Slavery.
The Biden Presidency
- Thread starter Raoul
- Start date
-
In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik (@Rood) was joined by comedian Ali Woods to look back at the best and worst moments of a rollercoaster season with the annual United Hour Awards.
Has Ten Hag been sacked yet? We're not sure and we hope not, but it's looking more likely as the days pass.
Who should replace him and why is it taking so long to make a decision?
INSIDE BIDEN’S MEETING WITH CIVIL RIGHTS LEADERS
https://theintercept.com/2020/12/10/biden-audio-meeting-civil-rights-leaders/
https://theintercept.com/2020/12/10/biden-audio-meeting-civil-rights-leaders/
Cruz suggests Senate Republicans will block Biden cabinet nominees indefinitely
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/20...ill-block-Biden-cabinet-nominees-indefinitely
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/20...ill-block-Biden-cabinet-nominees-indefinitely
Tweet
— Twitter API (@user) date
ooh, i hadn't thought of this
looking forward to it...
just around the corner ...
all those policies, yes, i like policies
absolutely, they can't jeopardise everything they've fought for since march
Last edited:
I suppose the question one might ask is - why would Biden nominate people to his cabinet at the behest of some progressive advocacy group, where the nominees they are advocating clearly don't agree with Biden's own policy platform ?ooh, i hadn't thought of this
looking forward to it...
just around the corner ...
all those policies, yes, i like policies
absolutely, they can't jeopardise everything they've fought for since march
For instance, their list rather laughably includes people like Ro Khanna, Kristen Gillibrand, or Barbara Lee as recommended Defense Secretary, and Keith Ellison as Attorney General. None of these people agree with Biden's overall policy platform, and so it ends up basically coming across as a laundry list of people progressive pundits think should be in a centrist Dem administration in order to subvert it from within.
By the logic of those posts, progressives, by working for him, were building a broad coalition in which they get "seats at the table".
By definition both sides aren't going to see eye-to-eye on everything, that's why it's a coalition, with all the implied compromise and moderation that everyone craves. For example, progressive were working hard to elect him even though he pomised to veto M4A and opposes the Green New Deal, since Biden-progressive differences are less than Biden-Trump differences. That's how adult politics and compromise work! Thank god!
Progressives haven't got a single seat, so that entire theory is wrong.
Seat at the table doesn't mean they get complimentary cabinet secretaries who disagree with his overall policies - it means they can shape Dem policy by compromising partially on their own ideas and having establishment Dems do the same, which is precisely happened with the Sanders-Biden policy task force. This is the only way both sides can work together to come up with a big tent policy.
https://apps.npr.org/documents/document.html?id=6983111-UNITY-TASK-FORCE-RECOMMENDATIONS
Seat at the table means influence in cabinet, they have none. I am satisfied that my prediction here is correct.
That post also has my thoughts about what the task force and resultant policy will amount to. I'm confident that it too will be correct.
Biden is still looking forward to reaching out across the aisle and working with these people.
The problem is that progressives aren't interested in compromising on their policies. How would you (for example) compromise on dogmatically inflexible policies like M4A or Green New Deal. You can't, therefore its very convenient to claim the other side aren't living up their end of the bargain when you yourself aren't willing to collaborate with them to create a compromise. That's what seat at the table means - the ability for both sides to get together and hammer out a compromise that includes equities both sides can agree to. M4A and all the other progressive positions are incompatible with compromise, because doing so would water them down, which is of course something progressive pundits (which are different from ordinary voters) won't agree to.
Once again, a seat at the table means influence *inside* the administration.
The progressives who believe in this strategy - Bernie, AOC, etc in the legislature, and think-tanks like DFP - fully endorsed Biden, touted him to their followers as a chance to have the most progressive presidency ever, raised money for him and the party, and did this all before winning any personnel or policy concessions. They have not just shown compromise, they have shown that most storied political gift - pragmatism. They showed this pragmatism again when, as you pointed out, Bernie and Biden had a task force to come up with joint policies. You take that task-force seriously, and these progressives do too, and it showed very directly that they can compromise on climate policy. There are many piecemeal healthcare policies, like drug importation and a public option, which these progressives are happy to support without having an enitre M4A along with it. For example, Bernie is the sponsor of a drug importation bill in the senate which is totally divorced from M4A legislation. He's the sponsor of successful bipartisan legislation to stop helping Saudi bombing of Yemen, without linking it to a broader defence policy or budget cuts. Flexibility, and the ability to find common ground! And yet, Biden will not appoint these pragmatic progressives, that worked for his campaign to his cabinet.
Perhaps this was right?
Couldn't be, he's a dead-ender who doesn't understand politics.
There was no pragmatism in voting for Biden. It was the only choice unless they were hoping for a 2nd Trump term. The pragmatism bit only comes into play when you are negotiating actual policies and demonstrate a flexibility to compromise, which as you pointed out, does occasionally exist on a few specific policies like prescription drugs and others.
That's what pragmatism means.
Superficially but not at the deeper policy level that we are talking about. It still requires compromise when dealing with specific issues that the Dem party and Biden administration.
I'd say it's an even more meaningful compromise if you don't think you're ultimately going to get any of your political issues through. I'd also say the very act of supporting Biden and helping him get elected was part of that policy compromise. And while there are surely hardliners out there who wouldn't accept any sort of compromise, I think it's unfair to claim that unwillingness to compromise is somehow a "progressive" trait. Your follow-up argument that progressives refuse to compromise and then accuse the other side of refusing to compromise could just as easily be turned on its head.
Oh we'd love to compromise, it's just that the progressives don't want to compromise, shame on them.
The election itself wasn’t a compromise for the progressives, given that their platform had already been vanquished by the voters by way of Biden winning the nomination. They lost, Biden won - so helping Biden win the Presidency was their only choice since another four years of Trump would’ve resulted in far greater damage to their polices . Therefore it was more so an act of desperation than something that happened out of inspiration. Ultimately, when you are on the losing side, you have no leverage to impose your entire platform on the winning side or complain that your demands aren’t being met. You take what you are given and try to make the most of it.
We hear Biden and his camp saying "we want compromise" when in fact they don't. They want progressives to shut up and suck it because they lost the primaries and there's no other option because Trump.
" their platform had already been vanquished by the voters ", so intra-party politics are also winner takes all? Don't the millions who voted for Bernie or Warren deserve something in the new admin?
" their platform had already been vanquished by the voters ", so intra-party politics are also winner takes all? Don't the millions who voted for Bernie or Warren deserve something in the new admin?
i agree. you have explained nicely why there was never going to be a seat at the table. you should tell this guy though:
You'd have to define what you mean by "something", and how that something would move the needle in terms of policy for progressives, when the purpose of working in the Biden admin is to advance Biden's own agenda that he ran on.
What that means is that he will bend over for the Republicans and call it bipartnership, which will in turn bring unpopular policies in the name of pragmatism, leading to another Trump like figure in the future. Rinse and repeat.
That's precisely what bipartisanship is. He literally ran on that as a central part of his agenda.
With all this presumed in-fighting likely to take place in Biden's new team, it sounds like the Democrats could win the numbers in the Senate but still fail to control it if Joe doesn't move far enough to the left?
Picking some people he keeps saying he wants to compromise with to work for him would be something. And surely having those people there would move the needle. Isn't that how politics work? Biden wouldn't get 100% of what he wants, progressives wouldn't either. Compromise. Sure, Biden won, so the needle would be more to his side, but being 0-16 like the pic above shows, is a sign he doesn't want to compromise with progressives. If that's the case, then why should progressives vote for the democrat nomination?
Far enough to the left? He's not even in the center at this point.
The organization is not an official representative of progressive interests - they are a third party advocacy outfit looking to promote people they think should be in the Biden administration. And as stated earlier, Biden already has a full set of policies that he ran on to become President and needs cabinet secretaries who would implement his policies. Therefore, he's obviously not going to select the likes of Barbara Lee to run the Defense Department or Keith Eliison to be AG. He has put Janet Yellen into the Treasury job which got high props from Elizabeth Warren, so if he adds more people, they are probably going to be in a similar category to that.
Do you think when the whole cabinet is picked, progressives will be happy with the compromise?
Progressives aren't a monolithic voting block as some might like to think of them as. There are different gradations ranging from the Warren to Sanders to the hard left socialists. Obviously, the people on the far left aren't going to care either way because they don't think anything positive will ever come of a Biden presidency. The Sanders people will be somewhat disappointed because they listen to too many YouTube pundits who frame their debates for them. The Warren people are probably going to be reasonably pleased because there are a lot of women in Biden's cabinet and Warren herself has already spoken favorably about the Yellen pick, such as so.
Tweet
— Twitter API (@user) date
In the end, none of this will matter since Biden is definitely not going to appoint someone who works against the policies that he himself just ran on and was elected to implement.
went back and read this post and saw this reply got a like. Great stuff all aroundI call someone a schmuck and get band for a week. Someone calls me a nihilistic arsehole and gets a like.
Biden won't implement half of what he's promised.
Agreed. Most Presidents don't - usually because they can't get congressional support to do so.
You deserve to be banned for that.
Fair enough, I won't go deeper because I'm not american so it's hard to identify all the different groups. I still think Biden doesn't want to compromise with those on his left and is more willing to compromise with republicans, that will cost the party in the long run because there's zero incentive to vote, let's say, Harris if she's running against a generic republican like Romney. This time worked because it was Trump on the other side.
Do yourself a favour and read up on the separation of powers doctrine.
Its not flawed, its entirely designed to make it difficult for people like Trump to maintain absolute control. If anything, its works incredibly well under this muppet despite his efforts to undermine it.
But what it does require to be effective is bi-partisanship and we know McBitch aint interested in that.
I know all about Montesquieu, thanks mate, and I know also that it's possible to have separation of powers without the shitshow that American politics is today. You can't seriously be suggesting that the US system isn't flawed.
He also got warned for that post, to be fair.
Most of these systems are flawed by design which means they're not truly flawed. There are other elements of the US system which are flawed, but you cannot get away that the seperation of powers has somewhat worked under the Trump admin. Which given what it was intended to do and this cnuts attempts to interfere with it, has actually worked.
This shit show has nothing to do with the system but the self preserving and selfish behavior of the people enforcing it.
I got a warning for it. Then again, I also got a series of private congratulations. So make of that what you will.