You may have noticed that in recent weeks, the Biden administration has been rolling out a hell of a lot of new regulations. Earlier this month it was big student loan reforms and a massive improvement in how public lands are managed, then this week we had better pay and working conditions for working Americans, minimum staffing ratios for nursing homes, and even improved service on airlines.
That’s not only because it’s an election year, though Joe & Kamala certainly do like to point out that where the Other Guy rages (and wants to raise inflation!) they’ve been busy making Americans’ lives better. But the bigger reason is that the administration wants to get new rules finalized prior to May, to keep them from being tossed out in the next Congress via the Congressional Review Act, which Donald Trump and his cronies used to reverse a bunch of Barack Obama’s environmental regulations.
. . . The requirement that coal plants find a way to eliminate 90 percent of their emissions by 2032 effectively accelerates the end of coal for power generation, which was inevitable anyway. Roughly 70 percent of US coal plants have already closed, and last year, coal generated only 16 percent of electric power, a new record low. In addition to the emissions rule, three other final rules also impose strict new limits on mercury, coal ash, and pollution of wastewater, to put an end to the environmental degradation caused by coal.
. . . The other option, obviously, would be for utilities to meet coming demand with renewables, as administration officials pointed out when previewing the new rule. Thanks to the IRA’s hundreds of billions of dollars in incentives, carbon-free power generation, including battery storage, already beats the cost of building new gas plants. Going forward, the administration is confident renewables will be the far more cost-effective and reliable way to meet increasing demand by 2032, when the emissions limits fully kick in.
You’re talking about his statement on the protests? If so, I wish I could agree. I’m very disappointed in his stance. But it’s definitely calculated to win the election. There’s just more Israel supporters than Palestine supporters. And the Israel supporters are far more likely to vote. Did he do the right thing, morally? No. Did he do the thing more likely to win him votes? Probably.
OMFG, if we are going to do this, can you promise to pay attention? I’ll be optimistic and assume you’ll try this time.
First of all, you are just flat wrong about support for Israel’s occupation of Gaza. Maybe on October 8, but that support has tumbled.
https://news.gallup.com/poll/642695/majority-disapprove-israeli-action-gaza.aspx
Second, Democrats win or lose elections on exactly one thing - turnout. The voters who may or may not show up are the whole fucking ballgame.
Third, the handling of that press conference was absolute political malpractice. I’m no fan of spin, but sometimes not even trying can be even more insulting.
Reporter: Have these protests caused you to reconsider any of the policies with regard to the region?
Biden: “No.” - Mic drop, leaves podium.
Even without all the unnecessary lies in the rest of the conference, that is an absolute trash fire. Nobody expected Biden would stop supporting Israel, but being that tone deaf is remarkable for a career politician at the literal peak of their profession.
I agree with everything except the second point. What you say is true, but Leftists have proven themselves not to be counted on for turnout. A Democrat could expend all their energy chasing the Left, alienating a lot of centrists, and then one little thing starts making the rounds on Tiktok right before the election and y’all will abandon him. It doesn’t even have to be true. The GOP could make a doctored video of him saying the N-word, and the suspicion alone would drive away enough Leftists to cost him the election.
Centrist voters are dependable. Leftist voters are fickle. Add in the fact that there’s a LOT more centrist voters, and the calculus is obvious.
That said, I do think he blundered here. As you said, numbers on Israel are changing. Biden came down too hard on the side of Israel, not just morally but also politically.
Bidens best bet here was to be vague and noncommittal until Israel finally commits an atrocity covered enough by the media to tip a critical mass of centrists against Israel. Then Biden could suspend aid and be seen as a hero by all. He’s severely limited the chance of that happening now.
That’s amazing since all three points were in direct contradiction to what you just said.
False. If you went with young voters then you might have a point, except that I would disagree with the framing. I would frame it as “The establishment Democratic candidates have proven themselves incapable of earning the youth vote”. That’s certainly now the case for 2024.
The whole centrist thing hasn’t been valid since the 90s. The electorate isn’t laid out on spectrum from left to right anymore - if it ever was. A real discussion of how it breaks down would get really involved, but the populist/establishment divide is quickly becoming dominant over left/right. That’s why Trump beat Hillary. The Democrats ran the most establishment centrist candidate possible against a far right populist and we all paid the price. The centrist position today is “Yeah, the politicians are corrupt as hell, but it’s working out for me”. It has nothing to do with the left/right spectrum. Centrist Democrats underperform in blue, red, and purple districts when compared to progressives in similar districts.
The numbers I showed you on support for the occupation included right wing voters who are almost entirely backing Israel. The percentage of voters who might vote for Biden and support Israel is small and shrinking fast.
There is no path now for Biden to be seen as the good guy, and he absolutely isn’t going to suspend enough aid to move Israel anyways.
Speaking of direct contradiction, this statement directly contradicts your weird idea that there’s really no difference between right wing and left wing populist voters. Have you been hiding under a rock since 2008? Yes I agree, in the late 90s/early 2000s the gap between right and left was narrowing, but since the tea party Qanon phenomenon right wingers have gone off the deep end.
What are you smoking? That’s not true at all. Moderates win. A lot. Red and blue.
That’s going a lot further than I said. There are definitely left wing and right wing populists (i.e. Bernie and Trump) but most Americans aren’t policy wonks and don’t care a bit about left vs right political philosophy. These aren’t centrists because they aren’t on the line at all. However, a whole lot of those Americans have begun noticing that their money is somehow being taken by a tiny minority with obscene levels of wealth. These are the people that either sit out elections, or vote for a “reform” candidate. Trump, disingenuous as he is, effectively ran against the political establishment of both parties in 2016, while Hillary ran as a competent manager of the status quo.
What happens when the Democratic party runs after so called centrists with an establishment candidate is that they make right wing populism more attractive than left wing, and that’s where Trump’s base comes from. It’s not unique to America or post 2k politics, it’s how fascism always gets a foothold. It’s all just 1930s Germany all over again. It’s really not a dynamic that is well illustrated by a one dimensional line from left to right. A lot of voters that get categorized as the extreme right are the most conducive to populist left wing politicians. A Bernie Sanders gets a far better response from them than a Joe Biden or Hillary Clinton ever will.
Actually it is true, but I can’t find the study at the moment. It’s specifically about House races, which I do admit are a bit different from the Senate or Presidency. Two seemingly contradictory things are actually true. Progressives do tend to lose in redder districts more than establishment candidates, but they also tend to perform better when measured against typical outcomes for that district. The resolution to that contradiction is that the establishment fiercely fights to keep progressives out of districts that Democrats might win so, the average district progressives run in is more republican than the average district establishment candidates run in. What’s true in almost every race is that progressives do better at outperforming local historical outcomes in almost any district. Whether that gets translated into a better win/loss ratio is dependent on which districts progressives get to run in.
Here are a few of links I did come across when looking for that study. They don’t address it directly, but they do illustrate how the press struggles to map election dynamics to the left-right spectrum.
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/01/12/how-to-turn-red-state-blue-purple-alaska-politics-2018-216304/
https://publicconsultation.org/redblue/new-study-finds-people-in-red-and-blue-districts-largely-agree-on-what-government-should-do/
https://www.princeton.edu/news/2018/05/09/purple-districts-elect-most-extreme-legislators-driving-polarization
Sounds plausible.
For local races, maybe. Senate and President, you have to win over the moderate behemoth.
Like Trump?
What the liberals and the media decry as “polarization” is contradictory to that assertion. It also masks the real behemoth which is Americans who think the government is controlled by money and that their needs are irrelevant.
It’s also contradicted by the fact that, right before every election, Democratic politicians consistently move their rhetoric to the left. Just look at all the sudden activity from the Biden administration. Well, not Hillary, but most.
BTW: If it’s the moderates really deciding elections, why is nobody lecturing them? Why all the attention on a group that doesn’t matter (until liberals need a scapegoat)? This is just the liberal version of the fascist rhetoric “Our enemies are always both strong and weak”. Progressives are both critical and irrelevant, as needed.
What passes as centrism in politics is actually pro-corruption or pro-corporation. The fact is that left leaning policy is what wins over voters, even those that don’t consider themselves leftist. Furthermore, the Democratic establishment knows it and cynically uses it.
No one is lecturing Progressives. People are lecturing Leftists. Leftists have the numbers to give Republicans the win, since elections are so tight nowadays. But leftists don’t have the numbers to win primaries or dictate policy positions without playing a game of brinksmanship. “Give us our demands or we’ll let the fascists win” is the only play that Leftists have because they’re a small minority. And it’s a shitty move, which is why they’re being lectured.
Yes but not when it’s coming from Leftists.
People are unbelievably, irredeemable stupid. See “Affordable Care Act” vs “Obamacare”. See “I dunno why, I just don’t like the vibes of Hillary/Warren/Harris”. See “despite all the stats saying otherwise, I believe we’re in the middle of a CRIME EPIDEMIC”.
And for the record, Trump did win over the moderate Republicans. Moderate Republicans are generally okay with extreme positions as long as their core demands are met. Democrat moderates need much more convincing.
The important point is that I do agree that this trend is happening, and Biden is moving in the wrong direction here. His most loyal base has always been pro-Israel, but they’re becoming alienated. He will be forced to pivot soon.
The smart move would have been for him to publicly voice disapproval of Netanyahu but privately continue funding him, for now, with an eye to cutting funding if poll numbers get worse. The fact that he came so heavily on the side of “break up the protesters” was a massive miscalculation. All his career being 110% pro-Israel would have been the smart move, but no longer.