Vote Blue No Matter Who: Do you know Joe Biden?

[Louisa Bannon]

What an odd slogan: "Vote Blue No Matter Who." Do the democrats realize that nobody actually wants to vote for Joe Biden? Looking back on the primary season I can think of several candidates I would now prefer to Biden if Sanders is somehow considered impossible. But for me Joe is the impossible candidate, as I will now detail in bullet points...

* Biden would veto Medicare for All
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/10/bide...on-health.html

* Biden is the cause of the student debt crisis
In 1978, Biden supported the Middle Income Student Assistance Act, which eliminated income restrictions on federal loans to expand eligibility to all students. Biden helped write a separate bill that year blocking students from seeking bankruptcy protections on those loans after graduation. (The income restrictions on federal loans were reinstated in 1981.)...Years later, as a senator from Delaware, Biden was one of the most enthusiastic supporters of the disastrous 2005 bankruptcy bill that made it nearly impossible for borrowers to reduce their student loan debt. The Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act raised the bar for families to pursue Chapter 7 bankruptcy protections...Biden, who has said he’s still paying off $298,000 in student debt for his three children, opposes free college and student debt forgiveness, calling it unrealistic.

* Biden is the "Senator from MBNA"
MBNA hired the son of Vice President Joe Biden during the years when Biden was a Senator and was pushing for bankruptcy reform legislation supported by the company, which became law and makes it more difficult to acquire bankruptcy protection.[14] Because of the close relationship between Biden and MBNA, an article in the conservative political magazine National Review referred to Biden as the "Senator from MBNA"

* Biden voted to overturn Glass-Steagall
Glass-Steagall was one of the first things that we did in the wake of the Great Depression, as it created a firewall between investment banking and FDIC-insured deposits, meaning that Wall Street could not gamble with your savings. It is one of the central reasons why so many Wall Street banks are too big to fail.

* Biden wrote the 1994 Crime Bill
Biden drafted a crime bill that is as responsible for mass incarceration as any other piece of legislation passed in the last forty years.

* Biden has tried to cut Social Security benefits for 40 years
https://www.newsweek.com/biden-denie...debate-1492428 the upshot being that he not only has tried to cut numerous safety net programs, but that he done so routinely, and additionally he lies about it even to the present day...Biden has said: "When I argued that we should freeze federal spending, I meant Social Security as well. I meant Medicare and Medicaid. I meant veterans benefits. I meant every single solitary thing in the government. And I not only tried it once, I tried it twice. I tried it a third time, and I tried it a fourth time."

* Biden voted to routinely gut Welfare
In the 1990s, Biden supported Clinton's many conservative reform policies (austerity programs) that forced many Americans into poverty.

* Biden voted for the Iraq War
A war on foreign soil with no legitimate justification. The Vietnam of the current era. Biden was the war’s "most crucial" senate supporter. Biden repeated the myth that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, saying that "these weapons must be dislodged from Saddam Hussein, or Saddam Hussein must be dislodged from power."

* Biden voted for the Patriot Act, which in effect he himself wrote
Biden has said "Almost the same thing that got passed, the Patriot Act, was introduced by me in 1994, and it was the right-wing that defeated it..."

* Biden doesn't support Roe v. Wade
When former Vice President Joe Biden was a freshman senator he said in a 1974 interview with Washingtonian that he believed the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade ruling clearing the way for legal first-trimester abortions "went too far," and that he didn’t "think that a woman has the sole right to say what should happen to her body."...At one time Biden advocated banning all federal funding for abortion services and research. While his more recent statements on this subject moderate his views, it cannot be said that he defends the right to choose for oneself very strongly..."It's going to be very difficult," Biden said. "I do not view abortion as a choice and a right. I think it's always a tragedy, and I think that it should be rare and safe, and I think we should be focusing on how to limit the number of abortions. There ought to be able to have a common ground and consensus as to do that."

* Biden in the Anita Hill Hearings
Joe Biden and Orrin Hatch oversaw the hearings in which Anita Hill had to defend herself against the exact sort of unfair attacks and assumptions that make most women remain silent when they are harassed, sexually assaulted and raped. Creepy Joe that still says insane things to women, makes weird statements to little girls, and keeps touching women in ways that are cringey.

* Biden routinely lies about his involvement with the civil rights movement
https://shaunking.substack.com/p/2-t...-joe-biden-has

* Biden opposed school integration in the 1970s
In 1973 and 1974, Biden began voting for many of the Senate’s anti-busing bills, claiming that he favored school desegregation, but just objected to "forced busing."

Where I could concisely state the comment I wanted to make I did, where I got lazy I just listed a link.

What do others think of this candidate? Am I wrong to oppose his candidacy? In what way is he the hero of the moment? Is the whole campaign really that he just isn't the other guy? Substantively, Biden has done many things that have destroyed, delayed, and otherwise hampered many lives. Is he really the only choice we now have?

[Xeones]

And Trump is an imminent and major danger to the nation and world as a whole.

[Lenonis]

Election thread is --------------> way.

EDIT -- On topic -- still leagues better than Trump.

[Mekh]

Says a lot about Trump, how me manages to be still worse in spite of this impressive list of Biden's failings. Yup, Vote Blue!

[Louisa Bannon]

This really isn't about Trump (who I also will not vote for), but it IS about Joe Biden. I am asking the discrete question: How is Joe Biden a good candidate? What does he provably stand for that you also support? In what ways does he champion traditional Democratic issues?

My current position is that I can't vote for Biden, and I probably won't.

[Spectral]

Do the democrats realize that nobody actually wants to vote for Joe Biden?

Black Americans sure seemed to want to vote for him in large numbers. They said so in pretty much every poll through the entire process and then went and did exactly that during the primary process. I really don't see how these kinds of "Bernie got cheated" ideas aren't basically just saying "black American votes aren't legitimate".

[Orange Joe]

What an odd slogan: "Vote Blue No Matter Who." Do the democrats realize that nobody actually wants to vote for Joe Biden?

Look.... I'm a bernie supporter, but if what you say were true he wouldn't have won the primary. You don't win a vote because people don't want to vote for you.

[I Push Buttons]

This really isn't about Trump (who I also will not vote for), but it IS about Joe Biden. I am asking the discrete question: How is Joe Biden a good candidate? What does he provably stand for that you also support? In what ways does he champion traditional Democratic issues?

My current position is that I can't vote for Biden, and I probably won't.

So why make this thread?

Do you just want people to pat you on the back and validate your simple minded opinion?

[Draco-Onis]

This really isn't about Trump (who I also will not vote for), but it IS about Joe Biden. I am asking the discrete question: How is Joe Biden a good candidate? What does he provably stand for that you also support? In what ways does he champion traditional Democratic issues?

My current position is that I can't vote for Biden, and I probably won't.

Then you are not progressive to begin with because 4 more years of Trump means goint back to the 1820s for this country. He would be infinitely worse as a second term president and yes this is all about Trump.

[Felya]

Biden wins the primary vote, OP reacts asking democrats if they realize no one will vote for Biden. How is this a thing?

[Low Hanging Fruit]

Vote blue no matter who for sure. Joe isn't the person I wanted for team blue. But he is running against the person I most certainly do not want, at all.

[Machismo]

Biden wins the primary vote, OP reacts asking democrats if they realize no one will vote for Biden. How is this a thing?

If nobody wants to vote for Biden, then why did he get more votes than Sanders?

Methinks the OP didn't to the maths on the primaries.

[Low Hanging Fruit]

But this is a good example of why liberalism usually never finds a proper footing in my home land of the USA. They are absolutist here. You can have a list of 3000 things and you go one by one agreeing on EVERYTHING until up to 2999 and then you land on 3000 and merely disagree, even if it is slightly, and you become a traitor to the cause and need to be purged. This goes on though every candidate and voter until half the dumb asses end up voting for people that they disagree with 2999 things out of the 3000 just to prove a point. The funny thing is these people act like they are the educated higher society types to top it off.

[Rozz]

Move the conversation to the mega-thread.