Stephen Judkins: The fact that Biden has delivered on left-wing policy far better than any president in generations but is widely despised by left-wing voters reflects more poorly on left-wing institutions and voters than on Biden. This is not a movement showing political maturity, and I say that as a left-winger

The fact that Biden has delivered on left-wing policy far better than any president in generations but is widely despised by left-wing voters reflects more poorly on left-wing institutions and voters than on Biden. This is not a movement showing political maturity, and I say that as a left-winger

I feel like the main political divide on this website is between “Joe Biden is terrible and old and I hate him” and “Joe Biden is terrible and old and I will crawl over broken glass to vote for a rancid ham sandwich against Donald Trump” very few people are actually huge fans of the guy

I find the fact that he got basically no credit for some really significant domestic policy achievements to be a very bad sign, yeah it shouldn’t be as hard as it is for people to acknowledge that he has actually been good on a lot of fronts

But the aesthetics of old guard Dem Joe Biden doing through skillful administration what their preferred candidate you've never heard of would do through big, beautiful labor strikes that disrupt the country offends

This is so on point. Especially among the youngest portion of voters, they saw Obama getting a 24 hour news cycle because FOX learned 24 hr racism sold pillows, then more 24hr trump because Chaos, and they never saw weeks of minimal political coverage like we used to have.

AGNJ Is this what young voters have told you in conversation? Or are you inferring this somehow?

Would my answer really matter? No? Didn't think so.

For my part I have Zoomer/Millennial kids depending on where you place the border, who are very left wing. I know some of their friends. What they say and do does not match your characterization. So I’m genuinely interested how you came to it, and now I’ve laid out my own sources.

In place of creating organized group(s) around we’ve created a culture around with little to consensus building tools or organized structure that can acknowledge when is addressed. Its very not poggers

this combined with minimal tolerance for inflation is really going to be challenge

It's too bad "helping kill children" eclipses "got some student loan forgiven"

*student loan forgiveness programs which already existed that he took credit for

*After he personally stripped bankruptcy protection from said loans… and then presided over forgiving 9% of them.

∧

Yup, I keep saying (in one form or another), if you kill children no one's going to care that you help old ladies cross the street or always return your cart at the grocery store!

I think those who are most upset about the genocide almost perfectly overlap with the set of leftists who otherwise would embrace Biden’s achievements is a big pet of this story. Really hard to speak well of someone helping to accomplish a genocide, even if they’ve performed well in other areas.

These people were absolutely not doing that prior to the Gaza conflict

Funny that wasn’t my experience! But that’s anecdotal. Do you have more general evidence about the center-left not appreciating Biden pre-genocide? Would be curious to see.

My general experience (anecdotal, of course) was seeing a lot of people who’d been advocating for student loan forgiveness, and saying that even if Biden tried it and SCOTUS struck it down he’d still get the credit, immediately turn to saying SCOTUS only struck it down because he did it wrong.

That’s one narrow example from my own curated memory but it captures what I remember as the tenor of things.

don't forget the part where Biden ended the drone war and got us out of Afghanistan and leftists proceeded to never care about either thing again

Or when you tried to talk about how they, you know, could benefit from SAVE, you get shut down with "why didn't he just ban student debt"

A lot of people were saying he only did it because he knew it would be struck down, which is an incredibly stupid thing to believe

IRA funding green energy Afghanistan withdrawal Drones Labor dept kicking ass Student loans All things the left has claimed they care about and have utterly refused to give a shred of credit for

I, like many, did give him credit for those. Prior to Gaza, he was doing some things that impressed me! Your anecdotes are not a ground truth!

There is always going to be something that is unacceptable in policies and I admire them for caring so much and speaking up about it but I. Am. So. Tired.

Feel like the response to the Afghanistan pullout and crickets and goalpost-moving w/r/t the biggest investment in green energy and climate change mitigation ever might be pretty good indicators.

The Afghanistan pullout was admittedly pretty fucking disastrous.

The biggest tell for me is the repeated cycle of hair-on-fire screaming about him abandoning constituency X, shitlibs explaing that isn't what happened, acknowledgement by the screamers (usually), but "he abandoned X" passes into popular wisdom anyway

I was big "Biden is good, you should vote for him" and then Gaza happened and as it went on and Biden kept being terrible on it, and now I'm like "Genocide Joe sucks shit, but you should vote for him."

Yeah this is me too

I’ll never forget this one prominent Left Twitter person saying fine, if Biden pardons drug offenders I’ll vote in the midterms. And then he did. And she found a loophole in his executive order and reacted with this sputtering rage “This is worse than nothing, fuck Biden and the Democrats” on and on

True, some of us weren’t… because we’re anti-capitalist and don’t abide gently nudging corporations to slow their destruction of the planet by a whopping 2 mph.

"Why did Biden unilaterally cancel the Child Tax Credit?"

I am exactly this person.

No, they were withholding their vote over student loans before 10/7. Or the rail strike. Or some other half-understood problem.

Perish the thought.

That wasn’t my experience at all! I’m a socialist, DSA member etc. I recall folks feeing Biden was better than prior admins, if disappointing to the left. Dems - a centrist party- always get hate from the left, curious what makes you say there was more pre-genocide hate than usual!

First, look up the word "genocide." Using that word is, in itself, an indication of complicity with Hamas. Second, that's a perfect illustration of how the US left kills itself with pedestals and purity tests, rather than effectively making the world a little better every year for more people.

First, no, it isn't. Second, thinking genocide is bad, isn't a "purity test".

First, take your own fucking advice. Second, shut the fuck up forever.

Good thing he's not helping to accomplish a genocide, then.

I think a lot of that has to do with a lack of messaging as to his actual achievements by his own admin and a complete reliance of online blue dog dinguses still litigating their 2016 talking points. I get zero emails about how my donations help enact policy just "trump bad I'm scared send $$$ plz"

My blue dog tells me about the bridge and the money she has brought back for her constituents and cases she has pushed through. My old established liberal senator tells me about the summer snap program she authored being made permanent so kids will have access to better meals in summers. 😊

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