• Melatonin@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    20 days ago

    Absent of any anti-Trump arguments, I’d like to hear the case for Kamala being a truly great President. A few policy positions she, in particular, is notable for?

    • banner80@fedia.io
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      20 days ago

      There are policy details on her website: https://kamalaharris.com/issues/

      But it’s pretty simple overall. She’s not a maverick, what’s on offer is simply the Dem agenda with a younger change of guard. The Dems believe in running the economy from the middle class, because investing in people is how we achieve long-term economic success and improve quality of life. So all her policies are going to be the same they would have been for Obama or Biden: improve social protections, improve access to education, improve access to housing, lower costs of living, make the corporations and wealthy pay their fair shares, pull away from needless wars, strengthen international relationships and create trade agreements of mutual benefit.

      She can talk policy until she’s blue in the face, but we all should already know exactly what we are getting when we vote for a Democrat. The last time this country had a balanced budget it was Democrat. When we raise the minimum wage, it’s a Democrat. When we try to make education more affordable or help those with student debt, it’s a Democrat. When we strengthen unions and increase taxes on corporations, it’s a Democrat. When we pull out of wars, when we increase social services, when we increase protections for minorities, when we secure our clean water and block chemicals and pesticides in our food and household products, when we raise fuel efficiency standards and make corporations pay for pollution, it’s a Democrat.

      It baffles me that we have to talk about this stuff like it’s new. It’s simple and it has been for years:

      You want a party that runs the economy like adults, and works for the middle class and the well-being of the people: Democrats.

      You want a party that works for the rich and corporations, blows up the budgets recklessly, and thinks the low and middle classes are a resource to be used and drained: Republicans.

      While we are on this spicy topic today, someone please remind me, what did Jill Stein do?

      • ChickenLadyLovesLife@lemmy.world
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        20 days ago

        The last time this country had a balanced budget it was Democrat.

        Not even balanced - Clinton produced a surplus during his last couple of years in office. Had we continued on that path, we would now be debt-free as a nation, instead of in debt to the tune of $35 fucking trillion (equivalent to a full seven years of tax revenues).

      • missingno@fedia.io
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        20 days ago

        what’s on offer is simply the Dem agenda with a younger change of guard

        See, that’s what I’m not thrilled about.

        You want a party that works for the rich and corporations, blows up the budgets recklessly, and thinks the low and middle classes are a resource to be used and drained: Republicans.

        While we are on this spicy topic today, someone please remind me, what did Jill Stein do?

        You’re only arguing the “I’d vote for a ham sandwich to keep the GOP from power” side. You don’t need to argue that part, we all know this, and it isn’t what the person you’re replying to was asking.

        No one even said anything about Jill Stein here, bringing her up now feels like a very bad faith argument.

        • banner80@fedia.io
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          20 days ago

          Amazing.

          90% of my comment was to explicitly say what Democrats do. And you managed to single out the 10% that wasn’t about Democrats.

          Why stop there? Throw in some “both sides” stuff too.

          • sin_free_for_00_days@sopuli.xyz
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            20 days ago

            Yep. I agree with you 100% and is why I’ve tried to stop engaging regarding politics on this site. It just seems like 99% of the posters are posting in bad faith, or insane levels of naivety. Perfection the enemy of good personified.

            • TexasDrunk@lemmy.world
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              20 days ago

              Nah, it’s just a few legitimately bad actors and a few naive folks. Most people here are pretty reasonable but it’s hard to remember the guy dressed normally that walked past you three days ago while you will always remember the dude in the thong onesie holding a sign saying the great old ones are coming back any day to battle the frost giants.

          • gamermanh@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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            20 days ago

            90% of my comment was to explicitly say what Democrats do

            To which their response was “yeah, that’s not exciting, we’ve seen it before”, they addressed it. You didn’t need to write out all of those words when you’d already summed it up well with “basic democrat”

            Being a Democrat does not make you an inherently great president, it makes you the not-shit option

            So, when asked for an argument that’s void of any anti-trump points you basically said “they’re Democrats. Plus they’re not trump!”, which isn’t an answer and includes the thing they said not to

            Why stop there? Throw in some “both sides” stuff too.

            Lol, “any criticism of the Democrats is right wing infiltration” is some shit taking for sure

          • missingno@fedia.io
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            20 days ago

            I didn’t feel the need to go over the DNC point-by-point. I said the Dem agenda is what I’m not thrilled about.

            Do I have to go point-by-point before I can ask why you felt the need to bring up the Republicans and even Jill Stein at all when it’s clear that wasn’t the question being asked? We all know they’re bad, but the fact that it seems like the only way to talk about the DNC is to keep reminding us that they’re not the other guys, you were explicitly asked to actually say what’s good about Kamala without doing that.

            • davidagain@lemmy.world
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              19 days ago

              Asks for good points about Kamala Harris without mentioning any bad points about republicans. Gets lots of substantial points and a throwaway about Stein. Ignores all the points about democrats and greys very cross about mentioning Stein once at the end.

              https://lemmy.world/comment/12851475

              What conclusions am I to draw? You just hate it when other people don’t follow the letter of your laws,even the ones you didn’t say out loud? That you hate discussing bad points about Kamala’s opponents? That people can tell you benefits of voting for Kamala as much as they like, you’ll never hear any of it and you’ll still assert that no one can come up with any?

              • missingno@fedia.io
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                19 days ago

                I didn’t ignore what you said, I responded by saying I’m not thrilled about the DNC agenda. It’s all too little too slowly, without addressing underlying structural issues with capitalism. Did you need me to quote each line individually in order to say that?

                What I don’t like is that even when the question is explicitly “Regardless of how bad the other side is, what’s actually good about the DNC?” you are incapable of not pivoting that question back to talking about how bad the other guys are. We know, but that wasn’t the question.

                What I don’t like is that I can’t even say “I’m not thrilled about the DNC agenda” without having all kinds of accusations hurled in my face.

                • davidagain@lemmy.world
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                  19 days ago

                  Correction, you can’t say “tell me good things” and ignore all the good things, then complain that there were no good things, without being called out on it.

    • rsuri@lemmy.world
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      20 days ago

      Start with what makes a good president? Obviously there’s the issues and all that which people focus on, but that’s subject to debate. Objectively, some qualities are definitely good, like being good at both urgent and non-urgent decision making, good at managing/organizing/handling chaos, capable of outsmarting adversaries, being a unifying force rather than a divisive one. Just to name a few. So let’s look at those:

      • Decision-making: She’s relatively young compared to recent presidents, definitely a bit more in touch with modern reality and less tied to the old ways of doing politics. She’s faced a tough choice with her running mate, and while Walz has been criticized by some, given the short timeframe it’s clear she at least didn’t fuck it up. Her debate prep clearly succeeded, and she’s avoided any scandals despite clearly Republicans trying very hard to find them. All of these show a record of decent to good decisions.
      • Managing, etc Obviously her campaign started in the midst of chaos, and there were a lot of fears regarding that transition. And it went probably better than anyone expected, with everyone quickly gaining confidence in her.
      • Outsmarting adversaries She did a better job at this in the debate than any candidate in my memory.
      • Unifying force Again I’ll refer to her getting everyone behind her after Biden dropped, while also keeping Biden’s support. Don’t underestimate how unlikely that seemed before it happened.

      I’ll avoid comparing Trump who is obviously severely deficient in all of these respects. But I could go further and say she obviously compares favorably to Biden too, and compared to Obama, I’d give her an edge on outsmarting adversaries and managing, and Obama probably gets the edge on the other 2. But we’ll see.

    • Zeke@fedia.io
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      20 days ago

      She used to be a prosecutor. That means she can see things from both sides and look at things objectively and not make rash decisions. It’s a good quality for a president.

      • njm1314@lemmy.world
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        20 days ago

        I mean My Only Hope from her being a prosecutor is that she actually prosecutes crimes, I’m not very hopeful of that especially with her seemingly not wanting to bring back Lena Khan, but I can dream. However normally being a prosecutor would disqualify you for me, good people don’t become prosecutors.

        • Zeke@fedia.io
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          17 days ago

          Good people do become prosecutors. Why? Because they don’t want to see bad people on the street. Sometimes you’ll wind up having to fight against someone innocent, but that doesn’t necessarily make someone bad. You have to prove without a doubt that that person didn’t do it. It’s essentially debating whether they did it or not. That doesn’t make a prosecutor bad.

        • prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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          19 days ago

          Did she say something about not bringing back Lina Khan? The only thing I saw was that Mark Cuban said he didn’t like her (which is just another plus in my mind. If the billionaires are scared of you, you’re doing something right), and whoever printed the article decided to call him a “Harris Surrogate.”

          Which I’m pretty sure is just flat out untrue. He supports her, and maybe he was even organizing for her. But “surrogate” means he speaks for her, and as far as I understand it, he absolutely does not

      • sunzu2@thebrainbin.org
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        20 days ago

        We larping pigs now?

        JFC… Is there anything liberal about the modern moderate democrats?

        Disgusting statism and corporatism is all they seem to be about.

        They got theirs, fuck everyone else.

        • xionzui@sh.itjust.works
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          19 days ago

          No…that’s the Republican Party platform. The current Democratic Party is very much about make the government work for the people and do at least something to rein in the rich and corporations

          • sunzu2@thebrainbin.org
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            20 days ago

            do at least something to reign in the rich and corporations

            I need whatever this guy is smoking

            • niucllos@lemm.ee
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              20 days ago

              I mean there’s been a lot to help corporations and the rich I don’t agree with but the current administration has also given tons of resources to the IRS to claw back evaded taxes from the wealthy, made moves to bust monopolies and price-fixing practices, and while they aren’t directly responsible there has been a historic expansion of unions not seen in my lifetime

              • prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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                19 days ago

                Also, there’s a reason why conservatives are fighting tooth and nail to stop every attempt he’s made at student loan forgiveness…

                And even still, his administration has managed to find several novel ways that has allowed them to eliminate billions in student loans despite all of that.

        • prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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          19 days ago

          acab… But prosecutors aren’t cops and if your simple brain can’t comprehend the difference, then I don’t know what to tell you. Our society would not function without people in roles that enforce the laws that our government passes.

          I would love to hear how you would go about punishing/rehabilitating/removing from society a murderer justly and fairly without prosecutors. Truly, I’m all ears.

          • sunzu2@thebrainbin.org
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            19 days ago

            🤡

            Just because us system “seperates” them as some sort of check on each other, it is clearly not working in practice.

            Look at how the system actually functions not what propaganda says.

    • sorval_the_eeter@lemmy.world
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      19 days ago

      Except for embracing firearms, I dont think she has a few poicy positions for anyone to evaluate. She just adopts whatever Bidens policies were. She did the same thing when she was running for president before Biden tapped her for VP. Couldnt formulate a policy position to save her life.