At first glance, if it holds, it does appear to capture how a mature, shrewd President who's been to the rodeo more than once mostly held his own against a screaming drooling mob fumbling around with open cans of gasoline and cigarette lighters.
@TonyStark@nomdeb It’s the rope-a-dope strategy by the Democrats. Biden appears willing to poll lower himself in order to get the practical done. Jay Kuo of substack Status Kuo lays it out nicely. What do you do when you’re dealing with crazies? I know from my own family you can’t convince with facts and rationality.
@TonyStark It shows president who doesn't have principles, and is willing to concede to republicans for a deal he can call bipartisanship compromise. Deht ceiling is political game that does nothing for the budget, revenue, spending, annual deficit, national debt. Biden has power under 14th Amendment to declare it unconstitutional, to ignore it, and to continue operating government as normal. He could make history. Instead he chose to play the game and Republicans won.
@wsrphoto He won concessions from Republicans for veterans and poor people and eliminated the problem for the next few years at least. This is the correct way to go that will last longest and will actually make a big difference. I’m sure you’re sad the Freedom Caucus lost but that’s the breaks.
@GreenFire Numerous social media users prefer not to live in reality. I’m glad Biden does.
Nobody lives a life of zero compromise and it’s ridiculous for anyone to see zero compromise as a good thing. He’s averting a world financial disaster and getting many concessions we all want along with it. Chip Roy is losing his mind about it. If anyone else is complaining in a zero fact manner, they’re helping out Chip Roy.
@TonyStark@GreenFire
IF this deal is what it appears to be and IF it actually holds, Biden has exceeded my expectations again.
Really don't think anyone could have done better.
@GreenFire@silverhorseman Same. I really think naysayers are Freedom Caucus fans or people who didn’t think Biden was up to the job and are now wrong and would rather burn the country down than admit they were wrong.
He wasn’t even in my top 10 picks in the primary. I’ve admitted he’s exceeded my expectations. Others can do the same.
@mikebaarda@GreenFire@silverhorseman I know I’m repeating myself so apologies to my followers but I underestimated him. More people should be willing to admit this. Obviously nobody is perfect. Nobody we could elect would make even a majority of people happy. But we have a good person here and need to appreciate what does happen or we won’t have a democracy to use or a country to improve upon.
For expressing these same ideas Friday about Biden negotiating, I was called an NPC, a dembot and told to go back to the 90s and/or twitter because "there are tons of centrists" over there. They forgot "neo-liberal" and "boomer who ruined everything" but I knew who/what they were. Children.
Unserious political shitposters, Or tankies. Take you pick. Both are "popular" on my TL. 1.5K+ followers.
@mikebaarda@GreenFire@DemocracySpot@silverhorseman I’ll go check it out. I get the same thing. It’s old and tired. None of these people are out in the trenches doing the real work. Many move from instance to instance after being blocked by good accounts. It’s not worth our time to keep talking to them. Unserious, indeed.
@GreenFire@silverhorseman@DemocracySpot@mikebaarda Oh, ok. Yeah. The one I blocked a long time ago. It’s clickbait negativity and trolling. Of course that stuff is popular here. Shame it’s such a big account. I’ve warned multiple people about it. Good block on your part.
@DemocracySpot@TonyStark@mikebaarda@GreenFire@silverhorseman hell, i consider myself a hard-core commie and i think Biden did a really good job here. in my ideal world, this would have played out differently, but invoking the 14th was never a realistic play at this juncture and given how mad the Freedom Caucus is about this, i can only conclude things came off at least reasonably well. it's a dumb game so it would only ever have a dumb outcome, but this seems a minimally dumb one. i'm good.
One called Biden a "cuck" and de-facto Republican. I would normally just scroll past, but it was a large acct (6.3K), so I asked a simple question in the comments:
Knowing what we know and not what we don't know about the negotiations, what would you have done differently?
They never answered the question, but did attack me and ridicule my op in tandem with another @.
Like I said: unserious, shitposting children + "popular."
@nerdybutcute@DemocracySpot That’s their whole point. It’s very difficult to imagine this world where we all live in cooperative harmony when a large number of the people who claim to subscribe to that philosophy refuse to act in a manner that supports it. They undermine themselves.
They. Don't Care. I have no time for people like that. I may loathe what you care about and support, but you've taken a stand probably because you care. I reserve a special distaste for those who just sling just shit from the sidelines.
@nerdybutcute@robertnorlyn@mikebaarda@GreenFire@silverhorseman@DemocracySpot I’ve blocked that account from at least 4 different instances. It’s a well known bad account. I know people hate blocklists but I’m really quite willing to start sharing this stuff privately. Just ignore it. You’ll never see me rolling up to anyone that way.
@TonyStark@mikebaarda@GreenFire@silverhorseman you can tell by my Mastadon name who I supported in the primaries😊Of course I completely supported Biden /Harris once that became the ticket. Being as experienced as he is I knew Biden would be a good president, what I didn’t expect=Biden is a GREAT president, and an incredibly important one. In the modern era he stands side by side with FDR & LBJ. Proud to be a Democrat.
@TonyStark I definitely see this deal as evidence that Biden's strategy worked.
It's still a shitty public policy deal but could have been way worse if Republicans had prevailed. @GreenFire
@TonyStark@GreenFire This is probably true (sigh), but it just galls me to no end that the Republicans can pull this utterly unprincipled hostage-taking with absolutely NO legitimate justification, and in direct contradiction to their actions when they hold control...and not only get away with it, but get rewarded for it. Less than they wanted, but rewarded nonetheless. It's an indictment of the ignorance of our populace that this works.
@BobApril@GreenFire People who could have voted for someone else other than the Republicans they did in many House districts are indeed ignorant. People should be rightly blaming them. Don’t give Republicans charge of the House. We warned them.
Compromise is one of those complicated by-products of democracy. Zero compromise really just means you're a dictator.
(Which an awful lot of conservatives seem to want - to be the dictator who says "let it be done" and that's that, no argument, no moderation, no options or lenience for the other side.)
Humans - the ordinary kind, living cheek by jowl with others who don't necessarily precisely agree with them on the details - give and take, and sometimes have to live with the lesser evil.
Compromise doesn't feel great, but it's actually good for us as people to give way and not just 100% get our own way.
(That said, I watched Beau of the 5th Column this morning, and he said something about 'work requirements (for welfare)' and OH AMERICA NO. Go look up Australia's "robodebt" if you want details: this does not end anywhere good.)
@seldear@GreenFire I personally wish there were no work requirements for it. Intrinsically, to get it in the first place, you have to already do a bunch of work. Or you’re doing a bunch of work for someone else who can’t.
However, this country isn’t progressive. At least not yet. Most voting power is in the center. Won’t change until that does. And interestingly, I’ve only received negative comments about this deal from self-described left people. A mess of wrong.
Beau's careful and considered note was that it looks like Biden got the better deal out of the negotiations, but without seeing the text of the legislation, he couldn't make the definitive call on what was good and what was bad.
@TonyStark@seldear@GreenFire
I get the impression that very few people actually realize what Biden pulled off, so once again he is not going to get the credit he deserves. It's just as well I suppose, since the success of his efforts relies on being low-key about it.
Biden is dealing with horrible people. If he came across as a macho chest-beater, if he tried to humiliate McCarthy, if he provoked the toddler caucus, we would still not have a deal.
@SteveRogers@TonyStark@seldear
I also think that we'd be wise to not gloat about the #DebtCrisis deal prior to it passing in the House since if we appear pleased with it that reduces the odds that it will get passed, but if we were capable of doing what's wise than we wouldn't be in the mess we're in either so...
I think maybe I came out to strongly promoting it a few times as a win as I was attempting to other people's typical attempt to use it to paint Democrats in a bad light.
I need to try harder to not get triggered by my "allies" efforts that help my opponents.
@GreenFire@seldear@SteveRogers It’s funny (or maybe not…really not) how people complain that Democrats don’t tout accomplishments and then when they do, the same people complain about touting the accomplishments. They’re not able to be pleased. They’ll paint Democrats in a bad light no matter what happens.
I think it's the internet. Since the popularization of global community and communication we have introduced the ill-informed
Critical thinking, information gathering and analytics can provide skills that allow you to suss out incomplete information, but if you're ill-informed you might not be looking at anything real and you just don't know any better.
Kid Rock is a perfect example of ill-informed. The population thinks he is some kind of rock-n-roller who has floated on the outskirts his whole career. He even had a documentary made years ago about how he was coach surfing trying to get a "Hip Hop" label to sign him. WHen I watched the documentary, I heard people talk about how "Vanilla Ice" really hurt KId Rocks' cred in the community.
Ya'll - Robert Richie (Kid Rock) comes from money. His parents own or owned a fleet of car dealerships. He is as country as Donald Trump.
The internet doesn't care about that. They care about the "pray and spray" rage bait tiktok articles. They want a community, and Kid Rock will give them one.
The community might only be as connected as "We all agree these guys suck" but at least now they have someone to talk to.
They find groups like ours scary and mean because we're not busy trading around "Orange man bad" memes and collecting internet points. We're thinking, debating, arguing and planning.
We're action-oriented which means we can succeed and fail. They can't as they aren't doing anything. So it allows them to get the community without the responsibility. A few years of that, and you have second and third generational adopters who don't see 'collecting memes to reshare' to be... pointless.
"They find groups like ours scary and mean because we're not busy trading around "Orange man bad" memes and collecting internet points. We're thinking, debating, arguing and planning."
Yep! The antidote to despair is action.
From the "we hate prugrussivs" tribes to the "we're too cool to be invested in politics" clans, to the oligarchs of our economy and kakistocrats of our politics - all of them would much rather we wibbled in a corner than organised to take back power through legal means.
They'd rather citizens gave up their vote than voted for the lesser evil. They'd rather people hated on other people so nobody notices their hand in the till. They'd rather gang up on someone and spew shit than do anything good and valuable.
That 'community without responsibility' is excellently phrased: no need to be kind or connected or encouraging, just rant and rave and hate away.
@seldear@SteveRogers@mentallyalex@GreenFire@TonyStark This is the thing, yes. I like Biden. Unlike a lot of people, he was my first choice and it’s okay with me that not everyone agreed. I knew he could win and would be able to get some things done.
He has.
What people who refuse to support anything he does out of some misguided principle are doing is throwing people like me under the bus. We all need to be honest about that.
@MJ@seldear@SteveRogers@mentallyalex@GreenFire@TonyStark Biden was not my first choice when there were several Democrats in the race. However, Biden has been an amazing President, quietly getting things accomplished, here at home and internationally. COVID, unemployment, international messes, he's risen to the challenges.
@DSWadeLPC@MJ@seldear@SteveRogers@mentallyalex@GreenFire@TonyStark I wouldn't go all the way to amazing. He's been fine. He's been present. He's slowly (some would say deliberately) gotten the job done. But he hasn't been inspiring which is arguably one of the main jobs of a president. He's not good at inspirational speeches, even GW (who I despise) managed good inspirational speaking after 9/11. For Covid we get; essentially an economics lecture.
My hope is we get someone inspirational.
@mystixa@DSWadeLPC@MJ@seldear@SteveRogers@mentallyalex@GreenFire@TonyStark You can't really give credit for how sterling people seemed after 9/11... that was a horrible time, any help was appreciated. Even Rudy Guiliani seemed good then. It's actions over time that matter to me, and if it comes with charisma that's great but not the most important thing.
@mystixa@DSWadeLPC@MJ@seldear@SteveRogers@mentallyalex@GreenFire@TonyStark President Biden's done a strong, steady job, albeit not flashy. Diluting the Democratic vote has been catastrophic over the past 30+ years. When young I sought perfect candidates, but ended up handing control to modern-day Republicans, which is FAR worse than a not-flashy candidate.
@seldear@SteveRogers@MJ@BlueWaver22@mystixa@GreenFire@Benjaminblackoak@DSWadeLPC@mentallyalex People need to learn the fine art of untagging but yeah, last couple of days, lots of replies including previously blocked accounts in my mentions. The conversations break up and nobody has any idea what they’re about. People who are blocked maybe need to mind theI own business.
In all fairness, Obama was inspiring (and still is). Unfortunately, the inspiring just meant a whole lot of people started organising to counter his inspiration... 😒
Contrast with "nobody expects the Biden Administration..."
(His chief weapon is surprise, surprise and ruthless efficiency-- Two weapons! Surprise, ruthless efficiency, and a "Grampa Joe" facade-- His three--! And an almost fanatical commitment to the American democracy-- FOUR weapons--!
I'm inspired by a President who at long last brought Americans together to restore our ailing bridges, and other infrastructure, while creating high tech manufacturing jobs in the rust belt. Union jobs!
Having a mensch in the Whitehouse who supports our brave Ukrainian friends as they fight for their lives, rather than attempting to extort them, is just icing on the cake. #America#Ukraine#Biden
He's dealing with Joe Manchin , but you don't see it. The bill allows the WV gas and oil pipeline to move ahead and allows access to more drilling.
The carbon from this one bill erases the efforts already in the works to save us from global nightmare already in progress.
@seldear@GreenFire@TonyStark
Unless your party controls every part of the government with big majorities, you either compromise or you get nothing done.
Want to get your way every time? Then win far, far more elections.
@TonyStark@GreenFire Absolutely! Neo-liberal zombies, like Trump, Musk, Koch, and Peter Thiel among others, have tried to live zero compromise lives. They have pushed our world to the edge of ruin. This agreement represents a step back from the abyss. It needed to pass, and it will.
@TonyStark@GreenFire I saw Pete Buttigieg explain that in his state many vote #GOP because “that’s what respectable people do” in those communities. It’s their virtue signaling.
Blasting Biden from the Left feels like it serves a similar purpose: broadcasting virtue/purity to a progressive community.
Biden is flawed - but he hampers the chaos agents, preserves rule of law & gives us chances to #vote for a better world next round. That’s winning right now.
@TonyStark@GreenFire
If you look at virtually any human endeavor, we imagine and seek perfection and settle for what we can achieve at the time and circumstance, be it a political, athletic, engineering, scientific, or any other endeavor.
Perfection is a worthy ideal that makes us better if we can seek it, but we can never make it reality. Being unable to reach perfection just makes us humble, but not even seeking perfection is failure.
@TonyStark@stargazersmith
Our Founding Fathers were definitely not perfect so obviously they did not create the "perfect union", but if we had of waited for perfection we would have had even more coverage of the new Monarch here on this side of the pond and slavery might not even yet have been outlawed in our nations.
@TonyStark@GreenFire I couldn't agree more. And here's the thing... We live with the compromises first mere year and then IF everybody gets out and votes Blue country over party.. Takes back the house and enlarges Senate Majority and of course seat Biden... We. Can. change. All. Of. it. To. Something. Better.... These whiney short sighted little asses really set my teeth on edge. It's as tho they don't understand the danger we were in.
In a perfect world, we would live like they do in movies. I would have a 10,000 sq ft. apartment while writing my blog professionally.
This isn't a perfect world and he needs to work with the people who are brought to his chambers. This is a 'deal the hand you've been dealt' situation. He can't just walk out of the casino.
@TonyStark@wsrphoto President Biden's readiness to negotiate with the House's majority Insurrection Caucus was admittedly an an admirable act of kindness, even though not really necessary.
The federal debt ceiling "is an insult to good governance, and negotiating over it only encourages the most nihilistic and ruthless forces in government."
@TonyStark@ArenaCops Biden didn't cave as he did what he spent career doung in Congress. He negotiated bipartisan compromise. Argument is that Biden is president. Presidents don't negotiate. President states what they wants and will agree to sign, and lets Congress fight it out. Biden wasn't leading, but getting in the political mud with republicans. Presidents don't do mud. It's not their role.
@wsrphoto@TonyStark 🥥 I'd like hear from people who've touted the #14thAmendment as a debt ceiling quick fix how they would deal with the #GOP legal battles that would wind their way slowly through the courts while the US government defaults. 🥥
@JStatePost@wsrphoto Funny that lots of people here are so impractical but the one named after a fired Fox guy’s nuts is one of the more knowledgeable people I follow. The 14th and the coin minting thing don’t have anywhere to go.
@JStatePost@wsrphoto Factually, none of what you’re saying here is on the mark, including the bit about a president’s role.
It’s ok to admit you were uninformed. You are informed now.
@TonyStark@JStatePost I didn't say Biden and democrats' plan wouldn't work. I'm saying Biden is acting like a senator, not a president. He threw his options out at the beginning and committed to negotiations. He then sidelined democrats to take over negotiations. President tells what he'll sign and leave negotiations to Congress.
As to 14th Amendment, it would be years in litigation, so any competent judge would suspend debt ceiling while the case is litigated, just like laws under litigation are suspended. Republicans wouldn't contest it to impose debt ceiling while challenging Biden over it. Biden's excuse isn't good one.
@wsrphoto@JStatePost SCOTUS - competent judge. You just don’t know what you’re talking about. Republicans wouldn’t contest it- even worse. Either you’re one of them or are so completely ignorant of reality, you’re not worth speaking to.
@TonyStark Tony, two questions: could the dems have raised the debt ceiling back in January without this showdown? Can the debt ceiling be raised by executive order and thus avoided the cuts that were insisted upon? Thanks!
@TonyStark Thanks for that. Seems like we will be adding “unfortunately SCOTUS” as a label going forward to all things progress, logic and / or equality that don’t happen.
@Stoneycase Accurate and yet another reason that elections matter and while we on the progressive end can certainly afford discussion, we cannot afford unnecessary division.
@TonyStark Anything practical that can be done about SCOTUS? What does it take to remove Thomas over his dealings with Crow? Are we stuck with this group until they die? My hope in democracy used to lie with SCOTUS being the adults in the room. That’s out the window
@Stoneycase He won’t be removed. We as a country continue to fail to give Democrats enough of a control over Congress to make that happen. And that’s outside of the fact that the Senate is set up poorly to start with.
We had a chance to have a different SCOTUS and people blew it. Those same people want purple unicorns to fly in and fix their problems now. Trump got 3 SCOTUS picks. Probably won’t be fixed in my lifetime unless Democrats get a 2/3 Senate majority.
@TonyStark I’m struggling with the fact California has two senators. Same as South Dakota. And one is well past her retirement age. It’s frustrating, and as you state, not set up well at all. The idea of expanding SCOTUS kinda frightens me even more. What happens if we expand then end up with more of the Trump federalist society appointments?! 😩
@Stoneycase It would have been far better and easier to have avoided this whole situation to begin with and the sooner everyone who isn’t a fan of the oncoming GOP fascism admits that, the better off we’re all going to be.
If we dare to do that, we’d need to be absolutely sure that a Democratic majority has the Senate and I see no reason to believe a lot of people even understand the implications. At least not on social media.
@TonyStark I ponder moving from California to a purple state. My vote feels a little trapped / useless here. I’ve never voted for a republican on any level. California, the state, is a mess. Federally, We only have one active senator.
@TonyStark@Stoneycase
While it's bad, it isn't quite that bad. We "only" need 51 Senators willing to kill or at least bypass the filibuster to get truly important stuff done:
Expand the Courts (I prefer Elie Mystal's proposal to turn SCOTUS into a bigger version of an appellate court with 25 members & shifting panel of 9 to hear more cases)
@joeinwynnewood@Stoneycase Thanks, Joe. Of course you’re correct. The wacky uninformed replies I get on Mastodon (and you get them, too) aren’t a reflection of reality, fortunately.
People need to understand the filibuster is a real problem and has blocked progress for decades. Pretending otherwise is foolish.
@TonyStark@Stoneycase
YW.
Imagine what it would be like if we were still on Twitter! 😏
I am a bit surprised at the persistent lack of knowledge on a lot of this stuff. Of course I'm happy to inform folks, but it certainly can get a bit tedious.
@mikej@Stoneycase It’s those people who still refuse to admit they were wrong that are a real problem. They should be smarter and aren’t. MAGA heads are just stupid and we can’t expect anything better. Ever.
@TonyStark@mikej Close friend has a MAGA family. His brother finally removed his Trump stickers from his truck. Parents are still all in. They live in California. I shudder to think what some communities around the country feel like. My family has all passed away or lean strong democrat. Haven’t had any uncomfortable interactions with family. Truly blessed for that.
@Stoneycase@TonyStark@mikej Neighbor on our little rural circle has at the end of his drive a mannequin w DJT mask, army fatigues, holding a plastic AR. Signs hanging around it say Copperhead RD, Buck Fiden, a confed flag saying “it ain’t over.” Used to display a rubber Obama head on a pike at DJT’s knees. Neighborhood had him remove that. He was surprised anyone found it offensive. He open-carries as he walks around the neighborhood. When they’re in deep, they’re in deep.
@mikebabyak@Stoneycase@TonyStark I expect those people to be awful. What I can't stand is the people who want to tell you how terrible liberals are because they aren't leftists who wouldn't vote for an impure liberal.
@mikebabyak@Stoneycase@TonyStark And don't get me wrong. If you weren't on twitter, 99% of the people who favored other candidates happily voted for the less evil candidate because they were less evil. If you were extremely online though, you heard a lot from the small percentage that demanded purity.
@mikebabyak@Stoneycase@mikej I realize I post on social media. I just worked a primary on my state that was very successful for Democrats, particularly progressive ones- good progressive ones who understand real results and coalition building.
I talked to about 800 voters over the months. Very few on Twitter. None on Mastodon and only a couple had even heard of it. People who spend too much time on it aren’t reflecting what people really think.
@mikej@mikebabyak@Stoneycase@TonyStark I had a good friend who essentially called me a traitor to the left because I voted for Hillary in the general rather than Jill Stein. He was a formerly reasonable person who went so far off the rails I had to block him on Twitter.
@Allyson@BruceMirken@mikej@mikebabyak@TonyStark Not a Steiner, but also don’t understand this statement. Did she pull that many votes in the Midwest? I thought only California voted Green. And Ca went Biden in 2016. Is there a source article showing she helped flip swing states in 2016?
@mikebabyak@Stoneycase@Allyson@mikej@BruceMirken At the very least, a lot of social media accounts and followers of so called third options tried very hard to get people to opt out of voting. There aren’t hard numbers because that’s impossible to quantify but it certainly seemed organized to suppress the vote.
@Allyson@TonyStark@mikebabyak@mikej@BruceMirken Yes they did. As they do. Still not pinning anything on greens or Bernie bros. People voted for Trump in spite of the deleterious red flags, his open misogyny, his credible accusations of sexual assault. His multiple bankruptcies and morally bankrupt nature. Ima blame the folks that voted for him. Blaming Green Party voters let’s his supporters off the hook.
@mikej@Stoneycase@BruceMirken@mikebabyak@Allyson This discussion has been going on for 7 years. Nobody will ever come to a solid conclusion on it. I really don’t think it’s worth going on and on about except to acknowledge that any Democrat would have been better than Trump and still will be. Tapping out.
@TonyStark@mikej@BruceMirken@mikebabyak@Allyson Locally, in Arcata, housing is our emergency issue. Many factors involved. County has lost most of its economic base. I’m trying to get more involved in policy and politics. Thanks for your efforts. 🍻
@TonyStark@mikebabyak@Allyson@mikej@BruceMirken Gotcha. I prefer to blame the folks that voted for Trump. The wyt women in the Midwest. I’d say that demographic hurt us a lot more than “steiners”. Also, were there really that many folks that sat out because of Bernie or Stein? IDK but I’m still blaming the trump voters 10000%
@mikej@mikebabyak@Stoneycase@TonyStark I really liked Liz Warren in ‘20. I even voted for her in the CA primary even though it was obvious that Biden was going to be the candidate. Even though Biden wasn’t my first choice, there was no way in hell that I was voting for anyone else.
His policies have been way more progressive than I was expecting. I will gladly vote for him again.
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