" . . . inevitably someone will retort that you’re engaging in dictator hyperbole, and that you’re off your chain for making that suggestion.
Let’s suppose that this is true and that we’re nowhere close to becoming a fascist dictatorship "
I totally agree with your suppose! (while having a problem with the board quote function).
There are only two countries on earth that I’d say approach totalitarianism, North Korea and Turkmenistan. (Parts of Western China also approach it.)
Trump doesn’t want to rename cities after family members, or appoint his own bishops. He does want to have the FCC go after CNN. He wants to jail Hillary Clinton and a few people at the FBI. But his has no desire to send millions to labor camps.
The difference between fascism, and ordinary autocracy, is enormous. I just happen to be against both.
To answer the OP after reading the thread: No. Most of the asnswers are “he’s better than Trump”.
He is incredibly un-admirable except when you compare him to someone you hate, but, on his own. Nope.
I would argue that that is the one of the top three or so skills a politician needs. If you can’t find ways to get people to work with you on what you want, you are going to be Bernie Sanders.
I haven’t really bothered with the thread but I sincerely admire Biden on his own merits and was hoping he’d run in 2016 (where I would have supported him over Clinton in the primaries). I like his experience, sincerity, way of thinking and willingness to open himself to new ideas based on new experiences, realities or criticism. He strikes me as a driven person who doesn’t easily back down. I think it speaks well for his intelligence and character that he went from a reluctant pick on Obama’s part for VP into one of Obama’s most trusted friends and advisors. I’d happily vote for him regardless of who the Republicans threw up because he’s not just “better than Trump”.
I think you’re being pretty selective in how you’re reading the thread.
There’s some of that, sure. There are even some posts that are only that. But there are a whole lot of posts in this thread that name favorable things about Biden that would be favorable things about him no matter who he was running against and even if his opponent had them too.
I don’t think anybody’s claiming that Biden’s perfect. But ‘he’s not perfect’ is a whole long way from ‘nothing there to admire’.
Simply being nice and having a drink with Mitch McConnell isn’t going to help break a political log jam, but that was never the point that someone like Biden would make. What he and other deal makers would probably advise is that you have to understand what someone who is voting against you wants and values, and what he or she needs to survive politically. And you use that to get what you want.
Both Barack Obama and Bill Clinton made the same mistake in their first 1-2 years in office of assuming that they had a political (and worse, a moral) mandate to hold over their opposition’s heads, and that just wasn’t the case. Biden understands that he can’t rewrite the Constitution. He understands he’s not FDR and even if he had so much as LBJ’s power, he saw what power did to LBJ. He knows he’s not going to be all-powerful, but he knows that he can possibly trade some of what he wants now with what someone else wants or needs now, in order to get more of what he and his constituents vitally want and need in the end, by the time his 4 years is up. As progressive and intellectual as Obama was, he didn’t always get that part of the job.
I read that article last week and it made a lot of sense. In particular, it helped me understand why Obama didn’t get as much done as I thought he should have. Sometimes, having great ideas and the moral high ground isn’t enough. Maybe Biden actually has some skills that Obama lacks (although Mitch McConnell made it virtually impossible for Obama to do anything).
I don’t want to trash Obama’s legacy - I think Obama actually did adapt quite artfully as time wore on, and in my view, despite Obama’s indecisiveness in terms of foreign policy, Obama is still arguably the best president we’ve had going back to at least JFK, and I’d even argue that he’s probably the best since Eisenhower or Truman. He passed the most meaningful piece of legislation since the Great Society programs of the 1960s, and unlike LBJ, he was smart enough to eventually figure out that whatever ‘mandate’ he had was limited.
I could be wrong, but I think having Joe Biden in his background (and credit Biden for having the selflessness and loyalty to remain in the background) actually helped Obama achieve much of what he wanted. They were very much the political yin and yang, a combination of Obama’s vision and intellect paired with Biden’s ability to work egos and count votes like the great parliamentarian that he is.
John McCain’s widow Cindy is endorsing Biden and will cut a video highlighting their friendship despite political differences and having been opponents tonight. I think Biden being able to bring along moderate Republicans like Kasich and McCain while also getting a far more enthusiastic support from Sanders speaks to his credit. Sanders also speaks of him as a friend and people within Sanders orbit said the reason why he was more willing to rally around Biden than Hillary in 2016 was that there was actually a relationship with him (off memory the quote was Biden treated Sanders well before Sanders became popular).
The way I see it is he is the last stand for the old-school Washington procedure whereby personal relationships meant an awful lot and there were less ideologues across the board. The idea that we may be opponents on an issue or several issues … but we don’t have to be enemies.
This kind of bullshit posting really drives me crazy. This thread is about 270 posts long as I write this, and within the first 10% of that I easily found this posted, from many different people, about what they admire about Biden:
I admire Biden’s years of public service.
I admire his ability to get through adversity and tragedy, I admire his compassion.
I admire his willingness to treat other people with respect.
I admire that he seems to listen as much or more than he talks.
He works well with others.
He’s reassuring.
He has working class roots
Biden has dignity
Biden possesses intelligence, compassion, humility, and decades of political experience, all of which will lead him to surround himself with competent staff, just as Obama did, and he’ll listen to them.
Biden knows enough to say “I don’t know” and surround himself with, and listen to, people who do know.
Likable. Trustworthy.
Biden can get things done, even if the dems dont out and out win the senate. He knows each senators and what they want, and how their strings can be pulled.
Plus, he’s a nice enough guy, experienced in really running a country, and, like George Bush the elder, has a “magic rolodex,” i.e. lots of contacts and sources of advice.
And again that’s just the first 25-30 posts! So “clearly” the answer is exact opposite of what you posted, which is obviously and provably nonsense.
But if you ignore all the posts in which people have indicated what they admire about Biden, there are no posts that indicate what people admire about Biden.
I admire Biden’s lack of pandering to QAnon, even though he’s willing (for now) to pander to other, less repulsive people who don’t like him very much.
In other words, the real “Art of the Deal” as opposed to the bullshit bullying and intimidation tactics that Trump equates with deal making.
This is also probably the main reason I prefer Biden to Sanders. Sanders is good at articulating a vision and inspiring people, but I haven’t seen any evidence that he can build a coalition or get disparate parties to work together.
Without having read any of the thread, I just wanted to direct your attention to this biopic of Joe Biden, courtesy of The Daily Show. It’s titled Joe Biden: Acceptable Under the Circumstances.
