"But lost in the hand wringing was Donald Trump’s usual bombastic litany of lies, hyperbole, bigotry, ignorance, and fear mongering. His performance demonstrated once again that he is a danger to democracy and unfit for office.”

“In fact, the debate about the debate is misplaced. The only person who should withdraw from the race is Trump.”

  • @Ensign_Crab
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    35 months ago

    Fascinating. It sounds like your theory is that the Democrats floated the public option and the BBBA, just so they could go through an elaborate ruse following by killing it on purpose after months of work and preparation, only to introduce second weakened iterations of both of them (the ACA and IRA) which still did massive amounts for the country, and they went through all that just so their second version could… look wimpier by comparison to the initial version they shot down on purpose, maybe? IDK.

    I don’t consider it implausible that politicians would break their promises, no. I voted for the public option. I voted for Obama because his plan had a public option and no individual mandate. What we got passed by reconciliation along party lines. It had the individual mandate. It had no public option. It passed along party lines in reconciliation, meaning that Democrats abandoned so much to get the support of Republicans, who didn’t vote for it anyway. It had a medicaid expansion that was optional, so my state didn’t accept it. Biden said he was going to revisit the public option. To my complete lack of surprise, he didn’t.

    I voted against Trump in 2020, since after the ACA I didn’t believe a promise from a Democratic candidate. Turns out, my distrust was founded. BBB was a bill of goods designed to be abandoned, just like the public option. They put on a hell of a show abandoning it, but at the end of the day, there were enough no votes to kill it, just like with the public option. In both cases, it died without Republicans touching it.

    The wimpy remaining bills are something, yes, but the primary function seems to be something for centrists to point at when they’re ordering progressives to be happy with their presidents’ signature failures.

    I wouldn’t look at that as a “well I guess there’s no difference between the two, and the lack of progress is DEFINITELY the Democrats’ fault, citation trust me bro” situation.

    I have never said both parties are the same, and i provided examples of Democrats finding the votes to kill progressive legislation.

    The half a trillion dollars worth of student loan forgiveness passed.

    A few things about this, It didn’t pass. It never came to a vote. It was an executive order. Centrists didn’t want it. Biden, in the only surprise of his presidency so far, listened to progressives on student loans, but only after years of pressure. Centrists insisted his hands were tied until he signed it. And we’ve discussed this before. I consider student loans to be the high point of the Biden presidency. But if it were before the Senate and not an executive order, Manchin would have killed it.

    And I just got to the paragraph where you call me Goebbels. Conversation’s over. Godwin.

    • mozz
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      05 months ago

      The half a trillion dollars worth of student loan forgiveness passed.

      A few things about this, It didn’t pass. It never came to a vote. It was an executive order. Centrists didn’t want it.

      Wait, hang on. I may have misunderstood you.

      If your central thesis is that Democrats in congress are mostly an uninspiring pile of centrist bullshit, and that Biden has to contend with them as well as the GOP in order to get progressive things done that he is trying to accomplish, then I will 100% agree with you. I thought you were including Biden in the centrist fakery.

      Your description of getting behind Democrats because you wanted good things to happen, only to see the reality that comes to pass be mostly watered-down corporate-friendly garbage, sounds pretty accurate to me. It sounded like you were blaming that on Obama and Biden, instead of Manchin and the Republicans, is why we are disagreeing. But if you’re saying we need to get rid of the GOP in congress, and replace Manchin and Sinema with actual liberal people, as the solution, I will 100% agree.

      Biden, in the only surprise of his presidency so far, listened to progressives on student loans

      IRA? NLRB with teeth? Trillions of dollars worth of corporate tax increases? Those were not surprising to you?

      And I just got to the paragraph where you call me Goebbels. Conversation’s over. Godwin.

      I said that super confidently asserting something which seems to me to be the opposite of true, and relying on the assertion itself to be the explanation of why people should believe it, is a Goebbels tactic.

      Like I say, I actually agree with you about the massive gap between what Democratic presidents get done and what they should be getting done. Where it falls apart for me is where to assign the blame for that.

      • @Ensign_Crab
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        15 months ago

        Conversation’s over. Godwin.

        • mozz
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          05 months ago

          I think Godwin’s Law died out around the time the actual Nazis came back. It’s actually sort of difficult to talk about some elements of politics and media in the present day without referring to the historical parallels, and one particular parallel is absolutely significantly more parallel than the others.

          But you don’t have to justify to me, man. You can abandon the conversation at any point you feel that that’s what you want to do. All the best.

          • @Ensign_Crab
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            15 months ago

            I think Godwin’s Law died out around the time the actual Nazis came back.

            Which is why you chose to call someone to your left a nazi.

            It’s actually sort of difficult to talk about some elements of politics and media in the present day without referring to the historical parallels, and one particular parallel is absolutely significantly more parallel than the others.

            You just wanted to call me a fucking nazi.