I’m coming at things with the perspective that Republicans are more likely to kill me slowly and painfully than Putin is with nukes. This gives me a vastly different perspective than much of the folks here, a perspective I used to have when I was younger.
On top of my own risk, most of my friends are also at major risk.
A lot of folks here aren’t at much personal risk if this country turns into Russia, so they can afford to be less worried. It’s a nice comfort to have. I mean, I truly do believe you don’t want this, but ultimately, it’s a want for many here. For me, I suspect it’s a need, for the sake of my own safety. That’s why I’m blaring the alarm bells, no matter how uncomfortable they are to hear.
BTW plenty of good stuff on that list too. Policy-wise, I’m in agreement with most of this board, I just think we’re not fighting hard enough and dirty/desperately enough to get it.
I wasn’t clear in my words, my intention was to say “your view of the modern Democratic party” – no, I don’t think most Democrats want nuclear war.
These are proposed executive actions. The point is that Biden can do most of these with stroke of the pen. There’s no desperate fight here.
Democrats don’t have a messaging problem, the problem is that they don’t want to enact many of the changes they run on, and they can’t message their way around that. Getting better at messaging that “beneficial change is impossible right now” is a self defeating strategy.
Thanks for taking the time to clarify for me. I wasn’t sure if I was reading you right or if it was my lack of caffeine on a Monday morning hindering my reading comprehension. :)
I don’t want nuclear war. I just feel the risks of Republican illiberal democracy are greater to me than the risk of nuclear war, and that making sure Ukraine is free would give Biden enough of a popularity boost to prevent the first possibly.
Except he can’t. There’s no way he can e.g. order the government to start manufacturing drugs in volume without spending money, and he would need an act of Congress to spend that money.
I agree with a lot of the stuff on the list, which isn’t the same thing as saying that Biden can ‘easily’ order a lot of the stuff on the list. In that respect, it’s kind of a stupid list. If the point of the list is to demonstrate things Biden could do but for some reason isn’t doing, putting things he can’t do, or things that are quite hard to do, or things that won’t have any impact for months or years if ever, on the list, is a stupid thing to do. It’s like fake dunking on Biden, which IMO progressives shouldn’t be doing. It doesn’t help their cause, it just makes more people on the left dissatisfied with Biden. Which at this moment is a recipe for disaster!
This debate is a good example of the “perception” issue I’ve been talking about. In terms of policy and reality, Scott is 100% correct here. At the same time, I can also see why voters are frustrated that the Dems aren’t “doing things to help us!”. The reality is, the Dems simply don’t have that much power to do the things that would help right now, for a whole bunch of reasons, but that’s also kind of a political kiss of death. I mean, if the Dems don’t have the ability to do much after they won in 2020, what the fuck, right?
Us policy wonks and political junkies understand How Things Work but for a lot of voters it seems like, “Biden was going to do a lot and instead he did a little.”
A lot of these requests are very do-able. I keep coming back to student debt because it’s a very clear example of this. The administration has been saying that they don’t know if they have the legal authority to do this, when they’ve been sitting on a memo for a year that answers this question, and they’re refusing to say what they found: Dozens of Democrats demand Biden release legal memo on student debt cancellation - POLITICO
I really hate the idea that demanding Democrats do their job is somehow a recipe for disaster. How can you expect voters to be excited to get these guys in office if they’re already not doing the work for the positions they hold?
Absolutely. Which is why it’s bad when people on the left who know better, who know what is and isn’t doable, pretend that the problem is that Biden won’t do some things that aren’t really doable.
I agree with you about student debt. That’s one thing. What else? Don’t just point to that list, because there is a bunch of stuff on that list he can’t do, and there is a bunch of other stuff he probably can’t do, and there is a bunch of other stuff he can pretend to do but which will basically make no difference to anyone in the foreseeable future.
I can write a memo that says that all of my needs shall be instantaneously serviced by willing and beautiful women of my most exacting personal taste standards, 24/7, but that doesn’t make it so.
Do you know what precedential value an OLC memo has in a court of law? About the same as a typical amicus brief by a reputable law professor, which is to say an amicus brief and $5 will get you a cup of coffee at Starbucks. An OLC memo is not a “controlling legal authority”; it has no binding legal value, in court, at all. At the very most it’s persuasive legal argument, similar to an amicus brief. No, really, that’s it. Now, WITHIN an administration, OLC memos are in fact controlling but when challenged in court, they’re just persuasive. That’s what OLC memos are: determinative of the law to be applied within the executive branch, but completely non-binding on the judicial branch. (The same is also true of the OLC memos protecting Presidents from prosecution btw - they have no legal force in court. None. They can be used to argue and persuade; that’s it.)
Just to explain: we are talking about memos from the Executive Branch Office of Legal Counsel, which interprets the laws as understood by the Executive Branch. These memos do impact how the Executive branch operates: they lay out the legal view of the executive and executive branch employees are supposed to follow them. However, they are have no binding power on the JUDICIAL branch (the courts) which can modify, overrule, disregard, expand or contract the OLC POV. So that’s what Biden is talking about when he says they’re not sure of the legality; it hasn’t been tested in court and the OLC is just the Exec POV. Keep in mind, Trump’s OLC wrote some shit-tastic memos that were rejected by the courts; every admin does.
I also agree about cancelling a modest amount of student debt, although I actually expect it to lose at the Supreme Court under one of the many “gut the government’s regulatory power” doctrines that are floating around the Federalist Society these days. But it would be worth trying.
Other than that, pretty much everything that could help with our current problems (revising our laws on oligopoly, bundling, big finance and big tech and big business regulation, possible emergency price caps on “necessities” [Yes, I know I am asking Mr. Timepiece to RELEASE THE HOUNDS!!], major structural reform to union organizing, comprehensive immigration reform, tax reform of MANY types and a bunch of other stuff) requires Congress to act and that ain’t happening.
The progressives are saying that the White House should take an expansive view of executive power in the absence of action by Congress. I generally agree; no President ever got harmed by doing that in pursuit of popular and reasonable things. So Biden absolutely ought to forgive whatever student debt he thinks he can. I also believe that the courts will decide he actually can’t, but that will take some time to play out, so the beneficial effect is there in terms of the midterm elections, if that isn’t being too cynical.
But a lot of this stuff? The President should create a task force to look into doing something later? That isn’t going to move the ball at all. The President should negotiate better agreements with drug makers? Yes, he should, but that is also not going to bear any fruit anytime soon, if ever. Remember, there are two sides to any negotiation, and the President can’t make people agree with his terms.
Can someone explain student loans to me briefly? I never had any, so I’m not familiar with it. Is it all government backed loans, but they’re from a private company? Or are all student loans actually loans from the government itself? How is the government involved exactly with student loans?
EDIT: Oh nice, I found a good explainer on Investopedia.
Once we cancel student debt, what do we do for people starting school in the fall of 2022? Do we tell them they’re fucked, or do we cancel debt every couple of years?
