I would not write off the accomplishments of centrist and middle left politicians just because they do not go far enough in many aspects. A lot of the good things in the world were build on incremental change by people who had a largely conservative (in the true sense of the word) mindset and embrace ordo capitalist worldviews.
Biden's presidency accomplished a lot of good things because Biden has certain skillsets (in tandem with Schumer) that enabled him to navigate in his very narrow space between a 50/50 senate, a thin house majority and several unreliable senators on their side.
No. Even republican progressives like Teddy Roosevelt did more for the people because they didn't have a "largely conservative mindset," and if they did have that mindset then very little would have been done, and people would have not been better off. Lot of things that were done were done because of bigger changes, not incremental.
He didn't cancel student loans as promised, but he did increase police funding and gave billions of dollars to Israel and Ukraine even though USA needs the money for its poor. He opposes remote work for absolutely no reason and wants to get people to get back into office. Several states have banned abortion and/or imposed punishment on the women and even the doctors for performing abortion to the point that those seeking abortion have to go out of state, but even then they can still get in trouble in their home state.
No. Even republican progressives like Teddy Roosevelt did more for the people because they didn't have a "largely conservative mindset," and if they did have that mindset then very little would have been done, and people would have not been better off. Lot of things that were done were done because of bigger changes, not incremental.
He didn't cancel student loans as promised, but he did increase police funding and gave billions of dollars to Israel and Ukraine even though USA needs the money for its poor. He opposes remote work for absolutely no reason and wants to get people to get back into office. Several states have banned abortion and/or imposed punishment on the women and even the doctors for performing abortion to the point that those seeking abortion have to go out of state, but even then they can still get in trouble in their home state.
Doing what Biden did in that sort of environment is nothing short of impressive. That he could not get through everything he promised is another thing entirely. There is a reason why progressives are as silent as they are with criticism on Biden: He did deliver for them and they know it.
They really were not. If States around Russia actively want to be in Nato (and they do), then that is none of Russia's concerns. There are missiles in Kaliningrad and Europe has no say about that. Belarus is in CSTO and Europe has no say about it.
Nato even did NOT accept Ukraine back then. America wanted it, Europe didn't. That can hardly be seen as threatening if Nato accepts Russias view and does not take a memberstate that actively wants to be part of it.
For the security argument to be valid in any shape or form, Russia would have to reason how Nato threatens it. Just being close to Russia is not a threat, its not like we would accept Serbia blocking Albania's Nato membership for "security reasons".
The only threat to russia, in russia's mind, was that they cannot attack a nato memberstate. Russia kept meddling in swedish or finish waters, russia uses their trollbots to raise tensions in the west. Nato does not do these things to russia and never has actually threatened russia's borders by troop movements or anything like that. The security argument is and always was a giant hoax.
In fairness, it should be russia's concern if states are bundling up specifically to defend against it. Ignoring this is beyond irrational. However a rational response to this would be "Ok, lets not be aggressive against them" rather than "hey, don't bundle up, it's really difficult for us to invade you if you do". I could have bought russia's security concerns 40 years ago because tensions back then were insanely high all the time along with the mentality of US politicians back then but the suggestion that within the past 20 years NATO or the US had any intention whatsoever to invade or otherwise attack russia directly is insane.
In fairness, it should be russia's concern if states are bundling up specifically to defend against it. Ignoring this is beyond irrational. However a rational response to this would be "Ok, lets not be aggressive against them" rather than "hey, don't bundle up, it's really difficult for us to invade you if you do". I could have bought russia's security concerns 40 years ago because tensions back then were insanely high all the time along with the mentality of US politicians back then but the suggestion that within the past 20 years NATO or the US had any intention whatsoever to invade or otherwise attack russia directly is insane.
I think it would have been a fair response to install defensive missiles at the russian border, that would have mirrored what Nato wanted to do in poland and czech. But if this was about defense, then i question why a rational response to defensive missiles in poland would be to station offensive missiles in Kaliningrad.
It also has to be said that Russia was invited to cooperate on the missile shield in order to have mutual check ups and ensure there was no threat for Russia. It is very questionable, if you look at the russian nuclear arsenal, that some dozen interceptor missiles at the polish border would really impact its defensive capabilities against Europe.
To me, this always was a tool to escalate without being seen as the aggressor. The reaction of Russia to poland wanting some defensive missile system was to threaten poland with nukes. You can hardly blame poland for wanting defensive missile systems, they knew who their neighbour is.
In an email to Insider, co-founder and the former director of the White House presidential personnel office McEntee, wrote that trolling "will not be a problem because our initial users are all young conservatives and will only invite other like-minded individuals."
It's a fractured country because it was put together with about as much grace as a toddler drunkenly playing with legos. I'd say ethnicity is pretty far down the list of things that are the cause of the country being fractured.
The main issue with the US political system is that it was intentionally designed to disfranchise entire populations. The Founding Fathers had "unique" ideas on who was "white" and what it meant to be an American during the era they lived in. In 1751, Benjamin Franklin referred to the Swedes, French, and other Europeans as insufficiently white, and expressed a growing annoyance at the German immigration boom. Alexander Hamilton, Washington's #2 guy, supported the Alien and Sedition Acts, which helped consolidate his own political party's power, and was skeptical of immigration despite being an immigrant himself. Thomas Jefferson thought blacks were literally a separate human species altogether. So on and so forth.
It causes a lot of problems that have been passed down to this era, like why the US lacks universal healthcare as seen in other industrialized countries. Having a functioning healthcare system would make US companies far more competitive internationally as they would no longer be saddled with the enormous cost of providing health insurance for their workers. Unlike European countries, for example, that cost is financed by broad-based consumption taxes that do not fall on businesses and can be rebated at the border on exports, meaning taxes do not raise the price of exports. These traits make European exporters very competitive relative to those in the US, where many taxes such as the corporate tax cannot be rebated and therefore reduce international competitiveness.
All that makes sense. If you got your PhD in sociology from Tucker Carlson, sure.
It's hardly worth commenting on whatever new inanity Tucker Carlson spews into the world each day. He's just this decade's Glenn Beck, and he'll disappear soon enough. He's a great example though of how people get rich in this country by telling rich people what they want to hear.
Beware confirmation bias. It's important to research issues across the political spectrum to mitigate people's tendencies to search for, interpret, favor, and recall information in a way that confirms or supports one's prior beliefs or values.
Sociologist? No. I've done extensive work though as an ESL instructor and we're trained heavily in cultural awareness. I've been interacting with people from all over the world for a long time now, and while a lot of progress has been made over the last couple of centuries, we humans are just overclocked primates. We've developed a thin layer of cognition that allows us to gossip more effectively and solve differential equations on request, but that thin layer lives on top of millions of years of primate evolution. Ad we are still bound by it. In particular:
We are territorial
We are patriarchal
We are hierarchical
We are addicted to dominance displays
We are tribal
So just as always, we continue to have our stupid wars that'll never cease. We continue to base our social structures on tribalism and racism. We continue to be seduced by charismatic (male) leaders. We continue to do stupid things just to show that we couldn't be pushed around. Etc. etc.
None of this probably matters though in the long run. Within this century, we'll have cheap, genuine AI in abundance. That will make a breakpoint in human history and will make all over current arguments moot. Practically any disagreement you can think of over issues like economics simply make no sense in a world dominated by robots and AI.
Doing what Biden did in that sort of environment is nothing short of impressive. That he could not get through everything he promised is another thing entirely. There is a reason why progressives are as silent as they are with criticism on Biden: He did deliver for them and they know it.
On the contrary, the fact that Biden has to navigate a very difficult setup makes it more impressive. Compromising is a strength, not a weakness. Someone who is unable to strike compromises would not have achieved a single thing, at all. And everyone who actually takes responsibility, inculding progressives, knows that.
The IRA Deal is a major policy decision that sets the US onto the right track. It is not enough on its own and it has to be emboldened by future legislation, but it is also hard to take back and a major achievement. None of the disappointments and the "what could have beens" changes that. Biden getting that deal through (and schumer, Pelosi and others, of course) is not the "bare minimum" some people who never had to take responsibility make it out to me.
If you compare biden to obama or trump, who both had a far more friendly senate and house in their first two years, that is impressive and biden has already done more for progressive causes than it was likely that he could do.
We are kind.
We are curious.
We have empathy.
We want to have peace.
We want to have justice.
That cannot be denied. It is just as hardwired as the rest of what you said. When you say we will "always have stupid wars", then I ask why we have less and less of that. Why were the Nazis executed and now even hardliners would rather demand Putin to go to the Hague?
Human beings are capable of many things. UNder the right circumstances, there is no problem of many very different people living together. That is what we do throughout history. That is what most countries are the result of. Different tribles and ethnicities merge, different religions live together, different lifestyles emerge. And every time a new thing comes up, there are conflicts, but these tend to cease somewhere down the road.
Humanity also tends to be kinder the more information we have about the other. 3000 years ago, openly killing and raping another tribe was not an issue, you could even write that down proudly. Yeah, we really gave it to that tribe.
The more humanity started to learn about other people, the more they had to rely on different kind of copes that enables them to be cruel. FOr example dehumanizing people who do not share your religion. But as time passes, these copes get harder and harder.
Today, a democracy has a hard time engaging in wars and armed conflict or let people starve or persecute people unfairly. It still happens, but to a much smaller degree and with much more opposition to it.
And that is not because some very new thing humanity learned. That is because we have a need for justice, piece and kindness hardwired in our brains. Today, this need is much harder to maintain because we have better information than we used to have, thus it is harder to justify being cruel.
We would do well to use these hardwired instincts rather than claiming we only have toxic traits.
I will never understand how people can still support Kanye when he clearly does not care about Black people, he pretends to when it serves his agenda. But then again, the way he treats Kim and other women might be why.
With today's gains, it seems increasingly likely that Ukraine will return to its pre invasion borders by the end of the year and can retake crimea and donetsk early next year. The party is pretty much over for Russia, they cannot even hold their defensive positions anymore.
I said it back in april and it turned out to be a likely scenario by now: This will end with Ukraine retaking its complete territory, joining nato and EU and initiating a slew of more nato/eu members (already true for finland and sweden).
The big question now is what post war scenarios may happen now. Will Putin hold power? How should the West approach Russia after the war?
By now, Russia would need serious western support to get back on its feet, but that support would of course have to be conditional.
Its not just the Russian military that is collapsing, Russian society might be next and that kind of chaos should ideally be prevented if there is an opportunity. But Russia needs to admit defeat first.
That's a different conversation than legislation. Rhetoric like that isn't "buying votes", it's just reinforcing his support. The better conversation is about legislation that is actually damaging.
I do not see a huge problem in creating popular legislation before an election. It is sadly just a fact that the effect is bigger than if Biden hat done it a year ago.
It is only a problem if that popular policy is bad.
