President-elect Joe Biden, hat in hand, appealed to voters Friday for funding for his administration’s transition into the White House.
Ah, nope would be Twitter followers’ stunned response.
“Here’s the deal,” Biden tweeted. “Because President Trump refuses to concede and is delaying the transition, we have to fund it ourselves and need your help,” asking supporters to “chip in.”
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People responding were amused — but also annoyed that the president-elect of the world’s wealthiest nation, which has handed massive tax breaks to corporations and the wealthy, now has his hand out to the average American struggling with tough economic times just now.
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Gee, that didn’t take long. Has the honeymoon ever ended before the inauguration?
Not saying Biden was correct to appeal for funds-- it was inappropriate, but probably worth a shot. After all, it’s Donnie who’s blocking the new administration from getting traction.
My hope is that Biden and the Dems can enact some sort of campaign finance reform so that this is no longer necessary. Supporting a candidate should not have to mean opening one’s wallet; family budgets are stretched thin enough as it is.
The whole notion of “whoever collects more money from their constituents wins” is ludicrous, and pretty much the opposite of democracy.
I agree, but until that happens we need to continue with the small-dollar donations in off-year and midterm elections as strongly as we did in this presidential year.
My first thought was “Ye gods, please, no drama” for Biden’s presidency, but that is too little to ask. Democrats need to be firm and united behind Biden, and not make the perfect the enemy of the good. Biden’s administration needs to be calm, decisive, and aggressive in not only righting the wrongs done in the past four years, but in making progress towards justice, and towards more strongly securing voting rights for all eligible voters.
I hope that Democrats will not rest on the laurels of this presidential win, but will focus way more on down-ballot races, especially at the state legislative level. That’s where Republicans have made such a difference for themselves, by gerrymandering and restricting voting rights. Democrats, under Biden’s leadership, need to put that right.
My main hope now is that he can organize the vaccination campaign in a rational way to allow all the pent-up demand (for restaurants, haircuts, family visits, you name it) to surface and give the economy a chance to bounce back in time for 2022.
I’m not quite sure what you mean by this. Are you saying that ‘human rights and democracy’ is just grandstanding? Sure, sometimes it is, and hypocritically so, but oftentimes there are very pressing, real, human-rights abuses indeed. When Democratic and Republican lawmakers united almost unanimously to pass legislation about the human-rights situation in Xinjiang last year, it was because there was a genuine, legit crisis there - Uighurs were being locked up in concentration camps, subjected to torture and cultural genocide.
Does “not using human rights and democracy as sticks to beat other nations with” mean ignoring things like this?
By “rest on the laurels” I meant they shouldn’t do what Obama did after being the first black man elected president, which was to try a few pieces of legislation, succeed with one big one but nothing else, and then basically putter away the rest of his presidency futzing around with executive orders and making pretty speeches. Democrats need to get into the trenches and stay there, down where the real work is done. They need to go down-ticket in a big way and focus on state and local elections. They need to fight for much more than they won this time, because all they really did was get rid of a hateful anomaly. The right-wing agenda is still there, undaunted and determined as ever. There is a slim opportunity to make some headway against it, and Democrats need to seize the day.
You’re serious, aren’t you?? Ever hear of Mitch McConnell? No need to reply as I won’t be discussing this further with you. Suggest you revisit those years and acquaint yourself with the facts.
Yes, I’m serious. Here’s what I remember: Obama didn’t like direct confrontation, he didn’t seem to like negotiation much, he didn’t cultivate any acquaintance, let alone friendships, among the Republicans in the Senate. He held himself above the fray, I guess so he could look “presidential.” He took his case to the people via those pretty speeches I referenced, and said that he would let the legislature do its job.
Noble sentiments, but ineffective presidenting. In the meantime, during those 8 years. Republicans took over a lot of state houses and governorships. If he was stymied in the Senate, he could have been leading the party to be more effective at the state and local levels. He did not do that, and that’s what I call resting on laurels and not paying attention to your flanks or your supply chain (to use a military metaphor).
And I hope Biden has learned something from that failure, and will lead the Democratic party in a way that Obama never did.
I wouldn’t count in a whole lot of interest in that, given that Democrats were able to outspend Republicans to an unprecedented degree in 2020, both through small donor and super-PAC contributions. Not helping matters is a Supreme Court which in recent years has equated political spending with free speech.
I didnt vote for him however I do like the idea of a national health program similar to Canada’s. However I cant see any party being powerful enough to take on the existing system.
Unfortunately I think you are both right. McConnell was a nearly unmovable obstacle while Obama didn’t try nearly hard enough to be an irresistible force. Unfortunately, the government is set up in such a way that it is much easier to be obstructive than constructive.
Quite true on both counts. I just want to reiterate my point that, aside from the duties of his office, the president has the responsibility to make sure the party has effective leadership. If they don’t have time to do the work themselves, quite understandable, then they need to make sure that the party leaders are effective and even (appropriately) aggressive in the party’s interests, starting with the chair of the DNC and moving down from there. And the president should be available for the occasional friendly strong-arming where needed.
No country has been more deeply enmeshed with brutal dictatorships around the world than the US. Case in example is Pakistan.
It was Pakistan that initiated the next great genocide after the Nazis during WW2. Its brutality in erstwhile East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) is very well documented. Can you guess who was Pakistan’s primary ally during those times? Yes, the human rights-loving US, which sent a Carrier Battle Group to intimidate India and protect Pakistan. If the Russian Navy did not block the CBG in the Indian Ocean, the US would have come in direct military conflict with India. Still, America’s actions delayed Indian military response, possibly causing millions of excess deaths of Bangladeshi people at the hands of Pakistan.
No US administration has had much to say about the extremely violent campaigns of ethnic cleansing Pakistan has carried out (and is still carrying out) against minorities of all shades inside Pakistan. The Ahmadis - Muslims who are hated by the dominant Sunnis - have been particularly at the receiving end, but other minorities, especially Hindus have long been brutally persecuted in Pakistan, to little more consequence than a gentle slap on the wrist by the great democracy and human-rights loving US of A.
The US literally paid Pakistan billions to kill American soldiers in Afghanistan - a practice that the much-hated Trump put an end to. Whatever you say about him, he had the guts to call a spade a spade and call Pakistan out for what it is - a terrorist sinkhole responsible for inflicting enormous misery on American and Afghan people.
If the US is vehemently against Chinese excesses in Xinjiang, I understand that as part of the power contest between the US and China. If US-China relations improve, the Xinjiang situation will be quietly buried, only to be resurrected when relations tank again.
So I think America’s commitment to human rights and democracy around the world is a self-serving travesty. It is sad but ‘human rights and democracy’ has been weaponized to serve the policy objectives of the West and carries no real moral authority to anyone anymore. Sad but true.
My hope is that the Dems will win Senate control, and since the GOP can’t stop everything, that the more moderate Republicans will vote on popular bills. And maybe, this will break the insane partisan lunacy that the other side must be stopped at all costs.