Joe Biden is a perfectly fine, solid center-left president. The guy running against him is a corrupt proto-fascist criminal oligarch. The US economy is strong, wages for the lowest quintile are rising fast, wage inequality falling, inflation is under 5%. So naturally it’s a toss-up - ThreadSky

mattsteinglass.bsky.social • 574 days ago

Joe Biden is a perfectly fine, solid center-left president. The guy running against him is a corrupt proto-fascist criminal oligarch. The US economy is strong, wages for the lowest quintile are rising fast, wage inequality falling, inflation is under 5%. So naturally it’s a toss-up

Comments

leduk.bsky.social•573 days ago

"center-left", seriously? You guys seriously have an overton window problem, and a really big one.

purematthew.bsky.social•573 days ago

It's not like Trump is gaining more voters right now, just that Joe Biden is actively driving so many of his away. It's one thing to vote for the lesser of two evils, it's entirely another thing to willingly vote for someone that you consider to be genuinely evil.

mattsteinglass.bsky.social•573 days ago

Leaving aside that we disagree about Biden's moral caliber: in what sense is that different? It seems like exactly what the phrase "the lesser of two evils" means.

purematthew.bsky.social•573 days ago

I mean the author of the crime bill and friend to segregationists certainly had an argument for villainy that's only taken massive hits since his refusal to stand up to the extremist, fundamentalist far-right regime in Israel, but I never really took the phrase literally before, just rhetorically.

purematthew.bsky.social•573 days ago

I voted for Joe Biden in 2020, not because I like Joe Biden, but because I understood how important it was to keep Trump out of office for a second term. While I still understand how important that is, I'm finding it a lot more difficult to willingly cast a vote for him today.

waxmonkey.bsky.social•573 days ago

then you dont understand

purematthew.bsky.social•572 days ago

Don't understand... what?

purematthew.bsky.social•573 days ago

I guess all I really mean is that it's not exactly like Biden is driving people to vote for trump, he's just more driving people to not vote.

mattsteinglass.bsky.social•573 days ago

Well, you know what my response is going to be. I disagree with you on all the substance of your dislike of Biden, but on the general question, it wouldn't have been enough to stay home in 1933.

calebcrain.bsky.social•574 days ago

On the other hand, the Democrats keep winning elections, so maybe the toss-uppiness is just venting for the benefit of pollsters? Otherwise I am completely baffled

datapunk.bsky.social•573 days ago

I think having abortion on the ballot on the same day motivated a lot more voters of one party to go out and vote.

That won't be true next time

mattsteinglass.bsky.social•573 days ago

I tend to think those people will vent on voting day too.

jarda.bsky.social•573 days ago

If Biden is center-left, then the center in the US is effing right.

mattsteinglass.bsky.social•573 days ago

Yes, by the standards of most European countries the center in the US is center-right.

kajleers.bsky.social•573 days ago

Hillary Clinton was a perfectly fine, solid center-left Senator and Secretary of State under a popular and successful president. The guy running against her was a corrupt proto-fascist criminal oligarch who confessed to assaulting women whenever he pleased. So naturally, he won 🤷‍♂️

mattsteinglass.bsky.social•573 days ago

Indeed, equally disturbing data point about the caliber of US institutions and the public

kajleers.bsky.social•573 days ago

No need to flagellate, it's everywhere. Even here.

mattsteinglass.bsky.social•573 days ago

Yes. But here the guys with equivalent hateful-nutjob levels will get 3%, 17%, or a combined 20%, maybe a little more. Mostly ascribable to proportional-representation, but not entirely I think.

dkrappe.bsky.social•573 days ago

I think you might leave out the word "proto"-fascist after what Trump promises the future will look like during his second term ⬇️ Sweeping Raids and Mass Deportations: Inside Trump's 2025 Immigration Plans https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/11/us/politics/trump-2025-immigration-agenda.html

riff.is.djing.fyi•573 days ago

I'd take issues with him being centre left. That you think he is shows how far right politics has drifted since the 1970s

mattsteinglass.bsky.social•573 days ago

Economically, politics has shifted very far right since the 1970s, and politicians calibrate the possible on that basis. Culturally, Joe Biden is in favor of gay marriage which would make him a far-left nutjob in the 1970s

alasaarela.com•573 days ago

Democrats have many younger and more energetic center left candidates who don't even get to challenge Biden on primaries. Republicans also have younger and reasonable center right candidates who don't get traction in the primaries. The problem is in the party system.

mattsteinglass.bsky.social•573 days ago

I think the GOP problem is the right's media-political system, which is to a large degree outside the party itself, and runs largely as an internal outrage/resentment competition. The Democratic problem is a very diverse coalition, both identity and ideology, and a "self-critical" media system.

datapunk.bsky.social•573 days ago

I'd argue the left's "self-critical" system is reasonably similar in its outrage competition, just on different topics.
Also, the people may not like trump, but voting for another politician like all the others, when things are objectively getting worse for you...

mattsteinglass.bsky.social•573 days ago

What things are objectively getting worse for whom?

alasaarela.com•573 days ago

Argentina's example shows that even a crazy candidate can be voted in if people are desperate. I don't know how the US is currently worse with Biden, though. It looks like the job situation is pretty good. I can sympathize with long-term housing, medical, and student loan problems.

datapunk.bsky.social•573 days ago

Inflation erased a ton of purchasing power. I don't think most people got the 15% salary increase to make up for it.
Real estate is as expensive as it was with 2% interest, but now it's 5+%, making it even less reachable. Two major concerns for people.

A lot of it is perceived reality as well.

mattsteinglass.bsky.social•573 days ago

Wages are steady for the 50th percentile, falling for the 90th (the rich), and rising for the 10th (the poor). The third figure shows how inequality fell before 1979, rose from 1979-2019 and now for the first time is falling again under Biden. https://www.nber.org/papers/w31010

datapunk.bsky.social•573 days ago

Not American, don't live there anymore (and glad for it), just have lots of friends and a strong connection still.
Interesting stats, but having a math background, all of these could equally be explained by removing the lowest-paid 10% from the workforce altogether. I'll take a closer look later.

mattsteinglass.bsky.social•573 days ago

Neither of these can be remedied without ending the 2-party system, which requires ending first-past-the-post elections.

alasaarela.com•573 days ago

Couldn't agree more. The American democracy can be o
saved and preserved with a multi-party model like many European countries have. The two party system is already an oligarchy on the verge of collapsing into a one-party dictatorship.

mattsteinglass.bsky.social•573 days ago

I think it will be hard for Trumpians to achieve Orban-style one-party rule in a sham democracy, but they'll certainly try.

himself.bsky.social•573 days ago

This is very good on the GOP media system and how it works, though somewhat outdated, if you haven't already read it https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/28351

mattsteinglass.bsky.social•573 days ago

Thanks! I haven't but everything I've read by Benkler is great.

tft.io•574 days ago

Remember, also, Biden is FOUR YEARS older than the guy with cottage cheese for brains, so, uh, something something student loans?

jakeyeston.bsky.social•574 days ago

It just seems very clear that many people know exactly who Trump is right now and like what they see. There may not be a deeper explanation than that. There’s cruelty in many a human soul. In the best case Biden win scenario, there’ll still be millions who supported Trump.

jakeyeston.bsky.social•574 days ago

It’s the same with Ben-Gvir and Smotrich. People talk like they’re cartoon characters, but they have a real fiercely devoted constituency. And the point isn’t that there’s some deep complicated secret motivating factor. They like what they see.

mattsteinglass.bsky.social•573 days ago

Absolutely, but democratic systems don’t *usually* give people like this majorities. Israel is unusual because it faces (and causes) permanent war. What’s going on in the US is partly weakness of the first-past-the-post system but partly something so awful I find it hard to explain.

johnspringford.bsky.social•573 days ago

I know several people on both sides of the Atlantic who've been radicalised - in their cases it's been either online or consuming old media that's abandoned impartiality. This has allowed them to belong to a tribe and to feel that their (bad) impulses are legitimate.

johnspringford.bsky.social•573 days ago

I don't think it's surprising that Italy, the US, Poland and Hungary have moved the furthest towards the radical right, which has managed to create powerful alternatives to the staid MSM/public broadcasters or to take them over.

nashsgc.bsky.social•573 days ago

Do you see the U.K. right moving in a similar direction? A Conservative Party in opposition could sink further down the GB News rabbit hole, producing more Anderson’s & Jenkyn’s. Wld it make them unelectable, or wld time & the natural political cycle eventually put them in contention again?

philippkohlhoefer.bsky.social•573 days ago

Unfortunately, we have long reached the point where facts no longer play a role. And everything that determines politics in the mind, such as fear of Muslims, determines politics in reality at some point. /1

philippkohlhoefer.bsky.social•573 days ago

That's why the right always gains popularity in times of uncertainty - because people feel threatened by "the Muslims, the Woke, the Chinese, the Mexicans". Whether this is really true is another matter entirely. But it doesn't matter because the feeling is then a political reality. /2

philippkohlhoefer.bsky.social•573 days ago

What helps is to reoccupy the information space - by constantly telling people how well things are going, how great democracy is, how important immigration is because we all have a demographic problem in the West. /3

philippkohlhoefer.bsky.social•573 days ago

But you have to do that constantly, for years, to make it work. That's what the political right does. But that only works if rich people invest money in it. But the problem is: they are generally not politically progressive, at least when it comes to money, I guess. /end

cyanescens.bsky.social•573 days ago

The Dems & left-of-center broadly need their own media apparatus. I think the right having a vast propaganda machine is one of the main reasons we’re in such a bad place nationally.

philippkohlhoefer.bsky.social•573 days ago

I totally agree. 👏

hrlatinam.bsky.social•573 days ago

This.

shanemcoughlin.bsky.social•573 days ago

Joe Biden is a 1980s Republican. He isn't a good president. We need someone further left.

mattsteinglass.bsky.social•573 days ago

So find somebody further left to run in a primary against him. And if he loses, vote for the less right-wing candidate.

shanemcoughlin.bsky.social•572 days ago

Absolutely plenty of good choices for the least right wing candidate. Lots of third party choices. And by the way there are 3 primary challengers to Biden who are all further left. They just need to allow debates.

mattsteinglass.bsky.social•572 days ago

Third-party choices cannot win in the American system and simply weaken the major-party candidate closer to you in orientation. It’s throwing away your vote. No third-party candidate has ever won, and the only one in modern history who got a significant share was a centrist oligarch.

mattsteinglass.bsky.social•572 days ago

To be clear, I think third, fourth and fifth parties are the only way forward for America. But they need to start at state and local level and you need voting-system reform (multi-member districts or proportional representation) to make them possible. At presidential level it’s a fool’s errand.

shanemcoughlin.bsky.social•572 days ago

Those are votes the major party candidate wouldn't get anyway. They aren't guaranteed any vote. Most of Jill Stein voters in 2016 wouldn't have even voted if she wasn't on the ballot. So it's not fair to say they "steal votes".

mattsteinglass.bsky.social•572 days ago

I don’t think that’s actually true and would need to see evidence before accepting the claim

nmwilkinson.bsky.social•573 days ago

I guess the Dems must be lacking a certain campaigning nous. one can blame media and yes, sure. But also the media reflects the very deliberate "this is fine, kitchen table again lads" normalisation. I mean, if they think it's fine...

benapplegate.com•573 days ago

Wealth inequality is at obscene highs, and America seems set up to not just impoverish but humiliate everyone but the rich, who have captured government and become completely detached from any sense of social responsibility. People are in the mood to tear it all down. Where we assign blame differs.

mattsteinglass.bsky.social•573 days ago

Hopefully Americans will never discover what "tear it all down" actually looks like. We could get a real corrupt authoritarian president, though, that's doable. Anyway, since the current guy has been in power income inequality has been shrinking, for the first time since 1979; I would reward that

benapplegate.com•573 days ago

I hope not, and I would reward that as well. (I will; I'm going to vote for Biden.) I'm just saying that how we got to where we are now is perfectly understandable if you look at long-term trends and the necessary conditions for the rise of fascism in other historical contexts.

netbrian.bsky.social•573 days ago

There's a fair amount of evidence of inequality actually decreasing (and some wage compression.)

E.g., https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2023/09/income-inequality.html

mattsteinglass.bsky.social•573 days ago

Autor, Dube and McGrew find low-end wage growth since Biden took office has reversed 40% of the four-decade growth in income inequality. https://www.nber.org/papers/w31010

benapplegate.com•573 days ago

That's precisely why I mentioned wealth inequality and not income inequality. Recovery of wealth, which people need in order to feel financial security, has been much more sluggish than income for the median family. Plus the very wealthy do not depend on income for their standard of living anyway.

benapplegate.com•573 days ago

There's no question that things could have been worse if Trump and Biden had not acted quickly to support people with direct payments during the pandemic. But those benefits have now ended, and some other benefits have been dangled and capriciously withdrawn (child tax credit, student debt relief).

benapplegate.com•573 days ago

(Speaking from the perspective of the average person who doesn't have time to or interest in finding out exactly how these benefits ended or who ended them.)

ericweinberger.bsky.social•573 days ago

There are some things that this doesn't address, however, that go beyond the statistical to the general dissatisfaction here. Ppl don't feel they have more dollars in their pocket when their car and health insurance cost more, housing is unaffordable, & they are at the whims of m/billionaire bosses

mattsteinglass.bsky.social•573 days ago

I think what you are describing is the problem that people who see prices rise think it's the government's fault, and people who get raises think they earned it themselves. On average people are better off but few of them credit the president who decided to run the economy hot.

ericweinberger.bsky.social•573 days ago

I think the problems I described-price of car, health insurance, housing, job security-were serious & threatening to social cohesion before inflation, if that's what you mean. Biden is still our only genuine choice, so why he's in trouble I don't understand but perhaps for his age, & who follows him

benapplegate.com•573 days ago

To many, it seems incredible that it could all be as simple as a rarified group of bankers making a series of greedy mistakes and then convincing the government to let them off the hook while the county got hollowed out. The explanation for how it got this hopeless has to be more complicated.

benapplegate.com•573 days ago

The conspiracy peddlers are all too happy to provide a more exciting and exculpatory narrative in which regular people are cast as heroes saving America from [insert leftist elite or minority group] rather than as suckers who got taken for a ride.

kenpage.bsky.social•573 days ago

Worryingly people know full well who Trump is. They don’t excuse him being a corrupt proto-fascist criminal oligarch, they like him for it. And want to vote for him because of it.

ericweinberger.bsky.social•567 days ago

Still thinking about this. The problem he faces is that those four items set off by commas don't create a narrative, whereas this one below has stuck - and I'm a Biden voter who feels it myself

https://www.wsj.com/us-news/american-dream-out-of-reach-poll-3b774892

ericweinberger.bsky.social•573 days ago

Every day there's a story that reminds us there is only one choice
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/11/business/student-loans-debt-cancellation.html

jaytingle.bsky.social•573 days ago

“Center-left” is a reach. What would that make Karl Marx?

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