this post was submitted on 19 Jan 2025
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politics

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Summary

President Joe Biden leaves office with a legacy of leading the U.S. out of the COVID-19 pandemic, advancing infrastructure, semiconductor manufacturing, clean energy, and rallying global support for Ukraine.

However, since live television’s rise more than half a century ago, the skills needed to run for president have diverged from those required to govern.

This led many voters to doubt his capability despite his achievements, forcing him to withdraw from the 2024 race.

Meanwhile, voters have been less critical of Donald Trump’s age, overlooking unpopular policies like tariffs that hurt farmers and manufacturing.

Many Republicans and independent voters accepted Trump’s false claims about the 2020 election being stolen and justified the January 6 Capitol attack, enabling his return to office.

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[–] sp3tr4l@lemmy.zip 1 points 1 hour ago

Knowingly armed and funded a highly, vividly publicized genocide.

Not mentioned, at all.

"United States of Amnesia", indeed.

Oh and the points they close on?

The good parts? Of his 'legacy?'

Yeah, one of them was just obliterated on day one.

Lower prescription drug prices? Poof! All gone.

[–] djsoren19@lemmy.blahaj.zone 8 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

Fuck off with this revisionist history bullshit. Maybe if Biden had done the right thing and been a one-term president, and the DNC ran a real primary to get a candidate that could beat Trump in 2024, then he could go down in history as a good man.

Instead, we should remember him as he was: a vain, egotistical coward. He was too worried about appearances to pursue justice against Trump, too egotistical to realize he was unpopular and stood no chance against Trump, and now he pardons his entire family and flees. Rest in fucking piss Brandon. Let him be remembered as the man who watched his country fall to fascism and did nothing.

[–] Flocklesscrow@lemm.ee 6 points 6 hours ago

100%

His major effort was to waggle a finger in admonishment and implore someone to do something. As though the fucking PRESIDENT OF THE USA was someone else.

Biden's legacy: the emptiest of empty suits.

[–] dhtseany@lemmy.ml 21 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Biden's Legacy: Fucked around too much in the center and now we all get to find out.

[–] jagged_circle@feddit.nl 10 points 1 day ago

Center? You mean right?

[–] jagged_circle@feddit.nl 11 points 1 day ago

Rescuing? By obscuring the cases by ordering us to stop recording them?

[–] trilobyte81@lemmy.world 14 points 1 day ago

Biden's legacy is releasing the judge who sold kids, and building more roads for the homeless to sleep on

[–] futatorius@lemm.ee 13 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Biden's legacy: being a competent administrator put in a role that required principles and decisive leadership.

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[–] OutlierBlue@lemmy.ca 76 points 1 day ago

Biden's legacy: Rescuing America from a criminal, doing absolutely nothing about it, and being replaced by that exact same criminal

[–] DogPeePoo@lemm.ee 106 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Biden’s legacy: Merrick Garland’s DOJ that watched justice wither on the vine

[–] NatakuNox@lemmy.world 4 points 8 hours ago

It's because "they" win regardless. Was any of the Democratic leaders or wealthy donors lives worse off today than yesterday? Nope. They still have their ivory towers and the cake crumbs they let fall down to show they are the lessor evil is prof of their actual laissez-faire approach to our well-being.

Biden and Garland didn't just watch. They stood by (for decades not just the last 4 years) and watched conservatism and neoliberalism take a blowtorch to Justices and democracy. But at least they watched with a BLM and pride pen on their $10,000 suits...

[–] FenrirIII@lemmy.world 16 points 1 day ago

There is no justice in the US. They just wanted to rub it in our faces.

[–] xnx@slrpnk.net 23 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (5 children)

The Pandemic is still here. All he did was literally what trump wanted to do. Pretend like its gone. No osha guidelines for clean air and co2 level requirements. No upgrades to HVACs and air purifiers in schools, grocery stores, or government buildings.

Millions of Americans getting long covid every year. Millions of Palestinians displaced and getting killed. Did nothing to get the tech oligarchs to lose power or their monopolies. Didn’t use his new presidential immunity to stop a fascist wannabe dictator from taking power. Didn’t even come out to protect americans first amendment by protecting tiktok and gave that win to Trump who is the reason it got banned in the first place. Didn’t push to legalize marijuana. Didnt do shit for universal healthcare. Fuck Biden.

[–] HawlSera@lemm.ee -4 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

The pandemic is still here?

[–] xnx@slrpnk.net 4 points 19 hours ago (1 children)
[–] HawlSera@lemm.ee -4 points 13 hours ago (1 children)
[–] NoSpotOfGround@lemmy.world 7 points 8 hours ago* (last edited 8 hours ago) (1 children)

https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#datatracker-home

1.8% of all deaths in the US today are due to COVID-19. And we're not even at a seasonal peak.

[–] HawlSera@lemm.ee 4 points 7 hours ago

Just a day ago I would have said it was a bad thing, but ya know after being directly targeted by the government of my own country for being Trans and seeing Musk give a Nazi Salute....

I'm kind of okay with there being this death plague in the background....

I simply see no reason to continue valuing human life, that's not edge talking, that's despair.

[–] doctordevice@lemmy.ca 8 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Didn't do shit for student loans despite using that as a carrot for both the general and midterms, then claimed he was doing so much when all he was doing was acting in accordance with policies passed by previous administrations.

Didn't tell the truth about his cognitive condition until well after the primaries, meaning Americans didn't have a choice in the primary and Kamala's candidacy was hamstrung from the start. Therefore we got Trump 2.0. I'd bet money she could have won the general if she wasn't a nominee by default (I'd've voted for someone else in the primary, but I think she could have won it).

[–] Flocklesscrow@lemm.ee 1 points 6 hours ago* (last edited 6 hours ago) (1 children)

No chance Kamala would have won on her own. She wasted a $1.5 BILLION war chest because she's categorically a political loser for POTUS.

The winning option would have been an ACTUAL primary, where voters picked an ACTUAL candidate they wanted.

[–] doctordevice@lemmy.ca 3 points 5 hours ago

I completely agree that was the only winning option. I also believe the DNC would have thumbed the scale in Kamala's favor and she probably would have won the primary despite better options. If the DNC cared about winning the general they'd stop interfering with elections. But while that would have royally pissed off a lot of us on the left, a lot of us still would have begrudgingly voted against Trump.

Had Kamala at least gone through a primary first and then carried any semblance of momentum into the general rather than unexpectedly starting cold, she might have eked out a victory.

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[–] gladflag@lemmy.ml 17 points 1 day ago (4 children)

Funding the Palestinian genocide.

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[–] Hegar@fedia.io 41 points 2 days ago (2 children)

This led many voters to doubt his capability despite his achievements, forcing him to withdraw from the 2024 race.

Nope, factually incorrect. Nancy Pelosi of all people forced him to withdraw by saying she would leak the details of how terrible his internal polling data was.

He knew he could only lose but still refused to step aside.

[–] PillowFort@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)
[–] Hegar@fedia.io 3 points 20 hours ago (1 children)

I do not read the daily mail, no.

I don't remember where I first saw it, but searching "pelosi forces biden out" on DDG returned articles from NBC, MSN, News.com.au, NY Times, among others.

[–] PillowFort@lemmy.world 2 points 2 hours ago
[–] FaceDeer@fedia.io 29 points 2 days ago

IMO his legacy is "yet another politician who merely craved power to no end and didn't know when to let go of it willingly."

He did okay with America's economy. He wasn't Donald Trump. Those are his main positives, and to be fair they're pretty decent ones. But turns out his negatives were big enough that people became interested in having Donald Trump back, which is a pretty damning indictment.

[–] eran_morad@lemmy.world 18 points 1 day ago

Trump is Biden's legacy. He is a miserable failure of historic proportion.

[–] ShinkanTrain@lemmy.ml 13 points 2 days ago

Vaccines watching you give their credit to an old segregationist fuck

[–] pelespirit@sh.itjust.works 22 points 2 days ago

He did some great things for our country. We'll never get perfect.

[–] jaggedrobotpubes@lemmy.world 9 points 2 days ago

Biden mostly ignored covid like a dipshit. We needed and still need real leadership on it and he completely failed on that front.

He did some great things. Covid response isn't on the list.

[–] CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world 13 points 2 days ago (7 children)

No good deed goes unpunished. Was he perfect? Of course not.

We aren't supposed to point out that voters can often be stupid (insert Otto in A Fish Called Wanda screaming "don't call me stupid"!!!), but....look, they had a tantrum over things like egg prices and a situation in Israel that is not likely to get any better under the convicted felon, and many stayed home, voted some useless "protest" vote, or outright voted for the orange dickhead, in order to "teach them a lesson", or somesuch...

I'm sure that will be cold comfort.

[–] Grimy@lemmy.world 19 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (2 children)

The fact that the "situation in Israel" was apparently something to be ignored by both parties doesn't make ignoring it okay.

Hand waving away genocide just tells the democrats they can keep prioritizing everything except what voters actually want. They are to blame for this fiasco and no one else.

It is literally their job during elections to get votes. Instead, thinking they had a home run, they offered the status quo with a side of dead children to appease their sponsors. What a joke.

[–] agamemnonymous@sh.itjust.works 0 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

As the greater evil sieg heils into the White House. Sure showed those Dems. I'm sure that the victims of genocide will be comforted that replacing the people who only pretended to care about them with people who enthusiastically support their suffering was intended to teach the pretenders a lesson. At least their future is cleansed of all pretense, and they'll have company now.

[–] Grimy@lemmy.world 1 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

The more I see people defending the subject, the more I think it's low key a zionist dog whistle. They didn't pretend to care, they actively enabled the genocide.

In any case, it's not up to the voters to ignore every terrible thing done by the dems. If a political party alienated it's own base willingly, the fault lies on the party. They should have done better, and now that it's over, they should be told so.

The Republicans are never going to get better. The dems will always be the lesser evil and being just a slight bit less evil just doesn't cut it.

This has some real "it's not the oil companies fault, it's the fault of the consumer for driving cars and not recycling" vibes. You really think the way forward is for us to just ignore the genocide and not for the party itself to stop pushing it?

[–] agamemnonymous@sh.itjust.works 0 points 5 hours ago* (last edited 5 hours ago) (1 children)

It's ironic, the more I see this one-sided attack the more I think it's a Zionist/Fascist dog whistle.

They didn't pretend to care, they actively enabled the genocide.

Biden tried to block funding to Israel at least once, Congress pushed it through anyway. That is a fact.

In any case, it's not up to the voters to ignore every terrible thing done by the dems.

No one is asking them to. It is up to the voters to look at the options in front of them and vote accordingly:

-Vote Dem: Genocide continues, women and minorities retain their human rights

-Vote MAGA: Genocide accelerates, Ukraine is doomed also, women and minorities lose their rights, suffering increases

-Vote 3rd party/Don't vote: Exactly the same as vote MAGA

The Republicans are never going to get better. The dems will always be the lesser evil and being just a slight bit less evil just doesn't cut it.

And turning up your nose at the lesser evil is how the greater evil wins. "They need to be better" is true, but irrelevant. Shouting about how Dems aren't good enough, and whispering the part about how they're still better than MAGA, is suspiciously well aligned with the people who want MAGA to win. And lo and behold, it worked.

You really think the way forward is for us to just ignore the genocide and not for the party itself to stop pushing it?

I don't decide DNC policy, and I'd wager no one else here does either. You think the way forward is just handing the reigns to the greater evil over and over, because the leader evil isn't good enough? Very suspicious, and very convenient that helping the v fascists can be construed as the "moral" choice

[–] Grimy@lemmy.world 0 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

The vote is over.

I want them to feel pressured to change before the next vote, so we don't end up in the situation again.

By defending them, you are giving them carte blanche to do whatever. I understand your point and they are the same views I held before the vote. Now it's over, they lost and they are to blame for it. You are using the voters as a scapegoat.

They represent us, we need to tell them to listen to us instead of saying they did nothing wrong. Honestly, the people that didn't vote this year aren't going to next time if it's literally the exact same game.

It feels like we are at an impasse because you keep saying the non-voters fucked up, which I agree with, but I'm just saying the dems behavior created that fuck up and the real blame is on them. The non-voters know they fucked up and don't need to be told about it, but the dems seems to think it's everyone's fault but theirs.

[–] agamemnonymous@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 hour ago* (last edited 1 hour ago) (1 children)

By defending them, you are giving the voters carte blanche to do whatever.

The non-voters know they fucked up and don't need to be told about it, but the dems seems to think it's everyone's fault but theirs.

What? I've only seen the opposite. The non-voters are doubling down and refusing any shred of blame. They're blaming everyone else.

Yes there is blame on both sides, but we're not in a message board with Democratic leadership, we're here with the voters. Laying the blame on Democrats doesn't actually present them with that criticism, it just absolves the non-voters (who very much are not acknowledging their share of the blame).

Letters to your representatives, or protests at their events, are productive venues for levying your criticism at them. I would never recommend blaming the voters at those venues, because that might make the representatives feel absolved of blame.

Likewise, forums and message boards of voters are not a productive venue to lay blame on the DNC, since that absolves the voters of their share of blame. Now if you want to acknowledge the fault of non-voters, while encouraging them, actively, to contact their representatives with their criticisms, that's fine. But just shouting the flaws of the DNC, on a platform the DNC leadership is not using, is counterproductive.

[–] Grimy@lemmy.world 1 points 10 minutes ago

If most of the population blames them, they will know about it. It's a lot more productive to get that kind of energy going then blaming voters 4 years before the next election.

Also, voters do have carte blanche, that's literally an integral part of voting. It's up to political parties to not force their hands by building a dead baby machine in the middle east (again).

I also think the amount of protesters and letters to congress diminishes rapidly if everyone gets convinced it wasn't the dems fault.

I understand your point and I agree with it for the most part, I just don't think it's a productive position to hold in the current context.

[–] ShinkanTrain@lemmy.ml 16 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

They didn't handwave it away, they funded it loudly and proudly

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