Joe Biden of the day
Out of context: Reply #273
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This is a pretty on-point opinion piece about an eventual Biden administration.
'The US was lucky to get Trump – Biden may pave the way for a more competent autocrat
Only if the president-elect is willing to fight big money and redistribute wealth can he stop the rise of someone far worse than Trump'
https://www.theguardian.com/comm…
One of the key statements is this: 'Unless Biden unites the people against the oligarchs who dominate the nation, the people will remain divided against each other.'
And Monbiot's correct, of course, taken at face value.
I think the problem with his central thesis is that he's trying to create a Bernie Sanders out of someone who — despite noting he's turned leftward since being in the WH with Obama — hasn't got a shred of Bernie Sanders in him. Not his ideology, not his desire to disrupt the status quo, and certainly not his lifelong fight for same.
Biden — indeed like his former boss, and all of the other Democrat presidents since Carter — is a dyed-in-the-wool centrist. Expecting anything meaningfully progressive out of him is wishful thinking, and a waste of time.
Yes, he's not Trump, and that's a great thing. But there will come a point where that rationale has to give way to a more critical examination of what his ideas are, and if US society will actually progress under his watch, or if he will set up the conditions for it to do so after he's gone.
Don't expect miracles out ol' Joe, kids.
- Biden could be the perfect person to delivery some left-wing fiscal policy, as long as he hides it in his centrist pocket.Fax_Benson
- I'm not sure about that. I just don't think he's got the conviction/values required to do so.Continuity
- And adding to the problem is people like Pelosi, who are blaming The Squad for their misfortunes in the HoR and Sentate.Continuity
- So, I don't think there's any appetite on the part of either Biden or the rest of the old guard in the party to do what really needs to be done for progress.Continuity
- There will be if it's a vote-winner. People don't trust the left to deliver left-wing policy. Same in the UK. Hence Johnson winning on 'levelling-up'Fax_Benson
- Sanders and Corbyn had some popular policy ideas but need somebody else to deliver them to a sceptical public. And before the right does.Fax_Benson
- Well, we can be assured that the American right would never do any such thing. The aversion to anything remotely resembling 'socialism' is so deep, they wouldContinuity
- ... rather neuter themselves with a spoon.Continuity
- Biden has been an austerity ghoul for his entire career. He and the other corporate Dems are too crooked and rotten to do anything worthwhile. Harris even more.face_melter
- I think Biden's history shows he mostly just goes with the flow rather than having strong views in any direction. Even the stuff that colin_s posted above,yuekit
- almost all of them were popular with the American public at the time. So the key here would be to force Biden to do the right thing by electing a Democratyuekit
- House and Senate. Unfortunately Americans didn't do that, for some reason they decided the best thing would be divided government at a time whenyuekit
- maybe, but that's the kind of talk that illustrates the point. The left needs a trojan horse. It's just a political fact, whether it's Biden or notFax_Benson
- the country desperately needs to pass major legislation. So what can you say lolyuekit
- sorry, yuekit - I was too slow and messed up your flow. Was replying to face.Fax_Benson