Biden's Biggest Blunder

Quote: OnceDear

You aren't aware of them now, I won't have anything to persuade you.
Not going to waste one more moment on such a futile effort

Remember when Donald Trump would hold a press conference and answer off the cuff every single question he was asked no matter how long it took. He literally exhausted the Press Corps. I'm not understanding where the 'lies and schemes' were. Just like Obama president Poopypants promised the most transparent Administration ever and it is delivering the most opaque Administration ever. He will not answer questions unless he gets them in advance. Talk about lies and schemes. He says over and over this trillion dollar bill is going to cost us nothing and the Wharton School has just proved it's going to cost taxpayers trillions. Trump had the most transparent presidency in history. People will now say he never released his income tax records! Well guess what, he didn't have to. The problem with liberals is they cannot look past who Trump was as a person and look at what he did for the country. He stopped 90% of illegal border crossings. He made us energy independent. I could go on and on with his accomplishments. All Joe Biden has done is make a fool out of himself, he's accomplished absolutely nothing except to make the country 10 times worse then when he took office.

Quote: Mission146

I obviously agree with your 2022 take, but I'm not so sure about 2024. For one thing, do we evn have any standouts in either party that look like a sure thing for the nomination, much less the Oval Office? I'd be surprised if Biden even runs again. Hell, I WON'T be surprised if he's dead by then and I really don't see Kamala Harris winning the Presidency...especially if she only finishes out a small part of Biden's term. She pretty much got massacred in the primaries and clearly never had a chance, other than by virtue of being the VEEP in and of itself, I haven't seen anything that would make her a stronger candidate now.

So, I think 2024 is going to be NOT Joe Biden v. ????

Agree totally. It's remarkable that no-one from either side is yet shining through as a prospect.

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Which makes it hard to predict. If nothing else, I'm kind of hoping to see a Moderate v. a Moderate in 2024 as recent events (and the voting tendencies of Independents) should demonstrate, pretty clearly, that they really don't care for the extremes of EITHER side now that they have seen the extremes of both and we get back to the status quo of Moderate v. Moderate.

I don't share your optimism. I perceive more polarization than ever before.

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So, my outlook is a little more optimistic, strangely enough. I think we are going to see a referendum against Extreme-(Left or Right) politics.

I can see only one topic. Biden will be a long term lame duck and will become as unpopular as trump. That alone will open the door to anyone that isn't Biden. It will be down to the primaries, and probably only the GOP Primaries as Biden will screw it up for the Dems.

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I don't know what's repugnant, other than White Evangelicals, of course....what do you want the rest of them to do, vote for a wide swath of proposals that would be economically devastating?

The white evangelicals are repugnant in their own way, but I find worse the career Repubs who will follow the trumplican party line regardless of their beliefs just to stay in the game. Anyone with a hint of integrity gets booted or walks away.

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The first thing that needs to happen is an increase (though not to $15/hour) to Minimum Wage and then Index it to inflation thereafter.

UK min wage is equiv of $12.

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Finally, I think you're missing that they don't really HAVE the Senate in the first place.

I see that. Biden doesn't seem to. Biden needs to achieve something. ANYTHING. His spending plans are just going to be diluted and ineffective.
Ever the pessimist, I wonder if world events won't decide your fate. Covid-24? Mischief by China? Russia? NK? Middle eastern nations? Those things didn't go away.
Heck, even strife from Europe as we get pushed to the right by an influx of displaced Afghans and Syrians. Foreign policy was supposed to be Biden's strength.

Quote: OnceDear

IIRC, trump's policies were quite clear:
1: What did Obama build that I can wreck? I'll teach him to mock me at that after dinner speech.
1a
1b
1c
2: What will enrich me the quickest?
3: What will get me the most adulation from my base? Most publicity?
4: What will require least effort so that I can play golf?
5: What does Steve Miller suggest?

Boy I didn't realize the Lefty Kool Aid was so strong in Britain.

Quote: ams288

You thought Biden was weak in 2020 too.

Thought it would be a good idea for Dems to replace him with Cuomo if I remember correctly… 😳

I don’t want to dig through my thousands of posts, but I’m pretty sure I said Cuomo won’t run because of skeletons in his closet! I’ve heard that for years during my Albany political forays. But, yes, until the garbage was exposed I thought he (Cuomo) was centrist enough, and charismatic enough to beat Trump. Biden was weak in 2020. He just was facing a man that enough if the country hated that (virtually) any (reasonable) Democrat could have beaten.

Quote: OnceDear

You see a slight difference here ODG. I accept that the Dems, including Biden, lie and scheme too. Just not very effectively.
But in AZD's mind, the republicans can do no wrong. Trump never lied. Never schemed. Had nobody on his team lying or scheming. no siree. Just good honest to goodness stewardship.

If you are in politics you scheme. But read how the Democrats figured out how the price tag on their bill is 1.75 trillion over the next ten years. Apparently some of the more expensive programs ‘expire’ after 3, 4, or 5 years. Thus there is no cost tallied for years 5-10. Like there is ANY chance that after establishing free community college they will just end it after a few years. Or free child care. Real cost exceeds 3 trillion.

And Pelosi just added the repeal of the SALT tax cap. How many earners making less than $50k a year did that help? How many earners making more than $200k will it help? Where will that list revenue be made up from? How you can slight the Republicans when this is the Democrat Party of 2021. At least there is ONE of them (Manchin) who sees through the subterfuge.

(Not all sections of post quoted)

Quote: OnceDear

I don't share your optimism. I perceive more polarization than ever before.

I think the polarization will still be there, but I tend to also think that the RNC and DNC are going to recognize that the votes of Moderate Independents/Others are going to be absolutely crucial, so they will subversively do whatever they can to promote moderate candidates and avoid the political extremes. Trump is a wildcard if he were to run again, but I think if you end up with Moderate v. Extremist, the Moderate wins easily.

My tendency is to believe that the people who aren't on the Far-??? either side of things are pretty exhausted, at this point. They were probably hoping having a Joe Biden would solve that, it didn't, but I think they'll want to try again.

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I can see only one topic. Biden will be a long term lame duck and will become as unpopular as trump. That alone will open the door to anyone that isn't Biden. It will be down to the primaries, and probably only the GOP Primaries as Biden will screw it up for the Dems.

The last thing that they would want is for him to run again, that's for sure. If he runs against a younger (than him) Moderate Republican, he's going to be pretty screwed. Paul Ryan could be a dark horse, imo.

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The white evangelicals are repugnant in their own way, but I find worse the career Repubs who will follow the trumplican party line regardless of their beliefs just to stay in the game. Anyone with a hint of integrity gets booted or walks away.

The lesson here is most politicians don't have a hint of integrity. I guess the one thing that the Dems have going for them is that they don't typically just straight up cast people out. Of course, Manchin would be the Dem with a target on his back if they did, and when it comes to balance of power in the Senate, turning on Manchin would be suicidal.

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UK min wage is equiv of $12.

That's probably too high to do all at once. I'd be fine with anything in the range of $9.00-$10.00 immediately and then index to inflation. Individual states, as always, can do what they want...so if a given state believes that minimum wage should be a living wage, then they can attempt that. That would best be done, in my opinion, by way of a popular vote ballot measure.

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I see that. Biden doesn't seem to. Biden needs to achieve something. ANYTHING. His spending plans are just going to be diluted and ineffective.
Ever the pessimist, I wonder if world events won't decide your fate. Covid-24? Mischief by China? Russia? NK? Middle eastern nations? Those things didn't go away.
Heck, even strife from Europe as we get pushed to the right by an influx of displaced Afghans and Syrians. Foreign policy was supposed to be Biden's strength.

With apologies, I don't have the time necessary to speak in a reasonably well-informed way as to all matters---so foreign affairs is one thing I pay almost zero attention to and am not in a position to opine.

Quote: Evenbob

... look past who Trump was as a person and look at what he did for the country. He stopped 90% of illegal border crossings. He made us energy independent. I could go on and on with his accomplishments. All Joe Biden has done is make a fool out of himself, he's accomplished absolutely nothing except to make the country 10 times worse then when he took office.

trump achieved a lot of change. Racism achieved nicely. He kept lot's of legal border crossings down too. Energy independence? I'll go with a no on that. trump had only wrecking ball policies and with Putin on the team, he had plenty of influence. None of it constructive. If he had created anything at all, Biden could do the same. Actually wrecking trump's tax cuts for the super rich might have been a decent target. Easier to wreck stuff than fix stuff. I do concur that Biden is looking pretty lame, thanks to his not having Senate control. McConnell has hobbled him proficiently, too.
I await Debt Ceiling, the sequel. Or China or Russia or NK, or Middle East kicking off, or covid 24. They all have plenty of time. I'm not optimistic.

Stay safe.
And give Swiss Chard a try :o) With mushrooms and garlic butter.

Quote: OnceDear

trump achieved a lot of change. Racism achieved nicely. .

(entire post not quoted)

You mean racism in the media. Because in actuality Trump had a huge black following. In fact Kanye West came out yesterday still supporting Donald Trump.

https://www.breitbart.com/entertainment/2021/11/05/kanye-west-backs-trump-trashes-tiktok-cancel-culture-and-margaret-sanger/

Quote: OnceDear

trump achieved a lot of change. Racism achieved nicely. He kept lot's of legal border crossings down too. Energy independence? I'll go with a no on that. trump had only wrecking ball policies and with Putin on the team, he had plenty of influence. None of it constructive. If he had created anything at all, Biden could do the same. Actually wrecking trump's tax cuts for the super rich might have been a decent target. Easier to wreck stuff than fix stuff. I do concur that Biden is looking pretty lame, thanks to his not having Senate control. McConnell has hobbled him proficiently, too.
I await Debt Ceiling, the sequel. Or China or Russia or NK, or Middle East kicking off, or covid 24. They all have plenty of time. I'm not optimistic.

Stay safe.
And give Swiss Chard a try :o) With mushrooms and garlic butter.

I tend to believe that you have to give Trump energy independence, at least, to an extent.

The first thing that it comes down to is how exactly are you defining the term. You can look at it in terms of literally producing more (commodity) on a daily basis than we are using, or merely having the ability to produce more than we use if we needed to. That's kind of an important differentiation to make because importing a commodity makes sense if you can get it more cheaply but are not, in fact, reliant on it.

It's kind of like when the strategic reserves were filled up (under Trump) during Covid-19. When you're getting the crude oil for almost nothing, why the hell wouldn't you fill it up? Apparently, Biden is now talking about tapping into it to reduce gas prices a little bit.

Anyway, towards the middle of 2020 and throughout the rest of Trump's term, I think, "Energy Independent," would be a fair characterization. We certainly didn't need any energy or commodities from elsewhere.

Quote: Evenbob

(entire post not quoted)

You mean racism in the media. Because in actuality Trump had a huge black following. In fact Kanye West came out yesterday still supporting Donald Trump.

https://www.breitbart.com/entertainment/2021/11/05/kanye-west-backs-trump-trashes-tiktok-cancel-culture-and-margaret-sanger/

Was he supporting him when he ran for POTUS in 2020?