Where do we go from here?

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ZenMode said:
Assuming that you are referring to the border crisis and the way it was handled by the Biden administration, we agree on the facts of that. Title 42 was in place. Title 42 expired. The next action was in process and was implemented in June of 2024.

Where we disagree is whether or not politics played a role in the timing and general inaction during the 3 years. You have one opinion. I have a different one. Either way, they are only opinions.
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All right! Now we can have a discussion.

1. Politics plays a role in everything the president does, almost by definition. If you took me to be saying that politics and optics were completely irrelevant, then you misunderstood. Maybe I wasn't clear about my position.

2. So after we rule out "it wasn't political at all" and "it was all about desperation optics" we can now try to assess what really happened. And yes, in this inquiry there will be disagreement, especially since neither of us were there. It's just important that everyone have the same understanding of reality. Here are some relevant facts, and I think we have agreed on them (in large measure, at least):

A. The timing of the 2024 regulation was largely dictated by the procedural requirements of the APA. Notice the word largely. I'm not going to argue that the Biden administration moved at maximum speed. I don't have any insight as to the policy making process within DHS, and I doubt that they went for an all-out blitz. They moved faster on Covid vaccines, for instance (as rightly they should).

So if you want to say that the 2024 regulation could have been finalized in early 2024 instead of put out for notice and comment in early 2024 with the finalization in June 2024, I can't tell you that you're wrong. But that's the window we're talking about. The difference between an all-out blitz and what Biden did would be about four months, I estimate. It isn't 2021 versus 2024.

B. The role of the courts cannot be underestimated here. The Ninth Circuit deemed Trump's migrant protection protocols illegal. The Fifth Circuit told Biden he couldn't discontinue Trump's immigration policy because doing so was contrary to law. The Supreme Court was doing nothing useful. It's really hard to make policy when courts are saying, collectively, that you basically can't do anything. It was eventually worked out -- the Ninth Circuit's decision was effectively mooted (although the district court might be bringing it back to life; remains to be seen what the Ninth will do about it), and the 5th Circuit decision set aside (I don't remember exactly how, and I don't want to look it up). But again, it takes time.

If you want the executive branch to make good policy, then one important reform would be to prevent litigants from picking the judges who will be most sympathetic to their cause simply by filing in certain locations. What we have now, with courts acting inconsistently and in some cases requiring the impossible (the Supreme Court had to rebuke the Fifth by noting that it was actually impossible for the government to abide by its order), it's a mess.

C. The US has responsibilities stemming from our treaty obligation. As I understand it, even the June 2024 order is pushing it a little bit with respect to the UN convention on refugees, but given worldwide politics, I think we have to expect some slippage from the ideal. But those treaty obligations place a floor, so to speak, as to what the US government can legally do. We cannot close our country to refugees or migrants. It's illegal.

I am not sufficiently knowledgeable to explain our treaty obligations in great detail. Nor I am expert enough to talk with authority about the international relations aspect -- i.e. what would happen if the US just thumbed its nose at the treaty. Within these bounds, my speculation is not considerably more informed than yours.
 
Helps explain the narrow focus of the Bernie Bros. A bit to gullibility as well.


… But oh, I'm just a soul whose intentions are good
Oh Lord, please don't let me be misunderstood
 
superrific said:
All right! Now we can have a discussion.

1. Politics plays a role in everything the president does, almost by definition. If you took me to be saying that politics and optics were completely irrelevant, then you misunderstood. Maybe I wasn't clear about my position.

2. So after we rule out "it wasn't political at all" and "it was all about desperation optics" we can now try to assess what really happened. And yes, in this inquiry there will be disagreement, especially since neither of us were there. It's just important that everyone have the same understanding of reality. Here are some relevant facts, and I think we have agreed on them (in large measure, at least):

A. The timing of the 2024 regulation was largely dictated by the procedural requirements of the APA. Notice the word largely. I'm not going to argue that the Biden administration moved at maximum speed. I don't have any insight as to the policy making process within DHS, and I doubt that they went for an all-out blitz. They moved faster on Covid vaccines, for instance (as rightly they should).

So if you want to say that the 2024 regulation could have been finalized in early 2024 instead of put out for notice and comment in early 2024 with the finalization in June 2024, I can't tell you that you're wrong. But that's the window we're talking about. The difference between an all-out blitz and what Biden did would be about four months, I estimate. It isn't 2021 versus 2024.

B. The role of the courts cannot be underestimated here. The Ninth Circuit deemed Trump's migrant protection protocols illegal. The Fifth Circuit told Biden he couldn't discontinue Trump's immigration policy because doing so was contrary to law. The Supreme Court was doing nothing useful. It's really hard to make policy when courts are saying, collectively, that you basically can't do anything. It was eventually worked out -- the Ninth Circuit's decision was effectively mooted (although the district court might be bringing it back to life; remains to be seen what the Ninth will do about it), and the 5th Circuit decision set aside (I don't remember exactly how, and I don't want to look it up). But again, it takes time.

If you want the executive branch to make good policy, then one important reform would be to prevent litigants from picking the judges who will be most sympathetic to their cause simply by filing in certain locations. What we have now, with courts acting inconsistently and in some cases requiring the impossible (the Supreme Court had to rebuke the Fifth by noting that it was actually impossible for the government to abide by its order), it's a mess.

C. The US has responsibilities stemming from our treaty obligation. As I understand it, even the June 2024 order is pushing it a little bit with respect to the UN convention on refugees, but given worldwide politics, I think we have to expect some slippage from the ideal. But those treaty obligations place a floor, so to speak, as to what the US government can legally do. We cannot close our country to refugees or migrants. It's illegal.

I am not sufficiently knowledgeable to explain our treaty obligations in great detail. Nor I am expert enough to talk with authority about the international relations aspect -- i.e. what would happen if the US just thumbed its nose at the treaty. Within these bounds, my speculation is not considerably more informed than yours.
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I absolutely agree with the importance of procedures and policies as it relates to implementing change at a federal level and any governmental level. I also agree that there is dysfunction in the system, because there are humans involved in the system and humans are flawed. For a variety of reasons, I don't see that dysfunction being resolved anytime soon. It will likely get worse.

On the topic of the border and policy... It really is a matter of opinion and I think we agree that truth lies somewhere in the middle of both of our opinions.

Title 42 ended in early May 2023. To me, the lack of action in the 2 years prior (Biden eventually reached out to Mexico directly for help in mid/late 2023), but especially in the year after, looks to be politically motivated.
 
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ZenMode said:
On the topic of the border and policy... It really is a matter of opinion and I think we agree that truth lies somewhere in the middle of both of our opinions.
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I'll take it, I guess. It's less important to me that people agree with me than that they are informed and understand the complexities of problems that some of our political actors like to present as trivially simple.
 
stankeylegjones said:
You might be right, but I must say that I do agree with the general message in his comments.
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He made his entire 8 minute long screed in that clip a discussion about how the Democratic Party just lost because of its obsession with identity politics, completely ignoring that the Republican Party just *won* the election **because** it leaned hard into identity politics. He acted as if the Democrats catered to the far left progressive wing of the party when in fact it can be easily argued that by trying to court conservatives and Republicans, the Democrats lost the election by suppressing turnout in its left flank. Does he really expect any intelligent person to believe that the Harris campaign ran a "far left" campaign when they didn't mention the word "transgender" one single solitary time in any campaign speech, and when they spent way more of their time palling around with Liz and Dick Cheney than they did with actual liberal Democrats? He made a remark about how its the *Democrats* who have destroyed education in this country, when virtually every single blue state kicks the ever loving shit out of virtually every single red state in educational outcomes.

As someone who is classically conservative ideologically but who is a firm Democratic voter these days, and will remain so for the foreseeable future until or unless the Republican Party decides to stop trying to recreate 1850's America, I am absolutely, positively on board with the notion that the Democrats need to: 1. learn how to speak to normal people, 2. abandon the academic jargon and speech policing, 3. learn how to fight GOP fire with fire, and 4. learn how to effectively and successfully message its populist policy ideals and demonstrate how Democrats make the average American's life better. Where I completely disagree with Bill Maher, and others with similar messages, is that the Democratic Party is the one that is fundamentally broken. Parties lose elections all the time. Even good parties with good platforms lose elections with frequency. The Democrats didn't lose the election because they are a fundamentally broken party. They lost the election because they got just few too little votes in just a few too many of the wrong places that killed their electoral chances. It happens. The party certainly needs to make some changes, get new leadership, and let the next generation cook. But for Maher and others to act like the Democrats need to completely change their entire identity because of a razor thin election loss in which the opposing presidential candidate won by about 1% and failed to receive a plurality of the votes for his third consecutive time, would be like acting like a basketball team that loses a tossup game 76-75 needs to completely rebuild and reimagine itself.

If the Democratic Party was fundamentally broken, it wouldn't have had such impressive success in so many downballot races across the country. My hope is that the Republicans listen to people like Bill Maher and run around acting and governing as if they won some 1984-esque blowout mandate, instead of winning a 49-48 election. I hope that nobody in the GOP figures out that they won for the same exact reason that every other non-incumbent party in every other democratic country won this year and last.
 
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^ This, exactly. I hate identity politics, period, from both parties. I think identity politics are stupid and divisive. I think that the overwhelming vast majority of Americans- regardless of their race, ethnicity, background, or walk of life- just want to simply be considered "American." But to act like 1: the Democratic Party is the only one of the two parties that employs identity politics, and 2. that the Democratic Party lost *because* of identity politics, is a dumb take.
 
CFordUNC said:
He made his entire 8 minute long screed in that clip a discussion about how the Democratic Party just lost because of its obsession with identity politics, completely ignoring that the Republican Party just *won* the election **because** it leaned hard into identity politics. He acted as if the Democrats catered to the far left progressive wing of the party when in fact it can be easily argued that by trying to court conservatives and Republicans, the Democrats lost the election by suppressing turnout in its left flank. Does he really expect any intelligent person to believe that the Harris campaign ran a "far left" campaign when they didn't mention the word "transgender" one single solitary time in any campaign speech, and when they spent way more of their time palling around with Liz and Dick Cheney than they did with actual liberal Democrats? He made a remark about how its the *Democrats* who have destroyed education in this country, when virtually every single blue state kicks the ever loving shit out of virtually every single red state in educational outcomes.

As someone who is classically conservative ideologically but who is a firm Democratic voter these days, and will remain so for the foreseeable future until or unless the Republican Party decides to stop trying to recreate 1850's America, I am absolutely, positively on board with the notion that the Democrats need to: 1. learn how to speak to normal people, 2. abandon the academic jargon and speech policing, 3. learn how to fight GOP fire with fire, and 4. learn how to effectively and successfully message its populist policy ideals and demonstrate how Democrats make the average American's life better. Where I completely disagree with Bill Maher, and others with similar messages, is that the Democratic Party is the one that is fundamentally broken. Parties lose elections all the time. Even good parties with good platforms lose elections with frequency. The Democrats didn't lose the election because they are a fundamentally broken party. They lost the election because they got just few too little votes in just a few too many of the wrong places that killed their electoral chances. It happens. The party certainly needs to make some changes, get new leadership, and let the next generation cook. But for Maher and others to act like the Democrats need to completely change their entire identity because of a razor thin election loss in which the opposing presidential candidate won by about 1% and failed to receive a plurality of the votes for his third consecutive time, would be like acting like a basketball team that loses a tossup game 76-75 needs to completely rebuild and reimagine itself.

If the Democratic Party was fundamentally broken, it wouldn't have had such impressive success in so many downballot races across the country. My hope is that the Republicans listen to people like Bill Maher and run around acting and governing as if they won some 1984-esque blowout mandate, instead of winning a 49-48 election. I hope that nobody in the GOP figures out that they won for the same exact reason that every other non-incumbent party in every other democratic country won this year and last.
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His stance was/is that the democratic party has focused too heavily on identity politics, to the detriment of losing many who would've voted for them. I agree with this. All while telling those who are struggling to make ends meet to "look at the metrics."

Losing all three levels, to this pos pub party, tells me that what they're doing is not correct and that they need to rethink.
 
Paine said:
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Thanks for posting this. I'm curious to listen how they tackle class. I've always felt like the headwinds of class (low socioeconomic position) are incredibly strong and more difficult to navigate through, and that we need to message those folks, as a united group.
 
stankeylegjones said:
His stance was/is that the democratic party has focused too heavily on identity politics, to the detriment of losing many who would've voted for them. I agree with this. All while telling those who are struggling to make ends meet to "look at the metrics."

Losing all three levels, to this pos pub party, tells me that what they're doing is not correct and that they need to rethink.
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Right, that’s why his stance is disagreeable to me: the Democratic presidential ticket actually did NOT focus on identity politics at all: never once mentioned the transgender issue, never once mentioned Harris being the first female president, never once mentioned Harris being the first Black woman president, etc. And “identity politics” certainly did not prevent Democratic candidates from doing really well across the country. I will totally buy the notion that Democrats as a whole have focused too much on identity politics over the last decade or so- I will not, however, buy the notion that it was identity politics that lost them this election, considering 1. The presidential ticket did not engage in such, 2. Democrats down ballot did very well, especially in swing states, and 3. The Republican ticket actively ran an entire campaign predicated upon their own identity politics. It’s why it’s really difficult to take Bill Maher seriously on this, because the real answer as to why the Democrats lost the election is way, way simpler: they were the incumbent party in an anti-incumbent moment worldwide. Nothing more, nothing less.

Now, again, I absolutely do detest identity politics. I detest it on both sides of the ideological spectrum. But it isn’t why the Democrats lost this election 49-48.
 
stankeylegjones said:
Thanks for posting this. I'm curious to listen how they tackle class. I've always felt like the headwinds of class (low socioeconomic position) are incredibly strong and more difficult to navigate through, and that we need to message those folks, as a united group.
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Let me know what you think. I’d never heard of Smarsh prior to this. I think she did a good job of laying out how I generally feel too.
 
CFordUNC said:
Right, that’s why his stance is disagreeable to me: the Democratic presidential ticket actually did NOT focus on identity politics at all: never once mentioned the transgender issue, never once mentioned Harris being the first female president, never once mentioned Harris being the first Black woman president, etc. And “identity politics” certainly did not prevent Democratic candidates from doing really well across the country. I will totally buy the notion that Democrats as a whole have focused too much on identity politics over the last decade or so- I will not, however, buy the notion that it was identity politics that lost them this election, considering 1. The presidential ticket did not engage in such, 2. Democrats down ballot did very well, especially in swing states, and 3. The Republican ticket actively ran an entire campaign predicated upon their own identity politics. It’s why it’s really difficult to take Bill Maher seriously on this, because the real answer as to why the Democrats lost the election is way, way simpler: they were the incumbent party in an anti-incumbent moment worldwide. Nothing more, nothing less.

Now, again, I absolutely do detest identity politics. I detest it on both sides of the ideological spectrum. But it isn’t why the Democrats lost this election 49-48.
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What the Democrats have had a problem with, and the propaganda network of the right is to blame for this and i don’t know how to combat it, is the large disconnect from what Democrat policies and priorities are actually focused on and what people “feel” they are focused on. It’s pretty impossible to win a campaign when the gold toilet shitting racist narcissist focused on oligarchy is deemed a working class hero ignoring identity politics
 
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