Middle Eastern Conflagration, Israel, Palestine, Lebanon, Iran

Biden has been the most progressive president since lbj or fdr depending on how you look at it. If this is a shit sandwich to you, your expectations aren’t in line with the reality of the American electorate

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I think the problematic issue for the current discourse in US is both sides have managed to frame the others position such that there could be no possible way to comprise with that position

Like one side is saying

“Biden is actively committing a genocide”

And the other is saying

“Anyone who is criticizing Biden from the left thinks Israel shouldn’t exist”

It’s really damn hard to find compromise when both sides have managed to frame the other as having a completely indefensible position

ah yes offering up the “deal” that bibi was never going to accept

I don’t think that’s saying much at all. The gap between him and those guys is massive, and I don’t think he’s been any more progressive than Obama or Clinton would have been facing the same circumstances.

There’s an argument he’s been tougher on Israel than other presidents, but also given the circumstances, not nearly tough enough.

So basically you’re imagining a modern day Clinton and Obama as way more left if they were president now instead of how they actually governed and they’re getting credit for this imagined scenario. That doesn’t make sense. Biden has been such a good force for change, and if it’s a shit sandwich to you thats your problem

Sums up establishment Dems to a T. Struggling or unhappy with something? That’s on YOU buddy, don’t come blaming us or expecting actual change. And if you don’t vote for us you’re a goddamn moron!

Boy, really can’t wait to pull the lever for Team Blue! Gonna fill my heart with joy!

No, the ridiculous thing is that Biden has done a ton of what the extreme left claimed to want and still gets shit on by them constantly. While also facing the greatest threat to our country continuing as a united democracy since the civil war. The extreme left gets called whiny because if they only get 90% of what they want instead of 100% they want to burn the whole thing down.

The large majority of actions Biden has taken during his presidency would have been considered leftist prior to the 2020 election, but that hasn’t been good enough.

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Do you think the extreme left has gotten “90%” of what they want? If not, what number do you think would be accurate?

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Everyone here should be smart enough to realize that Biden has been forced to face a real life trolley problem, made by other world leaders and US conservatives, in which he was going to get shit on by the extreme left regardless of what decision he made.

Republicans did this by controlling the house and conditioning continued aid to Ukraine on continued aid to Israel.

He’s boxed in by 80 years of US foreign policy that has created an environment in which Israel is one of our most important allies that we’re not allowed to publicly criticize under any circumstances.

He’s boxed in by the fact that what Israel is currently doing is exactly what we did to Afghanistan and Iraq 20 years ago.

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I think they’ve gotten almost everything they could possibly hope for in an environment where the Republicans hold the house and scotus.

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I don’t think that’s at all accurate, as if Biden is doing what he can for the “extreme left” with only Republican opposition stopping him. Get a load of this shit, done all on his own:

If we’re talking about Israel/Hamas yes it’s been a very shitty trolly problem, but once it devolved into very obvious genocide he went from doing IMO a very good job to a very poor job. This won’t influence my vote because of how bad Trump will be on it, but I am not going to blame Palestenian-Americans for not wanting to vote for Biden even if it’s not logical.

Domestically? I would vehemently disagree with this if the baseline is something like what would Pete have done or what would Liz have done. If the baseline is once Biden was the nominee, then yeah, this is about the best we could hope for - but it’s not much big picture.

Like if his tangible accomplishments were exactly the same but he was openly talking about the eroding credibility of SCOTUS, or nuking the filibuster, I would grade him very differently. Take Dobbs for example. His solution is “vote harder.” OK Joe, which 60 Senate seats are you going to sell me on being attainable? Because by Cook PVI that’s two from Texas, two from Ohio, two from Florida.

Joe Biden’s real position on restoring Roe is that it’s never going to happen. Likewise for anything else that’s subject to a filibuster. Likewise for anything else that’s subject to SCOTUS striking it down. I’m not necessarily saying he should be out there calling for nuking it and packing the court, but he should at least be laying some groundwork and applying some political pressure to SCOTUS. Like a little implied and not overt, “nice majority you’ve got there, I see you’re using it pretty aggressively, sure would be a shame if you kept being crazy and we added 6 seats next trifecta.”

There’s other stuff too, like iirc he did some good stuff that is subject to renewal. Obviously that is going to fail at some point. If the ACA had a sunset and had to be renewed, it wouldn’t exist. But it’s been somewhat of a third rail for the GOP to try to repeat it.

I would point to what Minnesota Dems did with a 70-64 edge in the state house and a 34-33 edge in the state senate as an example of what can be done with a narrow trifecta in a short period of time. They basically got like the entire progressive agenda passed in 12-18 months.

Not saying that’s realistic at the federal level, but holy shit was a lot more possible if they really wanted to. It was an awful lot of golly gee the court stopped me and aww shucks Sinema and Manchin, and not much/any arm twisting, pressure, or grandstanding.

They could be doing stuff via EO now constantly and forcing SCOTUS to make headlines striking it down, it would be GREAT politics. If the GOP can repeal Obamacare hundreds of times knowing it’s an auto veto, Biden can issue popular weekly EOs that are a 100% lock to be struck down. This would lead to eventual progress by putting those issues front and center in the public discourse.

Instead it’s a lot of shrugging and saying vote harder while knowing that 60+ senators is an absolute pipe dream.

Like if he were just doing this stuff or some version of it, which would have zero impact on current policy, I would be joining the people calling anti-Biden progressives morons. Hell, I’d probably be aggressively leading that charge.

Here’s the other thing about this being about “the extreme left”:

“Uncommitted” won a majority in Dearborn, as well as in the cities of Hamtramck and Dearborn Heights. All three cities have a significant Arab American and Muslim population, which has been seen as a cause of Biden’s defeat.[40][41] Biden performed well in the western part of the city, but suffered a defeat in more heavily Muslim East Dearborn.[42][failed verification] However, he recorded his strongest result in the 13th precinct in the eastern part of the city, where a retirement community is located.[43]

Are we asserting that Arab-Americans are unusually socialist, or something? Or is “the extreme left” maybe not the actual problem here, and rather what radical Twitter centrists would like to blame this on?

These are small but extremely concentrated Muslim enclaves in Michigan. They make up an extremely small portion of the electorate, the dumbass leftists are larger in number but less concentrated geographically

Also, I made fun of dumbasses from this group too. A group held a meeting with some Trump surrogate in Troy (a waspy as fuck town) thinking they could get Trump to come in on the left of Biden. Didn’t work!

If your number one issue is Israel’s genocide in Gaza and you’re not voting for Biden, you are a dumbass. It’s not any more complicated than that

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I guess Muslims know Republicans are the anti-muslim party, but are otherwise bought into the socially conservative policies and turned off by other Democratic constituents like the LGBTQ community. They’re not really a natural part of progressive coalition.

It just shows again the challenges of Democrats actually holding big tent together. Leftists may be on the side of Palestine, but Muslims aren’t going to be on their side when to comes to most policies.

I think this is the problem with all religions at this point. The more religious the person, the more likely they are to be conservative/republican. Doesn’t matter if they are Christian, Jewish, or Muslim.

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I was with you until the very end. I know a lot of very religious Muslims. Zero Republicans among them. All hate Trump and think he is a bigoted clown. N≈10

I hope you’re right, but my anecdotal experience matches Jman that religious = conservative

I’d imagine that it’s pretty hard for them to get over the Muslim ban and such.

My sample is also highly educated which probably biases it.