Biden has been a good president (in the American sense, so giving him responsibility even for things that congress decides) only if you are center left.

for the actual left he is too rightwing. for the center right or right he is too leftist.

and for each of these groups there are very very significant actions Biden took personally that they can't accept as proper.

for the actual left, not stopping all gas & oil extraction on federal land and supporting Israel are intolerable violations of their morals (just to give the most salient examples). Cannabis is still a schedule I drug in federal regulations (which the Biden admin could have changed a long ago, and only belated attempted to do now).

for the center right or right, not doing everything in his power to control the border, while attempting everything to cancel student debt, are deep violations of their morals.

I am not sure why you think "feel good" feeds full of bullshit are convincing the population of wrong stuff tbh

Trump's entire theory of the presidency was and is predicated on a rejection of what you wrote above.

It is astonishing to me that you believe that current and historical levels of belief in QAnon and stop the steal are unrelated to people fire hosing garbage into their brains.

I like this metaphor and I am stealing it.

I have never seen data showing that more people believe Qanon stuff than they believed 9/11 was an inside job, or JFK assassination was an inside job, before social media existed.

Meaningful portions of the american public have always believed the wildest bullshit, unsurprisingly for a country founded by religious radicals.

I mean lol the portion of people believing the world is literally 5500 years old was what, 40% 30 years ago?

I am surprised you think anything happening currently wrt belief in bullshit is out of trend

We need to stop pretending like there's some logical alternative to the situation we haven't yet tried.

Education is under assault from both sides lol f it.

Propaganda is our only hope.

It would be nice if all schools went back to teaching academic skills instead of focusing on social justice indoctrination, but America's poor education outcomes really stem from home life, not the classrooms. If your parents don't care about your education, you aren't going to, either. Garbage in, garbage out.

America has to get worse before it can get better. We need a proper come to Jesus moment.

... or we just completely shut down all social media for a month and see what happens. Parents might look up and realize all of their children are damn near ******ed and we'll begin the healing process as a nation.

Have we already discussed RFK Jr’s brain worm in here? Like, his actual literal brain worm that he had?

Yes, it's true. He even offered to take in another one, let it chow down on more of his brain, and then he'd crush Trump and Biden in a debate. This was just before he expressed his support for full-term abortions.

RFK Jr is not well.

Maybe all of the semi-sane presidential candidates are just waiting until Trump dies or goes to prison. They don't want any part of that circus.

Luciom is pretty much right here. Though i'd say Biden is more center to far right in many areas...

On the weed issue, e.g. It's not even that Biden is defying the left. 70% of the population want full legalization. Only 29% want it to be illegal. I think it's safe to say some of those 29% would want decriminalization.

55% of the GP favor decriminalization of all drugs.

87% of Democrats favor full legalization of weed.

The reason people have these views is that it is obviously horrible to destroy families because dad smokes weed, or even does coke. And to spend billions and erode civil rights doing so. And to create billions in revenue for organized crime. And then spend even more fighting the organized crime you spawned.

Weed in particular is dramatically less destructive than alcohol so it's good for society when people swtch.

I assume 90-100% of us agree with the above 2 paragraphs. And yet nobody on my ballot will.

While Biden might tweet about his sympathy, or make token election year gestures, he is one of the architects of this disastrous policy (for the 90%) and is fine continuing it.

Someone who opposes 87% of their own base to implement objectively horrible, destructive and wasteful policy, knowing full well that it is all of those things is not a good man or president. And this is true across many issues.

Voters aren't crazy or irrational for being dissatisfied when their representatives defy 87% of their base to intentionally make terrible policies that destroy lives and squander billions.

i think luciom is directionally right in most things - but he just has to squeeze it an extra inch into everything being the fault of a vast radical leftist conspircacy which severely undercuts his arguments

i think if before he posted anything, he took a beat, left it alone, and then came back and dialed it back about 10% then far less people would have so much umbrage at his comments

i also think he says the quiet part out loud too many times - and no, i'm not saying that as it's usually meant where it's typically used to imply that most racists at least pretend not to be etc



i'm saying that he will say something out loud which all people inherently agree with but would never say out loud

for example: people will say we used to have basicaslly open borders and then he'll say something like during that era, we had no such social services for anyone, so those who showed up with nothing and couldn't make it literally died on the streets - and then he'll mention that if we went back to this policy where immigrants got zero aid whatsoever then illegal immigration wouldn't be as much of a burden on society

to this people will respond by calling him a monster - but if you take away the moral outrage, he's fundamentally correct

let's take two families in venezuela where 53% of the population is living in extreme poverty and just acquiring the daily allowance of food each day is a struggle


you have 2 families living next door to each other, both severely malnourished and destitute

family A makes the journey and sneaks into the US - they are unable to work because they have no vehicles for transportation, they can't afford housing, they do not speak the language, they have absolutely zero support and thus upon arrival are now the burden of the state - even if they are deported, it can still take months to handle the legal logistics of that and there's a possibility they aren't deported and remain and stay a burden of the state

https://cis.org/Report/Deportation-v...mmigrants-Stay

that article above advocates for deportation as a cost effective manner of handling illegal immigrants - according to that data above, it costs a little under 6k for each deportation (+2k for legal fees) vs a 65k for those who are not deported (and 17k extra for each child they have)

so whether they are deported or not, they are still costing us a lot of money

so why are we spending 100k on family A but not on family B?

both have the same exact relationship to the USA which is zero

both are utterly destitute

simply because one of them shows up on our door we're now obligated to take care of them? why stop there? why not go and feed and house every single Venezuelan?


it's just morally inconsistent, and frankly it gives people around the world incentive to come out and receive a handout from our welfare state so we're not attracting the best and the brightest - say what you will about the open borders era, but in those days it took real risks to come over and not having any support structure ensured that we got the best and brightest - people who are willing to undergo that kind of venture are more likely to be the kind of people you want - you don't the farmer hurt by famine who's going to stay put - you want the farmer who says "let's sell everything we own and hop on this ship for a weeklong voyage and then try to figure it out"

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/art...%201998%3A%209).

and many failed, 35% of all immigrants of that era gave up and took a ship returning back home because they couldn't make it

the process filtered out the unwanted and ensured we only got healthy people who were either willing to work hard physically or had the intelligence and ambition to do something else

we no longer do it that way anymore, it's now their cousin in new jersey spends a few hundred dollars on one way tickets plane tickets and they show up to visit on tourist visas



a lot of people here claim that the onus is on us to house and feed these migrants, yet it's far easier to say "someone else should do it" than to do it themselves, which none do

nobody just takes in homeless people into their house and feeds and washes them, same with the migrants

just because homeless person A shows up at your door doesn't mean you need to take him in, but if you did, then certainly homeless person B who saw that would now cross the street and knock on your door as well, soon homeless person C will show up


but the main thing is, luciom will say all those homeless people are caused by leftists

That just a band aid .
Why not go at the root of the problems ?
Why are they coming in the U.S. (and Canada ) to begin with ?
Because their economy sucks ?
Why the f US (and Canada) do so much business over seas and not on the same continent we are ?

Ah yes left wing politics in foreign countries is bad ?
As if China and Europe aren’t far more left then the U.S. anyway ?
Make good business with those (not Cuba for security reason I suppose) and maybe they will less be entice to leave their country ?
Ok yes maybe it will be a bit more inflationary in prices of goods but what is better ?
Having some higher price but no problems at the borders or having lower prices but big problems with immigration?
FWIW I wonder if the cost in massive immigrations today inst higher then a small hike in prices for making more/ good business on this continent instead of going to China ?

Wasn’t originally trading with China ,to expect higher consumers for the U.S. at some point by trading with them ?
Doesn’t seem To happen even after 20 years shrug .

I think that venezuelans who reach the USA border and so took immense risks are inherently not the same people as those who stay, they are self selecting to be the best and they are fleeing an enemy of the west and the worst ideology in human history so I would be willing to give them a shot at having a normal life.

which doesn't mean I will ever use force to obligate people who disagree with me to spend for them. but in a model where taxes are very low , there is zero welfare and there are open borders, I can donate to orgs, or volunteer to help, people who I arbitrarily deem superior, better human specimen, without giving a cent to whom I consider unworthy.

because people aren't all the same and it's a moral horror to pretend otherwise.

the left prohibits me to do this using violence to force me to pay for everyone so of course under that model I refuse to give to anyone.

Yup 2028 MTG against AOC for president

ugh

https://thehill.com/elections/465995...tates-polling/

Looks bad but ironically things are getting better for Biden.

In the must win state of Michigan the NY Times/Sienna has Biden up by 1% which makes it two of the last 3 polls where Biden is ahead.

In Wisconsin (another must win State) Times/Sienna has Biden trailing by 1%. But the previous poll had Biden up by 6%.

In PA Biden trails by 3% per the Times/Sienna, which is better than the prior poll and slightly worse than the next two. I am surprised by this since it is Biden's birth state. Also there will be a senate election in the fall.

Nevada is a disaster though. Unclear why Biden would be down by 13%, prior poll of registered voters has him down by 1%. Democrats lost the Governor election in 2022 also. Downhill swing.

Arizona Biden is down by 6% per Times/Sienna which is fairly average in the last 4 or 5 polls. Two things stand out here which is the constitutional ballot question that will draw Pro Choice people to the polls and there will be a Senate election with Kari Lake (outspoken election denier) and not Sinema. Trump will do worse amongst the Hispanic electorate here than in other states for pardoning Arpaio

Where do you think funding for the rights wars comes from?

Inso brings up a good point about parents not caring about education than kids wont

tbf even if parents are super hammering how important ed is doesn't mean kids will listen

I agree with the take that academic skills>social justice type issues. hop that doesn't make me a hard right wing extremist

I see Biden -7 in Michigan in times/sienna, which polls have you seen?

You are looking at the NY Times/Sienna poll for Registered Voters in Michigan. If you look further down in the article they show Biden leading Trump 47% to 46% among Likely Voters in Michigan.

Almost this entire election cycle has been about 6 swing states. For context, the above map with those 6 states gray is the actual 2020 election result with those 6 states removed from the Biden win column and Trump retains everything from 2020. There is a funky, but unlikely tie possible if you give Trump PA and MI and Biden wins the other 4 swing states.

‘FACEOFF’: A Biden-Trump debate rematch.

Kudos to Trump accepting to debate Biden twice on Biden friendly networks . Biden refused Fox
I do remember CNN giving Biden the questions before a debate hopefully they don’t do it again

Love the cutoff mikes

FYP.

From what I remember, there was no evidence of that actually happening, but perhaps some came later that I missed - if so, could you share it?

https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSKBN26M6N7/

Pretty clear to me that both Biden and Trump simply agreed that RFK needs to stay out of debates, and he would have qualified under the formal (mom binding) rules so they skipped the formal rules.

This is interesting because it means RFK influence on voters is so hard to estimate, both candidates fear they might lose a little more than the other.

It's like both campaigns have internal polls showing RFK erodes them at the margins.

It makes sense given both candidates are particularly disliked in historical terms, but it's really sad to see such a grotesque individual capturing the middle, the undecided.

I think RFK is the rare person both pro Biden and pro Trump voters could identify as worse than Biden and worse than Trump