spring-peeper
Well-Known Member
"Trump Campaign Official Mocked Joe Biden For Visiting Graves Of Late Family Members" --->
HuffPost is now a part of Verizon Media
www.huffingtonpost.ca
Joe Biden
- Thread starter platinumsage
- Start date
"Trump Campaign Official Mocked Joe Biden For Visiting Graves Of Late Family Members" --->
www.huffingtonpost.ca
Streathamite
ideological dogmatist
"Trump Campaign Official Mocked Joe Biden For Visiting Graves Of Late Family Members" --->HuffPost is now a part of Verizon Media
Jesus, those Trump people are vermin. I only hope that rebounds on them, very badly
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Smokeandsteam
Working Class First
Putting this here as I couldn't find a Bernie thread. It's a penetrating analysis of the successes and failures of the two Sanders campaigns. There are, incidentally, some striking parallels with the Corbyn project.
What's significant, in terms of understanding Biden's base and where its going politically (and why I think it has major political and cultural problems when confronting Trump,) is the key propulsive dynamic that defeated Sanders and handed the Democratic nomination to Biden:
"Since the 1960s, left-of-center parties in Europe and North America have lost support from the traditional working class, remaking themselves into a “Brahmin left,” crucially dependent on the votes of professionals" and the flood of wealthy 'Halliburton' disaffected Republicans into the Biden camp.
As the author writes (about the Sanders campaign): "despite considerable success in winning working-class support compared to 2016 — mostly with Latino voters — the campaign failed to generate higher participation among working-class voters of all races. Finally, above all, Bernie was swamped by a massive turnout surge from the Democratic Party’s fastest-growing demographic: former Republican voters in overwhelmingly white, wealthy, and well-educated suburban neighborhoods".
That Biden is the candidate of the Professional Middle Class is obvious. His base, and the forces that comprise it, aren't young students or precarious graduates. It's an alliance of the taken for granted (imagined homogeneous) ‘black vote’ and the remaining groups in society who have a stake in the status quo. In that sense Biden represents a deeply conservative bloc. A group resistant to Trump but also to the working class and to social democracy.
As the article identifies its 'the black vote' - in this context meaning that expected to be delivered by ultra conservative 'community leaders' and appendages to the democratic machine - plus a new formation of the narrating class - Democrat and Republican, white, suburban and rich. This is the key group that defeated Sanders in the primaries. It's the group that is coalesced around Biden. Far from change, the solidifying bond of the latter emergent force is a demand for 'no change'.
The article is a long read, and there is substance about where this leaves the left in America. But, in respect of Biden's campaign what it is and what it is not is stark:
What's significant, in terms of understanding Biden's base and where its going politically (and why I think it has major political and cultural problems when confronting Trump,) is the key propulsive dynamic that defeated Sanders and handed the Democratic nomination to Biden:
"Since the 1960s, left-of-center parties in Europe and North America have lost support from the traditional working class, remaking themselves into a “Brahmin left,” crucially dependent on the votes of professionals" and the flood of wealthy 'Halliburton' disaffected Republicans into the Biden camp.
As the author writes (about the Sanders campaign): "despite considerable success in winning working-class support compared to 2016 — mostly with Latino voters — the campaign failed to generate higher participation among working-class voters of all races. Finally, above all, Bernie was swamped by a massive turnout surge from the Democratic Party’s fastest-growing demographic: former Republican voters in overwhelmingly white, wealthy, and well-educated suburban neighborhoods".
That Biden is the candidate of the Professional Middle Class is obvious. His base, and the forces that comprise it, aren't young students or precarious graduates. It's an alliance of the taken for granted (imagined homogeneous) ‘black vote’ and the remaining groups in society who have a stake in the status quo. In that sense Biden represents a deeply conservative bloc. A group resistant to Trump but also to the working class and to social democracy.
As the article identifies its 'the black vote' - in this context meaning that expected to be delivered by ultra conservative 'community leaders' and appendages to the democratic machine - plus a new formation of the narrating class - Democrat and Republican, white, suburban and rich. This is the key group that defeated Sanders in the primaries. It's the group that is coalesced around Biden. Far from change, the solidifying bond of the latter emergent force is a demand for 'no change'.
The article is a long read, and there is substance about where this leaves the left in America. But, in respect of Biden's campaign what it is and what it is not is stark:
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Spandex
A crazy bulbous punchbag of sound
So now he's President Elect, I thought I'd have a look at his political record over the years. He's been in the game for a very long time - the Senate from 1973 to 2009 and VP 2008 to 2016 - so some of his positions have changed over the years. Still interesting to know where he's coming from.
When he first sat in the Senate in 1973 he thought Roe v. Wade was wrongly decided. In 1981, he voted for a failed constitutional amendment allowing states to overturn Roe v. Wade. In 2006, he stated in an interview that "I do not view abortion as a choice and a right". From 1976 to 2019 he supported the Hyde Amendment, barring the use of federal funds to pay for abortion except to save the life of the woman, or if the pregnancy arises from incest or rape. He now says he "firmly believes that Roe v. Wade is the law of the land and should not be overturned".
Biden helped author the 1994 Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act, which become emblematic of a shift towards mass incarceration in the US. As a senator, he long forged deep relationships with police groups and was a chief proponent of the Law Enforcement Officers' Bill of Rights, intended to protect American law enforcement personnel from investigation and prosecution arising from conduct during official performance of their duties.
As a Senator, Biden earned a reputation for being a "drug warrior", leading efforts in the war on drugs. In 1986, Biden sponsored and co-wrote the Anti-Drug Abuse Act which caused a large disparity between the sentencing of crack cocaine and powder cocaine users. As black drug users were more likely to use crack, this meant more black people were incarcerated in larger numbers and for longer than white drug users. Biden favored increased funding for anti-drug efforts and frequently criticised President Reagan in this regard. In the early 2000s, Biden was critical of raves and the sponsor of the Reducing Americans' Vulnerability to Ecstasy (RAVE) Act in 2002, clamping down on ecstasy use at parties. In 1974 he was against legalizing cannabis and in 2010 he still said he thought it would be a mistake to legalise. During his presidential campaign, Biden expressed support for decriminalizing cannabis and legalising medical cannabis, allowing states to legalise without federal interference.
In 1995 Biden drafted the Omnibus Counterterrorism Act, which was ultimately defeated. He later claimed publicly on several occasions that the PATRIOT Act was essentially a duplicate of the act he wrote.
On the plus side, Biden has been credited with introducing the first climate change bill in Congress, the Global Climate Protection Act, in 1986; it died in the Senate, but a version of it was included as an amendment to the Foreign Relations Authorization Act in 1987.
When he first sat in the Senate in 1973 he thought Roe v. Wade was wrongly decided. In 1981, he voted for a failed constitutional amendment allowing states to overturn Roe v. Wade. In 2006, he stated in an interview that "I do not view abortion as a choice and a right". From 1976 to 2019 he supported the Hyde Amendment, barring the use of federal funds to pay for abortion except to save the life of the woman, or if the pregnancy arises from incest or rape. He now says he "firmly believes that Roe v. Wade is the law of the land and should not be overturned".
Biden helped author the 1994 Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act, which become emblematic of a shift towards mass incarceration in the US. As a senator, he long forged deep relationships with police groups and was a chief proponent of the Law Enforcement Officers' Bill of Rights, intended to protect American law enforcement personnel from investigation and prosecution arising from conduct during official performance of their duties.
As a Senator, Biden earned a reputation for being a "drug warrior", leading efforts in the war on drugs. In 1986, Biden sponsored and co-wrote the Anti-Drug Abuse Act which caused a large disparity between the sentencing of crack cocaine and powder cocaine users. As black drug users were more likely to use crack, this meant more black people were incarcerated in larger numbers and for longer than white drug users. Biden favored increased funding for anti-drug efforts and frequently criticised President Reagan in this regard. In the early 2000s, Biden was critical of raves and the sponsor of the Reducing Americans' Vulnerability to Ecstasy (RAVE) Act in 2002, clamping down on ecstasy use at parties. In 1974 he was against legalizing cannabis and in 2010 he still said he thought it would be a mistake to legalise. During his presidential campaign, Biden expressed support for decriminalizing cannabis and legalising medical cannabis, allowing states to legalise without federal interference.
In 1995 Biden drafted the Omnibus Counterterrorism Act, which was ultimately defeated. He later claimed publicly on several occasions that the PATRIOT Act was essentially a duplicate of the act he wrote.
On the plus side, Biden has been credited with introducing the first climate change bill in Congress, the Global Climate Protection Act, in 1986; it died in the Senate, but a version of it was included as an amendment to the Foreign Relations Authorization Act in 1987.
platinumsage
HaveMyPassword123
He has long been a big Amtrak supporter 
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Johnny Vodka
The Abominable Scotsman
Yeah, a lot of that's not great and is why some of us are celebrating less enthusiastically than others. I wonder if he regrets any of it... In the context of BLM, the whole drug warrior thing is actually quite embarrassing, and I would say he owes the black community an apology.
Ax^
Silly Rabbit
and he is not fucking trump
Smokeandsteam
Working Class First
Of course he regrets a lot. More precisely, he regrets any policy decisions he’s taken, can’t wriggle out of and where the political wind has now blown in a different direction.
The sooner that people give their heads a wobble and realise what Biden really is and always has been - a centre right Democrat, an insider and a representative figure within the PMC - the better. The sooner we do, the sooner we can discuss how Joe Biden might be pushed to the left by movements from below. The sooner we do, the sooner we can begin to think how the pandemic and the subsequent economic collapse might also force Biden off his preferred political terrain to save capital and buy it breathing space.
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or maybe a push toward a society that doesn’t have such an overwhelming amount of ethnic-minorities incarcerated.
smokeamdstream nailed it
Johnny Vodka
The Abominable Scotsman
I agree. Not just an apology, but what are you going to do to make up for the shit you've done in the past? Hopefully he won't have an easy time just because he's not Trump.
Smokeandsteam
Working Class First
The thing is, unlike Blair and Obama, there isn’t any popular sense that Biden will do anything. There is no Biden wave. If you asked Americans to name one idea of his or a trademark policy most would struggle. Centralist liberalism no longer has any narrative about the future or any concrete solutions to the seemingly intractable problems of advanced capitalist economies.
In fact ALL of this initial positivity is in fact purely relief that Trump is done. Come the winter, with Covid still rampant, jobs being shed and poverty spiralling, Trump will be a memory. At that point eyes will turn to Biden and say ‘what now Joe’
danny la rouge
More like *fanny* la rouge!
I can’t be arsed reading the thread, but he was a friend of Golda Meir and calls himself a Zionist. So there’s that.
Thaw
Aye like, so it is.
Biden has form with chlorinated chicken related trade deals. Delaware is a major chicken producer so he has long been involved with trying to foist their cheap crappy chicken on the Russians.
"At issue is the chlorine bath that American companies use to disinfect chickens after slaughter. Russian health officials declared that method unsafe, and they outlawed the procedure in 2008. The European Union has long enforced a similar ban on the procedure. The Russian government gave companies, both Russian and foreign, until this year to adopt new procedures. About 90 percent of Russian companies complied, officials said.
The Americans, however, protested. The requirements would force American poultry producers to completely overhaul their sanitation systems, officials and producers have said.
Moreover, American producers have said that the Russian government has provided no scientific evidence that chorine disinfection is unsafe. The USA Poultry and Egg Export Council wrote a letter to the Russian government last November, citing several scientific studies that found the opposite to be true."
www.nytimes.com
"At issue is the chlorine bath that American companies use to disinfect chickens after slaughter. Russian health officials declared that method unsafe, and they outlawed the procedure in 2008. The European Union has long enforced a similar ban on the procedure. The Russian government gave companies, both Russian and foreign, until this year to adopt new procedures. About 90 percent of Russian companies complied, officials said.
The Americans, however, protested. The requirements would force American poultry producers to completely overhaul their sanitation systems, officials and producers have said.
Moreover, American producers have said that the Russian government has provided no scientific evidence that chorine disinfection is unsafe. The USA Poultry and Egg Export Council wrote a letter to the Russian government last November, citing several scientific studies that found the opposite to be true."
Russia Seeks to Cleanse Its Palate of U.S. Chicken (Published 2010)
The government has imposed an open-ended ban on imports of American chicken, which was given as food aid in the 1990s and became a symbol of the nation's humiliation.
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
Totally agree. It's a mistake really to try to work out what Biden believes in. His victory speech was deliberately content-free with the exception of covid. He will be radically different from Trump, but fuck, Boris Johnson has been radically different from Trump over covid.
Your second point is going to be interesting everywhere. More state intervention is going to be inevitable from just about everybody. How that is done will be the question - who will benefit from the bailouts? We know what Obama did in response to the credit crunch.
Aside from covid, the only area I am confident Biden will represent radical change from Trump is wrt climate change. He won't do enough, but he will do a hell of a lot more than Trump did.
8ball
Maximum Facepalm
With the state of the Senate, it's not like he can do anything much.
Smokeandsteam
Working Class First
An excuse I expect we’ll soon be hearing regularly from his allies....
It's not really an excuse is it - if the Republicans retain control of the senate they will block everything they can. I saw Mitt Romney (one of the ones the liberals have been fawning over) giving a list of the things they'd oppose the other day - even the good republicans are all set for fuckery.
8ball
Maximum Facepalm
I'm not fully clear on what can be done with Executive Orders - that was one of Trump's favourite tricks.
edit: good tagline
This paragraph in this new LRB piece gives some examples of what's been done with them
Not much isn’t quite nothing: American presidents have been governing more and more by executive order over the past decades, and Biden will be able to counter Trump’s most draconian measures on immigration (the product of four hundred executive orders that can simply be reversed) and the climate. These policies made Trump demonic in liberal eyes for his inhumane treatment of migrants, especially children, and in Noam Chomsky’s words ‘the worst criminal in human history’ for hastening environmental devastation. Biden will be able to restore old policies when it comes to asylum seekers, immigration enforcement and the Paris Agreement. But anything like the initiatives he was proposing – trillions on climate change and infrastructure; Obamacare reform to include a public option; a $15 minimum wage – have dim prospects as long as the Senate is under GOP control. (The post-election spike in the value of oil and healthcare stocks suggests the market is confident no major changes are in store.) Biden’s favourite message since he entered national politics in 1972 has been the one he delivered yet again on 6 November, calling for an end to ‘partisan warfare’. Against McConnell, though, bipartisanship won’t mean much beyond capitulation to the Republican agenda. After another Covid-19 relief bill loaded with corporate giveaways, it’s hard to imagine what form this could take. An early excerpt from Obama’s memoir – surprisingly cliché-ridden and full of pabulum about the first family’s pet dog – details the way he and Biden failed to get what they wanted on healthcare, a plan with a public option, even when they had sixty votes in the Senate.
Not much isn’t quite nothing: American presidents have been governing more and more by executive order over the past decades, and Biden will be able to counter Trump’s most draconian measures on immigration (the product of four hundred executive orders that can simply be reversed) and the climate. These policies made Trump demonic in liberal eyes for his inhumane treatment of migrants, especially children, and in Noam Chomsky’s words ‘the worst criminal in human history’ for hastening environmental devastation. Biden will be able to restore old policies when it comes to asylum seekers, immigration enforcement and the Paris Agreement. But anything like the initiatives he was proposing – trillions on climate change and infrastructure; Obamacare reform to include a public option; a $15 minimum wage – have dim prospects as long as the Senate is under GOP control. (The post-election spike in the value of oil and healthcare stocks suggests the market is confident no major changes are in store.) Biden’s favourite message since he entered national politics in 1972 has been the one he delivered yet again on 6 November, calling for an end to ‘partisan warfare’. Against McConnell, though, bipartisanship won’t mean much beyond capitulation to the Republican agenda. After another Covid-19 relief bill loaded with corporate giveaways, it’s hard to imagine what form this could take. An early excerpt from Obama’s memoir – surprisingly cliché-ridden and full of pabulum about the first family’s pet dog – details the way he and Biden failed to get what they wanted on healthcare, a plan with a public option, even when they had sixty votes in the Senate.
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
Trump lost, but unless the Georgia run-offs provide an upset, the Republicans didn't. I reckon a lot of senior Republicans will be privately very satisfied by the result - Trump out but keeping the Senate and narrowing the gap in the HoR. Result.
editor
hiraethified
Oh! There's a tenuous Welsh connection which I will enthusiastically repeat if he turns out to be a great president, but rubbish completely if he's a bad 'un.
www.countytimes.co.uk
New American president born in town founded by Welsh settlers
JOE Biden is a man who needs no introduction to Wales.
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
and if he's but mediocre?Oh! There's a tenuous Welsh connection which I will enthusiastically repeat if he turns out to be a great president, but rubbish completely if he's a bad 'un.
New American president born in town founded by Welsh settlers
JOE Biden is a man who needs no introduction to Wales.
editor
hiraethified
Indifference.
krtek a houby
Anger is Hi-NRG
He's Irish, dammit
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
let's see how you feel about him at the end of his term in the white house
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
thought you might alternate between claiming him and disowning him
Raheem
Well-Known Member
He's very probably 90% English but obsessed with his dash of something else.
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
the word he's grasping for is elan. but i don't suppose he has it any more
Smokeandsteam
Working Class First
Firstly, let's see who controls the senate. Then let's see what Biden puts before it and then let's see what they oppose or water down to the point where it becomes largely gestural. So far, all I've seen is mostly GOP grandstanding and threats to proposals that Biden is unlikely to want to put forward unless pressurised to do so.
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