Can I be the only person stunned at just how badly President Joe Biden is doing?

The BBQ Pit
655

I should hope not, especially considering how catastrophically the Canadian conservative politicians you voted for in Alberta fucked up the COVID response there.

What you mean is that his admitted mishandling of some aspects of the Afghanistan withdrawal (which, again, was committed to by his predecessor) gave the Republican smear machine an opportunity to start condemning his entire administration as a catastrophic failure, and have never let up on that messaging since, despite its blatant inaccuracy.

Most Americans are probably not even thinking about Afghanistan at this point any more than they did at this time last year. It’s conservatives who are seizing every opportunity to magnify its importance, because they don’t want a Democratic/liberal administration to succeed or be popular.

Any analysis that was being honest in its assessment of how overall governance and law-abidingness have fared in the Biden administration as compared to the Trump one wouldn’t consider Biden to be “doing badly” at all. But conservatives keep hammering away at Biden’s popularity ratings (which they are unceasingly trying to influence via misleading propaganda) because they know they don’t have a leg to stand on when it comes to more objective measures of performance.

656

If you’re not already subscribed to her daily emails/tweets/FB postings, you should be.

Carry on.

657

Just like they’ll blame him when the growth slows, even though the blame lies with the Joe from West Virginia for blocking Build Back Better.

https://www.cnn.com/2021/12/19/economy/goldman-sachs-joe-manchin-build-back-better/index.html

658

whoops; wrong thread

659

Why focus on the one Democrat who’s a no vote when campaign messaging should be about the fifty Republicans who all refused to lift a finger to help their constituents?

660

Be fair, they did lift a finger.

661

I’ve been on the SDMB for a good long while now, do I count? I’m currently living in Canada, and I’ve got a few bones to pick with the federal and provincial governments, but mostly in how they personally affect me.

I really don’t understand Sam’s obsession with American politics, though- that level of preoccupation seems a little unhealthy. Trump’s never going to fuck you, Sam, no matter how much you white-knight for him.

662

Trump doesn’t seem to object to sticking his dick in crazy, so the jury might still be out on this.

663

That’s unkind. I don’t think Melania or Ivana or Marla are insane. Very…unusual in their romantic choices, but sane. And i’ll give Melania credit in that she seems to be a good mother to Barron.

664

Well that makes your sitch different than his. He’s just the nosy neighbor trying to look thru the windows and yelling “you’re doing that all wrong, you idiots!”

665

I’m pretty sure that we can safely assume there have been a lot more than 3 people who have been involved in his sexual escapades over the years.

666

I think then maybe you should stop all foreigners from commenting on American politics. But I seem to be the only one rhat everyone is bothered by. I wonder why that is?

667

Canada has to be somewhat concerned with American politics. We’re a small trading nation. We often go to and sometimes invest in the US. American companies play a big role here. Our policies are thus often aligned. The US affects our markets, which have something like a 70% correlation.

So it saddens us if an important, well-managed, dependable, democratic and rational country stops becoming any of these things. Even if it is at risk of stopping becoming any of these things. We catch colds when the US sneezes. And during Covid, you should be masking up if you’re going to sneeze, but sometimes you don’t. :wink:

668

Maybe because you pretty much only post GOP talking points?

669

ISTM that it’s your devoted water-carrying—which, to be perfectly fair, is neither totally indiscriminate nor totally immune to reason—for the US conservative movement, which especially nowadays is promulgating a whole lot of unscrupulous total bullshit.

Twenty-odd years ago when we had these arguments on the Dope you were more of a hard-core libertarian (plus, at least temporarily, a war hawk). And the Republican Party was more aligned with libertarian principles, at least superficially. So it was more plausible to be making all those relentlessly anti-liberal arguments as a principled libertarian rather than as a mere “useful idiot” of the GOP. (Although IIRC even back then there were numerous US posters who got irritated at you for pounding the drum so hard for the Afghanistan-Iraq invasions, given how much more massive an enterprise they were for the US than for Canada, coalition or no coalition. Third wheels constantly stirring the shit with “let’s you and him fight” rhetoric often irritate people.)

But these days, the US conservative movement is firmly on the side of denial of climate change and resisting climate-change mitigation, sabotaging public health, encouraging conspiracy theories and militant vigilanteism, promoting distrust in science and informed expertise in general, sabotaging competent governance and democratic representation, undermining civil liberties especially for religious and LGBTQ minorities, and a whole bunch of other nefarious shit that a self-proclaimed pro-science rational pragmatist such as yourself presumably doesn’t approve of.

So these days, amplifying Republican propaganda with relentlessly anti-liberal arguments is most of the time just taking up arms for blatant ignorance and antidemocratic political manipulation. So honestly, Sam, WTF? Are you really just so dead set against the potential “infiltration” of the US by universal health care and more progressive taxes that you’re willing to carry the can for a bunch of creationist conspiracy theorists braying about “stolen elections”? Trivializing the Jan. 6 insurrection, amplifying every anti-Biden conservative message as much as you can, pretending that the two parties are somehow still both legitimate alternatives for responsible governance?

Sam, no rational humane person who actually had to live with the direct domestic consequences of the US conservative movement would be shoveling its shit as much as you do. So that’s a prime reason that a lot of us get irritated when you cosplay as a US conservative from the more-or-less-safe (pace Dr_Paprika) sidelines, apparently just to enjoy the controversy.

Sometimes you make good points in your arguments, but a lot of the time you are just so irresponsibly fucking wrong that I can’t figure out if it’s just self-satisfied contrarianism—you like being one of the “lone voices of reason” against the “liberal hive mind” of the SDMB, and to hell with the facts—or if some conservative organization could be actually paying you to help propagandize for them. Nice work if you can get it, I guess.

670

The United States is a complicated place, and the fact is I thought I basically understood it. So I am chagrined to admit I understand it less well each year. It’s not my place to say from the sidelines what is best or what anyone should do. I think a lot of people are discouraged by some recent trends. I think if I was American I would also be discouraged by recent trends.

Every Canadian pays attention to these trends. I am far more favourably disposed to Americans than many of my fellows, partly because I know many who are decent folks, partly because I have never defined myself by what I am not. I hope Biden finds a way to pass good policy. I am not enjoying this controversy at all. I do care about the climate, the economy, good governance.

671

It must be that you’re unfairly picked on. It can’t possibly be that you give disingenuous garbage arguments, move the goalposts, and repeat false talking points from right wing media idiots. Nope, can 't be that. It must be that everyone is mean to you because you’re always right.

It’s like talking to a fucking three year old.

672

Eh, you have as much right as anybody else to participate in that core mission of the SDMB. Opinionated bloviating is largely what we’re all here for. But if you were constantly parroting ignorance-fueling misinformation for ideological partisanship purposes, posters would be coming after you too.

We all sometimes inadvertently score own goals in the fight against ignorance, but in the case of a poster like Sam you can really start to wonder which side he’s playing for.

673

For months, Manchin has been central to talks over the sweeping legislation, which would rewrite U.S. policy on climate change, health care, paid leave, housing, taxes and other issues. In the fall, Manchin convinced Mr. Biden and Democratic leaders to scale back their $3.5 trillion initial proposal, setting a $1.75 trillion limit on spending he would be willing to support. But talks broke down over the past week, particularly over the child tax credit, which is set to expire at the end of the year.

Between the lines: Build Back Better was specifically tailored in an attempt to appease Manchin. It didn’t work.

674

I’m baffled by the notion that I just repeat GOP talking points.

I don’t like most Republicans much, and I don’t know what their talking points are. I cut the cable cord years ago, so I don’t get Fox News. Not that I watched it before, either.

I thought Trump was a terrible person.

I am fully vaxxed, as is my family, and I think people that don’t get vaxxed are making a huge mistake.

I’m an atheist, and religious conservatives who push religion as politics are the worst.

I support trans rights, gay rights, women’s rigts, and as a libertarian-leaning person I’m okay with however you let your freak flag fly.

I support abortion rights, and oppose the death penalty.

I believe that climate change is real, and costly.

Does that sound Republican to you?

What puts me at odds with most of you is that I abhor collectivism. Socialism and Marxism are failed economic systems for good reasons, and attempts to implement them result in human misery on massive scales. I am a free speech absolutist. I don’t believe in ‘hate speech’ laws or censorship. I think the modern left has become illiberal and authoritarian, and wedded to economic ideas that are ruinous in the long term.

I am an economic conservative. The spending going on in the US and Canada is out of control. I’m a Hayekian, so I believe that “The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design.” Industrial planning and centralized control are deadly to an economy.

I don’t debate the stuff I agree with because I’m not interested in virtue signalling or joining an amen chorus. So I tend to engage politically if there is something I disagree with that I think is important to challenge.

I think CRT and ‘anti-racism’ are racist, evil philosophies. They categorize people by skin color, divide them, and pit them against each other. This insane progressive philosophy will either wind up in the bin marked “Things progressives want to forget they ever supported” along with Eugenics and Fascism, or it will do serious harm to race relations and the social fabric of your country that will take decades to repair. Some colleges are now segregating college dorms, for chrissake.

Also, understand this: it is hard to stay away from American politics when almost all your college economics texts are American and use American examples. Almost everything I watch on TV comes from America (“Schitt’s Creek” notwithstanding). If I want to enjoy Saturday Night Live, I have to listen to American politics. My favorite economists are American. And most of all, the vast majority of political talk on a board I have used and paid for for 20 years is overwhemlingly American. I also take part in Canadian threads, but if you want to discuss economics here, it’s almost always going to be from an American perspective.

But what you have admitted is that your real problem with me isn’t that I’m Canadian - it’s that you don’tt agree with me. Attacking me for being Canadian is just another useful ad-hominem tool for going after someone you don’t like. If I toed the progressive line, you’d probably find it great that there’s a Canadian who agrees with you, and I wouldn’t be hassled for my nationality.

There are a lot of foreign lefties on this board, and the only time they are mentioned is when someone asks why the board leans so far to the left, Then you remind them that this isn’t an American board, it’s an international one and the world outside of America is more left wing. So good for all the non-Americans here for keeping it real!

Why does it not surprise me that the people who are all about diversity, inclusion, breaking down borders, globalism, free movement of people, letting non-Americans vote, yada yada turn into raging nationalists when they run into someone who doesn’t share their world view?