Even as late as the 2016 RNC debates he was still speaking clearly, responding to his opponents, and occasionally making a coherent point.

The president can’t unilaterally decide whether tips are taxed or not either.

This article is not discussing an action Harris can or will take. This is discussing policies she supports- she can use political influence to help get it through and past Congress.

This applies to like 95% of all political discourse by the way. People want to blame the president because it’s easier to blame one name and face than to try to pick out one of the hundreds in Congress.

I meant in terms of establishing good diplomatic relations between the US and Russia. From the fall of the Berlin wall up until the Obama administration it looked like relations were steadily improving as Russia was becoming more capitalist. Also at least from the US perspective it’s probably the most famous case of exposing a hostile foreign diplomat to American values.

I remember reading articles about how Russia was giving away land and paying people to come populate their rural eastern provinces. I’m not sure exactly when the sentiment changed- Putin clearly didn’t like Obama, but at this moment I can’t remember any specific incidents pior to the Crimea invasion. Before that, I remember them being seen as an economically inferior, but developing, potential ally. Similar to Japan before it’s “miracle”, lumped into BRIC with Brazil, India, and China as a potential new place to do business.

As for Yeltsin being bad for Russians? Eh, probably. I’m content leaving discussion to those whose special interest is recent Russian history.

In other cases? Perhaps. There is the famous story of Boris Yeltsin visiting the US in 1989, visiting a grocery store, and realizing that capitalism was superior (honestly the whole thing never smelled right to me and I’ve never seen a direct quote from Yeltsin about it, but whatever). I’m sure there are other cases where normalizing relations and sharing culture has helped to ease tensions.

Kim Jong Un doesn’t need any of that. He grew up and went to school in Switzerland. He’s a huge fan of basketball and American movies. He is familiar with American culture already. North Korea’s hostilities aren’t about competing ideology, but about Kim Jong Un maintaining power by carefully maintaining a balance between his own military leaders, China and (to a lesser extent) Russia versus the US, South Korea, and their allies. It’s in China’s interest right now to have a belligerent puppet state who is annoying to the west without actually escalating to war. Until those geopolitics change, taking Kim Jong Un to see America’s least favorite past time is only promoting and encouraging authoritarianism.

For comparison, this is how Trump used to talk, back in the 2016 RNC debate.

He’s always been an obnoxious and crass New Yorker, never what you’d call an intellectual or academic. But he used to stay on topic, finish sentences, make coherent points, and generally function. Now he’s reduced to somehow shouting and mumbling at the same time, confusing names and years, connecting vague concepts together until he gets applause from the audience.

He’s gotten worse over time. I remember during the 2020 cycle seeing video comparisons even between his 2016 and 2020 debates.

I don’t exactly enjoy going back and watching him talk, but it’s shocking going back and comparing seeing how drastic the change has been.

Here’s a bit of the 2016 RNC debate. Trump is still rude and crass. He’s not coming off as an intellectual, but he’s completing his sentences and making coherent points. He wasn’t getting obviously confused like he has been since- talking about airports being involved in the Revolutionary War, claiming Nikki Haley was responsible for January 6th, the famous rant about his uncle being a genius, etc.

Thecomment I replied to listed Biden’s accomplishments. I agree that I wish he was even more progressive, but we aren’t going to get anyone like that without either disenfranchising 40-50 million voters or convincing them to stop voting against their best interests.

Biden already beat Trump once, when Trump has the incumbent advantage. Biden now has that advantage and has a much, much stronger resume of accomplishments than Trump did.

Who is the anti-genocide candidate who has a chance of beating Trump? Biden’s stance on Israel is my biggest criticism of him, but I have yet to see a better option. There’s hundreds of issues to consider when voting, so I’m not going to let one issue(where the other candidate is even worse) dissuade me from voting for the candidate who is in my best interests.

Just dismissing my points without addressing any of them lol.

The person I replied to listed Biden’s accomplishments. I was the same as you back in the 2020 election - I thought Biden would be just a regular corporate Democrat, but he proved me wrong within his first year. I can admit that. He’s definitely not as progressive as I would prefer, but he’s far exceeded my expectations. I look at what he’s actually done, not what Fox News wants me to believe he is.

You mentioned that his climate change bill was a fossil-fuel industry handout… I’m searching the Internet and can’t find any publication with that take. I can see plenty of other criticisms (supporting hydrogen is controversial, Republicans have plenty of complaints as expected, we probably need to do more, it doesn’t solve international issues, etc), but I can’t find any indication from anywhere that it was too kind of fossil fuel corporations. Do you have any more information on that?

No successfully elected US president in history has ever started a campaign so late. If there was some front runner, a really strong candidate who had a legitimate shot, perhaps I’d entertain the idea. But that is simply not the case. Biden dropping out now is exactly what the GOP wants.

This isn’t just a matter of younger candidates volunteering.The primary already happened. There was a time and a place to have this conversation and Biden won. You and I don’t have to like it.

Comparing Biden to Hillary is laughable. Incumbents generally win the presidency, and Biden was popular enough to unseat Trump in 2020. Now he has a pretty good record of accomplishments to run on. He was never as hated as Hillary. That could be personal charisma, misogyny, the scandals the Clinton’s had as a couple, her own racist comments resurfacing, the supercuts of her taking both sides on literally every issue, or other things. Biden isn’t perfect, but as far as presidential candidates go the best the GOP has been able to do is Hunter’s laptop.

Supporting the incumbent president and primary winner, who has the perhaps the most progressive accomplishments since FDR, who already beat Trump in the last election… Is supporting Trump?

That’s some gold medals mental gymnastics.

I’m disappointed in Stewart for this. I understand he’s just a comedian, but he seemed to actually have some good takes and be getting more involved in serious politics over the past few years.

Changing the nominee at this stage would be effectively ceding the election. I’m convinced that most of this anti-Biden rhetoric is coming from right-wing astroturfers.

It’s also bizarre seeing so many so-called progressives claiming that anyone could beat Trump… Did we learn nothing in 2016? Even the 2020 election was way too close for comfort. I wasn’t a huge fan of Biden back then, but he has exceeded my expectations significantly. I’m disappointed that there aren’t any viable younger candidates (that’s still a problem that needs to be solved in the next primary), but that’s certainly not going to stop me from voting for Biden again.

Viable candidate? Dude, I could personally beat Donald Trump with the dem nomination, and im nobody

That strategy worked so well for the DNC in 2016, didn’t it?

People who think Biden has dementia have clearly never seen actual dementia patients

There’s a large swath of what Gene Wilder might call “the common clay of the new west” who vote purely on who can appear to be the toughest. It’s like some pack behavior of exerting dominance that you’d see in animals.

Uneducated, usually rural people who like Trump because “he tells it like it is” or “he’s a boss who knows how to lead”, when in reality he just constantly makes shit up and runs his businesses into the ground.

I think these people will see Biden’s remarks and Trump getting upset at them and view it as a sign that Biden is “tougher” than Trump. Which is dumb, but if it means a more progressive government and avoiding the regression under Trunk I’ll take it.

Lemmy simply hasn’t been enough content. I still use Lemmy (obviously, I’m here) but I also supplement with other places.

For example, I used to enjoy the sub for one of my favorite sports teams. A lot of posts tended to be articles from the same handful of news outlets. Now instead of reading through Reddit I just have that website up and routinely check for new articles.

I use the Google News app occasionally. It usually sucks.

I also use Instagram a lot more. I only reluctantly downloaded it and created an account because my wife and a few friends wanted to send me things. Then I used it more when my band released an EP as a way to promote that. For pure entertainment rather than informational purposes, I usually go to Lemmy first and exhaust what is good quickly, then go to Instagram after.

I know it sucks. I don’t like having an app from Meta on my phone. I know it can become an unhealthy habit. But I also drink and eat junk food, so there you go.

Plenty of progressives on this list, perhaps most notably AOC.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Joe_Biden_2024_presidential_campaign_primary_endorsements

Pokemon Sword and Shield.

Rose is trying to move the country off of fossil fuels and onto sustainable green energy. Somehow Gamefreak manages to portray this as being a terrorist and extremist. How dare he try to move Galar away from coal?

I’ve been meaning to re-watch Korra, but I remember even the first time I watched it being a bit disappointed in the “enlightened centrism” where they are trying to paint every conflict as pacifists vs extremists.

I think it’s similar to looking at BioShock 1 and BioShock Infinite. There’s a lot of writers out there who just use politics and ideology as a setting for the conflict rather than actually being central to their message. It’s simply a solid formula to make a villain: take any sort of stance and push it to violent extremes. Comstock is a religious zealot, Andrew Ryan I don’t think ever even mentions spirituality if I remember. Ken Levine’s message in the two games is not about religion, but extremes.

There are benefits. It makes the villains more nuanced and relatable. It gives the protagonist room for doubt and allows for some of the “good” guys to take on antagonistic roles. But Korra also ends up supporting an oppressive regime, and Booker DeWitt gets shoehorned into fights against the people rebelling against his enemy because… Reasons?

Any progressives who actually pay attention to what the government is doing and not just Republican propaganda are probably also supporting Biden.

He’s not been perfect. I wish he was younger, and i have criticisms on a lot of middle east foreign policy including Israel, but on the whole he’s been by far the most progressive president in my lifetime.

Oh yes of course that all makes sense, but it’s also all just speculation. The Dems have not dominated yet. In more than the 3 decades I’ve been alive, the Dems have only had a filibuster-proof majority of Congress, plus the presidency, for a handful of months.

I’ve seen them win the popular vote and lose the presidency twice.

I hope the Dems do dominate and shift the Overton window left. But I think we also need to be careful about the expectations and narratives carried online. Fascists love to spread the lie that the Dems have been in control for decades and accomplished nothing. So saying Dems have dominated elections when they haven’t (at least not nationally) is dangerous.

The Dems lost control of the house at mid-terms, and they only have a razor-thin margin in the Senate of 51-49 if you count the 3 independents as Dems (which is fair as they caucus together).

I don’t see any domination, at least on a national level.