myopia, an absolute refusal to believe that what is going on before their eyes is actually going on.
Exhibit 5:
It is way, way past naivete at this point.
The man has had a front row seat for fifty years of spiraling down.
There is no excuse or justification for it.
If he is in some time warp then he isn't fit for the office.
The President must operate in reality not some phantom nostalgia that at best is long gone and I'm talking decades here.
He was Obama's Vice President for crying out loud!
There is no excuse and no good explanation.
Exhibit 6:
Which is beyond naive and runs deep into the fucking dangerously stupid territory.
Exhibit 7:
Biden was extremely naive to believe Republicans were sane after their response to 1/6
Exhibit 8:
What is maddening about this administration is how obvious these blunders are even as they are committing them. Team Biden seems so amateurish. There are people here who have far better instincts than the Biden people have demonstrated.
I am over this guy. His best move at this point is to accept: 1) he is really, really old and not very inspiring, 2) while he may still have Jim Clyburn’s support in a state that hasn’t voted for a Dem since Jimmy Carter, he has lost the progressive core nationally, 3) he isn’t going to recover from these numbers, and 4) ha is going to drag ever other Dem down with him.
As a quote below shows, the main complaint that Americans have with President Biden is inflation. Inflation is worldwide and the American Rescue Plan and the bipartisan infrastructure law helped the economy create huge numbers of jobs. This might have slightly added to inflation, but it is not the major cause because, again, inflation is worldwide. And getting a huge number of Americans working was more important. Given that inflation is worldwide, then it is impossible to believe that any other president (ie. a President Bernie Sanders ...) would not have equal levels of inflation and, thus, the same approval rating that President Biden has. The author of that post made the mistake of believing that every voter and every democrat is unhappy with President Biden for the same reason they are, that President Biden can’t remove the free agency of Senators Manchin and Sinema. Most democrats aren’t unhappy with President Biden because he can’t remove the free agency of Senators Manchin and Sinema. They are unhappy because of inflation, but there is no person or group of people in this country who could prevent inflation from hitting this country.
Some progressives [and I certainly consider myself progressive] may be unhappy that President Biden can’t remove the free agency of Senators Manchin and Sinema, but the fact is that no matter who was president, they would not be able to do better than President Biden has with this narrow a majority. The fact is that our “majority” is 50-50 and the 50th vote comes from a US senator who represents a state that Donald Trump won by nearly 40 percentage points in both 2016 and in 2020, a state in which President Biden could not crack 30 percent of the vote, a state with zero democrats holding statewide office. Nobody can force Senator Manchin to vote for or against something if he refuses to do so. That’s a fact.
Now, let’s take a look at all that has been done and is about to be completed in only a 2 year window coming off of COVID, a weak economy with fewer people employed at the end of Trump’s term than at the beginning, and with the most narrow majority in the Senate possible, one with the 50th vote coming from a senator who represents West Virginia.
Another 528,000 jobs were created last month adding to the great jobs numbers President Biden has already put up. This means that it is a good economy despite worldwide inflation caused by the pandemic.
But the U.S. is hardly the only place where people are experiencing inflationary whiplash. A Pew Research Center analysis of data from 44 advanced economies finds that, in nearly all of them, consumer prices have risen substantially since pre-pandemic times.
Inflation across the world
The Biden jobs boom is historic.
President Biden’s signature legislation, the American Rescue Plan Act, accelerated the economic recovery when it lost momentum
The latest data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics show that the labor market has added 7.9 million jobs since President Joe Biden took office in January 2021.1 His administration has made the revival of a flagging economy its top priority, with an emphasis on providing more assistance to struggling families. In early March 2021, Congress passed the administration’s American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA). In the 13 months from March 2021 through March 2022, the economy added 7.2 million jobs.2
Were President Biden’s policies the cause of this boom? This much is clear: The data show that his fiscal policies directly accelerated job growth, with the ARPA leading to the creation of 1 million to more than 4 million additional jobs since it went into effect.
And
President Biden is skeptical that we are in a recession and the latest jobs numbers suggest he is correct.
The jobs report suggests President Biden is right about a recession.
The strong jobs report was welcome news for President Biden, who has insisted in recent weeks that the United States is not in recession, even though it has suffered two consecutive quarters of economic contraction.
But the report also defied even the president’s own optimistic expectations about the state of the labor market — and appeared to contradict the administration’s theory of where the economy is headed.
Mr. Biden celebrated the report on Friday morning. “Today, the unemployment rate matches the lowest it’s been in more than 50 years: 3.5 percent,” he said in a statement. “More people are working than at any point in American history.”
Even CNBC admitted that these jobs numbers are signs of strength for the jobs market. Wages are increasing as well although not at the rate of inflation.
ECONOMY
Payrolls increased 528,000 in July, much better than expected in a sign of strength for jobs market
- Nonfarm payrolls rose 528,000 for the month and the unemployment rate was 3.5%, easily topping the Dow Jones estimates of 258,000 and 3.6%, respectively.
- Wage growth also surged, as average hourly earnings jumped 0.5% for the month and 5.2% from a year ago, higher than estimates.
Democratic Party voters are leading in the generic ballot.
The Senate passed adding Sweden and Finland to NATO in a bipartisan 95 to 1vote.
Lincoln Project highlights what happened in Kansas as a result of the Dobbs abomination — In one of the most conservative states in the country, in a state in which Republican Party voters outnumber Democratic Party voters 2 to 1, voters turned back by 20 percentage points an attempt to write an outright ban on abortion into the state constitution. A bipartisan team fought back against these attempts. The Roe Earthquake is REAL!
The Roe earthquake is real
It would have been a victory for Democrats and abortion rights activists if they’d even kept it close in Kansas.
Instead, as the heavily Republican state rejected an anti-abortion constitutional amendment, it marked a political earthquake with the potential to reshape the entire midterm campaign.
In the first test of abortion politics since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, turnout soared in Kansas despite a heat advisory and little else to draw Democrats to the polls. Yet in a state where Trump beat President Joe Biden by nearly 15 percentage points in 2020, the amendment was failing badly — in a brushback to Republican legislators who were preparing to move legislation restricting abortion.
CHIPS and Science Act was passed to increase manufacturing and production of semiconductor chips here to protect us against a dangerous reliance upon another foreign power.
President Joe Biden is set to sign into law a bipartisan bill to invest billions of dollars in domestic semiconductor manufacturing and science research, with the aim of boosting U.S. competitiveness with China and other foreign rivals.
The legislation marks a win for Biden, who campaigned on reaching across the aisle and has pushed Congress to pass the legislation as a matter of necessity for America’s economy and national security.
The bill, dubbed the Chips and Science Act, includes more than $52 billion for U.S. companies producing computer chips, as well as billions more in tax credits to encourage investment in chip manufacturing. It also provides tens of billions of dollars to fund scientific research and development, and to spur the innovation and development of other U.S. technologies.
The House and Senate passed the bill last week with near-unanimous Democratic support. One-third of Republican senators backed the bill, including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky. Two dozen House Republicans also voted for it, though others withdrew their support on the eve of the final vote after Senate Democrats unveiled plans to quickly pass an unrelated partisan reconciliation bill.
Republicans folded after their 180 degree flip on providing for the care of veterans especially those whose health was wrecked by exposure to burn pits led to condemnation from veterans groups and veterans activist Jon Stewart. The Honoring our PACT Act was passed with a strong bipartisan majority.
The U.S. Senate passed the Honoring Our PACT Act on Tuesday night in an 86-11 vote, expanding health care for 3.5 million of America’s veterans who were exposed to toxic burn pits in the post 9/11-era.
The American Rescue Plan passed which kept Americans afloat during these perilous times and which led to the strong jobs growth. Here is an overview of what was in it.
The bipartisan infrastructure legislation passed.
President Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law
Congress passed the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act), a once-in-a-generation investment in our nation’s infrastructure and competitiveness. For far too long, Washington policymakers have celebrated “infrastructure week” without ever agreeing to build infrastructure. The President promised to work across the aisle to deliver results and rebuild our crumbling infrastructure. After the President put forward his plan to do exactly that and then negotiated a deal with Members of Congress from both parties, this historic legislation is moving to his desk for signature.
And now we have the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 which will be law by this time next week because we now have all 50 members of our caucus in the Senate on board.
SUMMARY: THE INFLATION REDUCTION ACT OF 2022
The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 will make a historic down payment on deficit reduction to fight inflation, invest in domestic energy production and manufacturing, and reduce carbon emissions by roughly 40 percent by 2030. The bill will also finally allow Medicare to negotiate for prescription drug prices and extend the expanded Affordable Care Act program for three years, through 2025.The new proposal for the FY2022 Budget Reconciliation bill will invest approximately $300 billion in Deficit Reduction and $369 billion in Energy Security and Climate Change programs over the next ten years.Additionally, the agreement calls for comprehensive Permitting reform legislation to be passed before the end of the fiscal year. Permitting reform is essential to unlocking domestic energy and transmission projects, which will lower costs for consumers and help us meet our long-term emissions goals.
There was also a gun violence and gun reform law passed with a bipartisan majority, something almost nobody believed was possible.
Biden Signs Gun Bill Into Law, Ending Years of Stalemate
The bill is the most significant gun measure to clear Congress in nearly three decades, though it falls short of more restrictive gun control proposals that Democrats favor.
President Biden was able to have the world’s most wanted terrorist killed in a stunning success without civilian casualties without troops on the ground.
The US drone strike that
killed Zawahiri on his balcony in downtown Kabul was the product of months of highly secret planning by Biden and a tight circle of his senior advisers. Among the preparations was a small-scale model of Zawahiri's safe house, constructed by intelligence officials and placed inside the White House Situation Room for Biden to examine as he debated his options.
For Biden, the opportunity to take out the world's most wanted terrorist, one of the masterminds of the September, 11, 2001, attacks, was fraught with the risk of accidentally killing civilians in the Afghan capital
And
None of his family members were hurt, and there were no civilian casualties.
And all of this with the most narrow majority possible and with the 50th vote coming for a US senator who represents West Virginia, a state with zero other democrats representing elected offices won by winning a statewide election, a state in which President Biden didn’t crack 30 percent of the vote, a state which Donald Trump won by nearly 40 percentage points in both 2016 and in 2020.
For a final wtf treat, down is up and up is down, how the Hell did I end up on the same side of an issue as Dick Cheney? How did that happen? Well, here’s her father backing her for defending democracy and taking down Donald Trump!
President Biden ended the war in Afghanistan, a war that has lasted twenty years. He took a lot of heat for it, but he showed political courage. For all the talk that progressives like fighters, they give damn little credit for President Biden for his political courage in ending the Afghanistan War. Since the Afghanis (mostly) decided that their best move was to yield to the Taliban and they didn’t even want to fight for freedom, then it’s unclear why staying there longer would have helped. The military planned the withdrawal. President Biden didn’t plan it. I am sure that the military experts did their best and I have serious doubts that anybody here could have planned it better with few exceptions.
Saturday, Aug 6, 2022 · 7:50:22 PM +00:00
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Dem
Joe Manchin was unlikely to go along with anything a President Bernie Sanders wanted. The reason why isn’t important. That seems pretty clear. Remember what Manchin said about Fetterman and “liberal” and “I guess he’ll do”? Manchin is no friend to progressives. It seems extremely hard to avoid the conclusion that a President Sanders would have gotten less done with this Senate. That’s not meant as a slight to Senator Sanders. It’s just real politics. It’s hard to see anybody else getting more done or even as much done as President Biden has with this Senate.
Saturday, Aug 6, 2022 · 11:05:53 PM +00:00
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Dem
If a representative doesn’t support what the voters want and the voters care about that issue enough, then they vote that representative out. If a position on an issue is popular enough and at first there are not any candidates who support that position on the issue, then somebody who does support that position on the issue will emerge, run, and win. If a position on an issue appears to poll well, but the representative doesn’t support that position on the issue, then it’s not important enough to the constituents of the representative or the representative will lose to an opponent who does support that position on the issue. That’s democracy.
A position may be described with all the bells and whistles and no defects in a poll, but the politician may know that it can’t come with all the bells and whistles and it will have some defects, then the politician is unlikely to support it. There are likely to be some facts that the politician knows, but the respondents don’t know. Medicare for All polls well until it doesn’t. The vast majority of voters either have Medicare or VA or health insurance from their employer or the employer of their spouse. They may be relatively happy with it. They likely know that whatever comes out of the sausage making process isn’t the pristine option some politician proposes or what is described in the poll.
Eliminating all health insurance companies may not be quite as popular as we think it would be.
This is 538 on Medicare for All
Medicare For All Isn’t That Popular — Even Among Democrats
It’s written by Nate Silver.
Medicare for All replacing private insurance polls at 64% and that’s among democrats ONLY. Any guesses as to where the numbers are for republicans? Independents are at 39% and Republicans are at 14%. Overall, only 41% want Medicare for All replacing private insurance. 41%. Does your poll tell voters that Medicare for All will be replacing private insurance and that even if the voter likes and wants to keep their private insurance, they can’t if Medicare for All becomes law?
A public option polls much better.
Medicare for All who choose it, allowing for private insurance polls better, much better actually.
90% of Democrats like it, 46% of Republicans like it, and 70% of independents support it, and overall 70% of voters like it. Voters want a choice. They could reason, if it’s so great, then why be afraid of the competition from private insurers? Or they like what they have and they don’t know what will emerge from Congress, only that it’s unlikely to be as perfect as proposed by a certain politician or as described in a poll. They might be afraid that they will lose their physician. In any event, Americans like choices. It’s consumerism. A very ancient movie called Moscow on the Hudson emphasized this with all the varieties of coffee (it could be some other product) that a naturalized Russian found in a supermarket.
Again, a position on an issue might poll well, but it may not be that important to voters.
Having said that, we have a very anti-majoritarian system (especially the Senate) and that means that a position on an issue has to not only poll really well and be very important to voters, but candidates have to feel that the voters understand pretty well what they would be getting. Otherwise, they may claim to support it but nothing may happen.
So, simply because you have a position that appears to poll well on an issue and yet that position can’t seem to make its way onto legislation that passes Congress and is signed by the president doesn’t mean that corporations are more important than voters. It more likely means that either voters may think it’s cool but don’t really care about it or want it for themselves or that there are details which politicians know will make it unpopular when they are revealed.
Incumbents win re-election at a rate in the mid 80s or better. They get more attention from the media because they hold office. They are able to do something while in office to attract more votes. They are better known. They are easier to envision in that office because they already hold it. This is part of why it is not easy to defeat an incumbent.
Money doesn’t usually alter a politician’s views. They normally have a certain view and those organizations or companies who benefit from that view support that politician for that reason. To even make a plausible case that money changed a politician’s view on an issue, you have to show that they held position a and then were given a lot of money and then the politician adopted position b which is very different from a. Now, that just makes it plausible; that doesn’t mean that money actually altered their views. Companies also know that incumbents are likely to win re-election and, thus, they are likely to support the incumbent.
Money is important to a winning campaign. If you don’t have enough money, then you can’t defend yourself from attacks, you can’t get enough attention, you can't hire enough staff, and you can’t do enough marketing. Usually, by the time a general election rolls around, both the incumbent (if there is one) and their challenger have sufficient money to win. Extra money may help some, but there’s a point at which it stops being decisive. Money usually can’t change the minds of voters if they have reached a decision.
PACs and SuperPACs can’t coordinate with the campaigns of candidates. It’s illegal. Still, they can pick up off of what they see the candidate’s campaign doing. Nevertheless, outside groups and PACs aren’t always that effective even when they throw huge gobs of money around in advertising. This doesn’t mean we shouldn’t end Citizens United. We should. However, I am not so cynical as to believe that corporations and money matter more than the will of voters; nor do I believe that money and advertising can alter the views of voters once they are settled in most cases. If we believed that, we would seem to have to despair and resign our efforts. Voters and votes are what matter most.