• Resonosity@lemmy.world
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    12 days ago

    Don’t forget that Biden was the first president to walk a picket line. No other president had ever done that in America’s history. That single action won over the UAW.

    Then, Biden fought back against the railroad corporations and won a contract for workers that includes PTO and other basic labor necessities.

    Then, Biden reduced fentanyl overdoses, something that no president has done in like 30-40 years.

    Couple this with BBB and IRA, you have a much more progressive president than what people give water to it.

    • pjwestin@lemmy.world
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      12 days ago

      Well, I don’t want to give him too much credit. Biden is and always has been a centrist. He has a mixed history on Civil Rights (cause he’s 120 years old), he has a pretty pro-bank history, he’s supported some anti-consumer stuff (like the anti-bankruptcy laws), and he even helped put Clarence Thomas on the bench. And that’s not even touching on his administration, where Gaza and the border will probably be his lasting legacy. But, two things that he’s always been pretty consistent on were unions and infrastructure, and he read the room in 2020 and leaned heavily into those things.

      • Resonosity@lemmy.world
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        12 days ago

        Oh I agree. He likely made all of those concessions because 1) he wanted to rally the base following the 2020 primaries, and 2) to stick it to the establishment Dems. Seems like Biden has grown to be quite the grumpy old man to those in the party.

        I agree with you in Gaza and the border. Biden has shown no backbone to Netanyahu, and his administration introduced a border bill that echoed a lot of Trump’s sentiments.

        On the whole, it’s hard to make the call on whether Biden or Harris would have been better to run against Trump, but all that matters now is that we continue the message that establishment Democrats got us here by chasing centrism instead of progress. We need to root out a lot of people who actually do the politicking in the party because if those people aren’t out, we’re doomed to make the same mistakes.

        Hasan Piker put it well the other day. If this were a game of sports, underperformers would be benched pretty aggressively. If this were a job, underperformers would be put on a performance plan (hopefully) or fired straight up.

        There are people consulting Democrats that have failed time and again since 2016, hell even 2008. They need OUT.

        • pjwestin@lemmy.world
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          12 days ago

          all that matters now is that we continue the message that establishment Democrats got us here by chasing centrism instead of progress. We need to root out a lot of people who actually do the politicking in the party because if those people aren’t out, we’re doomed to make the same mistakes.

          100% this. On Monday, I’m calling my state and federal representatives and telling them DNC chair Jamie Harrison needs to go. Then I’m gonna start looking for movements that will primary anyone who still thinks incrementalism and centrism are a path forward. From now on, Medicare for All and UBI need to be the bare minimum standard for anyone that wants a D in front of their name.

    • AVincentInSpace@pawb.social
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      12 days ago

      remember earlier this year when leftists were saying biden never did anything and that he was too old, and started refusing to vote for him and calling for him to drop out, and he did?

      remember the six months following that when leftists were complaining that the person they got biden to drop out for wasn’t good enough and how they weren’t going to vote for her?

      and now that trump won suddenly leftists are singing biden’s praises and blaming trump’s win on the DNC picking a shit candidate?

      • Resonosity@lemmy.world
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        12 days ago

        I honestly have no clue how you constructed your conception of “leftists”.

        Leftists != Tankies != Blue MAGA/Anon != Progressives

        Biden did great things while in office. However, the Left has the liberty to continue pushing the current administration to go farther and implement more policies in line with their ideals. This is a force that counters the Right.

        Biden did not go far enough on Gaza, and neither did Kamala. The same goes for corporations like those in the Oil & Gas sector that raised their prices following oil demobilization during COVID, as well as those that kept their prices high even years after like those producing consumer goods. Could have gone farther.

        When the existing administration makes no concessions to those in the base that voted for that administration but not as their first choice, they have the right to criticize and call out the administration’s failure to represent them.

        All of this would be fixed, or at least alleviated if we abandoned our political duopoly in favor of an electoral and congressional system that allowed for more diversity in government. Ranked choice seems to be taking off in many states.

        Oh, and Kamala was great at the beginning. She took over for Biden, then chose Tim Walz. But then her administration attached itself to Biden, the person that spawned her campaign since the Democratic base utterly rejected him following the debate, and then went after the Right in hope of gaining more votes, taking their own base for granted.

        Now that we have the full scope of Kamala’s campaign, she ran on much more conservative values than Biden did in his campaign leading up to the 2020 election.

        This nuance is not something you’ll see in the mainstream media, perhaps not even on Lemmy. But this is the realm that hopefully progressives like me and some Leftists operate in.

        Your mindset is honestly the same that many ignorant people share regarding science and the scientific method. Things can be true for different reasons and at different times.

        • AVincentInSpace@pawb.social
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          12 days ago

          i’m not debating any of that. i’m just kind of mad at leftists for being mad at the DNC for doing exactly what they told them to do.