It’s too late for this. You’re imagining that Biden can become a different candidate at the 11th hour. It’s inauthentic - suggesting a new mask will work. They should have let RFKjr in the tent instead of the fascist-like approach of ‘here’s the only option’ BS. Progressivism is mostly unconstitutional - not about freedom and equality, but instead control and inequality (equity). I live in Seattle and we’re trying to emerge from the progressivist stronghold. We were/are stuck on emotionally-driven revolutionary policies and programs that use all our money and don’t get anything done instead of pragmatic course corrections known as reform. Literally unfounded, untested concepts non-stop. It’s so disorienting. The best way to stop it is to not re-elect Biden. We should have had a better choice, but the DNC and all its state, county, and local cohorts are mostly zealots who have disdain for logic and debate. Liberal, centrists, bipartisans… they don’t participate, but progressivists do. This is what you get.
But first that requires finding and identifying the "values" that have shaped Joe Biden's career in government and on the political teat. Exhibit A, if you please.
Agency, dignity, and effective association are all great goals, I'd also like my kids to have jobs that pay. All the clean energy jobs and retraining in the world won't help if they don't pay enough to buy a house and raise a family.
The simple idea of supply and demand tells me that if you import a few million workers, it's going to drive wages down and the cost of housing up. Similarly if all of our stuff is made in other countries the people who used to make that stuff don't have work to pay the bills. Joe from Scranton could do well to ask the children of the kids from his old neighborhood what they'd like to hear.
The paradox we face is that the kind of slow, patient centrism that often wins elections (when they are fair) is the very centrism that has largely ignored climate and energy issues for four decades and thus brought us to the current emergencies. Centrism means we stay with fossil fuels for as long as possible. Centrism means we continue subsidizing the fossil fuel industry, Centrism means we continue supporting real estate development on coastal areas where massive flooding become ever more likely.
Centrism is fine for debates about tax policies or how much to spend on highways, but for facing truly existential looming emergencies, democratic centrism always selects for current prosperity and deeply discounts the future. This is one major reason why tens of millions of young people are so disgusted by American politics.
I'll keep it brief today, and just say the reason for so many people opening their own businesses? Biden's lockdowns, mandates, letting the teacher's union dictate school closures, having people live rent free while owners had to pay to save their investments? In other words, too much government intervention. I know this because I am one of those people. It's not an accomplishment. It's based in distrust.
If another lethal pandemic appears in the US - and sooner or later, it will - would you want the US government to simply ignore it and let citizens of all ages get infected, seriously ill or die?
The public health authorities don't always get everything right - especially when a pandemic is so new - but who else would you trust to develop public health policies? Should every citizen simply be allowed to do what ever the F they want to and screw all the vulnerable people? Is that really what you want?
What I want is for the vulnerable population (elderly or immune compromised) to get vaccinated and take precautions to protect themselves. If it's kids, people with kids should do the same. The rest of us can't just shut down. The economy can't shut down. The schools and daycares and landlords and hospitals can't shut down. No one should be responsible for anyone other than themselves and their family. We are all adults. If you want to stay home, stay home.
Sorry, but you just don't seem to understand the dynamics of how lethal epidemics spread. You cannot have a successful policy if all you do is identify whomever you think is most vulnerable, vaccinate them (if they agree), and then let everyone else do whatever they want. When a new highly lethal virus is spreading rapidly, your approach would only lead to widespread infection and unnecessary deaths.
What I am asking is that we - the citizens - let the public health officials - who spend entire careers studying these issues - and *responsible*, non-ideologue public officials develop policies.
Yes. I would like that. I never wanted to lose trust in these institutions. There were political choices made during Covid that caused me to distrust everything, and that can't ever happen again. The day I knew we were being lied to was the day people were allowed to riot because racism was coded a bigger health threat than Covid. No one with any integrity or fear of a deadly pandemic would have made that choice. There were rules for one set of people and different rules for others. Herd immunity is ancient and was ignored. There were just so many trust breakers that will harm us going forward. And, no one seems to want to take responsibility or be held accountable, which is the first step in building back trust. I didn't WANT to have my whole world turned upside-down by the institutions I used to trust (not just Health) It is not pleasant to realize you've been lied to and gaslit. It's hard. I have no idea what will happen in the future, but I'd love for all of our institutions to turn back towards their non-partisan purposes.
In addition to all the trust destroyers you named, the most vulnerable people were NOT protected. The leftist Democrats decided, against the evidence of science, that "black and brown people" of any age should go to the head of the line, in front of elderly people, when the vaccines were released. When the leftists learned that black and brown people were not universally eager to be vaccinated, the Democrats committed everyones' tax dollars to their priority of pushing vaccines to minorities whether they wanted them or not. The teachers' unions got themselves also put at the head of the line, so that "we can protect our students and ourselves" (even though the vaccines don't do that), then kept the schools closed anyway. The leftists also prioritized the so-called "vulnerable" addicts and voluntarily homeless people on the street, even though those people were not highly interested in needles that were loaded with anything but their drugs of choice.
The Democrats, led by Mr. Biden, have done more to erode women's rights than any administration within my memory has managed to do.
Mr. Biden's love affair with gender ideologues and the miscellaneous misogynistic perverts who lead that demographic have been paraded around the White House, and genital mutilation of children has become a burgeoning national industry.
Mr. Biden's characterization of half the American population as "fascists" shows his true feelings about the people who refused to vote for him in 2020. His hateful, ignorant behavior and his disgusting capitulation to every demand made by the most extreme, unhinged minority in our country is the reason why at least half the country will vote against him again.
The main difficulty with this prescription is that Joe Biden doesn't share those values. He occasionally pays lip service to the idea that America can do anything if we all work together, but then turns around and labels Republicans as anti-American fanatics. As for individual agency, he seems comfortable with the Progressive abandonment of the dignity of work and the impulse to make everyone a ward of the State in part or in full. And equal dignity? Only if you are part of the Great Woke Intersectional Victimhood - otherwise, you're an oppressor whose rights are forfeit as punishment for every bad thing your forebears (or, in the case of Jews, your co-religionists) have ever done.
Biden does have one deeply-held and cherished value: remaining in power. That's why he tossed aside his pledge to be a one-term transitional President, and why he insists the Democratic Party buy into his delusion that he's their only hope of defeating Donald Trump.
You've seen Congressmen, Senators, mayors, governors, local legislators who've retired instead of getting carried out in a pine box or getting term limited. The political calculus says you can't accomplish good things unless you are in power, but once that gets twisted to the point where you spend all your effort to stay in power and tell yourself the lie that you will eventually get to start doing good things, you are beyond help. See Sen. Menendez in New Jersey.
There is no real sincerity in what Biden and his administration say regarding concern for the working class. It’s a cover for continued alignment with Republicans that cheap, exploited foreign labor is the economy they want at the very expense of middle and working poor Americans. Just listen to the BS from today’s DHS hearing to massively expand H2A and B visas and make them year round rather than temporary. Come up with a labor party in America, one that supports a balance between labor and employer relations, insists on the passage and enforcement of E-Verify, and see how many voters from the center, right or left of those employee classes support it.
It’s too late for this. You’re imagining that Biden can become a different candidate at the 11th hour. It’s inauthentic - suggesting a new mask will work. They should have let RFKjr in the tent instead of the fascist-like approach of ‘here’s the only option’ BS. Progressivism is mostly unconstitutional - not about freedom and equality, but instead control and inequality (equity). I live in Seattle and we’re trying to emerge from the progressivist stronghold. We were/are stuck on emotionally-driven revolutionary policies and programs that use all our money and don’t get anything done instead of pragmatic course corrections known as reform. Literally unfounded, untested concepts non-stop. It’s so disorienting. The best way to stop it is to not re-elect Biden. We should have had a better choice, but the DNC and all its state, county, and local cohorts are mostly zealots who have disdain for logic and debate. Liberal, centrists, bipartisans… they don’t participate, but progressivists do. This is what you get.
But first that requires finding and identifying the "values" that have shaped Joe Biden's career in government and on the political teat. Exhibit A, if you please.
Agency, dignity, and effective association are all great goals, I'd also like my kids to have jobs that pay. All the clean energy jobs and retraining in the world won't help if they don't pay enough to buy a house and raise a family.
The simple idea of supply and demand tells me that if you import a few million workers, it's going to drive wages down and the cost of housing up. Similarly if all of our stuff is made in other countries the people who used to make that stuff don't have work to pay the bills. Joe from Scranton could do well to ask the children of the kids from his old neighborhood what they'd like to hear.
The paradox we face is that the kind of slow, patient centrism that often wins elections (when they are fair) is the very centrism that has largely ignored climate and energy issues for four decades and thus brought us to the current emergencies. Centrism means we stay with fossil fuels for as long as possible. Centrism means we continue subsidizing the fossil fuel industry, Centrism means we continue supporting real estate development on coastal areas where massive flooding become ever more likely.
Centrism is fine for debates about tax policies or how much to spend on highways, but for facing truly existential looming emergencies, democratic centrism always selects for current prosperity and deeply discounts the future. This is one major reason why tens of millions of young people are so disgusted by American politics.
I'll keep it brief today, and just say the reason for so many people opening their own businesses? Biden's lockdowns, mandates, letting the teacher's union dictate school closures, having people live rent free while owners had to pay to save their investments? In other words, too much government intervention. I know this because I am one of those people. It's not an accomplishment. It's based in distrust.
If another lethal pandemic appears in the US - and sooner or later, it will - would you want the US government to simply ignore it and let citizens of all ages get infected, seriously ill or die?
The public health authorities don't always get everything right - especially when a pandemic is so new - but who else would you trust to develop public health policies? Should every citizen simply be allowed to do what ever the F they want to and screw all the vulnerable people? Is that really what you want?
What I want is for the vulnerable population (elderly or immune compromised) to get vaccinated and take precautions to protect themselves. If it's kids, people with kids should do the same. The rest of us can't just shut down. The economy can't shut down. The schools and daycares and landlords and hospitals can't shut down. No one should be responsible for anyone other than themselves and their family. We are all adults. If you want to stay home, stay home.
Sorry, but you just don't seem to understand the dynamics of how lethal epidemics spread. You cannot have a successful policy if all you do is identify whomever you think is most vulnerable, vaccinate them (if they agree), and then let everyone else do whatever they want. When a new highly lethal virus is spreading rapidly, your approach would only lead to widespread infection and unnecessary deaths.
What I am asking is that we - the citizens - let the public health officials - who spend entire careers studying these issues - and *responsible*, non-ideologue public officials develop policies.
Yes. I would like that. I never wanted to lose trust in these institutions. There were political choices made during Covid that caused me to distrust everything, and that can't ever happen again. The day I knew we were being lied to was the day people were allowed to riot because racism was coded a bigger health threat than Covid. No one with any integrity or fear of a deadly pandemic would have made that choice. There were rules for one set of people and different rules for others. Herd immunity is ancient and was ignored. There were just so many trust breakers that will harm us going forward. And, no one seems to want to take responsibility or be held accountable, which is the first step in building back trust. I didn't WANT to have my whole world turned upside-down by the institutions I used to trust (not just Health) It is not pleasant to realize you've been lied to and gaslit. It's hard. I have no idea what will happen in the future, but I'd love for all of our institutions to turn back towards their non-partisan purposes.
In addition to all the trust destroyers you named, the most vulnerable people were NOT protected. The leftist Democrats decided, against the evidence of science, that "black and brown people" of any age should go to the head of the line, in front of elderly people, when the vaccines were released. When the leftists learned that black and brown people were not universally eager to be vaccinated, the Democrats committed everyones' tax dollars to their priority of pushing vaccines to minorities whether they wanted them or not. The teachers' unions got themselves also put at the head of the line, so that "we can protect our students and ourselves" (even though the vaccines don't do that), then kept the schools closed anyway. The leftists also prioritized the so-called "vulnerable" addicts and voluntarily homeless people on the street, even though those people were not highly interested in needles that were loaded with anything but their drugs of choice.
The Democrats, led by Mr. Biden, have done more to erode women's rights than any administration within my memory has managed to do.
Mr. Biden's love affair with gender ideologues and the miscellaneous misogynistic perverts who lead that demographic have been paraded around the White House, and genital mutilation of children has become a burgeoning national industry.
Mr. Biden's characterization of half the American population as "fascists" shows his true feelings about the people who refused to vote for him in 2020. His hateful, ignorant behavior and his disgusting capitulation to every demand made by the most extreme, unhinged minority in our country is the reason why at least half the country will vote against him again.
It's been a really long four years.
The main difficulty with this prescription is that Joe Biden doesn't share those values. He occasionally pays lip service to the idea that America can do anything if we all work together, but then turns around and labels Republicans as anti-American fanatics. As for individual agency, he seems comfortable with the Progressive abandonment of the dignity of work and the impulse to make everyone a ward of the State in part or in full. And equal dignity? Only if you are part of the Great Woke Intersectional Victimhood - otherwise, you're an oppressor whose rights are forfeit as punishment for every bad thing your forebears (or, in the case of Jews, your co-religionists) have ever done.
Biden does have one deeply-held and cherished value: remaining in power. That's why he tossed aside his pledge to be a one-term transitional President, and why he insists the Democratic Party buy into his delusion that he's their only hope of defeating Donald Trump.
Show me a politician who does not want to remain in power. I'll wait
You've seen Congressmen, Senators, mayors, governors, local legislators who've retired instead of getting carried out in a pine box or getting term limited. The political calculus says you can't accomplish good things unless you are in power, but once that gets twisted to the point where you spend all your effort to stay in power and tell yourself the lie that you will eventually get to start doing good things, you are beyond help. See Sen. Menendez in New Jersey.
There is no real sincerity in what Biden and his administration say regarding concern for the working class. It’s a cover for continued alignment with Republicans that cheap, exploited foreign labor is the economy they want at the very expense of middle and working poor Americans. Just listen to the BS from today’s DHS hearing to massively expand H2A and B visas and make them year round rather than temporary. Come up with a labor party in America, one that supports a balance between labor and employer relations, insists on the passage and enforcement of E-Verify, and see how many voters from the center, right or left of those employee classes support it.