this post was submitted on 08 Jul 2023
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Politics

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[–] kbbeen@beehaw.org 40 points 1 year ago (14 children)

Wow, a lot of vitriol on this topic! Okay, so, for my first post on Lemmy I am going to make a positive leftist case for Biden.

Biden is not the problem! He wants to do big things; he wants be a great president. If congress sent him voting rights, reproductive rights, major climate action, and many other leftist priorities, he would sign them. He could definitely be better, but he is mostly not standing in our way. How many decades would you have to go back to find another president you could say that about?

Biden is not the problem. Congress is the problem. State and local governments are the problem. Nimbys are the problem. We have a lot of problems to solve but the presidency is not one of them. What we need to do with the presidency is simply reelect Biden and then get on with the work of solving the actual problems.

[–] thekbob@beehaw.org 19 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Biden is still a centrist, also known as a fascist enabler.

The man is not for labor, see ending the railroad strike, one of the most infuriating moves a so-called great president could perform.

If he truly wanted to do great things, and not be hindered by the backing of capital, he'd be moving fast and breaking things more than the previous administration. He's not.

[–] macallik@kbin.social 28 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I understand your frustration but also encourage you to pay more attention to what happens behind the scenes. Your position on the railroad strike is outdated/misinformed relative to what happened a month ago:

When Joe Biden and Congress enacted legislation in December that blocked a threatened freight rail strike, many workers angrily faulted Biden for not ensuring that the legislation also guaranteed paid sick days. But since then, union officials says, members of the Biden administration, including the transportation secretary, Pete Buttigieg, and labor secretary, Marty Walsh, who stepped down on 11 March, lobbied the railroads, telling them it was wrong not to grant paid sick days.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/may/01/railroad-workers-union-win-sick-leave

In other words, Biden instructed his administration to double back and force the hand of the railroad companies to get the union exactly what they wanted.

[–] ondoyant@beehaw.org 23 points 1 year ago

IBEW statement. this is one of the unions involved, and their official statement on the matter. pretty positive.

[–] kbbeen@beehaw.org 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I think you're wanting him to be more like LBJ, using his political power to drag reluctant congress members along, and you're right, someone like that would have gotten more done. But LBJ wasn't perfect either, and the LBJ approach isn't the only way to get things done. Another way is more bottom up, get the support in congress and then just have a president who's willing to go along. I'm guessing that's probably AOC's intention, to bring liberals and leftists together so we can present a unified front and get majorities in congress.

But yeah, I agree about the railroad strike. Also the vaccine patents. He's not perfect.

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