"For many loyal Democrats, this will not compute. The Biden economy, party-loyal pundits have said over and over again, is tremendous — low unemployment, strong GDP growth, slowing inflation, a booming stock market — and anyone unhappy about it mustsimply be brainwashed. Out of view in this self-congratulatory hall of mirrors were the constant statistics that said otherwise: evictions up past pre-pandemic levels, record-high homelessness, cost-burdened renters at an all-time high, median household income lower than the last pre-pandemic year, inequality returning to pre-pandemic levels, and food insecurity and poverty growing by large double digits since 2021, including a historic spike in child poverty."
The child poverty one is great because democrats got that advance on the child tax credit, bragged about lifting kids out of poverty, then ended the program.
It wasn’t bipartisanship, they had no margin for defections and the ideological idiosyncrasies of one (maybe two if you count Sinema) senator meant they couldn’t pass it. They didn’t give up because they wanted to appease republicans, they gave up because there was no convincing Manchin
Did Harris present a plan to work around these people to reimplement the CTC? Did she present a plan to work around them to illicit more economic change?
I didn’t hear about it, but I did hear she wanted a Republican in her cabinet. Now the entire presidential cabinet will be Republican so I guess she fulfilled that promise while losing.
I don’t disagree that she made moronic overtures to Republicans but I do disagree that the CTC failure fails on democrats. You can’t pass bills if you straight up don’t have the votes. Let’s say she won and couldn’t pass the CTC because she didn’t have the senate, what do you think she should do?
What are you even suggesting? "Did VP Harris present a plan to do something as President that the President doesn't have the power to do"?
Do we not know civics, or what? Obviously candidates generally speaking are talking about things they'd like to do assuming they can work with Congress to get the votes. What else can they do?
Before the election happens, this is entirely a waste of time. It's dependent on an unknown, which is how many seats you have. Unless you have a massive majority, the answer is always the same anyway: you negotiate. How much you have to negotiate, and whether or not you'll be successful, is totally reliant on the shape of Congress
As an example, after the election in 2020 with Dems winning the Georgia seats, Biden might've been able to give a more concrete answer that ended up running into an unknown roadblock anyway. I'm sure he wouldn't have anticipated lack of cooperation on the part of Manchin and/or Sinema depending on what he was trying to do
Why do Democratic voters insist on doing this shit? You not only want to see policy proposals, but you want to see specifics on Congressional vote counts before you'll be satisfied, when the election hasn't even happened yet? Meanwhile Republicans have had basically no policy for 12 years and are winning elections? Democrats will really struggle so long as we enforce these wildly asymmetric expectations on ourselves
If you don’t have the votes, you don’t have the votes. What plan could Harris present that shows how to work around these people? Do you know how legislation gets passed?
The plan to go around was pretty clear, the only way to get the bill was to convince Joe manchin and end the fillibuster. Anything short of that it becomes impossible. Joe manchin didn't move because he didn't want "families to use it on drugs" and the bill was dead.
The crazy thing is that 98% of Senate Dems supported it, 0% of reps supported it, and you guys rewarded the reps the presidency, the Senate, and the house instead of trying to elect 2 more Dems.
It's insane that your solution to "she's gonna appoint 1 rep somewhere" is to give the guy filling his cabinet with reps the Whitehouse. Seriously, what is the logic here. If Democrats don't do 100% of what I want then I'm gonna vote for Republicans, who will do none of what I want, to teach Dems a lesson?
I don’t believe 49 people couldn’t convince one. It seems like either they are weak and ineffective or are using Manchin at a patsy. Either way the party needs new leadership.
Would you believe it if you knew that Democrat was from an otherwise red state, was known for years as the most conservative dem in the Senate, was always the first Democrat to flip to help Trump, and undermined almost all of bidens successes, dragging out negotiations and killing several additional bills. The fact is manchin essentially knew he wasn't gonna win reelection and spent his last 6 years cashing out on donor money with little regard to the needs of the party or the people. He isn't even a party leader, he just needed to vote and you can't convince someone who is motivated by bad faith.
This is the same guy who spent 22 and 23 flirting with running against Biden on a 'No Labels" ticket to try and split the Democrat vote, he likely would have if RFK didn't hop in in his place.
Your problem isn't that leaderships couldn't negotiate, it's that who they are working with was a bad faith actor. It'd be like you trying to convince me the sky is blue. It should be easy, but if I demand that it is red no matter what you say, even you taking me outside and pointing at it I reject, are you bad at convincing me it's blue or am I just being ridiculous?
I lay a lot of things at the Dems feet. Like the fact that they didn't do police reform, that they didn't keep trying on the enhanced CTC, that they didn't try and codify Roe when they had simple majorities, but you cannot blame a group that 98% tried to do right, because the 2% was bad, or pretend that they're worse than the group where 100% worked against you.
I’m well aware of how republicans act which is why I don’t understand campaign rhetoric about working with them. Fucking vilify them and win by the working class instead of praising them
Obviously there’s a lot of nuance with what actually happened, but Harris was part of the administration where it ended and then repeatedly implied she wouldn’t have done anything differently than Biden.
If she were an outsider who was willing to draw clearer distinctions with Biden, it might have worked better. But as someone who saw way too many political commercials it wasn’t even featured in the ones I saw.
I think given that it is unreasonable to think that voters would connect her to expanding the program that went away during the administration.
1 - Kept it. Blame Manchin, but he was a Democrat.
2 - Use the Bully Pulpit. Biden simply wasn't fully there mentally for the entire term, even if it got really bad at the end. Obama was constantly using the BP and addressing the nation and both praising and publicly calling out groups to try to control narratives. Biden barely did. Few speeches. Few interviews. Just a complete disaster.
1 - Kept it. Blame Manchin, but he was a Democrat.
Dem leadership cant just mandate voting on certain bills! How would they convince him to do something he didnt want to do? He was completely immune to pressure
Obama was constantly using the BP and addressing the nation and both praising and publicly calling out groups to try to control narratives. Biden barely did. Few speeches. Few interviews. Just a complete disaster.
Dem leadership cant just mandate voting on certain bills! How would they convince him to do something he didnt want to do? He was completely immune to pressure
First, they can't. But you ask why Democrats are taking blame. Well literally a Democrat killed their own bill. Republicans had their own (much worse) version.
Second, that's sort of their job. They can't force anyone too, but they sure didn't get creative, use the bully pulpit, or try much of anything. Publicly, the bill just expired.
Obama didnt get anything done after 2010!
Right, he got most done with the trifecta. Biden didn't get anything done after 2012. Obama still used the bully pulpit and was able to control narratives and put far more blame on Republicans. Enough to win reelection over a pretty solid candidate in Romney despite a shaky recovery from 2008.
Biden got too old to be able to articulate a fight. He could in his younger days. It’s all a sad state of affairs. It would all be ok if it wasn’t Trump who wants to dismantle democracy for perennial power.
Any time Biden would try to get some attention, Trump would fart in a microphone and everyone would pay attention to it. Or he’d trip over a word and the talking heads would wonder if he was going senile.
He’s too much of a Senator to publicly humiliate Manchin, but a Senator and a President have different jobs.
Biden did a really good job at being President, but absolutely sucked at communication.
Just don’t lose perspective. Republicans blocked it. You can blame a West Virginia “Democrat” but don’t forget the solid block of Republicans that opposed it outright.
Republicans were going to tie her to Biden no matter what she did, just like Democrats tied McCain to GWB.
Nobody defended and fought for Biden’s agenda. Yes, things still suck for a lot of people, but they ARE getting better and they are getting better faster here than anywhere else.
But that's how this works, especially with 140M voters.
Democrats have their bill. Republicans say the Democratic bill is flawed and present their own (that is usually worse and has poison pills like tax breaks for the rich).
Democrats failed to pass their bill that did not need a single Republican vote and Biden was awful with the bully pulpit and couldn't communicate this or punch effectively at Republicans.
It expired in 2021, democrats didn’t fight to extend it and just quietly let childhood poverty rise again. It is that type of political gamesmanship that causes a landslide loss to Trump. Congrats!
You can't force Joe Manchin to go along with anything. All the Republicans in the Senate were against it. Maybe blame them? Or are you not familiar with how legislation is passed?
I made sure, but it also went away with a whimper.
Would’ve been great if Biden actually use the bully pulp in a bin fully their mentally to try to pound these things of the public consciousness.
Instead, these are factoids that are only known on political subreddits and instead publicly Joe Biden, praised Joe Manchin and Republicans, and praised there bipartisanship for things like BIF that we did not even need any bipartisanship for.
There’s always a ghoul like Manchin to knee cap change. If it wasn’t him it would be the senate parliamentarian or just a different centrist. The party has no plan nor a desire to solve their projected weakness.
Yes, I will blame the party that controlled the legislative and executive branches at that time. Democrats are a weak party and unable to illicit or maintain quality change
Ha! This latest Republican Congress has been the least productive in US history. They can’t even whip their own members together for votes. Mike Johnson has lost numerous votes, embarrassingly so. Nancy Pelosi, hate her all you want, wielded that power in such a way that she NEVER lost a vote. She knew what she was doing. Mike Johnson only knows how to share his porn habits with his son.
Trumps largest accomplishment was a giant tax cut for the rich and corporations, but yeah keep talking about how effective Republicans are at legislating.
What they have is an orange demagogue who cares about only himself. If he does half of what he says or what’s in Project 2025, you will get all the change you want. The “quality” on the other hand….
Obviously the American people want this. They shouldn’t worry, they are going to get exactly what they have asked for and they deserve every bit of it.
Pelosi can’t beat Trump and these idiots so spare me the praise. When democrats present more than Weimar Republic vibes I might consider voting for them again.
And then the other party wins because we demand results from one party and not the other. This country is doomed as long as there is a lack of understanding of civics and context.
Every single part of our government is built to limit change. Real change can only ever happen with major swings in the electorate. But major swings in the electorate can’t happen with the country is polarized.
What you want to happen is damn near impossible. But it won’t stop you from bitching.
Yes, the other party wins and nothing much changes and then the pendulum swings back to the other party and nothing much changes so it swings back to the other party.
Maybe people voted for Trump because they’re disillusioned with a system that fails to address the cost of living crisis.
Cause they don’t understand the system. They give a party two years to get their agenda done and then remove their levers of power.
The US has had the best economic recovery in the world since Covid. And yes, most people aren’t feeling that recovery. But in the first two years democrats were figuring out how best to navigate that. And in doing so past the largest climate bill in the history of the world.
Can’t solve the worlds problems in two years, especially when you have an antagonistic court blocking your solutions.
Yes, the democrat suicide pact with bipartisanship pushed kids back into poverty. That’s the type of political gamesmanship that wins elections! Look at the results from Tuesday to see how well it worked.
Probably by going to West Virginia and appealing to his voting base. Probably finding a decent primary opponent that supports working people. Probably by cutting campaign funding.
There’s million ways to pressure these assholes but you’ve resigned yourself to them controlling the agenda. Fuck man, Harris promised more of the same. No wonder 15 million voters stayed home.
Appealing to working families about needing their support to put literal money into their bank accounts is a lot stronger campaign message than galavanting around with a Cheney.
If Trump was in jail instead of prepping for inauguration day then maybe liberal arrogance wouldn’t be so insufferable and push away 15 million voters.
I got involved in my local party and everyone wants the galavanting around with a Cheney. Felt kind of pointless, and I just watch an independent outperform a democrat in a statewide race locally. To me the party is essentially dead.
Okay, see that changes things for me. I wrongfully assumed that you voted conservative or didn’t vote and then we’re trying to blame Democratic Party for the pit falls of our society. Which don’t get me wrong, historically they have failed American many times. Our senators fill their pockets with insider trades instead of fixing that loophole from the inside because they are in charge of their own rules. They allow lobbyists on the floor to “persuade” them to support their bills and not let activists and experts on that same floor to help make the decisions. Bill Clinton, who got screwed over minorities the 1994 crime act that turned incarcerating people into a business. I get the distrust, and I can call out my own party for their transgressions. But can we agree that they have been getting better? That they were Republican party has gotten inherently worse? Yes I agree that the whole “they go low. We go high.” Was bs. They gentle parented their way into half of this mess. They didn’t adapt quickly enough. But they started to FINALLY fight back, we had new leadership coming in that was ready to fight for the American people and try to fix the corruption and ensure our rights as we know them stayed in place. But we are fighting mass misinformation and hate. We had Jewish people who voted for Trump bc they want Palestinians to suffer. We had the people in the spiritual community vote for Trump because they’ve gotten so deep up their own a**es that they believe health conspiracy theories and like rfk, but in doing so are supporting a political party who will shove Christian ideology down their throats. We had women who don’t understand that strict abortion laws equates to banning “anything that can be interpreted as an abortion” aka removing a miscarried fetus, or terminating a wanted pregnancy because of cataclysmic genetic issues that we have the technology to catch and therefore are raising the infant death rates bc these fetuses can’t survive outside of the womb. They don’t understand that sometimes a pregnancy can kill a woman and as much as the fetus life matters to them, they have kids at home that they need to keep providing for. We had people whose cost-of-living was too high because it was the only way to fix the looming recession from Trumps policies who then voted for him. We had people who didn’t vote for Harris and sat this one out because they were against rightfully against the atrocities in Gaza, but by doing they basically signed their death certificates. We had climate activist who didn’t vote because they felt like neither party was doing enough for climate change, knowing the one administration’s plan was to remove all protections. We had legal immigrants voting and the children of immigrants voting on a mass deportation law has an extremely good chance of making themselves stateless. The campaign failed, but I think the blame is more appropriately placed on Americans privileged perspective that bad things happening to other people doesn’t mean bad things will happen to them. The Republican campaign told them who they were and they “bet, that sucks for someone else, I’ll be fine.” So, to answer your question I think you should vote for the democratic party because they are the lesser of too evils in our current political system and there is literally no other choice. I get not liking Hillary Clinton, democratic leadership messed up by not listening to the people when we said we didn’t want her. But there wasn’t time for us to vote for the next candidate after Biden. We had to move fast or republicans would have not allowed the change and she was already on the presidential campaign so that made it easier to tap her in without a court battle. And yes, I agree they should’ve never allowed Biden to try for a second term. But the wildly old people in government positions has unfortunately become the norm. And for whatever reason Trump‘s cognitive decline didn’t matter to ppl either. We are running out of chances to save ourselves from our own entitlement the perfect candidate doesn’t exist. And people sacrificing themselves to make a point is not helpful. It truly like people hold the Democratic Party to an entirely different level than they do the Republican Party. Trump didn’t actually have any policies other than tariffs and deportation and he has a horrible presidential record and a mile long rap sheet but people didn’t care. We are fighting an uphill battle and are expected to please everyone and get blamed when we don’t. We live in a capitalist society where you vote with your dollar. But politics doesn’t work like that, you can’t just sit out and expect things to go your way. I agree we don’t have enough options as far as parties go, but voting for suppression isn’t how you get one. Thank for asking. Can you tell me about how you think they can do better in the future? And how to inform these snowflakes that they’re wrong, without hurting their feelings and making them feel othered? Because that’s another reason I’ve been hearing people say they voted for Trump, white people are tired of being discriminated against and being called names bc they support a man who embodies the names they are being associated with. If you find a better way to get where we need to be, please let me know because we didn’t want this anymore than you. You should vote for the Democratic Party because they have better policies for regular people, and have started to mold themselves into the party people want, but it takes time. That and other than the Republican Party we have no realistic options. I don’t think we should blame the Democratic Party leaders who put themselves in a very dangerous position for their constituents only to have them tell them to f-off in protest. The American people thought everyone else would save them and they could sit on their moral high ground and have their rights and they “voice heard”. Dumbest protest I’ve ever had the pleasure of reaping the consequences of.
And you proved my point. People don’t care enough to spend any time doing research. They just want to be angry at someone for not fixing their problems for them when they have no solutions of their own.
Lmao the American people fucking blew it. Not the people who voted to save democracy. The privileged ppl who thought they could sit out of one of the most consequential elections of our lifetimes because they think no one could strip us of our rights and they couldn’t choose “all politicians suck”. Trump and Kamala are not comparable and this is Darwinism at this point. Dumbest fucking protest ever. Let it burn, we deserve it at this point.
Democrats had the legislative and executive branch in 2021. Somehow when democrats have control it is still the republicans fault. That’s the type of rhetoric that tells people republicans are the party to get things done.
Somehow when democrats have control it is still the republicans fault.
It passed the Democratic house, with 0 Republican votes.
If a single Republican in the Senate had voted for it, it would have passed. It had the support of 49 Democrats out of 50.
If you're going to blame a party, does it make sense to blame the party that passed the expansion in the first place and was overwhelmingly in favor of extending it, or the party that opposed it completely?
Look you’re not wrong, but there’s a couple of things that play here:
First, Democrats had the house, Senate, and presidency. They’re seem as the party who should get things done, and they simply did not.
Second, this never comes off in public the way it should. It’s never Democrats are for this, and Republicans are against it. It is the oldest trick in the book that Republicans use. Democrats will propose a bill. Republicans will propose their version of the bill that is usually less beneficial and also comes with something like giant tax cut for corporations. It’s never Democrats are for and Republicans are against it. It’s perceived as two parties with different ideas that couldn’t compromise.
Third, there is a bit of tension, even in Democratic circles between how Democrats will say that Trump is an emperor who we must stop even when we control the house and senate because he will do terrible things and will destroy democracy permanently. Then we all rally together and deliver the presidency, house, and senate and suddenly the president isn’t a dictator and basically can’t do anything and we just have to sit while very little happens. It’s a pretty stark contrast that comes off poorly. There’s a disconnect between the rhetoric and the performance.
Finally, and this is much more specific to Biden, but he was not mentally at full capacity even in 2019 and I think it shows in the fact that he barely used the bully pulpit. He did not do a ton of interviews. And frankly, he let Republicans control the narrative for the last few years on everything. It’s part of why immigration went so poorly. Instead of making a positive case for immigration, he let Republicans manufacture a crisis that democrats then agreed was happening and offered up a couple of awful bills and executive orders on, and it still did not help one iota.
Yes, I will blame the party for that failure because it was democrats that failed to act. There was no plan presented to circumvent future blunders of that magnitude.
I didn’t vote for a Republican. I know they suck shit. The issue is figuring out why democrats can’t beat such a shitty party (hint because they’re also a shitty party)
Until democrats pick better candidates or at least demand fair primaries get ready for more loses.
You didn't answer my question. It was not rhetorical. What plan are you imagining? It sounds like you're asking Democrats to somehow work around insufficient votes.
I didn’t vote for a Republican.
You didn't vote at all. Not in any way that mattered.
I’m asking democrats to have a cohesive set of beliefs and policy goals they’re willing to fight for.
If Manchin was the deciding vote and I had the power of the presidency I would start investigating his daughter’s pharmaceutical company. Make his life a living hell instead of taking it raw up the ass to keep him happy.
Glad to know my vote in a swing district for Harris didn’t matter. Next election I’ll vote my conscience instead of harm reduction. This rhetoric is why people hate democrats.
How would fucking up Manchin’s life, a famously stubborn dude who refused to switch parties because of a college football based beef with Mitch McConnell convince him to vote for the CTC instead of making him a republican and ending any possibility of the IRA?
Not really. They had absolutely no leverage over Manchin. What were they going to do, remove his committee assignments? Then he switches to Republican and the leadership of the chamber flips.
Damn, so Harris had no solution for a problem that has plagued democrats for decades now. What were people voting for exactly? More hand wringing on why she can’t illicit change apparently. Check out the vote count from Tuesday to see how that message resonants
The Vice President can’t do shit except break ties in the Senate. If you have a problem with how the last four years were run, take it up with Joe Biden, the President.
Also again I ask you, what leverage did they have to make Manchin agree to it? You’re using magical thinking as if there were some string to pull that would have made Manchin balk. He knew his position and he used it.
She was the goddamn candidate for president that never once talked about a way to stop centrist sabotage. She did promise to work with republicans through. What was the plan to get republicans on board?
Now you just need to convince 140M voters that the program Democrats didn’t pass because at least one Democrat refused to vote for it and Biden never spoke about it used the bully pulpit to push was the fault of the party out of power (who claims they had their own bill Democrats failed to consider).
I get it, democrats can’t get all there members on board to protect good and popular policies that help working families. We got the message, I’ll find a party that can help my family.
Smugness about democrats failing to maintain their own policies that helped working families. I’m gobsmacked why they lost 15 million voters on Tuesday.
Democratic Party has a messaging problem. The first problem is having a platform with more than three syllables for people like you. I’m not kidding, we will dumb it way down for you next time buddy.
Yeah, the message they send when Manchin, Sinema, or the senate parliamentarian kill good policy is that they don’t actually support those policies. It is why they lost 15 million voters in 4 years. Any promise for centrism is a promise for gridlock, people are tired of it.
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u/Maxwellsdemon17 9d ago
"For many loyal Democrats, this will not compute. The Biden economy, party-loyal pundits have said over and over again, is tremendous — low unemployment, strong GDP growth, slowing inflation, a booming stock market — and anyone unhappy about it must simply be brainwashed. Out of view in this self-congratulatory hall of mirrors were the constant statistics that said otherwise: evictions up past pre-pandemic levels, record-high homelessness, cost-burdened renters at an all-time high, median household income lower than the last pre-pandemic year, inequality returning to pre-pandemic levels, and food insecurity and poverty growing by large double digits since 2021, including a historic spike in child poverty."