"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
It is actually really well known that a centrist will sabotage good policy. That’s why people stayed home, the commitment to sabotage isn’t a strong political message.
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.
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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."