Joe Biden, Senator from Citibank (oops, DELAWARE), to Run for President

Karl, you're quite literally telling people that are pointing out verifiable facts that we can't do so, or that doing so is somehow the same as denying reality.

Also, I voted for Gloria La Riva.

El Tomboto would make a joke about that, I'm sure.

Putting in even the smallest amount of effort to defend the guy who's working his ass off to find a job for Rahm Emanuel is incomprehensible.

― onlyfans.com/hunterb (milo z), Tuesday, November 24, 2020 12:14 PM (thirty-five minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

This point is narrow enough that I feel like I can respond to it: I, too, am dismayed to see reports that Rahm Emanuel is being considered for a post in the administration and would be disappointed if that came to fruition. As of now, however, I have not seen any reporting to suggest that Biden is "working his ass off to find a job for" Emanuel. In fact, I sort of assumed that it was all a trial balloon. We can certainly bemoan the fact that *someone* may be considering Rahm *in some fashion*, despite a record that should be immediately disqualifying, but there's no evidence that Biden is personally going to bat for him while stubbornly ignoring all protests.

Karl, you're quite literally telling people that are pointing out verifiable facts that we can't do so, or that doing so is somehow the same as denying reality.

― healthy cocaine off perfect butts (the table is the table), Tuesday, November 24, 2020 12:50 PM (eight minutes ago)

oh great, this day is going to contain a Literally-off. here we go. i did not literally tell people that are pointing out verifiable facts that they can't do so. i did not literally tell people that pointing out verifiable facts is the same as denying reality. if you think i literally said that, then you've probably misunderstood every post i've made on this board, for years and years and years.

ironically, i was pointing out the similarity to the ways that climate deniers, when faced with criticism, love to divert people to their preferred conversation topics, like "cite a criticism of joe biden in this thread and say it's not true, i dare you", and then when someone's dumb enough to answer it earnestly, drag them off to the woods so that they can engage in a neverending circular "conversation".

^^THAT^^ is what i am literally telling people

Biden bears absolute responsibility for every decision made by his transition team and selection of political appointees.

Emanuel should be in the stocks getting pelted with rotten fruit, instead the best case scenario is that he was "floated as a trial balloon" for a Cabinet post and instead they want to shoehorn him in as trade rep, avoiding anything nasty like a confirmation hearing.

Biden wouldn't have to work his ass off. If he wants to give Rahm Emanuel a job, all he has to do is hire him, or else nominate him for Senate confirmation. It's not that hard. Let us know when he does it.

He does have to work his ass off to get this person completely undeserving of a role in the Administration in a year that has seen constant civil unrest because of police brutality without openly telling everyone to his left to fuck off and die.

That he appears willing to risk the viability of his administration to get Rahm Emanuel a job is one more fine illustration of why we need this Joe Biden Sucks thread.

He does have to work his ass off to get this person completely undeserving of a role in the Administration in a year that has seen constant civil unrest because of police brutality without openly telling everyone to his left to fuck off and die.

Could you diagram this sentence, or at least start inserting punctuation marks until it makes sense? I mean, I still won't give a shit, but it might make you a better writer.

https://i.redd.it/y3whvhuom07z.jpg

Damn, guess we hit day three already.

wait which ghouls are actually confirmed to appear in joe biden's cabinet

the way y'all talk about it i assumed rahm emanuel was running the country as we speak

joe biden sucks btw

^ otm

By all means, criticize it if it comes to pass. You're reading into Biden's motivations based on rumors in Crain's Chicago Business.

gius i have an announcement

joe biden sucks

I went looking for information on Emanuel's relationship to Biden's cabinet and the main sources of information I found definitively said Emanuel said he was interested in becoming Secretary of Transportation, followed by a whole bunch of people saying "yeah no" in response.

Based on this, I agree that Joe Biden is indistinguishable from Satan.

Larger context that seems important is that Sic guy starts to sound exactly like a Fox News grandpa if you bring up
Hunter Biden and Milo Z still pushes the “Biden mental decline” narrative which all but the most pathetic dead enders dropped after the numerous debates, town halls speeches etc. So I think there’s probably a degree of cope/embarrassment factoring in for guys that had really bad predictions throughout this whole deal here.

There are folks on this board who I largely agree with politically and with whom I'm sure I could have productive conversations about these issues if only they a) weren't so eager to throw the 'starting points re: the reification of viable progressive policies' baby out with the 'anyone with a whiff of centrism about them is a garbage person who belongs in the garbage' bathwater and b) weren't absolutely terrible at maintaining the focus of an argument.

One likely point of consensus that I'd posit around these parts is that Biden was a thoroughly underwhelming and disappointing dem candidate. Like, I'm pretty sure we can all agree with that.

joe biden is unfortunately not cool enough to be satan

Ehh probably only Biden and Bernie (but it would be closer) could have won though. Head to head polls with Trump indicated as much during the primary. Biden’s team did a good job balancing the Dems very broad coalition and building the blue wall back and not taking the internet’s campaign advice.

Biden is an underwhelming candidate but his campaign, given the circumstances, did not disappoint. I knew he'd win, but still.

since i've had a bite and taken a breath, i'm ready to re-enter the thread as if nothing at all happened and continue on the way as i always have acted, as per this thread's tradition.

fine to say: joe biden sucks
fine: all presidents suck
fine: joe biden supported the development of our modern incarceration program
fine: the future is bleak. something fundamental needs to change. joe biden is not the wave of the future
fine: goddamn joe biden sucks. if you would have told me in 2017 that it would be president joe fucking biden in 2020 i would have choked on my barf later that evening

not fine: joe biden doesn't give a shit about the incarceration system, he doesn't care about whether or not people are happy or not, and now he's putting rahm emmanuel in the cabinet. oh and btw, YOU'RE the one who can't keep their facts straight. if you don't think that's true, name me one time when i did not keep my facts straight....yes...wander off toward the foggy woods...you're not coming out into the clear light now...this fog is where we no longer willing to distinguish between shades of gray...

btw, fun fact: the last time i ever spoke to my mom, she pushed the "joe biden is clearly on a mental decline" angle. i'm not sure what the leftier-than-thou angle is on that one, but the rightwing one is that it's because the evil democrats want kamala harris to be the president by summer 2021. and kamala harris isn't white, so that is a big problem for the right. not sure what the "biden is 1988 ronald reagan" angle on the left is, but probably something really dumb and based on a screenshot from a speech that some dipshit edited

a) weren't so eager to throw the 'starting points re: the reification of viable progressive policies' baby out with the 'anyone with a whiff of centrism about them is a garbage person who belongs in the garbage' bathwater

Viable seems quite loaded here - and do you think Biden only has a whiff of centrism about him?

we're all on a mental decline, really

I do think Joe Biden is on a downward trajectory, mentally speaking. It tends to happen with older folks. I think this because I've seen old interviews and new interviews and from what I've seen he generally appears more lucid in the former. I do not believe this is because the Dems have some deep-seated desire to install Harris.

Sure but people exaggerated in this wishful thinking sort of way during both the primary and the GE like “he can barely speak” or that he has full on Alzheimer's which probably lowered expectations in ways that helped him.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/23/us/politics/biden-haines-national-intelligence.html

Drone program, defended Gina Haspel

biden's team ran a good campaign, or at least they executed and were correct on reading the electorate, they gambled on making gains in the midwest suburbs among college educated voters and did it.

they calculated that keeping their head down and letting trump ruin himself was the right answer and they won on that gamble as well.

obviously it's hard to say whether or not that would have worked during non-covid times. i think not maybe?

but they looked at the landscape they were dealing with and largely won their bets.

and, though partially because the "he's senile" stuff was so prevalent and set low expectations, i think biden - for me - exceeded expectations during the debate and speeches.

i don't necessarily like him any more than hillary and realize there's a certain amount of advantage that he receives being a white male that she does not...however, hillary and her team misread a lot of things in 2016 and biden's team read a lot of things correctly in 2020.

The thing is, 75% of Joe Biden still has a lot more to offer intellectually than 100% of Josh Hawley or 300% of Tommy Tuberville if he somehow got the Flowers for Algernon treatment

God imagine your diary entries as you realized you were slowly, inexorably turning back into Tommy Tuberville

The only words I've heard Joe Biden speak aloud all year are "The BBC? I'm Irish!", I'm pretty sure.

I like that drones are back in discourse again after four years where the Trump admin greatly accelerated the number of strikes and eliminated the system of accountability under Obama’s admin. Tbf Bernie said he would have continued the drone program. I know I know “he was a compromise”.

Trump did it so it’s okay?

Do you actually think people who criticized Obama’s admin for killing teenage American citizens with drones were cool with Trump doing it?

What's the significance that they would just rather continue criticising Obama throughout, iyo

Why is that their sweet spot?

Because they get their smugs poking at the not-left-enough, they give no more of a fuck than anyone else aside from that

We should drone-murder all these strawmen imo

Trump is self-evidently horrible, Obama is still beloved by many ostensible allies. This is not rocket science.

Or drone science, even.

There is an ever-diminishing hope/expectation that criticism of Democrats can effect change. No such hope (or mechanism to do so) exists for Republicans.

(Add in that substantive political criticism of Trump was subsumed to Russiagate and that this entire line depends on the fantasy that opposition to American imperialism and the forever war stopped under Trump.)

What I think is sort of disingenuous about the strident tone of the "Biden sucks" stuff here in particular is that, like, we all know it. I mean look at the title of this thread started so long ago that a child born that day is now in high school. We all knew it when he ran in 2008, when he became vice president, when he decided to run this time around, when he managed to get the nomination (because the candidates most of us liked better weren't as it happens good enough politicians to win the primaries). We know he's a corporate centrist who has supported a long list of objectionable programs and policies, and we knew very well what kinds of people he was going to name to his Cabinet. I have not gone back and read this entire thread, but I imagine it does not include very many complimentary things expressed by the ILX massive about Joe Biden over the past 15 years. So I'm not even sure who the "I told you so" tone is supposed to be aimed at.

But if this is what you want to spend your time doing, have at it. I don't personally think Biden's Cabinet matters very much, because a.) I don't think the Democrats are going to get the Senate, so nothing much will happen for the next two years; b.) there's a pretty good chance the GOP gerrymanders its way to House control in '22, which means that not only will nothing happen but Biden and Harris and Hillary just for fun will all end up impeached or in jail; and c.) this little period we're in now is just a respite, a breather, and I'm not going to waste the breather giving a shit what Rahm Emanual is doing. Progressive activists would be doing a lot better to focus on finding and supporting candidates they like at local and state levels, and then in '24, than settling into some endless bitch-about-Biden mode.

we can do both!

Criticism is a broad aul word but I wouldn't meself say it covers something that both performer and listener are yawning during

I think it’s odd that Trump doing it way more in his first year than O’s entire admin and even eliminating the system of that informed people of casualties shouldn’t be reduced to a broad equivalency.

*casualties is reduced to

we can do both!

Uh-huh. The Bernie campaign this year didn't give me a lot of confidence in that, but we'll see.

fwiw the only place I've read much about Trump & his massive escalation of the drone program is The Intercept, which many ilxors dismiss as not credible

“Trump was worse” is just a deflection of Obama doing a bad thing - why are you compelled to do that?

If you don’t think Obama was in the wrong - why not say that and defend the drone program (and its architects who are entering the Biden admin) on its merits instead of pointing to Trump?

fwiw the only place I've read much about Trump & his massive escalation of the drone program is The Intercept, which many ilxors dismiss as not credible

It really was massively underreported.

Didn't Trump stop releasing the numbers?