22
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 15 Nov 2023
22 points (72.0% liked)
politics
19097 readers
1947 users here now
Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!
Rules:
- Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.
Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.
Example:
- Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
- Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
- No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive. Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
- Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
- No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
That's all the rules!
Civic Links
• Congressional Awards Program
• Library of Congress Legislative Resources
• U.S. House of Representatives
Partnered Communities:
• News
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
How about something that doesn't need approval by the House?
I love how frequently this argument is being thrown out there to excuse Biden.
If Trump gets elected, he is going to single highhandedly murder all of the brown people of the world and dissolve the United States, but Biden can't be held accountable for being a do nothing because Congress is incapable of doing anything, which makes the President incapable of doing anything.
The mental gymnastics.
Biden and Trump both can issue executive orders without need of Congressional approval.
Executive orders can easily be used to harass people, but they can't be used to raise the minimum wage.
Making election day a national holiday isn't particularly effective, since (a) businesses can ignore it and make employees work on holidays and (b) there is already an executive order giving government employees time off to vote. It would be much better to move election day to a weekend, but that requires Congress.
Obama already used an executive order to deprioritize marijuana prosecution, which is the most a president can do without Congress.
Biden tried to use executive orders more creatively to forgive student debt, but that was blocked by the courts.
So essentially, the POTUS needs to be a leader.
If the POTUS is an impotent geezer, be he an empty headed cheeto windbag, or a hermit crab genocide enthusiast, neither can destroy America, but both can get REAL CLOSE.
Yup. Still team "flip the monopoly board."
If "be a leader" means "inspire the masses", then your expectations are too high. Each party gets an inspiring leader roughly once a generation. We had FDR in the 1940s, Kennedy in the 1960s, Clinton in the 1990s, and Obama in 2010s. The bad guys had Reagan in the 1980s, GWB (arguably) in the 2000s, and Trump today. If Democrats are lucky we will see someone with that ability in the 2030s or 2040s.
When we are waiting for a unicorn to show up, Democrats need someone who knows how to advance a legislative agenda, like LBJ (or, for the other team, like Nixon). And inspiring the masses does not necessarily overlap with that. Clinton was smart and charmed many Americans, but he failed to advance much. If anything his signature welfare reform was a step backwards and his health care reform was a complete bomb. Kennedy can take credit for the Civil Rights Act. Obama advanced health care reform.
That's right, by "advance a legislative agenda" I mean an incremental - yet permanent - step forward on a single topic. That's what actual progress looks like in the US. No president since FDR has ever made major progress on multiple issues, and it took FDR four terms to become the exception. And by "incremental", I mean some things will always be left undone. Before Obama, insurance companies could refuse to cover sick people, drop them in the middle of treatment, or jack up their premiums. After Obama, they can't do any of those things. But we still don't have a public option.
If your expectations are realistic, then Biden has done a fine job. He passed the IRA, which does far more to tackle climate change than anyone who came before. As a bonus, he managed to get us through COVID without starting the recession that everyone said was inevitable. And he even moved health care a little further along by capping drug prices. That's not "impotent" by any means, especially for just a single term.
Oh, and if "being a leader" means "not doing controversial things in an unpleasant war" then I have bad news for you. Every modern president from both parties has done that, from Truman's atomic bombings to Obama's drone strikes. That's just a permanent feature of the American presidency.
Your comment demonstrates a gross amount of ignorance of how the American Government functions.