• pjwestin@lemmy.world
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    5 days ago

    Are you fucking kidding? Because Biden 2020 was a progressive platform and Harris 2024 was a centrist one. They weren’t even remotely similar. Biden may be a centrist, but he’s very pro-labor, and he could see how important the progressive base was that election, so he literally sat down with Sanders and hammered out a platform that they could get behind. And while I’ve got a lot of problems with Joe Biden, he actually was very committed to that platform. He really wanted BBB to get through and he kept trying to find ways to abolish student debt.

    Harris, on the other hand, had a handful of disparate, vaguely left policy positions, like the first-time homebuyer’s credit and legalizing pot, but her campaign was mainly centered on economic opportunity for the middle class. She also committed wholeheartedly to the most right-wing polices of the Biden administration, like arming Israel and cracking down on the border. But worst of all, she made bipartisanship and Republican consensus a huge part of her campaign, promising to add Republicans to her cabinet , campaigning with Liz Cheney, and even praising Dick Fucking Cheney.

    TL;DR, Biden campaigned like Obama in 2008, Harris Campaigned like Hillary in 2016. And the results were the same.

    • ChonkyOwlbear@lemmy.world
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      5 days ago

      Do you even remember 2020? Nobody fucking wanted Biden. He was never progressive. He was literally mocked for telling donors “Nothing will fundamentally change.” People turned out because of how much they hated Trump.

      • pjwestin@lemmy.world
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        5 days ago

        That actually occurred in 2019, not 2020. After Bernie nearly stomped him in the primary, he made a hard pivot to the left in 2020. As I said, he’s a centrist, but he actually does have a strong history of pro-union activism, which made him a fairly credible (though imperfect) messenger for a populous platform.

      • pjwestin@lemmy.world
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        5 days ago

        I sure did. I was genuinely hopeful when Biden stepped down, and when they announced Walz, I actually got excited. Then they started to try and reach moderate Republicans more and more, and I slowly realized they were doing it again. I felt like I was going insane watching them repeat the strategy that caused them to lose to the same guy in 2016.

      • pjwestin@lemmy.world
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        5 days ago

        I do what I can. If the question had been asked in good faith, I might have even been nice about it.

    • Resonosity@lemmy.world
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      5 days ago

      Don’t forget that Biden was the first president to walk a picket line. No other president had ever done that in America’s history. That single action won over the UAW.

      Then, Biden fought back against the railroad corporations and won a contract for workers that includes PTO and other basic labor necessities.

      Then, Biden reduced fentanyl overdoses, something that no president has done in like 30-40 years.

      Couple this with BBB and IRA, you have a much more progressive president than what people give water to it.

      • pjwestin@lemmy.world
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        5 days ago

        Well, I don’t want to give him too much credit. Biden is and always has been a centrist. He has a mixed history on Civil Rights (cause he’s 120 years old), he has a pretty pro-bank history, he’s supported some anti-consumer stuff (like the anti-bankruptcy laws), and he even helped put Clarence Thomas on the bench. And that’s not even touching on his administration, where Gaza and the border will probably be his lasting legacy. But, two things that he’s always been pretty consistent on were unions and infrastructure, and he read the room in 2020 and leaned heavily into those things.