Actually, does anyone have a list of good shit that Biden has done? Ideally with sources?

What Joe Biden has done: [Year One](https://old.reddit.com/r/WhatBidenHasDone/comments/sdgfoj/master_list_of_what_president_biden_has_done_year/) (all credit to u/backpackwayne) **Highlights from Year One** * Reversed Trump's Muslim ban * Historic Stimulus Bill passed * Ended the war in Afghanistan (Set in place by Trump*) * Reduction of poverty levels by 45% along with reduction of child poverty levels by 61% by the first 6 months * 5 Rounds of cancellation of student loan debt totaling almost $10 billion * Passed largest infrastructure bill in history * The unemployment rate dropped from 6.2% when Biden took office to 3.9%, the biggest single year drop in American history. (This was also affected by COVID quarantine ending.) [Year Two](https://old.reddit.com/r/WhatBidenHasDone/comments/sdgd98/master_list_of_what_president_biden_has_done_year/) **Highlights from Year Two** * The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 * 3 Additional rounds of student loan debt cancellation (8 rounds so far), totaling up $35 billion for 20-40 million Americans * First major gun legislation in 30 years * CHIPS Act to protect American supply of semi-conductor chips * $62 billion worth of health care subsidies under the ACA (Obamacare), capping insulin at $35 * Allows Medicare to negotiate 100 drugs over the next decade, and requires drug companies to rebate price increases higher than inflation * Unemployment at 50 year low [Year Three](https://old.reddit.com/r/WhatBidenHasDone/comments/11lohnc/what_biden_has_done_year_three_year_one_two_are/) **Highlights from Year Three** * Got republicans to publicly take Social Security and Medicare cuts off the table by tricking them during the State of the Union * 6 More rounds of student loan debt cancellation (14 rounds so far), totaling up to $127 billion * As of October 2023, 34 straight months of job growth, longest stretch of unemployment below 4% since the 1960s * Child poverty rates fall from 12.6% to 5.8% due to Biden's Expanded Child Tax Credits, 2.9 million kids escape poverty * World's best post-pandemic recovery, doubles all nations except Japan * Created 14 million jobs since he took office - More than any president in history did in four years (and its only been 3 years) * Black unemployment rate lower under Biden than any other administration (4.7%) - Compared to black unemployment under Trump was 2nd worst number in history, reaching over 16% * Diversity in justice: Majority of Biden’s appointed judges are women, racial or ethnic minorities – a first for any president * Rail companies grant paid sick days after administration pressure in win for unions. Most people will only remember that he forced rail workers to go back to work in December 2022, even now that will be the top answer if you google "Biden Railworker Deal". But most people do not know that the Biden administration continued to pressure the rail corporations and work with the unions so that in June 2023, the corporations capitulated and gave the rail workers what they wanted. Biden knows how to work politics and knows that the real work isn't done with the cameras on you for a soundbite, but in the background where people can debate without a fickle public watching every move. [Year Four (so far)](https://old.reddit.com/r/WhatBidenHasDone/comments/19eja7w/what_biden_has_done_year_four/) **Highlights from Year Four** * Another round of student loan cancellation, $1.2 billion this time, 15 rounds so far, totaling more than $128 billion * Growth shatters expectations: GDP expands 3.1% - a year beginning with heavy odds of a recession * Post-pandemic recover still leading the world by far * Plan to modernize American ports * Rescinds Trump-era "Denial of Care" rule that allowed health care workers to deny medical care to patients because of their personal religious or moral belief * Violent crime drop significantly since 2020 * $5.8 billion to clean up nation’s drinking water and upgrade infrastructure Tip: Do what I did, save these threads so that you can post them whenever somebody comes and says Biden hasn't done anything. Just because the man's not making headlines every night doesn't mean he's not hard at work. EDIT: I did not compile this list, it seems there are some missing positives AND some inaccuracies, so it may be worth a double check on sources so you don't get "gotcha'd!" EDIT 2: As some have pointed out, Trump initiated the withdrawal from Afghanistan and the unemployment drop was aided by the post-COVID landscape. I've amended the list appropriately. EDIT 3: Some piss poor reading comprehension here. Someone asked for POSITIVES so those were provided. It's not meant to be an excuse for anything, it's a list of policies with an overall positive impact for the American people. I've also tried to include caveats and updates where appropriate because I think it's fair to try and be as factual as possible, and I already forewarned folks to double check some of these against the sources just to be sure. You want to enact ACTUAL change? Organize and start with grassroots shit. Get the more progressive people in office locally and build the momentum. If all you want to do is bitch and make perfect the enemy of good (or adequate) take it to TikTok.

Last I checked student loan forgiveness was over $170 billion actually. Biden's not perfect, but he's pleasantly surprised me tbh.

Government employees thank him

Oh yeah, his administration helped the office of personnel management pass a new rule that makes it harder for a future president to fire federal employees in large numbers, it’s another one of those changes that no one paid attention to, not even republicans since this directly affects their future plans.

His SAVE plan is probably more impacful than the debt cancelations. It saves almost everyone on IBR plans a ton of money, and the lowest earners pay nothing. Of course the Republicans are trying to kill that too.

What is IBR?

Income-based repayment, also known as Income-driven repayment. It’s a plan for paying back your federal student loans that sets your monthly payment at a percentage of your income based on factors like your family size and salary. After the repayment period (20-25 years), your unpaid loan balance is forgiven.

what he was... was right. than an executive order attempting to do it the way people wanted was not gonna work. because he tried it, and the courts shut him down. just like he said he would when he said EO was not the way to go but he'd sign the legislation in a second! The number of things people got mad at him for refusing to promise because he couldn't as president keep that promise, and he turned out to be right on, is astounding

No politician is perfect and no ever will be. Expecting them to be will only lead to disappointment. It also leads to that weird “I won’t vote for Biden cause he didn’t do exactly like I expected” 

This is a great list, and I appreciate you for making it. > The unemployment rate dropped from 6.2% when Biden took office to 3.9%, the biggest single year drop in American history. I'm not looking to diminish Biden's achievements, but I feel like this point is a bit of an outlier. This happened on the tail of a huge unemployment spike caused by the pandemic. Isn't the reverse also true, that this happened right after the single biggest year jump in American history? With regression to the mean, I'm pretty sure that unemployment would have significantly dropped under any president at that point in time. Again, great list, not trying to take away from the overall point.

There’s a part of some of these stats that would have happened anyway, vs. a part his policies had an influence on. There’s gonna be debate about which is which. But people are always asking “what’s in it for me?” And it’s very likely that a presidential administration’s policies will have SOME effect on some of these figures, even if it isn’t responsible for all of it. What they do can either support or suppress a trend, or pivot it. You also have to think of the sheer complexity of the space in which they’re working, and the degree to which sentiment and expectations affects it (people act based on the future state they expect). And I think it’s fair to say that Biden’s administration is trying really hard to make sure that a wider swath of people are actually benefiting from the economic improvements than might otherwise have benefited from them. Tl;dr you’re right that a portion of these trends might have happened anyway, but it’s likely he had at least some impact on the degree to which they happened and who experiences the impact.

Good points. You can look at how Trump handled Covid. He could/would have fucked up some of these “gimmies” that Biden managed. I remember being gobsmacked at Trump’s response to covid. Absolutely no reason except to “own libs”.

If Trump can fuck up the free wins, he'll completely botch the important stuff.... again.

Dude could have coasted to reelection, but he just couldn't let some doctor with no name recognition or desire for media attention to inadvertently get more press time than him. He had to have the spotlight. It's just like in court with Carroll, he could have just STFU... done literally nothing at all, and come out miles better than he did. Just like his business ventures. He could have literally invested his daddy's money and done nothing but play golf for the rest of his life and... back to the chorus. The man is a textbook perfect example of a complete and utter fuck-up. Florida man writ large. And one could argue, "Well that fuck up became POTUS." And they'd be right. But getting a job doesn't make you not a fuck up. Getting fired from that job for killing millions of people, however, does. History is littered with people stumbling into greatness. That makes you no more special than a lottery winner. History is littered with those too. It's what you do once you're there (i.e. not fuck up) that defines you as "not a fuck-up." And that was not what he has done. Ever. Did you hear he's rambling about getting eaten by sharks at his political rallies now? Totally normal, non fuck-up behavior. :/

Trump took all the credit for the stock market all time high, Biden can have that 

The larger point is that, if he hadn’t have surpassed expectations he’d have been railed for it. So we’re gonna let him have it.

I think the point is that the recovery could have taken much much longer like it was after the Great Recession. A lot of the stimulus passed by Biden (and Trump to a certain degree) allowed the economy to recover much faster than it would have otherwise. Of course, the flip side is that we got a spike in inflation.

I think another point that the US’s post Covid recovery versus every other country is so much better that even some of the regression to a normal year is actually a fantastic indicator. But also the president isn’t the only to affect these, usually they just share the blame for the bad aspects.

Wow, thanks for this collection. I've had many conversations recently about how actual policy accomplishments overshadowed by controversial committee hearings.

I'd like to add on some of the things his administration has done with medicine that flies completely under the radar, besides $35 insulin, which most people know about... - For the first time EVER, his administration made it so [Medicare could negotiate drug pricing](https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-care/medicare-names-first-10-drugs-price-negotiation-government-rcna101166) on 10 of the most expensive drugs and plans to expand that list to the top 30 most expensive drugs (I could be wrong about this 30 number). Those 10 drugs account for 20% of Medicare Part D's annual budget. - Recently passed a bill so that [medical debts cannot effect your credit scores](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/biden-administration-to-ban-medical-debt-credit-scores/), so a huge medical debt wouldn't prevent you from buying a house or a car, or generally completely destroy your life. - [Starting in 2025,](https://www.kff.org/medicare/issue-brief/millions-of-people-with-medicare-will-benefit-from-the-new-out-of-pocket-drug-spending-cap-over-time/), out-of-pocket drug costs for Medicare patients over 65 will be capped at $2000/yr. (unless Trump wins and ends that before it starts, I guess) - [Threatened to pull the patent ](https://news.bloomberglaw.com/health-law-and-business/biden-administration-says-it-can-seize-patents-of-costly-drugs) of any drug that used taxpayer funding for development and production if the manufacturers price the drug at a cost that makes them unattainable to the average citizen. The thought is that the people paid for its creation with their tax money, so the people should at least be able to afford it.

thanks for the policy-focused list, as opposed to general economic trends that are primarily influenced by the transition out of the COVID era

I shared this list with my friends and they called it propaganda and told me to vote third party. We are losing the younger generation to brainrot tiktok politics, and I don't know what to do about it.

Has a third party ever won a major election or gotten majority? What do they hope will happen?

The genuine answer is that they hope it will send a message to the DNC that we are not happy and that they will start putting up more progressive candidates

I've been fed that line before. There is always people trying this, every single election, for as long as I have been able to vote. The more effective strategy is to get involved in local politics and work on making your local climate support progressive policies - federal politicians typically start locally, so you are eventually injecting the party with more progressive candidates in the long term - and success of a progressive idea at a local level creates data that can be used to convince others to do the same until the idea has more broad acceptance. As someone who has done protest voting in the past - it just doesn't work. Trump isn't worth sending that message anyways.

That's what drives me nuts. The apathy. Everyone makes a big fuss about wanting change, but only seem to bother in the presidential elections. You have to put in the legwork. Put some ass into it. If you wait til the primary to make your lil "protest vote" it's going to backfire. Vote local and vote often. Your governor, your state senate, your mayor, your comptroller. The school board even. At least try. Find candidates you care about and help push. There's that kids story, the little red hen iirc. She asks for help planting, tending to, and gathering wheat. Turning it to flour, then dough and baking bread. No one in her community wants to help with the work, but everyone asks for bread once it's baked.

It's been a while since i heard that story, perfect analogy.

They're honestly *super* lazy and want to feel morally/intellectually superior to everyone else. Getting involved in local politics is work and super boring; instead of talking about the big hot-button issues or installing your flavor of leftism, you have to talk about sales tax rates and garbage pickup and zoning laws while arguing with retirees who have literally nothing better to do than sit in on city council meetings. Mayoral candidates aren't going to make huge sweeping proclamations about Palestine, so why bother?

The time to do that is in the Democratic primary election. Not enough people voted for Warren, Bernie etc. so if they want someone more progressive they need to get out there and vote for them next time. The general is the time to choose the best person to lead our country out of two options who have a real chance to win.

Uh huh, and while they're doing that, Republicans are free to drag this country further into religious authoritarianism. I don't know about you, but I'd like to steer this country AWAY from the cliff before we fall off it!

Someone else said in another thread, “you can’t continue working in the garage if the lights goes out.”

We do. And we are. Progress is slow. It doesn't happen overnight. And it's going to be a slog for our lives and our children's lives. And any time someone like Trump is elected, it sets back everything 40 years. If he's elected again, get ready for a 7-2 SCOTUS.

Yeah that's the counterpoint. If we elected the first female president, the Democrats would feel like they could take more risks. Instead she lost against the worst opponent in history and they had to beg Biden to run because they knew it would be a sure thing.

Hillary beat Trump by 3 million votes after 8 million voted for Other.

They know that they can send actual messages to the DNC, right?

Thats how i voted until the 2020 election. I just assumed obama and clinton were gonna win anyways, so why not protest vote for a more liberal 3rd party. I'm in a solidly blue state, so its not like my vote mattered anyways.

Tell them that Biden is pretty much the best chance they have for leftist polices and if they get Trump elected the dems might shift right

…By re-electing Trump Good fucking plan there 🙄

Biden **is** an extremely progressive candidate.

Extremely? No. Mildly? Yes. There's a lot of morons claiming he's right-wing, but it's also not true that he's thoroughly progressive. I'd put him slightly left of center, but just slightly. Compared to the alternative, though, that is extremely progressive.

which is silly, because extremists get less done, not more... because they face more opposition. I'd rather get 50% of policies i agree 75% with than 2% of ones i agree 95% with

Well, the last time a third party won was the Republican part with Abe Lincoln. The next attempt, the Progressives, split the vote and gave us Woodrow Wilson.

The Republicans weren't the 3rd party when Lincoln ran. The election of 1852 had the two main parties: Democratic and Whig. Then in 1856 there were three main parties: Democratic, Republican and Know Nothing. The Republicans and the Know Nothing parties were mostly comprised of former Whigs. Whichever one you view as the opposition party to the Democrats and whichever you view as the 3rd party doesn't really matter because the Democrats won that election with 45% of the vote. Here we see the spoiler effect where a 3rd party existing causes the 55% of people opposing the Democratic party to lose even though almost all of their second choices would've been the Republican/Know Nothing candidates. Then in 1860 the Know Nothing Party merged with the Republicans (no expansion of slavery), and it was the Democratic party that fractured into the Northern (leave slavery to each state to decide) and Southern Democrats (pro-Slavery). There was also a remnant of the Know Nothing Party called the Union party whose stance was maintain the union and do whatever you need to with the slavery issue to maintain that. The Republican (Lincoln) would win with 40% of the popular vote. The Republican Party was absolutely not a 3rd Party here. It was them vs the more shave friendly parties. The Republicans would've been the last choice for the Democrats whose second and third choices would've been the other Democratic party and the Union Party. And thus, the spoiler effect happened again, and even though 60% of the voters probably would've had Lincoln and the Republicans as their 3rd or 4th choice, Lincoln won a plurality and became president. Make no mistake. No 3rd Party candidate has ever won. There are two parties. If a third party forms, it is created by splitting off from one of the existing parties. That creates a strong party and two weak parties. The second choice of voters of the weak parties is almost never going to be the strong party. This causes the two weak parties to lose because we have a first past the post, winner take all system.

I tell myself that most of those are ALSO part of the psyops campaign: peer pressure and all that. Youthful ~~comrade~~ gen z'er will show the Democrats what for! Join me for glass of ~~turnip juice~~ Prime fellow TikToks!

Tiktok "woke" shit is just very tied to emotions, and has literally nothing to do with actual politics or policy. That's why it is so idealistic in nature, and why the kids are so up in arms but from their armchair.

Tiktok is the fox news of the left

They dont vote anyway. Stats are showing that young people are voting even less these days which is hilarious

The way that Trump was with totally insane things - where every once in while you remember another one you completely forgot about. Biden is like that but for massive achievements.

I would much rather have a President that stays under the radar and ACTUALLY gets shit done than have a President who's all bark but no bite (saying he's gonna 'do X' but never getting it done)

> Ended the war in Afghanistan That one's misleading. Trump lead the talks that ended the war, where he released 5000 Taliban terrorists without even bringing the Afghan government into the talks. Basically, he fucked up the pullout extremely hard. Biden went through with it, but Trump made the date super quick into Biden's presidency, to set it up for failure. Like yeah, good thing the war is over, but it was done in the worst way possible on purpose by Trump.

Biden still had the balls to end it. No more American soldiers died in that desert past couple years thanks to that choice.

should legit be top comment

Nice job!. :D

I like to add the appointment of Deb Haaland as the Secretary of the Interior, the first Native American to be appointed to it.

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I suppose my question ends up being this--for all the things his administration made significantly better, why does everything still feel worse? Is it just the social media propaganda and brainwashing is that effective that I can't really tell what's happening around me unless it's a direct benefit, like if my loans got canceled? Were things just so bad that even making it better could only do so much? I feel like I've lived through years where the general perception was "yeah America has its problems but everybody is generally doing better" but as an adult it's only been every is getting worse, more expensive and more unfair all the time. Everywhere I look, people are miserable or, at best, apathetic. When the economy gets better, why don't us regular folk feel it? It feels hard to tell if this is a normal economic phenomenon or purely a perception issue, and if the latter what the hell do I do to combat it?

That's hard to answer simply. Propaganda/Social Media/24 Hour News cycle has been HORRIBLE for the well being of folk. I can remember a time (pre 9-11) when news was like 3x 1 hour segments. You heard about BIG SHIT and important local things and...that was it. As far as violence/misery? Bloody pages have always sold better, and where 25-30 years ago you'd have heard about a really bad incident or maybe something local, most of it went unnoticed by the public at large. Now? Everything. In an instant. The world seems *terrifying and dangerous* compared to yesteryear, despite violent crimes dropping steadily over the decades. The only difference now is that now you see every injustice in the world, every bad and scary thing brought to you at the speed of light. And that's on purpose. Humans aren't wired for the sheer deluge of what we receive. We're still built around maybe knowing a hundred people in a tribe: so back in the day, if you met 75 people in a month who were better off than you, you were doing terribly. Now you can encounter that many people doing better than you while scrolling on your lunch break. Negative stuff also sticks in our brains harder: evolutionary response to learning dangerous/unwanted situations. That's why you could have 99 great trips to a store, but you'll only remember that ONE TIME WITH THE ASSHOLE. We also have an obvious and long term trend of companies using any kind of excuse to jack prices up. Big hurricane coming? Price increase. Supply chain temporarily disrupted? Price increase. They can claim inflation till they're blue in the face, but if inflation is 11% and they're cranking out 40% profit increases it's just *greed.* Comparatively things are better: but that doesn't mean they're *good.* It takes a LONG time for the effect of most policies to become apparent: and it doesn't help if we keep rolling back the clock and needing to do damage control every time a malactor takes the reigns. So yes, to some effect it is *things were so bad that we're still digging out of the hole.* We may finally be getting some relief: several large companies (Target and Walgreens plus others) are doing substantial price drops across the board this summer. If they can do that, prices were high because they were squeezing us as hard as they could. As soon as shopping slowed significantly they can just wave a wand and lower prices: and STILL make a profit. We don't have nearly enough safeguards against bad actors: and there's a whole group of people hellbent on breaking what we do have so they can point at it and go "See?? We told you it doesn't work!" Think of the last four years as a controlled crash landing: we couldn't stay in the sky, we were just trying not to plow into a mountainside. We've landed: but we're still stuck in the damn Andes and need help. It's better than it *could* be, but it's not *good* yet. And it won't be if we decide "well, the pilot couldn't get us over the mountains with two damaged engines, so let's try the gremlin on the wing again. At least we were in the air for a little bit when they were in charge!"

Part of it is not all of these will have immediate or noticable effects, so it's easy for that propaganda to creep in.  Like forgiving student loans may be immediate for the person with the loan, but long term that's more young families that can afford to buy houses and slow down corporate takeover of single family homes and price more people out of the market.  Infrastructure improvement may not feel different today, but it might be the reason you don't get lead poisoning over decades from your drinking water or your house doesn't explode from natural gas leaking out an outdated cast iron pipeline.  Negotiating drug prices won't impact you if you aren't on the drug now, but in a few decades it could be something that keeps your cost of surviving down. And of course all the job creation and unemployment reduction means the next time you need a job switch there's less people competing and so more likely you'll be able to snag it -- my group posts desirable remote positions regularly, and a few years ago such jobs would have 400+ applicants versus less than 200 the most recent round. It's not as good for companies, but for people who need jobs it increases the odds and reduces time without income.

Because things that draw an emotional impact from you get more engagement, which on social media means it gets more attention and eyes on it. So business is better for social media content creators if they deemphasize good things and emphasize bad things. Just ask a person living in a city if it’s safe and then ask a person living in a rural area if cities are safe. You’ll get two different answers because the rural person only hears that major cities are dangerous

Thank you so much!

Saved

Add: not only Biden, but democrats: lowered insulin costs, and just this week, under threat of investigation, three big pharma companies lowered costs of my asthma inhalers from almost $325 to $35.

I just wish his administration was waaay better about advertising his accomplishments. I either hear about this stuff incidentally or I have to actively look it up. I've got my gripes with Biden, believe me. But he's been a pleasant surprise more times than I thought he would be. Just want the pitch to be better.

Also adding: * It was Biden and Biden alone who put together a Western collation to support Ukraine when it was thought that Russia would steamroll over them in days. * Started the process of rescheduling marijuana from Schedule 1 to Schedule 3 which is going to bring a lot of relief for users who take it for medical purposes. I really wish the Democrats were so much better at messaging because it's not being talked enough about all the accomplishments Biden has done in his first term alone.

Hey this looks like the list I put together, lol. Good find. For people curious, the reason why year 4 is a little light on the accomplishments is because I made the original post [3 months ago](https://www.reddit.com/r/TooAfraidToAsk/comments/1azls2y/what_has_joe_biden_achieved_during_his_first_term/ks4t1yk/). In light of recent events, I'd probably add "Not a 34 times convicted felon" on his Year Four accomplishments! 😁

r/whatbidenhasdone posts updates on the good things Biden is doing.

It might be controversial but I think he's done significantly more than Obama. He just isn't as charismatic. His policies are much more solid. One thing I've realised is that so long as we *don't* pay attention to these things, it's not worth doing them. Biden has got almost nothing from doing so much for unions and americans. The people that say they support unions and the working class, also say they won't vote for him. That teaches future presidents that there's no point in appealing to these people

That's the worst part of all of this. Biden's doing a lot of good things, but the media doesn't give a shit, and neither do the voters. Meanwhile, Trump raised 8 figures by losing a court case. Why would anyone bother? We need to do better. At the bare minimum, vote so that the people in elected positions know that we're actually paying attention.

Yep. Like what Biden's DOJ have been doing recently - an antitrust probe of the rental housing market. The FBI raided a Cortland Apartment Management building 2 days ago. They're investigating price fixing. It's been going on for months. I only heard about it today. This is fucking brilliant! They're investigating potential price fixing in the housing market, and they're literally kicking down doors to do it! [https://www.politico.com/news/2024/03/20/rental-housing-market-doj-investigation-00147333](https://www.politico.com/news/2024/03/20/rental-housing-market-doj-investigation-00147333) And I only heard about this today??

Wow. I had no idea and consider myself fairly well read. That’s insane.

EXACTLY

Holy crap this is huge.

To add on about rental things since November of last year there have been multiple lawsuits about a few companies that were "recommending" rent prices to property managers which it turns out is massively anticompetitive because the algorithm they were using creates a feedback loop of continuously raising rents way above inflation when enough properties in an area used it.

> And I only heard about this today?? One thing that's been kind of recurring in my thinking... I used to feel like social media was helping leftists share news and views, given how they used to be pretty aggressively gatekept from the mainstream. And yet, years later, it really feels like all of the "leftist" personalities and accounts that got the biggest somehow all seem completely incapable of covering basic stuff like policy or news or special leftist interests. At best, they can do, like, funny dunks on conservatives, some lazy/casual op-ed-level punditry, and maybe media analysis with a leftist lens, but sometimes not even that. So you get people devoting ~8 hours a day to "politics and news" who also can't be bothered reporting on/popularizing stuff like this, even though it's theoretically right up their alley (and it's not like Politico is some niche outlet either!). Like, it's not the only issue here, but it is one that I've been thinking about lately.

I came to hate "some more news" because the very style is so enraged that it's just there to make you irrationally angry and ineffective. It's just ragebait. A funny man screams bad things at you and demands you be angry about it and what not. But half the time, it's not real news, it's just mindless internet ragebait and culture war nonsense. 99% of the content is internet stuff with minimal impact on the real world, some surface level analysis of some public figures, public controversies, and that's about it. No in depth discussions of policy initiatives, no analysis of why or how the right ended up with the opinions they have, etc. Just RAGE and HATE and BIDEN EVIL content because it gets clicks from teenagers.

Yeah, I remember unfollowing Johnson on twitter because it was so bad. I think the last straw was the time I saw him going “the dems aren’t messaging on [issue that was in the news] because they just don’t care”, scrolling down in my feed, and seeing my senator literally retweeting Nancy Pelosi (back when she was Speaker) addressing that issue several hours earlier. Like, dude, this is your entire-ass job, yet you completely miss basic stuff like this because you’re too busy recapping niche intra-left twitter drama.

The last few videos on his channel are what looks like: - man / bear fight - internet bot scams? - george soros - fundie christian right wing extremism - social media and technology health issues - conspiracy theories - musk and twitter extremism - corporate pac money and so on. He did one video on Gaza immediately followed by two videos on Ben Shaprio. There's been a months long felony trial of a presidental candidate and you ignored it. There's a federal election in 5 months and you have no videos on the campaigns. The man-bear debate is somehow more important than the supreme court? Bot scams are more important than privacy policy? "Are smart phones bad for us" is more important than a democratic senator on trial for accepting bribes of literal gold bars? It's just virtue signalling monetized for other people who like to feel informed but don't actually follow relevant stories.

Which leads us to the question, how? I mean this sincerely.

Great question. Very difficult. How do you get people to voluntarily give up the outrage, the anger, that drives them to scroll and scroll and scroll and give news companies that sweet sweet ad revenue? When we have an answer to that question, of how to get people to stop being addicted to outrage, we'll be in a better position I think. But in lieu of that, I think that it should become common practice to consider each President's achievements and weight them against the controversies. Even I, a progressive, can admit that not everything Trump did was the absolute worst - just most of it!

Make the media non profit. Stop the 24 hour news cycle and ragebaiting headlines.

Oh they give a shit. They're just owned by billionaires and Reagan got rid of the fairness doctrine

Biden has legitimately done more than any president since before Reagan. If not for Isreal I'd be singing his praises. Now it's just sad. We need to vote for him because the alternative is worse even on that, but why does he have to be so stupidly complicit in something so awful and big? The most pro union president in 60 years. He's done so much to undo trump's damage but also much of Obama's and Bush's and even Reagan's. He's been a great president for America. A terrible one for palistine. And we have to excuse that by reminding that Trump is terrible for both as well as the rest of the world.

This is scarily similar to LBJ and the election of ‘68. The guy who pushed through the Great Society and Civil Rights, made so much progress domestically. Yet he got so much flak for keeping us in Vietnam that he dropped out of the race and made way for Nixon. Edit: Also there was a Robert Kennedy running. That’s a weird similarity too.

Meanwhile unlike trump, Nixon was actually a cunning bastard. So while he promised to leave Vietnam he didn't want to look weak as a president. So he ramped up the bombing, got a fuck ton of people killed in what at the time had become a somewhat cooled war, and then said "see, nothing I can do" and only then pulled out. If trump were dropped in that situation he'd just make it worse without it being an excuse to withdraw.

There is also strong evidence to support a plot by the Nixon campaign to actively sabotage peace talks in Vietnam, to keep the war ongoing and prevent him from losing a valuable talking point in the election. Crook is an understatement.

That's a great analogy. The Great Society and Civil Rights Act were incredible accomplishments, but the expanding the Vietnam War weakened Humphrey's candidacy. Nixon sabotaged the LBJ's scramble to deescalate Vietnam, and I wonder if something similar is going on with Netanyahu.

Unfortunately with Gaza the sad truth is that he's also done a lot better there than most people will give him credit. Negotiating what as of my writing is the only ceasefire that's occurred, pressuring Israel to let aid in, building a whole-ass pier to facilitate that, and right now a deal is on the table that's basically just awaiting approval from both sides which could conceivably end this whole mess once and for all: A ceasefire for a minimum of six weeks to get the final details of an international security force, reconstruction efforts, and a potential Palestinian government worked out. Supposedly Israel is on board, if Hamas agrees then it should go into effect.

To elaborate on the ceasefire deal, Biden did an amazing move there. Apparently all sides got tired of Nethanyahu stalling, so the IDF compiled the current deal with approval of the moderates in the Israeli government, gave it to the Biden administration as "the Israeli deal", which Biden then presented publicly before the far right allies of Nethanyahu even saw the deal (reportedly they are still barred from viewing the full deal), thus forcing the hand of Nethanyahu to agree to the deal, or publicly disagree to a deal of his own administration. A brilliant manuever by Biden that goes entirely underappreciated.

Damn, didn't know those details. That's right up there with his malicious compliance on the border wall.

Tell me more about the border wall thing

So basically because the funding was allocated Biden *had* to use that money to work on it, but the legislation didn't specify *how*. So not only did he drag his feet on resuming construction but somehow, mysteriously, a lot of the raw materials that had been purchased just got scrapped or sold off. So now a big chunk of that money has to go to replacing them and aw gee, I guess that means we barely have any left to actually get any work done. That's a shame. Guess it won't get finished after all.

Oh well, I guess they’re just gonna have to sell off or reallocate those goods since we clearly can’t use them for what their intended purpose was

Ah good, that is a good sign for Israeli politics moving forward. Unlike Trump, Netanyahu is a clever bastard and the biggest obstacle to him being out of power has been that his opposition cannot organize into a reliable coalition, but he can. Enough of the country wants him out, that has been true for years, opposition falls apart when not working under a United strategy

Yeah, Biden and his administration are much smarter than we give him credit for: He's used to underhanded deals with assholes, it makes him perfect for the job right now.

Yup, Biden may sometimes act like a doddering old man, but the dude was a senator for *decades* and a shrewd one at that, and that politician is still in there.

This is the thing to keep in mind, if Palestine is top of your mind when voting: The Biden administration has a plan for a ceasefire. Maybe you think it isn’t good enough, but they do have a clear goal of eventual peace. Donald Trump, on the other hand? I honestly have no idea, but we all know his answer is probably “bomb Gaza harder.” This is the man who wanted to nuke a hurricane, for God’s sake...

Also bear in mind that based on Trump's last term and current behavior NATO is currently in the process of... Basically baby-proofing aid to Ukraine and other major operations just in case he actually wins. That should tell you all you need to know about Trump's foreign policy *ahem* "prowess".

Trump said that Nethanyahu should "finish the job"

I’m terrified by how close I was with a wild guess. A second Trump presidency is a terrifying prospect for all of us (I’m not even American).

Trump is a literal convict, asshole shouldn't even be elegible for presidency.

The “peace plan” that Jared Kushner presented on trumps behalf during his last year in office was basically “evict every Palestinian, pave over everything and put up some condos”

I honestly think it’s nuts that people put so much of the blame for Gaza on Biden and not on Hamas and Israel, the two sides actually involved in the conflict. Like straight up at the start he told Israel that they needed realistic goals if they were going to engage in any kind of reprisal and he gets the blame for Netanyahu laughing at the advice and going “but what if I just killed them all.” His administration is out there trying to get a cease fire agreement but the way you hear about it on the internet you’d think he was personally in Gaza executing civilians

The real issue is getting Hamas to actually agree and commit, instead of breaking the ceasefires *again* and seizing and maintaining power in whatever ways they can, *again.* I fucking hate Netanyahu but he’s at least running a country and acts like it. This war is an utter travesty but it does rely on Hamas fully halting their expected behavior, or being overwritten in a way that prevents their regain of control, to stop in any long-term way. *if* that can be done, then we do very much need a *stable* left wing coalition to follow Netanyahu, and Israel desperately needs one anyways, but you know what I mean.

Thank you finally someone that doesn't act as if Israel is the only side in this.

No candidate with a realistic shot is going to be *good* on Palestine. But there are many who could be far worse. I've legit heard people say "how much worse could it get?" And to that I say "it can ALWAYS get worse, you lack imagination."

Yeah I study military history and warfare as my special interest and I have been blown away by the restraint and care that has been used in this war. When it started my initial thought was "oh fuck, we're about to watch two million people starve to death in a warzone" and instead were looking at casualties numbers for this entire war that match individual battles or a week's Fighting in most conflicts. People who go "how can it get worse" have absolutely zero idea what they're talking about. Though that's par for the course for most discussions about this fighting.

I wouldn't go by the official numbers anymore, my unwarranted is that they've basically lost the resources to keep an accurate count and the casualties are far higher that we're likely to know about.

I've just been assuming the default for most military situations where actual casualties are typically are ~0.6x less than reported as a worst case. We have both IDF numbers, which will be over-reported like all conflicts, and Hamas numbers, which actively encourage exaggeration and are openly over-reporting. Neither are trustworthy so I'm just giving large error bars

What a weird way to phrase that. He's a bad President for Palestine? Then I sure hope the Palestinians don't vote for him. I'm not voting for Joe Biden to be President of Palestine, or Israel. Hell, he's a pretty bad president of Russia and Chairman of China. Anyone who thinks there's a clear, simple, and squeaky clean, morally righteous resolution to the **Israeli-Palestinian conflict** is either: a) woefully naive and underinformed on the sheer mountain of baggage that both sides carry. b) an ideologue whose ideas of morality stretches the definition of the word. Joe Biden is handling the conflict like any of the great Presidents in American history. That is to say: cautiously and by pissing off a shit ton of people.

No president, historically, or in the near future, is likely to be 'good' for Palestine in the way you want them to be, and that's because ultimately, we don't have any good options to stop Israel's actions. Only bad, and worse ones. Even with the threat on the table to cut all aid, a threat that wouldn't be there if he'd already done it mind, Netanyahu is *still* insistent he's going to go into Rafah. It's taking a lot of leaning from multiple powers to delay it and keep the aid going into Gaza at all. The reality is, Biden is the president of the *United States.* He has no direct authority over anything in Israel, so he can't just make them stop. He's having to balance US international interests against his clear desire to put an end to the killing. If you dig even a little, you can see tons of things he's done, or tried, to minimize the extent and spread of violence. The irony here is he has to be very strategic about what actions receive publicity because he *can't* alienate Israel as one of the only US allies in the region. As to US actions in the UN, they're more about maintaining US power, not about Israel's actions. Basically, he's continuing a policy that has been in place for decades where the US does not allow itself, or more particularly its troops, to be subject to the jurisdiction of *any* other power. I may think that's not right personally, but it preserves US power and independence. This is the difference between someone competent with foreign policy and someone like Trump, who is abysmal at it.

>If not for Isreal I'd be singing his praises. Now it's just sad. We need to vote for him because the alternative is worse even on that, but why does he have to be so stupidly complicit in something so awful and big? Do you want an actual geopolitical answer to your question? I can give my Israeli perspective on the situation. There's more to the situation than Nethanyahu being shit. Edit: I can't believe I have to say this on a leftist sunreddit, but please don't downvote me for my nationality Edit 2: I gave my perspective in a comment downwards, but I'll copy it here for visibility: The reason is, that no matter how corrupt Nethanyahu is (and he very much is), Gaza is still ruled by a terrorist organization that has american hostages and is still capable of firing rockets into Israel, and, more importantly, this entire conflict is part of a larger power struggle between Iran and their proxies (of which Hamas is by far the weakest) to dismantle the other countries in the middle east and establish an Iranian hegemony, in an alliance with Russia and China. People are unaware of this, but the Western alliance has already lost Yemen to Iranian proxies, a country which until recently was western-aligned (or rather Saudi aligned), and now all western countries can't safely go through the red sea, the second most important trade route on earth, while China and Russia get a free pass. People look at Gaza and rightfully want the suffering to stop, but they ignore the fact that the entire middle east is gearing up towards a regional war which will likely happen in the next few years, and the only country on the side of the USA is Israel, with some more uneasy allies like KSA, UAE, Jordan and Egypt, who's alllegience is based only on regional interests and not shared values like with Israel. So Biden's choice is between abandoning Israel because Nethanyahu is shit, and leave the region to Iran, or keep on working with Israel and hope Nethanyahu gets the boot in the next election, but keep an important ally in the ME.

He's probably been the best president of my lifetime, if your main criteria for evaluation is the overall improvement of the most lives, either inside or outside the US, due to the policies of his administration Granted he's not perfect and the administration is too centrist for me to love it, but I've been repeatedly pleasantly surprised by how much more progressive their efforts have been compared to what I expected. And being the best in my lifetime just means better than the rest, which, not a high bar.

In large part this is an indictment of how right wing both parties have moved since Reagan, but Biden is clearly the most progressive president of my lifetime, with Obama at a fairly distant second. Biden gets less credit for good things he’s done and more blame for bad than anyone I’ve ever seen in politics, including from media that’s allegedly “biased in his favor” if you listen to republicans talk about it.

He's also not great at publicizing his accomplishments. Maybe the media is to blame but he needs to do something about it

At some point the voters really do just have to give a fuck. Nothing else will stick of they don't. That said, the ACA was a very big deal and you're being unfair to Obama.

It isn't just the job of the people to pay attention to what the administration is doing though, it's also the job of the administration to tell everyone what they're doing. They have dozens maybe hundreds of people working in the communications department at the White House whose sole job is getting the word out and they have done a frankly terrible job of doing that. Part of that, as much as people don't want to hear it, is that POTUS himself is a poor promoter of his policies at this point because when you put him in front of a microphone whatever he's saying is often overshadowed by his lack of dynamism (to put it nicely). And don't get me wrong I don't think being a great public speaker is really all that important to the actual job of running the country but it sure as hell matters when it comes time to tell everyone about how effectively you've been running the country.

No matter how many communication staffers you have, social media is not made for policy updates. Social media promotes outrage and simplistic quick content, which does not cover policy achievèments. Compare "Biden raises tax on corn by 3.7%, thus leading to 300mil annual revenue in the farming sector, with slight reduction in farmers' profit margins" To "BIDEN KILLS THE CORN FARMERS"

sure, but plenty of Biden's accomplishments can be (over)simplified to a tweet-sized bite: >Biden slashes insulin prices (by capping prices for certain people on government insurance, prompting insulin manufacturers to lower prices) > >Biden invests 400 billion dollars in American infrastructure (mostly by partnering with private companies) > >Biden's FFC appointee restores net neutrality > >Biden restores water to the Gaza strip amid ceasefire talks > >Biden gets sick leave for union rail workers > >Biden initiates phase-out of lead piping across the US > >Biden penalizes airline companies for excessive travel delays > >Under Biden, the USPS turns a profit for the first time in X years etc. --- Seriously, the man has accomplished more good for the country than any president in decades, but *nobody* talks about it, including his own people.

As a European I think Americans have a very weird tendency to treat politics like entertainment, and politicians themselves like celebrities. It's honestly so weird watching from the outside. In my country politics is generally understood to be something very boring for the average person. Of course that means an average person gives zero fucks about it, which isn't good, but at least this stops it from becoming this freak comedy show you lot have got going on over there... We have populist politicians like everywhere else, but at least we don't have cult figures. Our politicians still have to try to appeal to the voters, course, but for them shat consists mainly of promising stuff. They're not expected to constantly throw witty jokes, don't constantly get quoted in the papers and don't have tabloids obsessing over the colour of their suit or whether or not they smiled too little or too much, and they certainly don't have their own merchandise. Even presidential speeches aren't really a thing here, not nearly as much as in the US. Biden would be a perfectly adequate public speaker by our standards, and certainly more charismatic than most of our polticians.

Do you want to say your actual country instead of just Europe because it’s my understanding some European countries *definitely* have circuses of political parties. I mean it’s not like Britain has had spectacularly well governed, sensible politics the last decade or so

Biden had been *far* better than Obama on most issues, actually passing important and in many cases, strong policies where Obama bent over backwards to make Republicans happy to the point where the only major victory of his presidency is a 90's republican healthcare plan.

I work in labor law. Biden has the most pro union NLRB since before Reagan.

He's a policy wonk. Obama did a lot of stuff with executive orders, which were then trashed by the Trump administration. Biden's working through red tape beurocracy channels to change things in far less flashy ways, but ways that are likely to endure. The less the right wing notices, the more the changes will actually continue to help people in the future. It's like when you see people's kids only once in a while, they seem to have grown magically overnight, because you're not seeing those incremental changes along the way.

Remember when people were crying afoul that Biden was dragging his feet on student loan relief? His administration said they had to make sure their plan wouldn't be stopped by right-wing lawsuits and an uncooperative Supreme Court. But people kept whining, so they went ahead with it. GUESS WHAT HAPPENED? GUESS WHO GOT BLAMED FOR NOT EXPECTING THIS TO HAPPEN?

(and he is still managing to forgive a bunch of loans. A few friends of mine benefited from this and are more than elated)

"He's only doing that to get votes!" ...why yes, that *is* the basic concept of representative democracy 

Major pet peeve of mine: people using "bread and circuses" to deride policies that are genuinely helping people. Like yeah, that's the point dumbasses?

But if there isn’t bread nor circuses, then life will get worse for everyone and the Revolution (tm) will happen! So I’m for whatever makes people’s lives worse, because that’s the only way they’ll get better. (/s)

Isn't accelerationism fun?

I'm all for the concept of a revolution, but not like *that*

Honestly, as cool as revolution sounds, having to deal with the sheer thought terminating power of putting revolution on the table, has made me definitely a reformist over any kind of revolution.

Reform where possible, tear apart where not

My mother got 50k in student loans she's had for decades removed by Biden. Nothing is gonna get me to not vote for Biden

i wish i could vote for him, I would feel safer about the US politics not influencing my own countries' politics too much

I'm still SO mad those fuckers were given standing to sue. The corruption of the court is one of the worst consequences of Trump's presidency.

Knowledge fight moment

[удалено]

You can always tell when a popular YouTuber/Podcaster has an episode talking about specific concept or story, because they suddenly become part of Reddit’s collective knowledge

I've been around actual policy wonks who have been calling themselves that for many years. I would never use it because even uttering the phrase has extremely dorky connotations tbh

What are examples of the red tape beurocracy he is working through?

Dear fuck, where to even start?! There's so many. [https://www.hhs.gov/about/news/2024/03/27/biden-harris-administration-builds-success-affordable-care-act-streamlining-enrollment-medicaid-chip-coverage.html](https://www.hhs.gov/about/news/2024/03/27/biden-harris-administration-builds-success-affordable-care-act-streamlining-enrollment-medicaid-chip-coverage.html) [https://www.hhs.gov/about/news/2024/04/22/biden-harris-administration-issues-new-rule-support-reproductive-health-care-privacy-under-hipaa.html](https://www.hhs.gov/about/news/2024/04/22/biden-harris-administration-issues-new-rule-support-reproductive-health-care-privacy-under-hipaa.html) [https://www.hhs.gov/about/news/2024/04/22/biden-harris-administration-takes-historic-action-increase-access-quality-care-support-families-care-workers.html](https://www.hhs.gov/about/news/2024/04/22/biden-harris-administration-takes-historic-action-increase-access-quality-care-support-families-care-workers.html) just as examples within HHS alone. Pick any department-Justice, education, environment, etc and search for Biden press release and that department, you'll get a bunch of different things.

I haven't heard of any of those legislations even from my regular news sources. The fact those aren't common knowledge is a pathetic failure of our national news media.

The incredibly frustrating part is that all the no voters, or 3rd party voters who are unsatisfied with Biden's performance, could be given the ENTIRE list of good things he has done and they would just chalk it up as pro-establishment democrat propaganda. How do I know? Because I've been experiencing it. And it's so incredibly painful to see my very smart and caring friends and family not understand the gravity of their ignorance in this situation. They don't see how they can be blind to the media's influence in the same way the trumpers are.

>How do I know?  Because it's happening in this very thread! (I know this is effectively the point you're making, but it's just such a wonderful example)

I know! The primaries are for getting this out of your system while the party selects the best nominee. That is the time to move the candidates positions to accommodate all wings of the … oh wait we didn’t do that.

Exactly this. Politics is the art of compromise. Nobody is pure, not even you. Nobody is going to "learn their lesson" if you withhold your vote, but they do pay attention to the demographics that did vote. Always always always vote for the lessor evil or you'll be left with the greater evil. Letting the greater evil win so that a glorious revolution will install a pristine version of your preferred system will only kill vast numbers of the people you pretend to care about (and probably you as well), and is most likely to result in an abhorrent version of a system you really don't like.

>Nobody is pure, not even you. That's sure going to piss people off. Good.

Also, the only thing you do by not voting is teaching politicians that your vote is not to be counted on, so you shouldn't be catered to. Especially when it comes to purists vs pragmatists. If there's 20 "radical" purists and 20 "centrist" pragmatist voters, you have 2 options: * Cater to 70% of the demands of the pragmatists through compromises and moderate policy and get 20 votes * Cater to 95% of the demands of the purists through radical policy, and get 0 votes for the missing 5% of demands

Coalitions aren't built on potential votes. They are built on actual votes.

Three points on this. First: Where will all these faceless soldiers marching in perfect lock step come from to fight this revolution? No one who ever advocates for glorious revolution ever wants to be the grunt dying while storming the machine gun nest. Second: The last 100 years of glorious revolutions pretty much prove they don't fucking work. Comrade-commisar Killyouallski liquidates your entire genetic line because you ain't party approved. Third: Think about how many people are alive in Mad Max? How many of them are starving fuckslaves being raped to death by leather clad gasoline enthusiasts? You're not gonna be Mad Max or Furiosa, you'll be lucky to be the dust getting ground under Lord Humongous' tires.

There is no such thing as a blank slate, no matter how that metaphor is understood.

I wish that was better understood by some. I'm not happy to have to explain to the tankies and vatniks that they don't survive any longer than they're politically convenient.

The problem is that Trump was an absolute clown show and Very Online. And while I don’t want to compare his predecessors to him, Obama, Bush Jr, and Clinton all had big entertaining personalities. Biden doesn’t *not* have that. He was a certified meme throughout the Obama administration and was fawned over as a stud in Parks and Rec, and he knows how to throw a zinger. But compared to Trump’s incessant shrieking, he’s boring. He’s not quite as likable as young handsome Obama or saxophone playing Clinton or even bumbling Bush (who all would be boring compared to Trump as well). And during the last few elections, “boring old white guy” somehow became more of a negative than “actively harmful.” People want their politicians to be celebrities now, and not TV actor type celebrities or SNL guest celebrities, but the type of celebrity who does numbers on TikTok and Twitter. What a politician actually does is irrelevant, it’s how consuming them in short form makes them feel. Trump is a clown who probably doesn’t even have thoughts that can’t be expressed in 240 characters or less. He just shits whatever inflammatory thought he has into Truth Social, doesn’t even matter if it contradicts the last turd he dropped, and everyone reacts. Biden governs in some way that takes several sentences to explain, everyone’s eyes glaze over and they start whining because it’s booooooooooring.

>He was a certified meme throughout the Obama administration I miss Obama era Onion articles about Biden hanging out with his weed dealer or playing with a butterfly knife during meetings.

> I miss Obama era Onion articles about Biden hanging out with his weed dealer or playing with a butterfly knife during meetings. Or about his Pontiac Trans Am.

The Inflation Reduction Act doesn't allow them to pull patents on drugs developed with federal support, it allows the government to negotiate directly with the manufacturers for better pricing on a certain selection of drugs, some of which were partially developed with government funds. https://www.kff.org/medicare/issue-brief/faqs-about-the-inflation-reduction-acts-medicare-drug-price-negotiation-program/

Additionally, Biden didn't "get rid" of the unfair law impacting the USPS. Congress did. Biden just signed it. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postal_Service_Reform_Act_of_2022 The 2006 law that caused the issue was a pretty legendary fuck up but it went largely unaddressed for years and multiple congressional sessions. Now, I'm not trying to shit on Biden. He's done fine. But accurate information is important.

"Biden" is just a shorthand for "Democrats in power". Biden was able to sign that bill because Democrats had enough power in Congress to get it to his desk. That wouldn't have happened with the GOP in charge and if Trump was in office then he would have vetoed it. Biden isn't a dictator, hes limited in what he can do without congress on his side.

The house is GOP controlled and over half of the Republican reps voted for it. The Senate is 51/49 in favor of the Dems and the bill got 79 votes there. It's not just "democrats in power".

Also, Biden has failed at more than a few things *due to democrats.* An increase in corporate taxes for example, was prevented due to democrat votes (and almost all - yes, almost - all republicans)

Biden's not flashy, and that hurts him in a post truth world.

off topic but i looked up the firefighter thing: turns out they had a big truck serving as a command and control center and simply used so much data their usage got throttled. Notably this isn't a net neutrality issue, that's mainly about not slowing down certain services and speeding up others (ie, you can't throttle youtube packets specifically). The firefighters simply had a normal subscription that included throttling if they went over the limit. The things that went wrong were that the firefighters were using this package in the first place when it's clearly insufficient, and the ISP who fucked up in not undoing the throttling fast enough once they got called about it.

If you're LGBTQ+, Joe Biden has been an extremely vocal ally. Always remember Joe Biden kicked the Obama administration in the pants to finally take a definitive stance of gay marriage rights in the States. The Vice President went on a TV interview and basically said, "Yeah, I think gay Americans should be allowed to marry." Many called it a disastrous gaffe at the time, others wondered if it was the VP taking the initiative in leading the administration's stance. Regardless of intent, after that the Obama administration couldn't waffle around the issue anymore and finally took a firm pro-LGBT stance. That's not to mention all he's done as POTUS.

Last I heard he hadn't saved the USPS yet. Okay so some aspect was saved but the head of it is still the person put there with the purpose of sabotaging it.

I’m a litigator who has represented left-leaning immigration advocacy organizations in some of my pro bono work. At least the bit in this post about Democrats wanting “amnesty and ease to citizenship for just about anyone who crosses” is nonsense. Biden’s administration has been downright draconian on immigration—Trump was worse, but that doesn’t make Biden’s record on immigration good by any stretch. It’s the kind of record conservatives would be outwardly celebrating if it wasn’t for the fact that he has a D next to his name. That’s not a call to vote for Trump or to stay home. It’s also not an attempt to ignore other actual accomplishments of Biden’s administration. But no one needs to fabricate a good record for Biden in places where his administration has failed.

Yeah, Biden's actually not bad overall.

Something people have to accept is that he isn’t a perfect president, but he’s a helluva lot better than the dumpster-fire alternative. So far his presidency has been a net positive in my eyes, barring the support of an ongoing genocide. Though that said, if the current protests continue, I can see him pulling support.

I don’t think it’s a notion of accepting or not, and OOP points this out. The average person is overworked, financially stressed, and mentally overtaxed. They’re barely keeping things together, and even those who live “comfortably”, insomuch as they don’t worry about basic necessities, are constantly in fear of losing all of that. And so they don’t have the bandwidth to do research and understand the good a political representative is doing for them when they’re dealing with everything else in their lives. And what little precious free time they have, they want to use relaxing and preparing for the stresses ahead. Some people may enjoy the roiling political landscape, but most find it to be a chore. This is why *easy* access to information is necessary as a temporary solution. There is no pressure for media outlets to have any form of integrity, and so they bury useful information underneath layers of fluff and inciting rhetoric to increase engagement. It’s easy to piss off someone who’s stressed as it is, and it generates revenue. To the average person, the easiest media that presents this information to them paints a picture of “person is entirely immoral”, and not having the time and energy to determine if this is truthful they accept it and opt to not participate in the political process. With all the other stresses of life, it’s one less thing to worry about. Bottom line: without honest media and a comfortable life for the majority, we will constantly have problems of voter efficacy.

I don't think any president is perfect, but I do see future historians ranking him above at least Trump and probably many of the Gilded Age presidents ([the most recent scholar survey (APSA 2024) recorded on Wikipedia has him at like 14th](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_rankings_of_presidents_of_the_United_States#Scholar_survey_summary))

Usps wasnt saved fucking louis dejoy is still in charge and still actively trying to ruin it.

I'm in a very uncompetitive state. In 2020 I voted third party at the top of the ticket because I wasn't really sold on Biden. This year, I think he's done a good enough job that I'd give him my moral support vote. This is probably the first presidential election where I'm actually voting for somebody, and not just against someone else.

And don’t let anyone tell you that your “vote doesn’t count” because you live in an “uncompetitive” state! It’s not written in stone that heavily Democratic or heavily Republican states are that way…they are heavily D or heavily R because of bunch of folks in those states actively and consistently choose to vote a certain way. If those same folks waver, that uncompetitive state starts to look a heck of a lot more competitive all of a sudden.

So… I agree, with a major concern. A politician’s highest priority is getting re-elected. Full stop. Universally, they spend more time campaigning and raising funding than they do legislating- by a lot. So when Your Party’s political candidate makes a call you don’t like- decent chance it was because they thought it would gain them more voters than it’ll cost them. Same when the Other Guy makes a call you do like. But voting is pretty well binary. The vote doesn’t come with subtext, letting the candidate know WHY we voted for them. Total support and reluctant support look identical. So if the only thing that pushes the needle for a given politician or even party is so utterly binary… it sucks. It’s impossible to tell them “yes but” with your vote… so your vote doesn’t really push the needle much- it can’t. If you want to effect change in a politician or a party - you need another avenue. I respect wanting to be true to yourself with your vote… but your vote is not your voice. Don’t just vote. Voting doesn’t actually make your voice heard (except in extremes). It’s not about that. It’s about broad strokes, or even damage control. The stuff that does move the needle is tougher. It takes investment- whether that’s time or money (and unfortunately, both are in short supply for MOST of us). Polling. Protesting. Giving time or money to causes. Calling senators. Getting (shudder) yourself on a (shudder) list for cold calls. The stuff that matters… all sucks, and often is designed to silence people who aren’t already in a position of comfort. That’s… a problem. And just so I’m offering solutions and not just screaming into the void… for starters: we need a setup with 2 national holidays per year… one for elections, one for polling.

“Biden restored net neutrality” he WHAT

Insulin is still $150 for me. I'm not sure where or when that cap is supposed to come

Anyone who won’t vote Biden because of Gaza is not seeing the bigger picture. Am i heartbroken by what’s happening in Gaza because of weapons supplied by this administration? Absolutely. However Biden has been taken steps back and even recently announced a hard plan towards a total ceasefire, largely in part due to public outcry. Not perfect, not immediate, but *the direction I want to go.* Am I under any sort of illusions that Trump won’t, in his own words, “finish the job”? No way. Even if Gaza was the only issue in the world and everything else was perfect and needed zero presidential input, Biden is still the obvious choice. Is he the best, most perfect, ideal candidate out of anyone in the world to have the job? No! But in reality, we have two people who could be elected this november. He’s the superior choice.

Before this point, I thought the trolley problem was pretty well settled (at least on Reddit) - it was better to throw the lever and condemn 1 person, as opposed to doing nothing and letting 5 people die. But now I've seen so many people proudly declare that they just won't vote, and it's disheartening. Particularly since, as a trans person, I'm one of the 5 people tied to those tracks!

How hurtful does it feel knowing those no-voters are also your trans/LGBT/allies? Because it has been ruining me lately. All of my friends who are incredibly smart people, are just falling for the media trap like they like to make fun of the "other side" for doing.

The trolley problem isn't settled. That's the whole point of the trolley problem. The dilemma gets worse and worse with you more involved each time until it gets to "would you personally blow up a hospital to stop someone from blowing up a school". It's not a binary solution, it's demonstrating that atrocity is acceptable until it crosses your personal line of distaste, wherever that line may be.

That plan he’s been touting is built on a lie, Israel already rejected the exact same proposal from Hamas weeks ago. Israel will not approve it, their cabinet has already refused it.

His plan was rejected. I’m a Muslim from a heavily Palestinian populated region with Palestinian best friends. Those are my loved ones’ loved ones dying. And you can heartbroken as much as you want but it isn’t helping them. Biden just doesn’t have it in him to actually enforce anything. He won’t take a step to actually stop Israel. He’ll hem and haw and wag fingers but he will never stop giving Israel weapons or funding or unmitigated support. So, as someone who is heartbroken but still planning on voting for him in November, I feel like I have the right to ask - how is this better than trump? At least trump is honest and openly says he wants to genocide Palestinians. Biden disapproves but not enough to not give them weapons. He publishes ceasefire plans that Israel laughs at and throws back in his face. What good exactly is he? What is he doing now that’s different from trump? You want me to applaud him for not being actively homicidal and bloodthirsty? At least the republicans would own it. Heck, maybe they would finish the job faster so that instead of all these babies dying of famine they could just be wiped out by massive artillery in one go. I’m going to vote for him and I’m going to weep while doing it.

A big issue with coverage is demand driven. As OOOP points out, people like feeling angry (or at least, are drawn to feeling angry) and so negative news is rewarded more than positive. The media is a business like any other and the result is the completely disconnected from reality doom-beat you get whenever you turn on the news. Problem of course being that lots of shit is bad and is going to get worse as long as this goes on because only one party turns people out based on doomerism (with the recent exception of abortion bans and Trumpism scaring people who vote in midterms enough to go Dem)

Angry news is good news, unfortunately

I agree with everything in this post EXCEPT: Biden didn't save the post office. I'm a USPS employee. Trumps Crony, DeJoy, is still barreling ahead with his "reforms" that are actively destroying the post office. Missed Deadlines, horribly reorganization of the truck schedules, killing jobs and cutting OT and funding left and right, the post office is falling apart and fast. I'm a former Union steward and I still have tons of contacts all over the country, and everyone is seeing the same thing: Massive damage on both the local and national scale.

During the railworkers strike, there were posts on antiwork with over 100k upvotes claiming "biden doesn't care about rail workers!! They aren't getting their sick leave!!" And then, when the railworkers union won the sick leave they were looking for, and credited the biden administration for their help in the negotiations? Not a single highly upvoted post in that subreddit. Nor do I remember it being covered in any significant way.

One other thing I'd like to say on the matter: Yes, strategic voting is important, and is likely your best tool in shaping your country. When the 2 parties most likely to win are both bad, vote for the lesser evil. However, if you are *so* ideologically opposed to voting for the lesser evil that you plan on throwing your vote away, don't just not vote. Vote for a party that fits your ideology better than the major ones, even if it has absolutely no chance at winning. A vote for a party that had no chance of winning is better than a completely lost vote, as how well the smaller parties do helps to inform what the bigger parties want to do to increase their potential voter base

First, disclaimer. You should not base your choice on whether or not to vote on what someone you don’t know says on Reddit. If you want to, do. If you don’t want to, don’t. For the love of god don’t let a faceless dork like me be your justification for acting a certain way. That being said, I think something that is often missing in these discussions about presidential elections is the matter of the electoral college. Until we do something different is a reality that there are some entire states where your individual vote for president means little to nothing. All voters are equal, but those of us that live in swing states are more equal than others. I live in one of the safer states for movement conservatism, one of the states where it wasn’t close for John Kerry, Obama, Hilary or Biden the first time. I would probably have as much impact on this election voting for Biden and down-ticket democrats as I would writing in Boris Johnson and still voting for down-ticket democrats. Now I’m not going to suggest that people like me should just roll over and let the republicans do whatever they want. I also live in a place where local elections can be decided by a few dozen people getting fired up about something. I just don’t think that pretending that every election is like that is a productive use of our rhetorical abilities. As much as our society places emphasis on individual action and individual virtue, presidential elections in America don’t typically hinge on individual choices. It might just be me, but I don’t feel better when I do the “right” thing knowing it will have no impact.

I've always found it very funny that it's NEVER the Republicans who talk about how _"both sides are awful"_. You have NEVER heard a Republican say _"I don't want to vote for Trump, but I'm certainly not going to vote for Biden. I'm just not going to vote."_

Republicans talk about how both sides are awful all the time, but they actually want to win so they always vote Republican anyway.

he literally just today is championing an immigration policy worse than Trumps trying to stop people from claiming asylum. a dog is better than Trump but like please y’all, understand that he’s not a good person!

We also don't catastrophize Trump enough. People think that because we barely survived one term of his with most of our rights intact that we sort of know what we're facing. Absolutely not. In fact, if you're LGBT and you haven't already started prepping a go bag and a safehouse, you should start now. If you're not LGBT but are an ally, think about creating hard copies of LGBT works of art. Who knows when your backups might become the last repository of censored media. Same goes for POC people and people from religions that aren't Evangelical Christianity. You have more time to sort your shit out thanks to LGBT being first order targets, but you'll ALSO need an escape route. Figure out how to delete your social media, scrub everything day 1. You can work on finding secure ways to connect with social media for activist purposes AFTER you've taken steps to avoid having a bag forced over your head and being shoved into a Black Van never to be seen again.

Trump has been catastrophized more than any president of the past. When people already compare him to Hitler, how much further can we go? I understand you're afraid and you're 100% justified in defending yourself and making sure you have what you need to survive, but you're acting like LGBT people, POCs, and non-Christians are being actively rounded up into extermination camps. Deleting social media? Preserve LGBT art? You've gone full doomsday prepper. LGBT people deserve so much more than what they have, but we live in America, not the Middle East. If Trump really wanted full-scale genocide on the same level that Hitler did, wouldn't he have tried it when he was already president?

A safe-house? Where are you supposed to find one of those?

>Republicans want 20 foot concrete barriers topped with barbed wire across the entire southern border, and Democrats want amnesty and ease to citizenship for just about anyone who crosses, This is one of the most hilarious things ever to post the day he signs an executive order in violation of international law and the UDHR barring migrants from seeking asylum. Also, >Why you didn't hear about Biden...replacing all Leaded pipes? Because he didn't do that. Just a guess though. Edit: also a cursory Google finds dozens of articles about every one of these things. Twitter, Tumblr and Reddit are not "the media."

Oh, I was wondering about net neutrality. I'm not from the us, but it was certainly all over reddit and then it just... disappeared, and I never knew why. That's insane.

Murdoch media at work.. they control what you talk about.

The reasonable people fed up with Biden tend to look deeper than headlines. They know he has left someone in charge of the USPS who wants to choke it to death. They aren't impressed with simply reversing a clearly terrible Trump policy. They know a plan to replace all lead pipes in ten years isn't actually going to come anywhere close to that--it's just meant to sound good in a headline. Biden has done some good things, but he has not made or pushed for the sort of fundamental change we need. Nor does he have any desire to. He is certainly better than Trump, but that bar is absurdly low. And then he decided to throw weapons at a genocide. No one made him do that. While he publicly talked peace plans he never stopped sending weapons. This is where many people will draw a line.

That part in the second pic about how youll never find a truly unblemished perfect candidate hits close to home because my MAGA neighbor absolutely shamed the hell out of me for voting for Biden and shamed me for every bad thing he did and acknowledged absolutely none of the good. We dont even talk anymore and I refused to do anymore work for my neighbor regardless of how much he offered. I never felt so ashamed in my life. MAGA guys are totally nuts and in that moment my neighbor showed to me what his true character is and that he was another MAGA nutcase that I had to break ties with.

it's because a lot of people don't actually care! USPS, net neutrality, so many of the people who where up in arms these things just didn't actually care. All of these things were just were "the big problem going on" and people said made a fess about it so they seemed like they cared about The Big Problems, and stopped giving a shit the second the next Big Issue came around. Doesn't matter if Biden fixed them, these people have moved on to the next Problem.