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Of course people should vote where it's working. The argument on the federal level is that it's not working. It's not harm reduction because the federal Democrats are too cowardly or too compromised to enforce protective laws and the Constitution as evidenced by reality.
It's really "relative" harm reduction because conservatives are literally trying to conduct harm amplification
Only it's still not. The Democrats aren't willing to stop the state level Republicans. So they can just do whatever they want. The GOP would need to win the Senate and Presidency in addition to holding the House to make it actually worse. And at that point it's mathematically unlikely the Democrats would have held the presidency anyways.
They aren't doing anything? I recall some student loan forgiveness that happened recently that sure as hell wouldn't have happened under a republican. I dislike Biden too, but he is doing some things. Say it's not as much as we'd like, but stop spreading the bullshit nothing is happening.
Also, the Biden administration is enforcing anti-trust laws like we haven't seen in decades, which I'd say is a pretty massive step. Sure, yeah, not far enough yet but it's a step.
Biden has forgiven about $150 billion in student loan debt, has passed some big economic reforms which led to wealth inequality falling for the first time in quite a long time, wages at the bottom 10% of wage earners are going up faster than inflation even under fairly historic levels of inflation, his climate bill put the US on track for a 40% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, and he's been raising corporate taxes by quite a lot in order to pay for all that stuff. Given how unified most of the US government is against things like that happening it's actually fairly impressive.
There's some other stuff but those are the big ones I'm aware of. It's just that the news media doesn't have any reason to report on that type of boring progress stuff, and actually has a couple of big reasons not to report it in favor of some other more titillating types of stories.
That's cool. I notice your taking credit for state minimum wage laws now. And they're already talking about pushing back the climate change stuff.
But none of that is what I was mentioning. What is he doing to protect women and minorities from the conservatives coming after them? He doesn't have to be hands off. The 14th is incorporated against the states and Presidents have used that in the past. Or have we just given up and decided we can have climate change as long as it's evangelical Christian climate change?
I'm just gonna sit in quiet contemplation of how you've managed to make it sound halfway sensible "Yes, Biden's done some substantive good things even though the majority of the rest of the government is against those things, but they've been too effective at making sure he can't do more, so I oppose him."
Please explain how either of those protect people from Christian Nationalists criminalizing them and destroying their medical infrastructure?
The only people who can really do anything about that on a federal level are congress, not the president. Democrats don't control congress though. Even if they did, the federal government has limits to what they can do to control states. People need to vote in local elections for that stuff. Local elections influence your life far more than federal.
You are opposed to voting for democrats because they aren't doing something that isn't possible. Yeah, you definitely hold a well reasoned position that people should listen to.
Oh the president can, and has. Even to extremes, or am I the only one who remembers learning about the 101st Infantry Division escorting students?
That was applying the constitution's rules on equality (as ruled by the Supreme Court of the United States). The executive can use its power to enforce laws, but it can't use its power to create new laws. That is the purview of congress. Once congress creates the laws then the president is in a position to enforce them, but not before then.
You might want to learn about the civics and workings of the US if you're an American. Most of it isn't that complicated.
Lmao. There's a federal crime for abusing the rights of people under the color of authority.
Let's use that.
Sure. That's not really for when a law is written that may abuse some people's rights if that's what you're implying. Sure, use that to go after police officers and stuff, but you can't just arrest everyone who writes a law you don't agree with, even if it is unconstitutional. That's the court's job to handle.
You can arrest someone for using that law though.
Stop? How would federal Democrats do anything to state Republicans?
Enforce the Constitution against them. Reform SCOTUS by appointing more judges. (In the past even this threat was enough to bring SCOTUS around) We have rights and it's blindingly apparent the Democrats aren't willing to do more to protect them than ask the people violating them to stop in a polite manner.
And that's on the issues they claim to care about. On other things they are actively causing harm.
Oh so just change the entire framework of how states interact with the federal government. Cool.
I'm all for the adjustments you mentioned, but it's unreasonable to suggest all that is possible in one term, right now, based on this vote.
It's gonna take years of building legitimate progressive candidates, That's where the work is. It also comes from downticket mandate. Republicans are gobbling up every small posting, seen and unseen, and use that to drive policy and action.
The 14th amendment enforces the Constitution against the states. Has done since the civil rights era. This isn't anything new. In fact Biden's inaction is the new thing.