“(With) today’s Supreme Court decision on presidential immunity, that fundamentally changed. For all practical purposes, there are virtually no limits on what the president can do. It’s a fundamentally new principle and it’s a dangerous precedent because the power of the office will no longer be constrained by the law even including the supreme court of the United States.”
Throughout his address, Biden underscored the gravity of the moment, emphasizing that the only barrier to the president’s authority now lies in the personal restraint of the officeholder. He warned vehemently against the prospect of Trump returning to power, painting a stark picture of the dangers such an outcome could pose.
Old enough to remember when Dems did control the House, but it didn’t do anything useful.
Sure, assuming you don’t think the American rescue plan, bipartisan infrastructure act, CHIPS, IRA, and the first massive tranche of funding for Ukraine are useful. I don’t think you realize how short 2 years is for the legislature and how narrow the dem margin was. They achieved significantly more useful legislation than I thought possible. Unfortunately they didn’t codify Roe, overhaul SCOTUS, or harden our institutions against fascism, so maybe you’re right. Who knows what they could do with a larger majority and control of the House/Senate for 2 more years though - it would be fun to find out, if we could avoid getting all worked up blaming different people we mostly agree with and vote big against fascism.
assuming you don’t think the American rescue plan, bipartisan infrastructure act, CHIPS, IRA, and the first massive tranche of funding for Ukraine are useful
No more than the CARES Act or the PROSWIFT Act or the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021 or the Hong Kong Autonomy and Uyghur Human Rights Policy Acts, under the prior administration. We’ve never had a problem issuing large bipartisan bailouts in the thick of a recession, rolling out buckets of cash for proxy wars, or pissing away trillions on expanding legacy highway infrastructure. This is not something unique that Biden brought to the table.
Hell, Trump was even sending military aid to Ukraine as early as 2019. One could argue it was this military escalation and subsequent bombing of the Donbas that kicked off the war with Russia to begin with. Thanks for that!
Unfortunately they didn’t codify Roe, overhaul SCOTUS, or harden our institutions against fascism
Because they’re a party heavily populated with Pro-Life Democrats, they genuinely like the business-friendly / anti-regulatory bent to the SCOTUS, and they are more than happy to break bread with fascists just so long as the fascists can be used as proxies against enemies of US business interests at home and abroad.
This isn’t a fucking accident. It is deliberate bipartisan consensus.
Who knows what they could do with a larger majority and control of the House/Senate for 2 more years though
Exactly what they did in 2009. Send trillions of new dollars to the privatized tech sector. Roll out new privatization schemes for the USPS and US Education System. Bailout failed banks. Increase the size and the authority of police agencies. And impose a host of new unfunded mandates on consumers - via tariffs, anti-union tax increases on health insurance, and private lending schemes - that only serve to degrade quality of life in pursuit of higher corporate profits.
FFS, the lowest hanging fruit imaginable for the Democratic Party is DC Statehood. Easiest win imaginable to just hand yourself two free Senators and 3-4 new House Reps. And they won’t do it.
You’re still making the mistake of treating dems like some single monolith. It’s a coalition of just about everything that isn’t MAGA at this point, covering all sorts of ideals, yours being just one small part. The answer is still “get a majority of reps that aren’t asswipes” and then we’ll get legislation we want.
As to DC statehood, it would have gone through if not for Manchin because the Senate “majority” at the time hinged on his support. We need to win these seats with bigger majorities, period, and then they’ll pass better bills. The overwhelming majorty of Dems support DC statehood, saying “they won’t do it” is not a great take when they literally didn’t have the votes.
