Looking Forward to the Biden Administration - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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#15144550
It occurs to me that with Biden joining the very short list of candidates that have successfully stolen their election (or rather, to be fair, had the election successfully stolen for them by others—I seriously doubt that Hayes or JFK had anything personally to do with the fraud that gave them their victories, any more than Biden), we need a thread for what is likely to happen going forward. It seems to me that Biden’s campaign has put him between the Scylla of destroying Trump’s success and the Charybdis of looking like Trump 2.0. On the one hand, Biden’s entire campaign was based on “Trump evil.” On the other hand, in many ways Trump had a very successful term, and rejecting Trump’s policies is likely to undercut that success or make Biden look weak.

So, Biden’s problems going forward:

  • Illegal migration: One of the major reasons Trump won in 2016 was the lax/ineffective enforcement of our immigration laws. Trump’s immigration policies have been fiercely attacked for years (and I generally agree with the attacks when it comes to legal immigration, though I would favor some changes to our laws), but no one can deny that he has successfully cut the number of undocumented migrants coming across our borders. That has had a real impact on jobs, wages, and automation in this country. Now, the rate of undocumented migrants already began to climb before the election in anticipation of a Biden victory, and is only going to go up. Already, I’ve seen reports of at least one caravan forming in Honduras. So, does Biden keep Trump’s policies in place to keep the numbers down, throw out trump’s policies and accept that in 2024 he (or Harris) is going to be faced with the same issue that Clinton faced in 2016, or try to split the difference?
  • The Paris Accords: Biden is going to have no choice but to rejoin the Paris Accords, and make at least some effort to put them into practice. (Though Trump might do him a favor and send the Accords to the Senate to be voted up or down as a treaty—the inevitable defeat would give Biden an excuse to let it go.) Again, the Paris Accords will have a real impact on the economy, and he’ll be held accountable. So does he try for a figleaf that will still be used to blame him for any economic bad news, or does he actually try to enforce the Accords as much as executive power allows (not all that much, domestically).
  • China and Iran: In both cases, does he remove the sanctions currently in place? Does he try to rejoin the agreement with Iran? Does he make the corporations and the doves happy by returning to allowing China to run free? In the case of Iran he’s likely to undercut the diplomatic success the Trump administration has had in the region and maybe kick off a regional nuclear arms race. For China, the CCP isn’t very popular in the US at the moment, and that’s not likely to change any time soon. And both Iranian and Chinese officials have expressed opinions that Biden will submit to their nations’ demands (though the Chinese officials were a bit more diplomatic in their phrasing). Does he start his administration by looking weak?
  • Education: Biden has already said that he will return to the Obama policy of “strongly encouraging” colleges to strip men of their due process rights in regards to accusations of rape. And sure, he can issue the same letter Obama sent, and strip his inspectors general of their power of prosecutorial discretion by ordering them not to prosecute campuses for violating the right to due process. But unlike Obama, Trump and De Voss went through the years-long process of enshrining the need for due process rights on campuses into the federal regulations, and he will have to go through the same process to remove those regulations. Not only will that give his enemies a club to beat him with, until they are removed those regulations will provide a solid basis for lawsuits against the campuses. And then there’s charter schools and home schooling—the teachers’ unions hate them and are going to demand their pound of flesh for their in kind contribution to his campaign by fighting to keep schools closed, but both are popular with many middle- and lower-class families, the very people Democrats (and whoever runs in 2024) will need to stem the likely coming Red wave in 2022 and beyond.
  • Nonrenewable energy: He has no choice but to ban fracking on public lands, whatever the impact on the US’s energy independence and economy might (or might not) be. But beyond that, how far does he go to suppress the nonrenewable energy industry? Again, there will be an economic impact and he will be held accountable.

That’s all I can come up with off of the top of my head, but that’s enough I think to demonstrate the high wire act his administration is going to have to put on, and I have real doubts that they can pull it off.
#15144559
@Doug64

You WILL be replaced.
You WILL use public transportation.
You WILL bow down to the CCP.
You WILL accept the validity of enbies.
You WILL eat the bugs.
You WILL surrender your guns.
You WILL put your children on HRT.
You WILL vote for the AOC Presidency in 2028.
You WILL pay reparations.
You WILL accept the NWO.
And you WILL be grateful.
#15144561
Saeko wrote:@Doug64

You WILL be replaced.
You WILL use public transportation.
You WILL bow down to the CCP.
You WILL accept the validity of enbies.
You WILL eat the bugs.
You WILL surrender your guns.
You WILL put your children on HRT.
You WILL vote for the AOC Presidency in 2028.
You WILL pay reparations.
You WILL accept the NWO.
And you WILL be grateful.


@Saeko

You're like a work of political performance art.

Within an almost indecent amount of time, once Biden is in you'll be beating the war drums against China, among other countries, and most of your liberal ''allies'' will have already forgotten this sort of thing by then.
#15144591
Actually, I was neither specific enough nor comprehensive enough--both Senator Cruz and Senator Graham are attempting to convince Trump to send the Paris Accords and the Iran nuclear deal to the Senate for its advise and consent as treaties.
#15144594
Doug64 wrote:
Actually, I was neither specific enough nor comprehensive enough--both Senator Cruz and Senator Graham are attempting to convince Trump to send the Paris Accords and the Iran nuclear deal to the Senate for its advise and consent as treaties.



Republicans keep throwing monkey wrenches into the works, which is kinda the opposite of what they promised to do in their oath.

That could also backfire. The Senate has been avoiding dealing with a lot of treaties for a very, very long time. Doing even more damage to our international relations is more than a little insane.

And that's what the end result would be.
#15144605
Doug64 wrote:we need a thread for what is likely to happen going forward.

Sure, you need to accept that Biden's going to be president. It'll be Obama's third term, though, he must have stolen the election for himself after all. ;) With which even McConnell seems to be okay, although he wanted him to be a one-term president at the time of his first term. :lol:
#15144612
I want to see if the country goes back into lockdown like in March.

I look forward to another stimulus check for Americans. Maybe the next one can be $800? Only $600 is a bit small. I will take it though. It is going towards my school bill. Trump doesn't seem to care much about sending checks to poor Americans.
#15144613
MistyTiger wrote:I want to see if the country goes back into lockdown like in March.

I look forward to another stimulus check for Americans. Maybe the next one can be $800? Only $600 is a bit small. I will take it though. It is going towards my school bill. Trump doesn't seem to care much about sending checks to poor Americans.


Yeah except, you know, the 1200 dollar one he already sent earlier this year.
#15144616
Goranhammer wrote:Yeah except, you know, the 1200 dollar one he already sent earlier this year.


That wasn't all his idea. Congress negotiated among themselves. His signature goes onto the bill at the very last moment. He wasn't negotiating if he did at all. The major players were Pelosi, Schumer and McConnell and others.
#15144618
late wrote:Republicans keep throwing monkey wrenches into the works, which is kinda the opposite of what they promised to do in their oath.

That could also backfire. The Senate has been avoiding dealing with a lot of treaties for a very, very long time. Doing even more damage to our international relations is more than a little insane.

And that's what the end result would be.

For those of us that a) believe that the avoidance of recent presidents to submitting treaties to the Senate, but attempting to honor them anyway, is a travesty, and b) that both the Paris Agreement and the Iran nuclear deal were horrible ideas, this would be a good thing. Personally, I think that Trump's abrogation of both has been a salutary lesson to both our domestic political class and internationally--any agreement that isn't ratified by the Senate is likely to last only so long as successive presidents choose to accept it; any future president has both the legal and moral right to throw away said agreements if he believes it isn't in US interests, since those agreements were made with specific presidents rather than the United States.

Beren wrote:Sure, you need to accept that Biden's going to be president. It'll be Obama's third term, though, he must have stolen the election for himself after all. ;) With which even McConnell seems to be okay, although he wanted him to be a one-term president at the time of his first term. :lol:

No, it isn't going to be Obama's third term, however much many (though hardly all) Democrats wish it might--too many facts on the ground have changed during Trump's four years. I've already pointed out a number of them, but here's another one that Biden is going to have a tough time overturning due to the Trump administration going through the hassle of actually modifying the regulations instead of ignoring them:

Trump policies chased immigrants off welfare: study
Immigrants have seen a “dramatic” drop in their use of welfare programs over the first three years of the Trump administration, according to a new report Tuesday that said the president’s crackdown on migrants who become dependent on social services is having an effect.

The Migration Policy Institute looked at Census Bureau data from 2016 to 2019 and found that participation in food stamps and welfare payments fell 36% among noncitizens. Citizen participation also declined, but only by about half that rate.

MPI researchers traced the drop directly to the new “public charge” rule, issued by Homeland Security, which warned immigrants their use of welfare programs could be a negative factor if they eventually apply for an upgrade in their legal status.

The public charge rule wasn’t finalized until early this year, but MPI said immigrants were aware it was coming as far back as 2017, and have changed their behavior accordingly.

“The Trump administration’s intent to revise long-standing public-charge criteria was featured widely in the media and public conversations beginning in early 2017, through the lengthy rulemaking process in 2018 and 2019, and during the extensive legal challenges that followed,” MPI concluded. “The regulation’s creation also occurred against a backdrop of strong rhetoric about the negative consequences of immigration, more visible immigration enforcement, and other policy changes that have generated fear in immigrant communities.”

Immigrant-rights activists had predicted that a drop in welfare use would occur, and they have fought in the courts to block the policy.

Judges have issued a complex web of rulings, with lower courts ruling the Trump policy violated the law, and appeals courts stepping in to limit those injunctions.

U.S. policy has long been that immigrants should be self-sustaining, with that notion enshrined in law as far back as the late 1800s, when the law banned any immigrant “unable to take care of himself or herself without becoming a public charge.”

The records from Ellis Island and other immigration reports in the early 1900s show the likelihood of becoming a pauper was one of the reasons migrants were excluded or deported.

In 1996 Congress updated the law, but the Clinton administration issued narrow regulations limiting the programs that counted against immigrants to only a few cash benefit programs.

The Trump administration expanded that list to non-cash programs such as food stamps, Medicaid and housing assistance.

Immigrants aren’t banned from using them, but under the new rules anyone who uses those benefits for at least 12 months out of a three-year period would be flagged and would have it count against them if they apply for lawful permanent residency.

The rules don’t apply to refugees, asylum-seekers and those in the U.S. on special victim visas.

When Homeland Security finalized the policy in February, it predicted a significant change in immigrants’ behavior.

“The goal is to make sure that people who are granted long-term status, legal permanent residence status, can stand on their own two feet. And get back to that American tradition that has been in law for over 140 years,” acting Deputy Secretary Ken Cuccinelli said at the time.

But MPI said confusion and fear about the rule may be counterproductive, particularly amid the coronavirus outbreak.

“Given the severe economic dislocation accompanying the COVID-19 pandemic, it is particularly essential that the federal government disseminates accurate information about who is and is not affected by the public-charge rule,” wrote Randy Capps, Michael Fix and Jeanne Batalova, the researchers. “These public health-related concerns only reinforce the need to develop a communications plan about the limited scope of the rule in order to allay fears and reduce chilling effects.”
#15144619
MistyTiger wrote:That wasn't all his idea. Congress negotiated among themselves. His signature goes onto the bill at the very last moment. He wasn't negotiating if he did at all. The major players were Pelosi, Schumer and McConnell and others.


It was not a supermajority. He had veto power. If he didn't want it, it wouldn't have happened.
#15144622
Goranhammer wrote:It was not a supermajority. He had veto power. If he didn't want it, it wouldn't have happened.


My point was that he was not all gung ho about giving money to Americans. He is more interested in giving money to himself. How many people own as much as he does? But there is never enough money for rich assholes like him. :roll:

In my state, there are Congressmen like Jeanne Shaheen, Annie Kuster and Chris Pappas who are truly representing Granite Staters. They all supported and negotiated for stimulus funds for Americans and small business owners. They even fought for the latest legislation opposing surprise medical bills.
#15144627
The Biden Administration-since it's likely to happen-is going to be a remarkably boring and ponderously technocratic and pragmatic regime. Even cynical, one could say. Even in foreign affairs the new Administration will be very conciliatory in attitude with pretty much everybody, including China and Russia and Iran. Likewise, other nations will not go too far in testing it's resolve-which will indeed be rather weak. On domestic issues it will be practically ''Trump 2.0'', but with a MSM entirely in bed with them, the presstitutes will not have the bad form to call them on it. The GOP establishment too will be rather shameless, against the Biden administration on things that they would have applauded in a GOP establishment President but otherwise all too ready to screw over working people, same as the Democrats.

What will be significantly different will be the real opposition to the establishment over a large part of the country and involving millions of people. I would not be entirely surprised if a third party forms and new media organizations reflecting a socially conservative, economically progressive, nationalist and populist movement. With or without President Trump.
#15144628
annatar1914 wrote:I would not be entirely surprised if a third party forms and new media organizations reflecting a socially conservative, economically progressive, nationalist and populist movement. With or without President Trump.

New media organizations perhaps, or a strengthening of fringe ones that already exist, but a new third party is unlikely. Why should they, when they have the numbers to take over the Republican Party? Or at least force that party to take their views very, very seriously--Trump has proven that a Conservative/Populist coalition can win elections, even presidential elections (as I pointed out, everything Democrats were able to do this time to push Biden over the finish line only gave him a 0.1% victory margin), but neither can do it without the other.
#15144631
Doug64 wrote:
For those of us that a) believe that the avoidance of recent presidents to submitting treaties to the Senate, but attempting to honor them anyway, is a travesty, and b) that both the Paris Agreement and the Iran nuclear deal were horrible ideas, this would be a good thing. Personally, I think that Trump's abrogation of both has been a salutary lesson to both our domestic political class and internationally--any agreement that isn't ratified by the Senate is likely to last only so long as successive presidents choose to accept it; any future president has both the legal and moral right to throw away said agreements if he believes it isn't in US interests, since those agreements were made with specific presidents rather than the United States.




Wholly crap.

It's the Senate, not the President. They don't want to touch controversial treaties will a ten foot pole.

Iran was a good deal, and the most restrictive nuclear agreement ever struck. Trump killed it, and surprise, surprise, they are working on nukes again. Now we have to fix what he screwed up.

Antiproliferation has been policy, and the only sane choice, since shortly after WW2.

Paris was wimpy. Making a big deal of it is just plain dumb.
#15144632
Doug64 wrote:New media organizations perhaps, or a strengthening of fringe ones that already exist, but a new third party is unlikely. Why should they, when they have the numbers to take over the Republican Party? Or at least force that party to take their views very, very seriously--Trump has proven that a Conservative/Populist coalition can win elections, even presidential elections (as I pointed out, everything Democrats were able to do this time to push Biden over the finish line only gave him a 0.1% victory margin), but neither can do it without the other.


@Doug64 ;

The establishment wing of the Republican party has totally betrayed the American public, symbolized by 500 million USD for Israel for example, and a measly and hesitant 600 USD for the American taxpayer of their own damn money, in the middle of a raging pandemic. The GOP (and the Democratic Party) needs to be consigned to the dustbin of history. Everything done by patriotic and God-fearing Americans over several decades now has only served to fill the coffers of the corporate donor class of the 1%, in return for meaningless words and empty promises. I think enough people in America have had enough and are ready to make a real change, create a new political party that reflects their real values.
#15147920
Here’s the Atlantic’s take on what the Democratic takeover of the Senate means for Joe Biden specifically and the Democrats generally:

The Problem With a 50–50 Senate
When the networks declared Joe Biden the winner of the presidential election, his agenda seemed stillborn. Because most observers assumed that Republicans would win at least one of the two Georgia Senate runoffs and retain control of the upper chamber, they thought that Biden wouldn’t get much of anything done. But Raphael Warnock defeated Kelly Loeffler in Georgia last night, and Jon Ossoff currently leads David Perdue in the tally, leaving the Democrats likely to take control of the Senate.

This is good news. Georgians seem to have repudiated Donald Trump’s ongoing assault on democratic institutions. Judging from the apparent results, they no longer want Mitch McConnell and the obstructionist Republicans to be in charge of the United States Senate. And they hope to give the incoming president a chance to actually govern the country.

Democrats will, if the current vote tallies stand, enjoy unified control of Congress. That would allow them to push through Biden’s nominations for the Cabinet, the judiciary, and key agencies like the Federal Reserve. And by taking over the leadership of the chamber’s committees, they would actually be able to shape Congress’s agenda.

For these reasons, if I were a resident of Georgia, I would not have hesitated for a moment before voting for Ossoff and Warnock. But a double victory would, nonetheless, create serious difficulties for Democrats—and might even make it less likely for Biden to win reelection.

If Democrats enjoy full control of the government, progressives will push to advance a wish list that includes the Green New Deal, radically overhauling health care, a new Voting Rights Act, packing the Supreme Court, and granting statehood to Washington, D.C.

But even victories in Georgia wouldn’t give Democrats nearly enough power to make those kinds of changes. In the House of Representatives, Speaker Nancy Pelosi has to hold together a slim 11-vote majority that includes both democratic socialists like Cori Bush and staunch moderates like Abigail Spanberger. In the Senate, the filibuster means that any major legislation will require 60 votes—which is to say at least 10 Republican senators—to advance.

Even when a simple majority is sufficient, Democrats need every single member of their caucus, including blue-dog Democrats from deep-red states, like Joe Manchin of West Virginia, to get on board. And because Manchin has already said that he is not willing to abolish the filibuster, hopes for far-reaching institutional reforms really are dead on arrival.

Most of the deeply progressive policies on which leftist activists have set their heart simply don’t enjoy a majority in the United States Congress. And even if, against the odds, Biden and his team somehow manage to push one of these projects through a recalcitrant Congress, a Supreme Court dominated by conservative judges might well quash it after the fact.

On paper, Biden looks set to gain unified control over Congress. In practice, he won’t enjoy many of its traditional benefits. But he will suffer from all of its downsides.

If Perdue or Loeffler had held on to their Senate seat, which now seems unlikely, Fox News would still have done its best to inspire vitriol against Biden. But a president who has repeatedly promised to be a restorative rather than a revolutionary figure in office, and who doesn’t even have control of the Senate, would have made it much harder for conservative talking heads to inspire fear about the radical changes afoot. If Ossoff and Warnock win, their job will get a good bit easier.

Republican control of the Senate would also have made it much simpler for Biden to manage the expectations of the party’s activist wing. If activists had pushed for progressive policies that were deeply unpopular with most Americans, Biden could truthfully have pointed to Mitch McConnell’s majority as a reason to desist. Every one of McConnell’s obstructionist moves would have delayed a civil war within the Democratic Party by another week or month.

Finally, a Republican Senate would have provided the White House with a compelling culprit for anything that might go wrong in the next four years. When facing the voters again in 2024, Biden could have blamed his opponents’ refusal to cooperate or compromise for the country’s problems—and asked them for a clearer mandate to finish the job.

All in all, Ossoff and Warnock winning is better than the alternative. The moderate changes—such as greater infrastructure spending and much-needed fixes to the Affordable Care Act—Democrats should be able to push through a Congress in which Joe Manchin casts the decisive vote can make a positive difference in the life of average Americans. And it would have been depressing if voters in Georgia had rewarded Trump and the Republican Party for their irresponsible refusal to accept the outcome of the 2020 election.

But the relief over the likely result in Georgia should not make us forget that the White House will in some ways face the worst of both worlds. Conservatives will rally around an obstructionist agenda. Progressives will blame Biden for his inevitable failure to enact radical policies. But whatever he does, he simply does not have enough power to force the change that many in his party desire.

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