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Once again I'm happy to inform you that yes, it's Ronald Reagan's fault. Damn his evil soul.
In pants shitting fear of "Creating an Educated Proletariat" Reagan took our system of basically free college and turned it into this mess we have now.
(P.S.: If you piss on Ronald Reagan's grave in California and are caught by police its a misdemeanor charge carrying a $1000 fine. I don't know about you but I can budget for this particular bucket list item)
I mean if I was a millionaire YouTuber who farms outrage, based somewhere other than the US, I know what I'd spend a hundred thousand on...
As it stands, I'm not American and don't live in the US, so I can't really partake in the fun. I hope some people do, though.
Yup, my parents paid for tuition, books, leisure, food, and board working a summer job.
I had to use the GI Bill, a part time job in fall, winter, and spring, full time job in the summer, doing almost no leisure, money I saved up while in the military, and money my grandparents gave me
Brought to you by the early 20th century labor movement.
The foundation got laid so strong that people had time to forget what it even was or why it existed, what it was like before. It was worse than today, if you can imagine. Now we're going to have to build the whole damn thing again. No one "in charge" is planning to help with it, either, just like last time.
Honestly, doing a reboot might be for the best. The process to get it started would be painful and awkward, but it might be worth it if every American can live the rest of our lives in comfort. We should live without worrying about poverty nipping at our heels.
Historically, most "reboots," at least of the type I think of when you say that, make things worse. I think the labor movement succeeded because it was:
No one was concerned at all about "tearing down" any government or about building up any new structure which was going to "fix" anything. It was dead simple: If you want us to work, pay us what we deserve, otherwise get fucked. Whatever governmental or industrial system wants to stand over that and tell it what to do, honestly doesn't really matter all that much to it at the end of the day. Which I think is how it should be.
Towards the end, the government came around and started supporting the workers which helped lock in the gains, but they were doing all their changes from the bottom up and building up the strength there as opposed to any concern at all with the top part.
And Reagan adopted his policies from the owner class think tanks. They worked for decades to create the conditions and people needed to realize what transpired under Reagan. 🥲
Do they do group rates?
Joe Biden was the Senator most responsible for making those loans undismissible. There is plenty of blame to go around.
Joe Biden forgave half a trillion dollars worth of student loan debt, the Supreme Court told him he couldn't, and he still managed to get a couple of hundred billion forgiven.
All this stuff Trump is now undoing is stuff that Biden did. All these people having their wages garnished, are suddenly having problems because of Biden's people losing the election.
I don't know what or when you're talking about here although I assume it is roughly accurate. Biden did all kinds of fucked up stuff from supporting segregation to supporting Clinton's neoliberalism to the Iraq War and all of it, sure. Israel too, even up to the present day. If you want to tell me we need to get rid of every one of those 1990s Democrats I will 100% agree with you because they are fucking everything up. Biden somehow turned himself into not one of them (except on Israel) even though he was the same age.
I think people are still attacking Biden just out of habit at this point, because what's done is done. But if his party had won, this particular instance of bullshit (along with an incredible amount more) would not be happening. That's what is most relevant here. If you want to look at a broader scale, then let's say that if not for Reagan and for a generation of young people too cool to vote for Democrats because they thought it would help end the Vietnam War if they stopped voting, maybe we'd still be able to support a family on a single income and go to the doctor when we needed to.
President Joe Biden did. Senator Joe Biden was responsible from preventing that debt from being forgiven through bankruptcy. It's absolutely true that Biden doesn't get enough credit for his progress as President. It's also true that certain supporters don't want him held to account for what he did as a Senator.
Biden was a shitty Senator and a much better President. Trump is a demon from the pits of hell surrounded by much smarter demons than himself and committed to destroying everything good and beautiful in the world.
I'm not attacking anyone, just calling balls and strikes. The rise of fascism today is a direct result of the neoliberalism of yesterday, and the reign of fascism will last until the Democratic party turns into something capable of defeating it. That, and a desire for truth to matter, are what motivates me to speak honestly about Democrats.
Yeah, I generally agree with all of this. It's a little confusing to me because:
Is a weird juxtaposition. If someone in the Democratic party did turn himself on a personal level into something capable of going good things, why would you want to emphasize how shit he was 30 years ago? I mean, it is true, but also, these were some of the things that a lot of people used to attack him and pretend he wasn't good now and help lay the electoral groundwork for the horrors we've got going on now.
I feel like if you're motivated to speak honestly, but you're only speaking about one side of the equation and the one that was less relevant and in fact actively misleading in the election, that's dishonest. Maybe not. Maybe I am just sensitive about it because of the quantity and volume and variety of dishonest stuff that was levied at him. But that's where I am coming from in it, at least.
Much better than shit is still a far cry from being ready to deal with a rising fascist movement. I knew it would be a disaster the moment Biden won the 2020 primary. Still, he did surprise me in a whole lot of positive ways, and credit where credit is due.
Speaking only of winning elections and nothing else, the problem the Democrats have electorally is that there is no way to package and sell their neoliberalism. To a right minded policy wonk, Democrats are always the right choice, but most voters aren't policy wonks.
Getting elected requires a strong narrative. The story Democrats offer is "history is over and it's all minor improvements from here". That works OK when things are good, but when people are struggling it comes across very differently. Hillary's "America is already great!" is a perfect example, but she has a real nack for being out of touch. The only time Democrats have a narrative is when Republicans do something awful, which requires Republicans to be in power. This, we keep flipping parties.
Trump's narrative in 2024 looked a whole lot more like the classic hero's journey than I have seen in 50 years. Attacked relentlessly from all sides with his demise predicted constantly, he somehow kept moving forward. Meanwhile, I don't know what the hell to make of Kamala's story.
The usual split is a lot less dramatic but, Republicans always have a narrative with heroes and villains, and Democrats rarely do. People want to know why productivity goes up and up and life just keeps getting harder. The Republicans offer an answer, it's the immigrants, or it's trans people in the showers with your kid, or it's DEI treating you unfairly. Democrats have a much better and truer answer, but they won't articulate it because the oligarchs who fund them won't like it. So, the answer from Democrats is a whimper.
Biden's narrative was that we need to have a big raise in corporate taxes, spend almost a trillion dollars finally doing something about climate change, bring domestic manufacturing back to the US and give people working-class jobs again. I sort of suspect that's why the corporate press was so silent about the good things he did, and so aggressive and loud about the various attacks against him (like that inflation was all his fault, things like that that would resonate with the voters). It's practically a built-in reflex to them at this point: They know the Republican will set the economy on fire, but they'll be fine even if some other people won't be, so by simply setting a line that if anyone crosses them, they will tank that person's chances even if they're otherwise doing some good things (and even if doing those things is really necessary for the US to keep functioning) (and even if the alternative is active widespread destruction), they keep teaching the lessons that people in power need to have taught to them. So they can keep control.
You're not wrong in most of your analysis, I don't think. But the Democrats didn't get this way overnight or by accident. It happened on purpose, through natural selection and legalized bribery and threat. And, also, any time they do do something good, someone like you comes along and makes sure to shit all over it and "call balls and strikes" and try to "put it in context" and try to cancel it back out again.
There's a whole other way to respond to blaming Reagan which is "yeah sure but we have a lot of momentum in people who are sick to death of the same bullshit, Bernie and AOC are drawing record crowds and there's not even any kind of election going on that would motivate it, we actually probably have a chance at building a framework to do something about this whole broken system. Certainly Trump trying to gut the country for its fixtures and send everyone to ultra-prison will galvanize some opposition, let's do something with it."
But no. Instead it's just this drumbeat of "whoa whoa whoa if you're talking about Reagan let's shit on Biden instead" "Democrats are shit" "let's get discouraged" "it's all his fault" "no wonder people aren't excited" "neoliberalism" "doesn't have a story" "get sad" "it's all his fault" "remember when he betrayed you?" "most voters aren't policy wonks" in big discouraging paragraphs.
There's always something you can dig up, to do it with. And in the end, isn't demotivating any kind of action or hope or credit for good things, the most important thing?
That was his sales pitch, and one that I am totally behind, but those are promises, not a narrative. His "big raise" proposal wouldn't even return rates to where they were before Trump slashed them. Policy promises sell to policy wonks, but most policy wonks are tired of two steps back, one step forward.
When I say narrative, think of a movie plot. Narratives require a hero and a villain. Had Biden framed multinational corporations as the villain, and set himself up as the hero that would take them on, then he would have had a narrative, but that's not in his nature. (Which is part of what qualified him for establishment and corporate media backing in the 2020 primary.) Biden would have been a perfectly good Democrat back in the 90s when people were a lot more optimistic about their futures, but that was no longer sufficient. In the 2020 general the Republicans handed him a monster to slay in Trump's complete failure to address the epidemic, but that story was old by the 2024 sequel.
Yeah, that was unfortunate and complete bullshit. Whatever philosophical differences I have with Biden, we was certainly a competent manager of the economy. The inflation wasn't even all that bad, only lasted a couple months, and America kept it lower than anyplace else in the western world. However, a more aggressive and energetic candidate, maybe even a younger Biden, could have gotten that message out. I don't want to dwell on that too much though, because that's too specific to the 2024 election. Anyways, there will always be something that goes wrong and hurts an incumbent.
Yes, a lot of it was externally driven, but it was also a strategy choice going back to right after Republicans embraced the southern strategy. A great easy read on the topic is "Listen Liberal" by Thomas Frank, author of "What's the Matter with Kansas?". Democrats made a conscious decision to abandon working class Americans in favor of urban professionals. It wasn't a slow devolution, it was a pivot.
I guarantee you that Republican voters aren't listening to someone like me. Also, my language before a general election is quite a bit different than after. This is the time for Democrats to learn and refocus to doing better next time. I don't compromise my principals before an election, but I spend a lot more time pointing out that whatever flaws the Democrats have, they are miles better than any Republican.
Despite your assumptions, I do a lot of posts defending Biden when he's being treated unfairly. I also frequently comment about Trump and the Republicans, but not as much because the internet is absolutely flooded with comments like you describe. It just feels redundant to keep pointing out how shitty Trump is. For a while I was pointing out that he was going to be worse than many people expected, but I think the hive mind is pretty much caught up on that now. I also post differently on Lemmy than on other social media. Lemmy is mostly a left leaning space, so there is not as much reason to attack Trump here. On other platforms I spend a whole lot more time debunking Republican lies than anything else.
No, that was reality. That's what happened. The promises were twice as big, but the reality was still enormous.
"Biden caused inflation to go up" was a narrative, and it sold like Nintendo Switch. "Biden caused wages to go up" is not an equally compelling narrative... why? That is what happened. I mean, I know why that one wasn't a narrative, but the reason has absolutely nothing to do with either reality or the inherent nature of the narrative.
Most working people made way more even after adjusting for inflation after Biden was done than before.
True that. It is the source of most of their troubles today, not only because of the history and people's pattern recognition, but because they're still doing it. And yet, one singular Democrat broke with that, and here you are shitting on him.
Why?
Find me where Biden promised to raise the corporate tax rate back to where it was before Trump (35%) or higher and I'll eat my words. I'm a little confused because the rate is still sitting where Trump put it (21%) and I thought we were talking about Biden's promises for his 2024 administration. What do you mean by "happened"?
Well yeah, but it was a narrative for Trump, not Biden. Also, the narratives I'm talking about are the ones going forward. I think you and I can be in perfect agreement that Biden did a lot that he could point to that should have made him more electable. I'm just saying that isn't how most voters make their decisions. It absolutely should be, and if voters were that thoughtful then Democrats could probably win every election by pointing out that they are better than Republicans, even if it were only marginally. Campaigns need a dragon and a hero they believe can slay it. Corporate tax rates that are too low are never going to get the traction that "tranies" trying to shower with your kids will. The (perhaps theatrical) language of "taking on corporate criminals" might seem irrelevant, but it's not.
I really think we are failing to connect here. I absolutely agree that Biden was better than Trump in a myriad of ways. My issue of choice would be the NLRB and the great work they did in making it so much easier to start a union, and so much harder for corporations to union-bust. The problem isn't what Biden did. I was always going to want him to go further than he did, but he far exceeded my predictions and in the world I want to live in he would have beaten Trump easily. (It's a little late in the conversation to mention this, but I'm considering the Harris campaign to be a continuation of the Biden campaign to avoid getting lost in the weeds.)
I disagree that this is what I'm doing. Also, as much of a positive surprise his presidency was, his rhetoric did not break with that. Even in policy, the flow of money from the bottom to the top was barely slowed.
Correct, which is why the awful quality of our media and the prevalence of propaganda in our discourse should be a much bigger deal than it is considered as. If you and me want to talk about how important that is, instead of shitting on Biden for some random reason when Trump undoes some good thing that he did, we can do that, but you're clearly not into that.
I don't even know what to say about all the rest of this stuff. The point is: Your thing about Biden being "most responsible" even for this very, very loosely connected bit of policy that impacted student loans was a deliberate lie. Whether you were lying, or just repeating some lie that you genuinely believe, is not as important to me anymore. I feel like our interaction here can conclude.
Agreed, with a note that the Democratic establishment and their propaganda arm at MSNBC are is as guilty as anyone of causing people to quit caring about facts. Just look at the circus that is the Democratic primary process if you need evidence of that.
I'm still not shitting on Biden, and I've given you my non-random reason. If the Democrats don't get real about addressing the absolutely justified distrust Americans have in the Democratic party, we are all cooked.
Nope.
And that was the last thing he ever did regarding student loans. 40 years ago. Nothing since. The end. 🙄
Also nobody else who is currently sitting on the Supreme Court who is directly and personally responsible for these particular loans directly not having been forgiven, with actions more recent than 40 years ago, that we might want to bring up also, while we're calling balls and strikes.
For the record, I already acknowledged what he did as president in a response to another reply. Biden was quite a bit better as president than I thought he would be (for good historical reasons) and I give him full credit for that.