I’m gonna just come right out and say it: if you’re a republican, you’re a dangerously delusional racist in denial. If you’re a democrat, you’re a dangerously delusional political hack in denial.
OK, that’s perhaps a bit broad and sweeping, but: tough.
But, this is the kind of absurdist crap that the US is being fed. [cnn]
Young Americans have turned on Joe Biden.
That’s the shocking finding of a Gallup analysis of its polling over the breadth of Biden’s term released this week.
In the early days of Biden’s presidency (from January 2021 to June 2021), an average of 6 in 10 adult members of Generation Z – those born between 1997 and 2004 – approved of the job Biden was doing. During the period spanning September 2021 to March 2022, that number had plummeted to an average of just 39%.
That’s shocking? To whom is that shocking? Biden ran in a blur of fast-fluxing widely broadcasted ideas for stuff that his administration might try to do, to help people get through the pandemic – but then it turned out that basically none of that happened because the democrats actually can’t pour piss out of their own Louboutin’s even if they’re open-toed. Of course it’s not Biden doing it, it’s Sinema, Manchin, Pelosi, Putin – it’s whoever and whatever but it’s not Biden’s doing. Meanwhile, Biden, who claims to be policially disempowered when it’s convenient to the democratic right wing, has somehow managed to resume leasing federal lands for fossil fuel exploitation.
Admittedly, not all of this is his fault, but it’s his preserved skin stretched over the animatronic dummy of the US presidency and young people, who are familiar with Disney animatronics, are not impressed by the “animatronic gap.” Joking aside: the democrats did a bunch of shit like talk up student loan forgiveness until they had the votes in the bag, and then they started talking up nuclear war and never had the slightest budgetary tussle when someone suggested “hey let’s ship all that ‘student loan forgiveness’ over to Ukraine in the form of hardware diplomacy!” Young people are, apparently, not so stupid that they haven’t noticed that the Bidenites are all over propping up Ukraine so they fight to the last Ukrainian (oh, the tragedy!) but they still can’t do anything about affordable housing or infrastructure because the democrats had a convenient roadbump-of-blame in the form of its own pair of jackasses that are indistinguishable from the republicans’ jackasses except that the republican jackasses appear to actually believe something (too bad it’s batshit) instead of money-ball.
Face-punch yourself stupid, democrats, then wail like fools when the republicans eat your lunch in the midterms. I’m pretty sure the republicans will be awful, after the midterms, and they’ll probably raise the awful to never-before-seen heights. If they were smart, they’d cream the democrats in the midterms then make a big show about rolling back the worst excesses of the Trump era – and then fail because they have “high minded” members in their caucus who just can’t bring themselves to vote for that stuff, haw haw haw har har har.
It turns out that democrats are horrified to discover that there are voters who actually believed all that progressive stuff the democrats were “talking about until Biden gets elected” and are pissed off that they were obviously fooled again.
Let me just give you one example that burns in my mind: Biden ran on “tax the wealthy” but never managed to do anything remotely like it. Instead, they raised taxes on, uh… Well. Actually, they implemented a bunch of fairly conventional tax policies, including “more of the same” corporate taxes that the corporations already know how to dodge. Oh, and they went around with a tin cup and asked Apple and Amazon and Starbucks and Tesla and Caterpillar to maybe toss in a bit of change. Meanwhile, enjoy your union-busting.
See what I mean? Young people (I’m not young but some of my best friends are millenials) aren’t going to fall for any of this shit. So, Biden’s ratings, which are based on “they will keep falling for this shit” are heading for the toilet. I just wish I could jump on the lever, up and down, up and down, up and down, like a cat when he figures out how to invoke the swirling water. Young people aren’t fooled by this shit because they’re the baristas, amazon workers, Uber drivers, cleaners, etc., that the Biden administration walked right past while it was busy with all the posturing. I’m sure the Bidenites are absolutely thrilled that Putin stepped forward to be the villain of the hour and Russian oligarchs can be the “wealth tax” that the democrats couldn’t possibly put in place in the US. Meanwhile, the planet is burning, gas prices are going through the roof because of corporate profiteering in the oil industry, and the Bidenites’ big idea is to pump more oil.
Not all of them. Some of them are quite open about their racism.
While the behemoth of climate change rouses to fuck the entire planet, the options for the US in the near-term are “shit” and “deep shit”, the latter of which is near certain come midterms (with a polished turd on top in 2024). Biden’s election was like snatching a quick breath of air before the next big wave pulls you back under. It only delays the inevitable.
Does the Supreme Court matter?
We know what sort of goobers the GQP can and will install on the Court when given the opportunity. Does the prospect of losing the Supreme Court entirely make any difference to your calculus here?
cubist @3: It’s not just the Supreme Court. Biden et al might offer only slim-to-none chance of significant positive change (which many of us anticipated), but Republicans offer a guarantee of horrible, negative change. So “won’t get fooled again”, if read as “won’t vote Democrat again”, is just stupid and self-defeating, until the system which requires a “lesser of two evils” mindset is demolished.
To me, it seems that the USA simply has a completely dysfunctional electoral system. The same goes for the UK. Both are showing these last few years how the first past the post system spirals slowly into a choice between crap sandwich and shit kebab.
Charly @5: In the US and UK, it’s more like a choice between crap sandwich and cyanide kebab.
The fact that the US has only two serious political parties is not an immutable Truth of the Universe. Rather, it’s a consequence of the fact that the US uses a “first past the post” voting system. Anyone who’s serious about tryna move the US away from a two-party system, should be working to replace FPTP with any of the other, alternative, voting systems that exist, many of which have been in use by other democracies for the past however-many decades.
Of course, that’s not going to happen quickly. So in the meantime, it makes sense to not vote for open fascists. Which means “vote Democratic”. And while you’re doing that, you can also invest some effort in getting FPTP replaced by a saner voting system.
I’m going to keep voting for democrats because “lesser of two evils” – but the professional democrats who think that Biden has an “approval rating” are in for a rude shock when the younger voters have the scales fall from their eyes and maybe don’t summon up the energy to fall for the same shitty routine. Biden doesn’t have approval – his score is simply the baseline of “well, not Trump” and it’s half-lifing to “well you don’t give a shit and neither do I.”
I can’t see going door to door telling people to get excited about voting because, uh, gerontocracy is way better than kleptocracy. And how about that environmental message? “Drill baby drill” fuck me I’m super uninspired. Biden couldn’t even grab a few guns. Arrest the people behind the coup? No way, I guess Biden’s scared and would rather yell about what a Bad Man Putin is.
Maybe the democrats could gin up some fake enthusiasm with an “at least you don’t have Boris Johnson to deal with” campaign. We are so fucked.
Rob Grigjanis:
Biden et al might offer only slim-to-none chance of significant positive change.
Ketanji Brown Jackson was a breath of fresh air.
Maybe Biden took advantage of his bully pulpit to call out the racist douchebags asking her absurd questions except, if he did, I didn’t hear about it. I think his handlers are afraid to have him go into the rough and tumble because he might start talking into his shoe phone. But he was elected to be the anti-Trump not an incoherent wallflower. Oops maybe I confused him with Merrick Garland who – yes – I blame the democrats for: some poll-worshipping motherfucker thought that would play well, oh my goat.
Marcus @8:
Right, you shouldn’t have to go door to door. Because adults should recognize the problem, as you obviously do, which goes far beyond not getting what they hoped for. If they don’t understand what they will get by staying home, they deserve whatever hell the Republicans will conjure up for them. Especially because they would be ignoring the millions who don’t deserve it, and would suffer from their petulance.
…which is another, longer, way of saying “you (US) are so fucked”, I guess.
Even if there never was any intention to cancel/forgive student loan debt, having it kick back in after a couple years of being on hold, seems especially dumb.
You’d think that even just for cynical political reasons, they would at least keep the payments/interest on hold until after the midterm…
My only hope is that we get more people like AOC involved, but considering they have to fight both parties, I’m not optimistic that it will happen fast enough to make enough of a difference in time.
I’m just personally glad that I don’t have kids, and that I currently live in California.
lochaber@#12:
Even if there never was any intention to cancel/forgive student loan debt, having it kick back in after a couple years of being on hold, seems especially dumb.
Yes!
I simply do not understand this: “we baited and switched you now go out and vote for us again because TRUMP!” strategy. I expect that kind of shit from republicans but democrats are doing it, too. The Bidenites made this big deal about this big bill they were going to pass and fix everything and in the end they managed to pass some coal subsidies and raised some taxes on some specific things and otherwise they’ve been flailing around because of the stealth republican agents in their caucus (another thing they should have seen coming and done something about in primaries) Uh. That’s a digression, but basically the democrats are reaping what they sowed with their “we’ll elect anyone who says they’re a democrat” approach. As opposed to the republicans, who require that republican candidates actually be crazy or corrupt or perverted or bigoted to run on the ticket.
@ 5 Charly
To me, it seems that the USA simply has a completely dysfunctional electoral system.
It probably was quite adequate or even very good for a mainly agrarian society in the 18tc century. Now to outsiders like you and me it is bizarre. As I understand it, it does not seem to be one system but 50 , one for each state plus some federal add-ons.
@ 7 cubist
The fact that the US has only two serious political parties is not an immutable Truth of the Universe. Rather, it’s a consequence of the fact that the US uses a “first past the post” voting system.
I would disagree. A FPTP system is not exactly ideal but I live in Canada where we have three more or less nationally competitive parties plus the Bloc{Don’t ask} all three are competitive at the provincial level plus we have a couple of smaller parties than can be the power brokers that can keep a larger party in power. In a parliamentary system, one is only one non-confidence vote away from an election.
The UK has three more ore less major national parties and a couple of power-broking regional parties.
The US system, to an outsider, is bizarre and bewildering. I have never really grasped why one would have primaries nor why the states would maintain party membership lists for the Democrats and the Republicans.
For the first time i see the Saudi TV mocking the US administration.
I have no idea if this is a Saudi video but if it is, it is earthshaking. In any case it is a bit amusing.