The Biden Administration (No Lago)

[Kaelik]

The joe biden white house is whipping against Sander's war powers resolution to stop the US's continued genocide in Yemen.

Because there is nothing democrats love more then doing genocides on other countries to promote the interests of US capital alliances.

[deaddmwalking]

Even more than Union Busting? I just can't keep track of what you think Democrat's favorite things are. Maybe you should write a song about it.

[Kaelik]

It's funny because you love and support and crow in victory every time the democrats do a bad thing, and your defense of the current bad thing is to say "you were complaining about a different bad thing before."

Yeah democrats are bad in lots of ways. I also didn't say union busting is their "favorite" thing so even this extremely pathetic gacha doesn't work.

[deaddmwalking]

Kaelik,

I think your take on politics is dumb and counterproductive. We live in a 'first past the post system' where a majority is not required to win an election so by design we have a two-party system. Change IS POSSIBLE, but there are only two ways that happens. The first and most practical is to try to work within the system - and while it's slow, it does work. The fact that a law protecting inter-racial marriage and same-sex marriage would have seemed impossible 30 years ago - and that REPUBLICANS would support such a measure also seemed impossible just a short time ago.

Whatever you say, the Republicans are worse. They also have a lot of institutional advantages (like there are 50 states, but most of them are rural, so Wyoming has just as much representation in the Senate as California), of which you're well aware. Now, sitting out every election because the candidates aren't liberal enough is something you can do, but that leads to Republicans winning across the board and a major roll-back of rights. So that leads to the OTHER way to make change - get things so bad that somehow a revolution occurs and instills a Utopian government. Personally, I don't like the odds. Liberals don't own enough guns, and the people that control the levers of power in the government have too many.

Despite your CONSTANT griping, things are [slowly] getting better. Here's one Example - the child poverty rate is at close to the lowest level in 30 years - with the only exception being a slightly lower rate 2 years ago with the pandemic stimulus. There are lots of problems and there are lots of things that haven't been solved (and may be getting worse) but there are also a lot of things that are getting better and I honestly believe that we don't have any problems that are so extreme that they CAN'T be solved. And I believe that if we're going to have ANY HOPE, we need to elect more Democrats instead of Republicans. Yes, we need more liberal Democrats over more conservative Democrats, but focusing on what you see as the failings is counterproductive.

If your words are exactly the same as conservatives trying to disengage their political opponents by sowing despair, I'm not sure that it matters that you legitimately care about leftist causes. You're working for the other side. You're a useful idiot to the conservatives, at best.

[Neo Phonelobster Prime]

Oh look. The lesser of two evils bullshit. The most vile and destructive argument in modern politics. The one that is used to excuse any and all massive failures and betrayals of "your own" side of tribal politics. An attempt to force any and all people dissatisfied with genuinely outrageous policy betrayals to just shut the fuck up and keep cheering for "our team" or else oooga booga boogey man.

Change, even "within the system" requires identifying and attacking those things that MUST be changed. Sometimes those things are actions by "your team".

Also I would suggest that "slow but does work" is an infantile interpretation of politics in general and a BLIND AS A MOLE interpretation of recent US political history. You think history "goes in one direction" you think civil rights issues OF ALL THINGS are now safe in the modern US? You are so stupid you don't think these things can go backwards? Did you MISS the whole abortion thing?

Fucking shut up THIS argument by people like you is what got you into your current mess. And happily, people aren't listening to it anymore because you and people like you have pushed it too far.

Your team had the chance to bring in the reforms needed in the Democrat party, several times and recently as well, but YOUR stupid argument is why they set that on fire multiple times. And now where has this argument gotten you?

[Kaelik]

Kaelik,

I think your take on politics is dumb and counterproductive. We live in a 'first past the post system' where a majority is not required to win an election so by design we have a two-party system. Change IS POSSIBLE, but there are only two ways that happens.

The problem with the 700th version of your "bad things are good" argument is not just that crass lesser evilism doesn't work, it's that it isn't an argument for the things you support.

You didn't engage in lesser evilism when you advocated for Joe biden in the primary over bernie sanders. You advocated for greater evilism.

The millions of people who die at joe biden's hands are not you, so you are bravely willing to sacrifice their lives to avoid having to admit you were wrong.

When the chance to do any good thing at all shows up: stop perpetuating a US genocide, support labor over management, stop an extremely racist policy at the border, burn the entire world by passing an infrastructure bill that makes climate change worse, you always side with the greater evil and step in to defend it against criticism.

At no point in this thread have I said "and that's why everyone should vote for Donald trump." Because unlike you, I don't advocate for worse outcomes and mass death. But we know what your position was in 2020 (do not allow the bad sanders man to become the nominee no matter what the cost!) And every evil mass murderous thing Biden does is absolutely a refutation of your judgment in the past and will serve as evidence that no one should ever listen to you in the future, like 2024 when you say that we must lock ranks behind Joe biden and prevent a primary challenge and/or Harris if he's dead.

The reason you take every criticism of the Joe biden admin as a personal attack is because you actively advocated for this shit over a better alternative and are going to again.

Nothing at all stops joe biden from doing good things instead of bad things. Joe biden promised to stop us support of this exact ongoing genocide when he was campaigning, but now that he is done lying to get elected and is on power his actions show what he actually wants. And you wanted the guy who actually wants this. That's greater evilism.

But it does not follow that because you feel attacked anyone you are mad at is advocating for whatever you want to make up to be mad about. Contrary to your desperate desire to see no change ever, better things are possible, but only if people actually try to get them. That means people need to have an accurate understanding of the evil done by the leaders of the democratic party, why they do that evil, and how they can push for better things in the future.

One way of course is the next time they see some complete and utter moron say "all democrats are basically just the same so let's vote for the worst one because I can make up a just so story about how this will produce a democratic landslide which will never materialize but I will say unfalsifiably that it would have been worse if we elected the not shitty guy." They can say.... nah that shit ends up killing millions of people every time and we should actually try to vote in primaries for democrats who promise to fight against the leaders of the democratic party and stop their evil.

[Kaelik]

Special shout out for " I honestly believe that we don't have any problems that are so extreme that they CAN'T be solved."

What does "can't" mean here. Because we could solve a lot of problems by repudiating the leaders of the democratic party and putting in people who actually want to solve problems, but right now the problem of "people are being mass murdered in Yemen by US weapons fire by the US and also by the KSA using US provided targeting info and dying from a US supported blockade." Can't be solved because the democratic president keeps saying "I love it when Yemeni people die. More Yemeni corpses please."

The optimum number of "liberal democrats" is zero. Every liberal democrat is another pile of corpses that they needed to make out of other people to keep capitalists rich.

Climate change COULD be addressed but it's never going to be addressed by any of the people you ever vote for.

[deaddmwalking]

Oh look. The lesser of two evils bullshit. The most vile and destructive argument in modern politics. The one that is used to excuse any and all massive failures and betrayals of "your own" side of tribal politics. An attempt to force any and all people dissatisfied with genuinely outrageous policy betrayals to just shut the fuck up and keep cheering for "our team" or else oooga booga boogey man.

Lesser of two evils is the reality of modern politics in the United States. There are ways we could get to actually good choices, but Bernie Sanders can't win in every district.

Change, even "within the system" requires identifying and attacking those things that MUST be changed. Sometimes those things are actions by "your team".

I'm not saying that you shouldn't advocate for policies you like. I also don't think you should avoid 'speaking evil' when 'your team' does something shitty. But I do think that pretending that 'your team' is the 'worst team' because they didn't do something you like is potentially self-destructive. Politics is the art of what's possible - if YOUR POLICIES are held by a majority widely distributed geographically in every district, they'd already be in place. So I suggest helping your preferred candidates in the primary, but if your preferred candidates consistently lose in the general election MAYBE it's better to accept a candidate that isn't 100% aligned with your preferred policies and settle for one that is 80% aligned, rather than keep allowing someone that is 0% aligned to win.

Also I would suggest that "slow but does work" is an infantile interpretation of politics in general and a BLIND AS A MOLE interpretation of recent US political history. You think history "goes in one direction" you think civil rights issues OF ALL THINGS are now safe in the modern US? You are so stupid you don't think these things can go backwards? Did you MISS the whole abortion thing?

No, asshole, that's my whole fucking point. If you let the 'bad party' take over because 'both parties are equally bad' you fuck everyone. If the Republicans take power, we'll move backward FAST. But if we get 60 Democratic senators, control of the house, and a democratic president, we'll move forward FAST. Yeah, 50 Senators and not eliminating the filibuster meant 'slow progress'. But there are real risks with eliminating things like the filibuster if 'your party' won't maintain power.

Fucking shut up THIS argument by people like you is what got you into your current mess. And happily, people aren't listening to it anymore because you and people like you have pushed it too far.

Your team had the chance to bring in the reforms needed in the Democrat party, several times and recently as well, but YOUR stupid argument is why they set that on fire multiple times. And now where has this argument gotten you?

I'm pretty happy. Life where I am is generally better than it was 5 years ago. A lot of positive changes are subtle, and people are still hurting, but less bad is still a victory. I would love for the government to do more to support progressive policies. I believe the best way to do that is to celebrate the successes, and work on building the majority. I think that constantly painting the Democrats as 'just as bad' encourages the most progressive voters to disengage. If young voters voted at the same rate as 65+, we'd be living in the Social Utopia you want. So personally, I don't think Kaelik is helping. And I don't need to SHUT UP. This is a forum for discussion. You're welcome to disagree. I know you do. I know Kaelik does, and I don't fucking care. I think he's wrong, and I'm generally okay with giving the rage demon room to vent. But he's also an asshole and he's wrong (again, my opinion), so RARELY, I feel like just checking in to register my disagreement.

Now, you have my permission to rage and whine and complain and say bad things about me. And in 15 pages or so, I'll post again confirming that I still disagree. But also, Fuck you.

[MGuy]

What is counterproductive I wonder. Someone agitating for the people in power to make changes so people suffer less or being annoyed that people are agitating for that change?

Despite your CONSTANT griping, things are [slowly] getting better. Here's one Example - the child poverty rate is at close to the lowest level in 30 years - with the only exception being a slightly lower rate 2 years ago with the pandemic stimulus.

So this poverty line bullshit got brought up before when username0017 was being incredibly establishment democrat. I mentioned it then but it is worth repeating that the poverty line is set too low. I suspect that that's why the actual numbers are usually not mentioned because if people understood that the line for a single person was around 13k/year and they didn't immediately launch into trying to convince me that 'that' was good enough to live off of, more people would start thinking about how fucked that is. That is not a good way to assess whether or not things for people are good or even improving. As long as the number of people who are above that line is going up then things must be good right? How many of Biden's actual decisions are affecting this number? I know the one decision he made that affected it. Giving people money. A decision he decided not to keep up.

Dead's astounding ignorance about just how bad things are aside I find it very annoying that people like him exist. Like imagine being someone who claims they would like things to get better but who get more annoyed at powerless people agitating for that change over the extreme, continued, resistance of those in power against the change that they claim that they want. Of course Dead is on record having posted things to the effect of:
*Well my portfolio is looking pretty good so things must be going well
*Sanders, and by extension M4A, is pretty sussy 'cause my wife thinks socialism is bad/evil
*I definitely understand how bad cops are because they lightly inconvenienced me that one time
*Don't know if I can support a nativeborn, popular south american leader over fascists since he was elected too many times in a row
*1.4k is really the same as 2k if you think about it

I could go on but dead isn't alone. Similar sentiments have been repeated among the elite of the Democratic party and never will the thought that these very people are instrumental in stopping progress ever penetrate because honestly people like him don't 'really' care about this stuff. It's horse racing for them. They look at people like Manchin and Sinema and they think to themselves we need to vote for more people like this. People that are hand selected by the DNC, promoted and protected by them, and surely there is no issue with this kind of behavior. Surely it isn't indicative of any nefarious dealings on 'my' side of the aisle.

[deaddmwalking]

MGuy,

The Census Bureau uses $14k for a household that has one adult under the age of 65 with no children. Yes, that's pretty low. But is it too low? You're certainly implying it is, but not WHY. At that wage, it's pretty hard to afford an apartment and utilities on your own. You probably have to share expenses. That's definitely 'poverty'. And $20k isn't 'not shitty', but I'm not sure that $50k counts as 'poverty' in most places in the country (obviously there are regional differences).

But $14k is completely disingenuous and you know it. Because I said 'child poverty'. And you know what child poverty has to include? A child. You need closer to $19k household income ($18,677) to cross the 'poverty line'. And yeah, $19k with two people, one of whom is a child still isn't great. Family with 2 parents with 4 kids - $36k. Again, that's POVERTY.

I don't think those numbers are completely off the mark. Where I live Chick-Fil-A is paying $15/hour. If you happen to be full-time employed (2080 hours) you can expect to make $31,200. But not everyone can work, and not everyone gets full time work, and even if you do work you could get really sick and a lot of that money goes to taxes and withholding, so it's not rosy.

I know all that. But you're the same kind of assholes as these others. WHATEVER MEASURE YOU USE, child poverty has been falling. And it's been falling because of government policies. That's good! That's worth celebrating. And sure, 15.3 is TOO HIGH.

But it's not just child poverty. Did you know that incarceration rate for American Adults in 2010 was 500 per 100,000, but it has dropped to 358 per 100,000 in 2020? That includes a 15% decrease from 2019 to 2020! Again, that's too many people in prison, but that's government policies making incremental improvements to society. That's good!

Did you know that the Median Income in the United States has risen from $30,636 in 1990 (using 2021 dollars) to $70,784 in 2021? That's good! That's not AVERAGE income, which is skewed by billionaires. Yes, there's increase in 'inequality' because billionaires are making EVEN MORE, but that's a real improvement in people's lives. The average household income of the bottom 20% of households after taxes was $37,700. If your household made more than $71,100 you're in the top 40%. Now lots of people with a household income of $72k are still struggling. Child care is expensive. Healthcare is expensive. Car repairs are expensive. I am all for policies that help the 99% and I believe that electing Democrats helps with that.

Enjoy your doom and gloom circle-jerk. I know it's fun for you. Personally, I think it's self-defeating and I don't care if you think I'm a) wrong and b) dumb - because, and I mean this sincerely, I'm happy. I'd like you to be, too, and I think if you could look at the positives and work to support them, you'd be happier, too. And here's an article to support my claim (Brain Science Reveals the Striking Power of Optimism).

[Kaelik]

Lesser of two evils is the reality of modern politics in the United States. There are ways we could get to actually good choices, but Bernie Sanders can't win in every district.

This is a really cute statement, because of course, presidents don't have to win in every district, and Biden didn't win in every district, but that didn't stop you from advocating for Biden and opposing Sanders.

So what decision metric was used to determine who your should support? It wasn't lesser evilism, you voted for the greater evil. It wasn't which one polled better, Sanders polled better against Trump then Biden did in 2020.

The obvious answer is of course, that you aren't making electability determinations at all, you have a preexisting preference for the farthest right democrats who promise the least change, and you back fill whatever justification it takes to get there.

In fact, your "voting for rightwing democrats in primaries greater evilism" is fundamentally the same thing AS accelerationism. You are voting for the worst candidate in the belief that the worst candidate winning this election will produce some future benefits that make it good.

If voting for Trump in 2016 definitely created better outcomes in the future by backlash, it would be, under your metric, the right thing to do. The reason, absent principles about not voting for evil people which you clearly don't have based on all your advocay on behalf of evil, that it's a bad idea to do this is because the future is fundamentally uncertain, you don't actually know that the Backlash to Trump will produce better results then the counterfactual of a Clinton presidency. You can make up a STORY in both directions that sound equally plausible, but that doesn't mean you know.

Your advocacy for Biden in the 2020 primaries (and Clinton in the 2016 primaries) works on the same made up knowledge of the future as that accelerationism. There's no good reason to think that Biden telling people to vote for Republican Senators in 2020 was the best possible result, or that he had better coattails then the leftist who polled better then him. You just decide that must be true, because it justifies your preexisting desire to have as little change as possible.

Politics is the art of what's possible - if YOUR POLICIES are held by a majority widely distributed geographically in every district, they'd already be in place.

Every policy I talk about here is what is possible. All of those things are possible. The president can just do them. All of them. That's the point of this thread. Your steadfast defense of the more evil choice in every instance where less evil was possible can't be justified by saying "art of the possible" you are just saying that you want the worse outcome.

but if your preferred candidates consistently lose in the general election

The democratic party has not allowed my preferred candidate to run in a national general election in any of our lifetimes. You'd have to go back to World War II to find this happening, and he fucking trounced the general elections. The closest in my lifetime was when a guy lied about being my candidate, and campaigned on how the entire democratic establishment were corrupt warmongering shitheads on the Take from capital. He won the strongest democratic victory of any of our lives. Then after four years governing like your favorite candidate and campaigning like your favorite candidate, he won a much smaller margin.

I don't think this proves that anyone who doesn't vote for the person who says "Hillary Clinton is a racists piece of shit who takes bribes and voted for war" is a fool for not voting for the obviously most electable candidate. Elections are few and contingently different, and that would be a strange thing to be certain of based on so little evidence. But it's certainly not evidence of the opposite point.

But this fact, that for literally our entire lifetimes we have never been allowed to have a candidate that advocates our views, no matter how corrupt the democratic party needs to be to make sure we never get that candidate, no matter how many billions of dollars and thumbs need to be placed on scales, is a reason that your sonata about the glorious centrisim winning general elections unlike filthy leftism does not sound very good to us.

MAYBE it's better to accept a candidate that isn't 100% aligned with your preferred policies and settle for one that is 80% aligned, rather than keep allowing someone that is 0% aligned to win.

Joe Biden is 0% aligned with my politics. It's easy for you to say "just go with the 80%" because when someone says "how many Yemeni corpses are you willing to burn to fuel your home" your answer is a non zero (apparently quite high) number, just like Joe Biden, and my answer is zero.

But if we get 60 Democratic senators, control of the house, and a democratic president, we'll move forward FAST. Yeah, 50 Senators and not eliminating the filibuster meant 'slow progress'. But there are real risks with eliminating things like the filibuster if 'your party' won't maintain power.

The fact that you think this is more damning evidence that no one should ever listen to you about politics then you are even capable of understanding. WE HAD 60 Senators, and you know what happened? Nothing! Because it turns out, when you need 60 senators do something that a bunch of democratic senators would financially suffer from, they actually are going to make sure it doesn't happen. Just like how they COULD do everything with 51 votes and choose not to, they could do everything with 60 votes and chose not to! And will choose not to again!

As long as your senators are people like Schumer's handpicked Arizona candidate Krysten Sinema, or Chris Coons, or Diane Fienstein, the one thing you can be very sure of is that they will always be just one vote short of drastically reducing the amount of money they all have.

The progress will continue at the same glacial pace so long as Nancy Pelosi or Hakeem Jeffries is Speaker for the House, as long as Chuck Schumer is handpicking Senate candidates, or as long as JOE BIDEN's WHITEHOUSE IS THREATENING TO VETO THE WAR POWERS RESOLUTION THAT HE CAMPAIGNED ON SUPPORTING. Because these people are lying to you and you will never accomplish anything until you learn to sort the liars from people who care. Which of course, you don't care about, because you don't want to change anything.

I'm pretty happy. Life where I am is generally better than it was 5 years ago. A lot of positive changes are subtle, and people are still hurting, but less bad is still a victory.

No one is questioning that you personally live a good life. It's the part where you are willing to shovel as many other people into the furnance as necessary to keep it that's the issue.

We are constantly accelerating to climate apocalpyse, poor people's lives are not getting better, and the US is currently perpetuating at least 3 genocides that we know about and aren't classified and a bunch of murders that don't rise to the level of genocide, and Roe v. Wade was overturned and the democrats premtively announced they love it and are so glad women will be imprisoned, thank the Constitution. But sure. You aren't a woman in a red state, you aren't poor, and you aren't dying because of the active attempt of the US government to kill you, so fuck it, more corpses for the heater.

The Census Bureau uses $14k for a household that has one adult under the age of 65 with no children. Yes, that's pretty low. But is it too low?

LMAO LMAO LMAO LMAO LMAO this is literally lucille ball it's a banana how much could it cost.

[MGuy]

Yes the poverty line is too low. Do you have a counter argument or are you going to just post about how incredulous you are about the notion that the line is too low? Is there an actual argument you're going to make or homework you're going to show about how 'Biden policies' are the direct cause of wages going up? Wages went up during the Trump administration as well. The fuck are you saying?

Don't get me wrong, this is just another example of how Dead does not understand the reality of the struggles people like me are facing. At the end of the day for people like him it's just numbers. That's why he can smoothly say something like families that are making 72k are 'struggling' while trying to act like 14k is a good poverty line. Why would he think any different? These are the numbers he was given. They don't mean anything beyond that for him. This profound ignorance is why people like him annoy me.

At least there's some humor in linking the positivity thing. Almost literally doing either the "poor people just need a more positive attitude" thing or, if you want to be cynical, the "poor people should just be happy about their lot in life" both because he's just so comfortable what with not being in poverty and all.

[Thaluikhain]

Why does pointing out that the lesser evil is evil equate to saying that they are the same as the greater evil?

[Kaelik]

Why does pointing out that the lesser evil is evil equate to saying that they are the same as the greater evil?

Dead dm spent the 2020 primary advocating for Joe biden over bernie sanders so he interprets correct descriptions of the evil Joe biden does that sanders would not have done as a personal attack on him for supporting the greater evil. He then has to rationalize it as anyone who opposed biden in the primary really being advocating for Trump so he can convince himself he's not the bad guy because he feels mildly bad about the fact he is actually a bad guy who advocates for more suffering.

[PseudoStupidity]

Jesus fuck imagine thinking 14k as a poverty line could potentially not be too low. Let's establish a few facts so he can't be a dumbass about this:

1. The US is highly urbanized, with more than 80% of the population living in urban areas.
2. The median price to rent a 1-bedroom apartment in one of the top 100 metropolitan areas in the US is $1,330 (as of Nov. 2022).
3. $1,330 multiplied by 12 is $15,960, a number that is almost $2,000 higher than $14,000.

So, we can assume DDM literally has never seen what rents look like to the majority of people in this country. This does make it difficult to talk to him about, well, anything political in the US. He does not understand the material conditions in the country he talks about the politics of. That is interesting, and maybe a sign he should not talk about politics. First it's probably best to learn what people live like in the country you're going to talk politics about.

Anyways, in the places the vast majority of US citizens live 14k a year is insufficient to even put a roof over your head, let alone live. I'm of the opinion the poverty level should at least be raised to 25k for a single person, and even then I think most people would struggle to survive on 25k alone. 30k seems more reasonable (still a nightmare to live on), and it's around where $15 an hour puts you iirc.

Remember, there are other expenses people have than rent too! Phone, heat, food, internet connection, electricity, a vehicle, I'm not going to do the math for these because we've already exceeded our 14k with just median rent. Sure you could go to Akron Ohio and find a 1-bedroom apartment for $690 a month, but that requires you to either already live there or fucking move (which is more expensive than someone living on 14k a year can afford). I do not believe it is acceptable to require poor people to all relocate to a place where they can afford an apartment. Even in dear Akron Ohio our person at the poverty line would have a meager $5,720 to live on after rent. I do not think $5,720 is enough for a person to live on for a full year, even with their rent covered. If you bump that 14k to 25k your person living in Akron, once they've escaped poverty, can probably have a car and a cell phone and maybe even like, eat at a restaurant once or twice a month.

[deaddmwalking]

You're an asshole, too, you illiterate fuck. I agreed that $19k is obviously poverty and that ~$50k is probably not. That'd be akin to doubling the number. BUT, you start with a number and you build benefits off of that. SNAP is permitted for people making 130% of poverty. But NONE OF THAT MATTERS.

In 1990 a family of 4 was under the poverty line if they earned below $13,359. It's not like poverty measurements have dropped because we haven't raised the poverty level commensurate with cost of living. Sure, it's too low. I agree. But whatever number you PICK, more people are above that line TODAY than they were thirty years ago because of government programs.

Policies like the Earned Income Credit don't stop because you're earning more than the poverty line. They gradually phase out - ideally to the point that you're making enough that you qualify as 'living wage'. For the EIC, family of 4 (2 parents, 2 kids) can earn SOME credit until the household income is $56k, even though the poverty rate is $27,479. That is, you make 2x the poverty rate before you cease to qualify for the program.

Now, that doesn't mean that I'm saying 'we're doing enough' or anything else along those lines. I'm saying that government programs supported by Democrats are having a real, measurable positive impact, and that Republicans will destroy those programs if elected because that's what they've promised to do. So when you choose not to support someone who's blue because they're not liberal enough, you're ceding that spot to someone that is trying to destroy all the work that's made. Progress isn't linear, and all that progress is constantly under attack - voting rights, abortion rights, welfare, social security EVERYTHING is better when Democrats control the government.

And when you focus exclusively on what you see as their failures, you're doing a service to Republicans. They literally want you to see the two parties as identical because then there's no point to voting. And if they can depress voter turnout among young people (who lean Democratic by 28 fucking points), they win elections. And that's bad.

But nowhere am I saying we've done enough as a society to address our myriad problems. I'm only saying that one party is TRYING and they DESERVE support. And it's fine if you disagree - you're entitled to your opinion, same as me, but this place has been awfully crazy about sniping from the left. I know it goes without saying that Marjorie Taylor Greene is crazy, but when you look at what she's advocating for, I'm happy we're not fucked any worse. But we could avoid getting fucked at all by keeping the government at every level as blue as possible. And that doesn't mean we can't have more progressive candidates - but it also doesn't mean we should nominate exclusively Communists and give the government to the Republicans when it turns out they can't win general elections.

[Kaelik]

But whatever number you PICK, more people are above that line TODAY than they were thirty years ago because of government programs.

...

I'm saying that government programs supported by Democrats are having a real, measurable positive impact.

Government programs "supported by democrats" have not had real measurable positive impacts. Whatever line you pick more people will be both above and below the line then in the past because of population growth. But I can pick a lot of numbers where the rate will have gone down instead of up.

This is because within our lifetime democrats killed the poverty aid program that targeted the poorest people and started instituting stats juking programs instead.

The EIC doesn't just phase out (pointlessly) it also fades IN (catestrophically) and this means that where before you had 10 poor people across a spectrum of poverty and the poorest one got the most extra money, now the poorest one gets nothing and the second poorest one gets nothing and the third poorest one gets nothing and did you see the pattern yet? If someone needs 1 dollar to get over the poverty line democratic party supported programs give them 1 dollar, but if someone needs 10000 dollars the government says "lot of work, I'd prefer if you died."

If you say the poverty line is 7k there are MORE people in both absolute and relative numbers in poverty because of democratic supported welfare policies then there were in the 80s.

But nowhere am I saying we've done enough as a society to address our myriad problems. I'm only saying that one party is TRYING and they DESERVE support.

The democratic party is not trying! They did not try and fail to stop the ongoing genocide in Yemen. They started it, supported it 100%, and just now the president threatened to veto any attempt to stop it.

The democrats try very hard just like you to oppose any attempt to fix any problem.

It is sometimes possible to bully the democratic party into doing good things, but this only happens when people force them do it against their own preferences.

It is also possible to support an extremely small number of actually good democrats in an attempt to take power away from all the people who currently have it, the people who oppose any attempt to fix any problem anywhere they see it happening, ie the people deaddm supports in their ongoing efforts to exclude and marginalize and push out the only good democrats.

But you will never accomplish either of those things by constantly defending the democratic party's many acts of evil or the politicians who keep doing them.

[PseudoStupidity]

You're an asshole, too, you illiterate fuck. I agreed that $19k is obviously poverty and that ~$50k is probably not.

I'm just responding to this insult because it's baffling to me. You posted the following, which I was responding to:

The Census Bureau uses $14k for a household that has one adult under the age of 65 with no children. Yes, that's pretty low. But is it too low? You're certainly implying it is, but not WHY. At that wage, it's pretty hard to afford an apartment and utilities on your own. You probably have to share expenses. That's definitely 'poverty'. And $20k isn't 'not shitty', but I'm not sure that $50k counts as 'poverty' in most places in the country (obviously there are regional differences).

But $14k is completely disingenuous and you know it. Because I said 'child poverty'. And you know what child poverty has to include? A child. You need closer to $19k household income ($18,677) to cross the 'poverty line'. And yeah, $19k with two people, one of whom is a child still isn't great. Family with 2 parents with 4 kids - $36k. Again, that's POVERTY.

I don't think those numbers are completely off the mark. Where I live Chick-Fil-A is paying $15/hour. If you happen to be full-time employed (2080 hours) you can expect to make $31,200. But not everyone can work, and not everyone gets full time work, and even if you do work you could get really sick and a lot of that money goes to taxes and withholding, so it's not rosy.

Bolding mine.

Mind explaining how the bolded sections are somehow not you posing the question of "Is 14k too low for the poverty line?" to yourself and your answer being "I don't think those numbers are completely off the mark"? It could be you are a very bad communicator and meant something totally different than what the words you wrote mean when put into the order you put them in, but that's your fault. I feel like I'm the literate one here and you're maybe just not very good at explaining yourself.

For fuck's sake, you say 14k is definitely poverty (nice, we agree!), but you follow it up by saying 20k "isn't 'not shitty'", which is a noticeably different phrase than "poverty." I do not understand how you could expect someone to read what you wrote and come away thinking you believe 14k is poverty and 20k is also poverty. Why would you call them different things if you consider them to be the same thing? Should I be drawing tarot cards or casting bones when I read your posts so I can divine the meaning behind them? Reading the words doesn't help because you are bad at using them.

In your post you don't even call 19k poverty for a single person with a child, you just call it "not great." Is poverty the same as "not great," you fucking idiot? Having a final sentence in that paragraph of "Again, that's POVERTY." doesn't mean everything in that paragraph is poverty, and if that's what you meant you're a shitty communicator. And if you did mean those are all poverty, how the fuck could you say you don't think those numbers are completely off the mark? None of that makes sense, it is totally incomprehensible. Your politics are stupid and so are you.

[Kaelik]

In the ongoing saga of how the biden justice department continues to do bad things when it could just do good things instead the doj just filed a brief saying that actually when Judge Chevron refers a matter to the doj, and the doj refuses to prosecute it because it's obviously fake as shit, that judge chevron is allowed to appoint a chevron lawyer as an independent prosecutor to try and convict environmental lawyers for "civil contempt" (not listening to judge chevron).

They could have either done literally nothing or written a brief saying that the judge doesn't have a right to appoint chevron lawyers to prosecute anyone he doesn't like, but instead they did the bad thing instead of the very possible good things.

[MGuy]

That's crazy. Illiterate? For reading the thing you wrote? Got resolve that dissonance some kind of way I suppose. Anyway I'm not seeing any convincing arguments for how 14k isn't too low or for how specific Biden administration actions are at all responsible for wages going up. Last I heard the fed was looking to reduce effective wages as their primary response to rising inflation.

[Kaelik]

That's crazy. Illiterate? For reading the thing you wrote? Got resolve that dissonance some kind of way I suppose. Anyway I'm not seeing any convincing arguments for how 14k isn't too low or for how specific Biden administration actions are at all responsible for wages going up. Last I heard the fed was looking to reduce effective wages as their primary response to rising inflation.

Indeed, the Fed keeps saying "We got to do a recession, so that wages go down." A think a biden appointee said and also biden appointee's have been doing. Now you might say "Isn't Powell a Trump appointee?" and I would say, well actually he's an Obama appointee! But also a Trump appointee, but also a Biden appointee. I wonder if we could divine some kind of information about how all three of these people think we run our economy from this information!

[Kaelik]

Biden initially appointed two Louis DeJoy supporters to fill empty seats in the postal board because Biden, like Obama, wants to privatize the post office and sees DeJoy as a way to move towards that.

Now he's sitting on two more empty seats and refusing to appoint anyone because if he appoints anyone acceptable to the democrats they will fire DeJoy, but he really doesn't want dejoy fired. So we wait and he'll keep a republican on the board for another year when he could replace him. Because why do a good thing when you could do a bad thing?

[Kaelik]

Dems passed huge money cops/prison/surviellenace increase in the spending bill that no one was allowed to see until vote day.

Fun times.

If we just spend 100% of the budget on fascist monsters to beat up minorities I'm sure the republicans will love democrats and they won't have to fight any more!

[MGuy]

As capitalism goes into decline and the poorer people start reacting to the squeeze (and it will be poorer people because there's no way execs are taking a haircut before everyone else) they are going to need more goons to beat the people back in line.

[Kaelik]

Biden signed a bill cutting millions off medicaid. And is celebrating it. That's the life we live.