I wasn’t shocked at all (except the general shock that a person like this has ever come close to the presidency). Particularly in recent years, I’ve seen him take bait so many times which wasn’t even intended as bait, but it triggered him. And because it slightly grazed his fragile ego, priority number one for him is to go on an ego-defending tangent that only confuses and undermines any points he could have made about the actual topic.

Harris knew that as long as she peppered her responses with a trigger here and a trigger there, he would be unable to help himself every time. And that’s what we saw.

So you replied to my post without reading, still didn’t address the questions I asked after acknowledging this, and are now shamelessly saying you also never even read Taylor Swift’s post in the first place before making all your comments. And yet your thesis is that there’s no reason to place any value on what she says?

I wonder if a big part of the reason is just the whole phone call about Biden and subsequent impeachment, and how Zelenskyy wouldn’t play ball and the whole thing damaged Trump’s ego in a big way. So even if it’s politically advantageous in every way to say you want Ukraine to win, Trump is incapable of doing so.

Yes, I noticed you were asking that question, hence my reply which took your question into account. If you get a chance, you could try doing the same.

They admire more than that. But, like, there’s an implication in the fact that you are posting on Lemmy that you believe people should assign a nonzero value to your perspective; why is that? I would assume that you make your arguments and believe they have value based on their own merit, regardless of the fact we have no idea who you are. Well, Taylor Swift made a post where she stated her position and gave arguments too. Is there any reason her perspective should not have any value but yours and mine should?

Furthermore, if someone does know who she is and wants to also take into account that they admire her music and songwriting, her personality, her perspective, and/or her various life accomplishments, why shouldn’t they? We’re talking about politics here, where everyone is making it up as they go along. She’s not trying to use her celebrity status to get a paper published in a physics journal or something.

Isn’t that power assigned to Congress?

Because they admire her

If they are non-assholes then they should be glad you made them aware

They aren’t in charge of Congress, who actually makes laws (i.e. the crucial one here) or the Supreme Court (maybe you noticed this at some point?)

It would help if you could give an example of a safeguard or two that is within Biden’s power to put in place. The only actions I can think of (that couldn’t be instantly reversed by a new president) all depend on Congress, which makes them virtually impossible. But maybe there is something I am not thinking of?

shit is not better because Democrats got voted in and we should demand more out of our leaders

You call a Republican majority in the House “Democrats voted in”? Do you call a 50-50 split Senate with Manchin to be “Democrats voted in”? How about we give them enough people in Congress to accomplish big things before throwing up our hands in exasperation that they didn’t accomplish enough. They need enough of a majority in the House and Senate that one or two rogue Democrats trying to make a name for themselves can’t derail anything and everything they want.

Why would someone downvote you. This is 100% true. Congress makes the laws. The president can set the agenda but things can only happen if there are enough people in Congress who will actually vote for it. Since we know 0 Republicans will ever help with anything, that means the Democrats need enough of a majority to overcome the GOP, and enough of a majority that one or two rogue Democrats looking to advance their own profile can’t hold it hostage. We had that for a brief time in the Obama admin and they passed the ACA. During the Biden admin Manchin alone could make a name for himself by blocking anything and everything.

It’s a crappy system where you have to control both houses with some breathing room, and the presidency, to get something done if one party decides to stonewall everything. But that’s the reality. Our system of government has serious problems.

However, assuming that the Democratic presidents are privately glad they can’t do most things they say they want to do, when they are never given the opportunity, and then using that assumption as the basis for cynicism, seems unreasonable. What do you gain by assuming this? Why not work as hard as we can to give them a real actual opportunity, and then see what happens.

It’s like I’m wiping a marker

I agree about Hillary but disagree about Biden. His reelection campaign was extremely unpopular (and rightly so) because of his obvious decline in health, but I disagree that a Biden speech will be ill-received now that he’s made the historic sacrifice for the good of the country and passed the torch. I think his speech at the DNC will be a very positive moment.

As you imply, you pretty much have to have a Biden moment, so we’ll just see how it goes (and I hope I’m right!)

And weird as hell

They also had GOP-proof control of government for only about 3-4 months, in which they were just barely able to push through major healthcare reform. Then the Tea Party wave came in and the Republicans made it their mission in life to prevent Obama from having any successes, ever.

It’s impossible to know, but I suspect some are trolls and bots, and some aren’t.

I just want to make sure the people in the back are aware of this too, because I’ve heard lots of people complain that the Dems didn’t do things in the past four years that they would need real control to do

If we want that then it’s not enough to just get Harris into office. We’ve got to win Congress. And we’ve got to win enough of the Senate that any would-be Manchins can’t stop everything. That’s the only way to pass meaningful legislation.

You know what really bothers me @JDVance, is when you attack a fellow veterans military service. I respect your service and the service of @GovTimWalz and all of those honorably discharged. He was eligible for retirement after 24 years and submitted his retirement paperwork before his unit received orders (or even warning orders) to deploy and then he continued his service as a member of congress. If they needed him to stay in his unit there is a mechanism called, “stop-loss.” Look it up. As a corporal with 4yrs of service, I highly doubt the USMC, “asked,” you to go to Iraq. They most likely, “ordered” you to go to Iraq and had you refused, you would have been thrown in the brig. Release your military record to prove the USMC, “asked” you to go. “Raise your hand if you want to go to Iraq.” It’s laughable to those of us who have served. If you win, you are next in line to be Commander in Chief and need to earn the respect of all who serve, and this is not how you do it.

https://x.com/StationCDRKelly/status/1821329527429329315