297
Why is the pundit class so desperate to push Biden out of the race?
(www.theguardian.com)
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 07 Jul 2024
297 points (86.7% liked)
politics
19103 readers
3162 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
Wealth inequality is the issue, not income.
Wealth. As in wealth accumulations. Wealth holdings. Assets.
Fascinating. So you’re aware that working class wages are rising, and income inequality falling, in dramatic fashion, but you would rather look at other metrics instead?
I want to ask why, but as I said, I don’t currently have the energy for a spirited back and forth. I’m just interested to learn that you are in the very small minority that know that that even happened, but it’s not important to you and you’re still here asserting that Biden did what the billionaires wanted him to… by taking 2 trillion dollars away from, well, millionaires and billionaires, not exclusively billionaires, to spend on climate change and the working class.
It’s just weird that you still are so vocal against him, and in a carefully constructed manner that allows for the admission that that happened while still saying it doesn’t count.
It’s just a weird combination of having the knowledge and still reaching the wrong conclusion with it.
Do you know the difference between wealth and income?
Do you know the difference between the types of candidates the media likes, and the types that are good for the American people? What kind of correlation do you think exists there?
(I do know the difference between wealth and income, and I’m even happy to explain some other time why wealth inequality is still going up even in the face of these gains for working people. It’s still weird to me that wages for working people are a metric you are so hostile to, apparently.)
Do you understand that an individual with $150 billion dollars net worth (a measure of wealth) can have zero or even negative income? And that same individual can be funding election campaigns and revolving door opportunities for house reps and for senators? And give gratuities to Clarence Thomas? This could even be the reason for negative income.
At the same time a poor working stiff could have her income doubled and still NOT be able to SAVE anything?
And how all this is a GIANT structural political problem, and indeed a THREAT to democracy itself?
Yeah, I think you’re gonna have to teach me all this stuff from square 1 again. I thought that increasing wages for working people was a good thing, and the guy who wants to be king and kill his political opponents and has an organized plan for how to make it all happen was the giant threat to democracy, and Clarence Thomas was being funded by people who didn’t like Biden, but it sounds like I’ve got it all tremendously mixed up somehow.
Also, you didn’t answer my question, even though I answered yours. You just pretended that my answer was “no I don’t understand wealth inequality, can you please explain it to me in the style of a half-drunk sophomore business major whose dad paid for his college and car, proving why Ron DeSantis is a genius to someone he is convinced he is smarter than”
(You do not need to answer; I am asking these things rhetorically but I think the productive part of this conversation has run its course and then some.)
Imagine you have a patient with body temperature at 70 degrees Fahrenheit. The environment is at -20F. You increase the heat around the hypothermic patient by a massive amount to +50F. Is that good enough? If you stop here and have no further plans, is that good or bad if saving a life is your goal? But it's a massive movement in the right direction!
Now imagine that all the workers got a 20% raise. All the landlords read the same news as everyone else and raise their rents by 30%. Your wages increased massively but your ability to gain wealth is as bad as it ever was.
In other words, Biden must improve people's ability to accumulate wealth at the lowest quintile and THEN brag.
Wait so the ability to bring in more money per week doesn’t help people to accumulate more wealth in the bank over time?
Dude I had it so wrong, you got teach me more
Yeah, I get what you’re saying here. I think I’m starting to understand. Let’s plug in the actual numbers. So let’s see, cumulative inflation since 2019 is 20% which is really fucking high, like historic, which makes sense because they were digging out from Covid. So yeah that’s gonna hurt a lot. Let’s see now, cumulative wage growth at the 10th percentile is 32%, unadjusted, so… fuck me, yeah, they’re gonna be behind by negative 12%. That’s behind AND negative, it’s like a double whammy. That’s super fuckin rough yeah.
(Edit: inb4, He’s either going to pretend not to understand that the 32% at the 10th percentile is a real number that actually happened, or more likely he’s going to pretend that “inflation” doesn’t include food and housing by misleadingly presenting certain metrics that exclude those factors and pretending that if they were included, the number would be different, even though it wouldn’t)
So this is actually a really good point. Having accomplished these aforementioned economic results after coming in literally mid COVID apocalypse with a big fraction still depending on Covid assistance to live and massive unemployment, Biden’s economic platform for his next term is literally just these 7 words and then 200 blank pages. I’m surprised people don’t talk about it more often because it definitely seems like he should have done something different.