President Joe Biden has opened a new line of attack against former President Donald Trump. At a campaign fundraiser in the Dallas area on Wednesday, Biden asked and answered the classic “are you better off today than you were four years ago” question to remind voters of what it was like when Trump w
  • mozz@mbin.grits.dev
    286·
    8 months ago

    If y’all are going to post an incessant drumbeat of why Biden sucks, I’m just gonna keep pasting a few of the reasons why he doesn’t. It’s not just that he’s a vast, democracy-preserving improvement over Trump (although, he is); he actually did several things which are unprecedented in modern US president terms:

    • He took the biggest action on climate change in US history; the goal of the climate bill is to put us on track for a 40% reduction in US emissions by 2030. It’s way too late but that’s clearly not Biden’s fault since he started fighting for it basically as soon as he got into office, and managed to achieve passed legislation which is several standard deviations above the norm for “let’s ignore it until we’re underwater and on fire” US politician status quo.
    • He ordered the forgiveness of half a trillion dollars in student debt, about a third of the current total balance, and the Supreme Court told him no. He’s still managed to forgive (edit: $138) $144 billion worth of it even against stiff Republican “no we need that money to give to Wall Street criminals pls” resistance.
    • He introduced a bill to legalize marijuana federally, which the Republicans killed in the senate.
    • He achieved the lowest unemployment in 20 years after having been handed an economy that was still digging out from the apocalypse that was 2020.
    • Wages at the bottom end of the economy have actually been growing, outpacing inflation, every single year that he’s been president. The top 10% of wage earners actually have lost some ground, it’s true – that probably makes “wages are growing” not feel true to most Lemmy users, because for tech workers, they’re shrinking. But the majority of US wage earners have been making more and more year by year. $15/hr is the new unofficial minimum wage in a lot of sectors. That’s not enough, but it’s sure as shit better than when he came in and unemployment was 6% and a lot of people and businesses were still dependent on Covid-aid stimulus payments.

    The shitshow that is supporting Israel during its accelerating genocide, I won’t defend all that much. But the overall attempt to paint him as any type of run of the mill crappy-performing Democrat is just totally disconnected from how things have changed in the last 4 years.

    All the folks that like to post one-off discouraging comments like this one haven’t had much success in trying to say any of the above isn’t true.

    • Xhieron@lemmy.worldEnglish
      61·
      8 months ago

      I regret that I have but one upvote to give. Keep fighting the good fight against misinformation.

      Biden has been a remarkably good president under incredibly challenging legislative and judicial circumstances. He didn’t do everything he promised? It’s a miracle he was able to do anything at all!

      Give the man a blue Congress and watch.

    • Verdant Banana@lemmy.world
      311·
      8 months ago

      him and prosecutor Harris fired staffers over cannabis and after making promises failed to do anything but pardon a very small portion of convicted cannabis users and without police reform like he also promised the divided states have gone as far as border like patrol on their borders and all the cannabis policies he could be seen as having a helping hand in have only helped corporate cannabis and the militarized police who he refuses to reign in

      he never fulfilled the upping the minimum to $15 and places like Wally’s Hell have lowered the start pay to below precovid levels lower than $15 an hour and that is just one business and corporations have been using free slave mean correctional institution residents for free labor

      consistently shat all over workers just like threating the rail workers if they kept up the protest for better work conditions

      Roe v. Wade fell on his watch and his solution? give him more funding and sign an executive order for researching women’s health or some less than quarter assed pile of manure

      what makes that man worth a vote?

      make it make sense

      • mozz@mbin.grits.dev
        124·
        8 months ago

        consistently shat all over workers just like threating the rail workers if they kept up the protest for better work conditions

        Oh, good point, I forgot one:

        • There were 458,900 workers involved in work stoppages in 2023, notably including the even-more-unprecedented-than-the-rail-strike motion picture strike and the autoworkers strike. You can believe, if you want to, that Biden is anti-union and he just pure overlooked his responsibility to shut down the 458,900 people who did work stoppages in 2023. Personally my feeling is that he shut down the rail strike because it would have a big impact on the rest of the economy, then his labor department kept working the issue and got the workers the sick days they were fighting for in the first place by having the strike.
      • bobburger@fedia.io
        71·
        8 months ago

        I see that I have 3 options for voting.

        Vote for Biden, the candidate that’s closest to my politics. Result: I help the government move closer to my values.

        Vote for Trump, the candidate that is farthest from my politics. Result: I help the government move farther away from my values.

        Vote 3rd party or don’t vote. Result: I have a slight sense of moral superiority because I voted my conscience but didn’t actually help the government move in the direction I wanted, and may have helped it move in a direction I didn’t want.

        Given these 3 options, Project 2025 and Trump’s stance on abortion make Biden worth a vote.

        Sure Biden’s policies aren’t exactly what I want, but they’re a lot closer to mine than Trump’s are. And since either one of Trump or Biden is going to be the next president (unless something unexpected happens), I’m going to vote for Biden.

        • Wiz@midwest.socialEnglish
          4·
          8 months ago

          You are right. With our first-past-the-post system and our electoral college, we only have two possibilities: Trump or Biden winning. You get to help decide which is the best (or the least worst).

          I see 4 possibilities, depending on your political leaning.

          1. Liberal voting for Biden. Helps Biden.
          2. Conservative voting for Trump. Helps Trump.
          3. Liberal not voting for Biden. Helps Trump.
          4. Conservative not voting for Trump. Helps Biden.

          If you don’t like these choices, work to get rid of the Electoral College. Work to support ranked-choice voting or some other alternative to first-past-the-post. But sitting this out will hurt one candidate while helping the other to win. If you don’t like either candidate, vote for the least worst of the top two - the one closest to you.

      • mozz@mbin.grits.dev
        181·
        8 months ago

        Good spot! It should have been $144 billion in student loan forgiveness, he just did another 6 billion. I corrected it.