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naraburns  nihil supernum  16d ago (text post)   26875 thread views

U.S. Election (Day?) 2024 Megathread

With apologies to our many friends and posters outside the United States... it's time for another one of these! Culture war thread rules apply, and you are permitted to openly advocate for or against an issue or candidate on the ballot (if you clearly identify which ballot, and can do so without knocking down any strawmen along the way). "Small-scale" questions and answers are also permitted if you refrain from shitposting or being otherwise insulting to others here. Please keep the spirit of the law--this is a discussion forum!--carefully in mind.

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Biden simply has to go down as one of the worst Presidents in history. Who could defend his record?

You really have to grade Biden on a curve IMO. I'm sympathetic to him on COVID and Afghanistan, and while I don't agree with his handling of COVID, I can't say how I'd react when put into a similar position. Even more sympathetically, it's not clear to me how much he was really in control of the presidency. Is it really his fault that he got Weekend at Bernie'd into being president?

Even more sympathetically, it's not clear to me how much he was really in control of the presidency.

I am not sympathetic to this at all. If you are old and senile, you don't belong in a leadership position at... pretty much anything. The responsible thing to do is to retire and enjoy what remains of your health, and let younger people take charge. He knew his own mental state much sooner than anyone else did, and everyone knew approximately how much control he'd be in charge of his presidency when he was running for office in the first place. He should not have run, and by running he knowably made himself a figurehead and put his advisors in charge of the country in his stead. He shouldn't have done that, and the voters should not have voted for him knowing he would do that, but they did anyway, and that's largely his fault for enabling it.

He shouldn't have run, he did anyway, he deserves the blame for all the consequences of that.

Unfortunately, speaking from experience, people with dementia are often much, much less capable than others of recognizing that the deterioration of their selves.

It's odd to me how muted the public conversation is, though, on the corruption of Biden's inner circle in not pushing him out much earlier. I think people are approaching this wrong when they say "Biden staying in the race was bad for Kamala because it gave her less time to build a campaign". Biden staying in the race was bad for Kamala because it exposed to the public that the Emperor had no clothes, and she was the Emperor's second-in-command.

can't say how I'd react when put into a similar position

Would you have threatened the livelihood of 100,000,000 citizens unless they submitted to an unconstitutional mandate that abrogated their right to bodily autonomy? Even after massive concerns from multiple constitutional scholars?

If so, could you elaborate on that a little?

We're working with contrafactuals, but if I truly believed that the virus was an existential threat in the way it was sold as, I truly wouldn't know. For better or for worse, I'd see myself as responsible for the people who died. Like I said, I don't know what I'd do, but I can't imagine that it was a simple or easy choice.

Of course, this is all assuming that politicians actually want what's best for the country and are not a cabal of soul-sucking freaks.

I appreciate you taking the time to expand on your reasoning. Thank you.

existential threat

I mean, we had a pretty good idea what the IFR was by that point, so if someone bought this, I think it could only really come down to innumeracy.

A relatively small number of deaths can easily cause massive economic problems and overwhelm hospitals leading to all sorts of problems including...you guessed it, more deaths.

The problem wasn't the lockdowns. They were sensible. The problem was the way they were implemented and not having a reasonable offramp.

A relatively small number of deaths can easily cause massive economic problems and overwhelm hospitals leading to all sorts of problems including...you guessed it, more deaths.

If every hospital we have were suddenly carpet bombed tomorrow, would there be some increased follow-on deaths? Absolutely. Would it be an existential threat?! Please.

FYI, this subthread (from birb_cromble) seems to be referring to vaccine mandates rather than lockdowns.

I'm not saying it was truly an existential threat, but it was way worse than a lot of people are willing to acknowledge. What those numbers translate to practically is pretty bad. It's hard to notice if you were locked up though, which many were...so they didn't.

Well, the question is whether the President is in a position to know that wasn't an existential threat. If you're the President and ignorant people think it's an existential threat, but you know that it's not an existential threat, you help them understand that it's not an existential threat. And then we move to the next question of whether you would have "threatened the livelihood of 100,000,000 citizens unless they submitted to an unconstitutional mandate that abrogated their right to bodily autonomy? Even after massive concerns from multiple constitutional scholars?"

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All things considered, I think he did okay on inflation given the hand he was dealt. I think inflation is a big reason why Kamala lost, but I don't think people realize how much worse not implementing those inflationary COVID policies would be.

None of the stimulus enacted post-2020 was necessary. It was all just waste. The economy was white hot at that point.

Any stimulus at that point should have been small and given only to people who were demonstrably harmed by Covid such as restaurant workers. That's 2021. But when we add the Orwellianly named "Inflation Reduction Act" into the mix we get economic misconduct.

I don't think people realize how much worse not implementing those inflationary COVID policies would be.

I mean if you shut down most workplaces in the country by government decree, yeah, you kind of have to dish out some cash -- but you could also, like -- not do that?

For every anti-lockdowner, there was someone just as rabidly clamoring for more restrictions. We could easily be sitting here with Trump hammering Biden on killing grandma while he was the one who made the vaccine, and people here talking about how stupid Biden was for splitting his coalition on COVID. I mean, Boris Johnson and Dominic Cummings tried it, and it's not like that ended in a celebratory parade.

Sure, being resolute in not screwing the economic pooch might have resulted in Bad Things happening for the politician responsible -- I'm not really sure; America was much more divided on this than other countries, and the anti-lockdown contingent was substantial. The Swedish approach of "I'm sorry Dave, the Constitution says we can't do that" might have played OK.

But the fact is, if Congress rose up and impeached over insufficient tyranny, and the next guy came in and trashed the economy -- that would be on the next guy. On this timeline, Biden did it, and it's on him.

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