Political Discussion

Btsvinylfarm said:
I think that's what Biden is proposing - get back to the Obama years. And for as much as people are revisionist and suddenly under the impression Obama was a phony progressive, let's recall that he risked his political career and Presidency on making the largest change to health insurance in a generation, lost his congress over it; all to ensure A) people with preexisting conditions - the sickest and most vulnerable Americans - could get coverage B) allowing young Americans to stay on their parents' plans much longer and C) boosting overall coverage rates.

The Obama years brought us stability of moderate growth, the longest run of monthly job gains in history, controlled inflation, diplomacy used on the world stage to begin thawing tensions with a rising nuclear threat, and a general sense of maturity/compasion/leadership that we are badly lacking now.

Was it perfect? No. But I'd take it in a heartbeat if I could snap my fingers and make it so. I think Biden offers the chance to do something like that. We need to restore the pillars of the ACA that the GOP has chipped away for the past 6 years. We need to reach a final deal on Dreamers and Immigration - the Gang of 8 bill from 2013 was a perfect approach. We need to restore trade relations with Europe, and refocus Chinese negotiations on intellectual property rights and away from meaningless trade balances. We need to restore repealed regulations that keep Americans safe and out of financial harm. We need someone who trusts experts. We need a return to sanity. I think Biden can do all of that in 4 years.
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He was a left if center moderate who campaigned as a progressive in 08. He did some good but also a lot of corporate whoring.

Biden also happens to be substantially and unapologetically to the right of him. Hell, he might be to the right of Bill too.
 
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Joe Mac said:
I mean acting criminally and using your position as president to subvert the democratic process might just be carrying out your duties as president in a subpar manner?
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Nixon was just paranoid. He had no need to send in the plumbers to Watergate. He won 49 states and 60% of the popular vote AFTER the scandal broke.

But as far as policy and action a President goes? Nixon oversaw the creation of the OMB and EPA. In his first term her pursued welfare/healthcare/civil rights/environmental reforms. He signed Title IX; banning sexual discrimination in education benefits. He expanded enforcement of affirmative action. He supported the amendment to lower the voting age to 18. And my personal favorite, the "peace dividend" - using funds available from reduction of troops in Vietnam to finance social services and enforce civil right. From '70-'75, spending on human services exceeded defense spending for the first time since WWII.

Joe Mac said:
And Eisenhower? Isn’t his legacy that of a presidency of inaction? I mean his lack of a public opposition to McCarthy? Or his inaction on civil rights?
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I don't know, I think the interstate system is a...to quote another..."big fucking deal" ;)
 
Btsvinylfarm said:
Nixon was just paranoid. He had no need to send in the plumbers to Watergate. He won 49 states and 60% of the popular vote AFTER the scandal broke.

But as far as policy and action a President goes? Nixon oversaw the creation of the OMB and EPA. In his first term her pursued welfare/healthcare/civil rights/environmental reforms. He signed Title IX; banning sexual discrimination in education benefits. He expanded enforcement of affirmative action. He supported the amendment to lower the voting age to 18. And my personal favorite, the "peace dividend" - using funds available from reduction of troops in Vietnam to finance social services and enforce civil right. From '70-'75, spending on human services exceeded defense spending for the first time since WWII.


I don't know, I think the interstate system is a...to quote another..."big fucking deal" ;)
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Nixon is literally responsible for the continuation of Vietnam War post '68. How many young people were sent to die so that Nixon could gain power, give an image of someone who was moving things "forward" and begin the steep dismantling of regulations and social programs in the U.S. that has left us with a legacy of corporate fraud and monopolies?

Things like the OMB and the EPA were tokens that were ultimately playing the soon to be yuppies of CA to say to themselves. "he's not such a bad guy." Just my opinion of course but the EPA in particular has done just as much harm, if not more, than good when it comes to addressing the use and abuse of natural resources.

I do agree that he was good at his job as long as you see his job as destroying inner-cities and screwing the country over for self-benefit.... which sadly is more common than just the Nixon administration.

debianlinux said:
Quintessential corporate whoring case study.
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If this isn't the subtitle of the Deb memoir it should be
 
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DownIsTheNewUp said:
I detest Clinton though and view him as the guy who embraced neoliberalism while moving the entire party to the right.
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I have an enormous amount of respect and time for him given the huge impact he had on our peace process. His intervention, together with George Mitchell, were incalculably important and that peace process, as tenuous as the peace can sometimes feel, was an absolute cornerstone to the beginning of the modernisation of our country. Clinton will always be a friend to Ireland.
 
jaycee said:
I do agree that he was good at his job as long as you see his job as destroying inner-cities and screwing the country over for self-benefit.... which sadly is more common than just the Nixon administration.
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Exactly, like Ike's interstate, for example, which was used as an excuse for "urban renewal" and erased countless marginalized and minority communities from city centers.
 
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DownIsTheNewUp said:
I detest Clinton though and view him as the guy who embraced neoliberalism while moving the entire party to the right.
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This argument is the mirror of the one that the UK has over Blair achieving power in 1997 and it can be summarised thus;

Would you rather have someone who does 40-50% of the stuff you want from a position of power or one who offers 100% of what you want and a warm fuzzy feeling in your nethers but does so from a position of perennial opposition?
 
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Also actually on the point of embracing neo-liberalism and moving the party to the right. The same is frequently thrown at the new labour years and it’s bollocks and the unwillingness of the outgoing labour leadership to acknowledge their achievements was an absolute joke.

I’ll preface this by saying that I cannot stand Blair as a personality and that his decision to follow Bush into Iraq and the deception to push it through were reprehensible.

it was impossible to get elected in the 90s without moving to the right and embracing new-liberalism. The only way to help the constituents that vote for labour was to get in promising not to change that status quo, raise the taxes and invest the money. The left failed spectacularly in the 80s. The record of New Labour investment in Education and Health and the impact of in work tax credits and schemes like SureStart should not be wiped from history because necessary political compromises were made to get to power, regardless of feelings about the leader.

Equally, Clinton inherited a budget deficit and relinquished a budget surplus and was an important figurehead internationally in repairing America’s reputation.

Edit: @Ed Selley beat me to it this time!
 
Ed Selley said:
This argument is the mirror of the one that the UK has over Blair achieving power in 1997 and it can be summarised thus;

Would you rather have someone who does 40-50% of the stuff you want from a position of power or one who offers 100% of what you want and a warm fuzzy feeling in your nethers but does so from a position of perennial opposition?
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That depends on what he or she is doing the other 50% of the time.

And in the case of Bill, it was a bunch of shit (NAFTA, financial deregulation, privatization of the public sector) that gutted the middle class of this country and helped cause the Great Recession so your hypothetical is a pretty easy answer.
 
DownIsTheNewUp said:
That depends on what he or she is doing the other 50% of the time.

And in the case of Bill, it was a bunch of shit (NAFTA, financial deregulation, privatization of the public sector) that gutted the middle class of this country and helped cause the Great Recession so your hypothetical is a pretty easy answer.
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Easy provided that no assumption is made of what a Republican administration would have done in the same period or are you actively saying you'd have preferred that? I don't see (and I freely admit, I'm on the wrong side of the Atlantic for all the fine details) how there's a different outcome. More traditional Democratic candidates had got nowhere significant in '84 and '88 so why would they have suddenly triumphed in '92?
 
I've supported Bernie in the primaries the last two elections but I think it is time for him to get out of the race to be honest. His press conference this morning just sounded desperate.
 
Twentytwo said:
I've supported Bernie in the primaries the last two elections but I think it is time for him to get out of the race to be honest. His press conference this morning just sounded desperate.
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How he responds to this as well as his supporters will make a difference in how the progressive movement moves forward.
 
Indymisanthrope said:
It's just a little mnemonic device to help you out anytime you start thinking, "Hey, isn't this exactly the type of thing he was chastising other candidates about doing?" Don't be silly -- it's okay if Bernie does it!
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Ah, because of Warren. I getcha and yes it’s pretty hypocritical. My hope is, if he won’t drop out now; he gives it one last hurrah, with the Debate and next Tuesday but if he get spanked he needs to shut it down and jump on the No Malarkey Express with everyone else.

Then I would hermetically seal Diamond Joe in a bunker somewhere in Delaware and hold Bloomberg to his word, having him air attack ads calling Trump a buffoon real time as he mishandles the pandemic/ market collapse until Election Day.
 
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