Joe Biden Presidency thread *Please read OP - Threadbanned Users Added 4/5/21*

sock.rocker*

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122404475#Comment_122404475

Democrats doom-mongering this scenario everywhere before the election actually gives Trump a bit of a mandate to do those things since "people knew what they were voting for". Be careful you don't end up with a self-fulfilling prophecy.

briany

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122404526#Comment_122404526

Yes, Trump dismantling US democracy will be the Democrats' fault. /s

sock.rocker*

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122404536#Comment_122404536

Wouldn't be their fault, I'm just saying these things have ripple effects. The presidential immunity for official acts that he will enjoy if elected didn't come about under his presidency, it came about from him defending himself in court after he was president. An unintended effect.

Boggles

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122404475#Comment_122404475

Unlikely.

odyssey06

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122404591#Comment_122404591

And if you go back further… It came about from Trump's misconduct and Republican Supreme Court picks. Although you could argue the latter is intended.

sock.rocker*

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122404653#Comment_122404653

And if you go back further, the supreme court wouldn't be so stacked had Ruth Bader Ginsburg stepped down. Like Biden possibly, staying on too long and handing power to Republicans.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/25/us/politics/rbg-retirement-obama.html

The Quiet 2013 Lunch That Could Have Altered Supreme Court History

President Obama met with Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, hinting at retirement, but the art of nudging justices off the court is politically delicate and psychologically complicated.

Sounds pretty similar to the last couple of weeks and I can imagine articles such as that being written a couple of years from now.

Water John

Biden needs to step aside, because it's the best for America and the world. Over 30 from Congress and Senate have now publicly said so. How many more may have said it privately. Time for the Dems to get the club together, no point in going to Biden in dribs and drabs. The main groups oddly, who are wanting him to stay in the race are the progressives.

The Dems should have moved away from the elite to the ordinary American, long ago.

briany

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122404624#Comment_122404624

Reassuring. /s

Igotadose

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122404672#Comment_122404672

No matter what, Biden was gone no later than 2028. SCOTUS is lifetime. RBG was pure arrogance. Mitch McConnells behavior re: Scalia's replacement, was the lowest point, though. If instead McConnell had allowed Obama's pick to be appointed (Merrick Garland), the world would be very different and RBG dying in office wouldn't have been quite the disaster that it is.

Water John

The rot goes back a long way, to Newt Gingrich. He broke any bilateral respect, which was the lynchpin of how the US system works.

Igotadose

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122404773#Comment_122404773

Yep, and I don't know how it can be cured. It seems the dynamic is, GOP pushes the envelope of what it can get away with, Democrats undo the damage. GOP politicians are in lockstep, Democrats the proverbial 'herd of cats.'

Maybe dropping Biden for Harris and forcing the Democratic machine to get behind Harris is the best thing, that and beating CFTrump. Enough compromise and appeasement, CFTrump preys on that.

sock.rocker*

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122404756#Comment_122404756

"the world would be very different"

Well the US would be very different.

This is the fundamental problem of talking about another country's political systems. When we think of Xi or Putin, we think about their effects on the world, not their internal policies that don't affect us. Other country's leaders don't get a free pass for international failings because they happen to be good on social policies or whatever in their country.

But with the US, we on this website are expected to care about US internal policies more than the external ones. Biden is great for Americans is fine on an American website, but this an Irish website, and I only really care about the external things. I judge Biden and Trump on the world stage, not on the US stage, and it's why shock horror I've found the Biden presidency to be worse, objectively even.

Far too much emphasis is placed on the internal workings of the US and it's treated as a battleground for the world to argue over social issues, even when those same issues have been solved in a country like Ireland.

silverharp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122404717#Comment_122404717

It would would raise questions about Biden's first term if he did, at what point shouldnt he have had access to the "nuclear codes" for example, then there are personal financial and legal reasons, Biden is too old for the speaker circuit ;-) , any Dem Billionaires got 1/2 a billion to "invest" in a hunter scheme? lol

odyssey06

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122404861#Comment_122404861

I judge Biden presidency on the world stage too, I have zero doubt a Trump 2nd term Presidency would have been far far worse for Ireland, in the short and long term. And 2024-28 would be versus any other Democrat that continues usual Democratic or non-MAGA Republican policies.

US isolationism with dictators on the march didn't work out well last time for Europe.

eire4

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122404796#Comment_122404796

Agree with what your saying there and I will add a piece to it. Not only do the Republicans push things as far as they can get away with but then when Democrats get back in while they put the brakes on things and maybe roll a few things back they never roll it all the way back and so when the cycle starts again it starts from a worse point then previously until you get to where we are today where the Republicans now are an authoritarian party and what passes for democracy in the US is on life support.

Water John

Senator Warren the progressive, has said that if Biden steps aside, then Kamela Harris is the one to run. 'People voted for the ticket, with her on it, four years ago, knowing she'd be the one stepping if anything befell Biden'.

Very happy with Bidens record, not perfect by any means, but both internally and on the world stage, he has been a colossus compared to pigmy Trump.

sock.rocker*

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122404907#Comment_122404907

Those dictators are on the march under Biden.

I think Trump handled Kim perfectly. He developed thermonuclear weapons so he went over and said hi like he should have. Biden would have postured from American soil and made matters worse because his politics and those of his followers would never allow a meeting that "legitimised" North Korea. You probably see what he did as bad and sucking up to dictators, I see it as realpolitik and afterwards, things quietened down.

Putin invaded before and after Trump, under Democrats. This is the most obvious statement of fact but disregarded entirely and allegations that Trump would let Putin run all over Europe are just thrown out willy nilly even though it didn't happen in the four years he was president. "Oh but Trump recognised Crimea"

Israel? "But trump would have done worse because he said to get the job done faster" even though that literally means peace faster and the full quotes show that's exactly what he meant. Biden is still supplying them with arms and he threatened the ICC for investigating war crimes. "Oh but Trump moved an embassy"

Afghanistan? A disaster thanks to bad short-term planning, but blamed on Trump. Few actually disagree with Trump's policy of getting out of there, they just hate how it was done. But yeah, Trump blamed even though the generals in charge blame the White House for it.

There is simply no way in 2016 that I could lay out the mess that is geopolitics right now and you say "That all happened under a Democrat", and then list out what happened under Trump and say that it all happened under him. Practically everything shlt internationally in the last eight years has been under Biden and I find it is absolutely remarkable that you will respond to this saying it was all Trump's fault.

My biggest issue, and why I argue about American politics, is because the Democrats think they can do whatever the fuk they want and their supporters are like Yeah A OK just because Trump is in the background and can be blamed for everything. It pisses me off because I do not identify with any Republican ideals and all I see is the Democrats fuking everything up, either in the run for a presidency or when president. I think it was you who argued you would never play "two sides" by disagreeing with anything the Democrats do and that is a serious issue in American politics in my mind.

odyssey06

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122405140#Comment_122405140

Nowhere did I say it was all Trump's fault. That is a strawman argument, and you don't have much of an argument if you have to invent such a misrepresentation.

This is what I wrote:

I judge Biden presidency on the world stage too, I have zero doubt a Trump 2nd term Presidency would have been far far worse for Ireland, in the short and long term. And 2024-28 would be versus any other Democrat that continues usual Democratic or non-MAGA Republican policies.

I don't think the Democrats think they can do what they want. I see the Democrats engaging with historic US allies on major issues, whether that is security or economic issues. I see continuity in their policies with previous administrations, Democrat and non-MAGA Republican ones. It is not perfect, but it does not concern me.

I see Trump's form of Republicanism doing whatever they want at home and abroad, without regard to its impact on global security, economic relationships. That concerns me.

It takes a very limited form of engagement with world affairs to simply look at 2016-2020 and pretend the situation was the same as 2020-2024. Nothing you have listed there is any reason to think a Trump presidency would be better.

We can see how Trump released 5000 Taliban militia men in Afghanistan - how was that going to create a stable situation in Afghanistan? That was the mess Trump left Biden with.
Likewise we can see how he approached Ukraine, without regard for US national interest, security in Europe… denying them aid because they wouldn't go along with a scurrilous muck raking exercise against a domestic political opponent.
We cannot discuss the Ukraine situation in detail on this thread, but on that thread you will see multiple posts explaining why a Biden or similar Democrat is preferred.

Nothing I have seen from Trump gives me any trust that he would behave responsibly to a crisis in Europe.

Dictators are on the march, the type of US isolationism advocated by Trump won't deter them.