If you don’t think it’s an idiotic thing to say, you’re an idiot.

“If something extremely complex and time consuming isn’t already 100% done to my satisfaction, nothing has been done.”

Do you know that some things take time? Do you know that progress isn’t instantaneous? What are you, a literal baby who has no concept of the passage of time?

Those are Israeli jets dropping Israeli bombs being piloted by Israeli pilots. When you sell someone something it becomes theirs, they are free to use it as they see fit, especially in the case of another country with its own military following its own laws.

The US definitely shouldn’t have been selling Israel weapons for decades, let alone giving Israel money it can use to buy weapons (although it’s more of a gift to US defense contractors than it is a gift to Israel). But, once the weapons are in Israel’s hands, they’re Israel’s weapons.

Of course Biden could do more, but he’s part of a political class that deeply believes in helping Israel. Mitt Romney would have been the same, same with Hillary Clinton and her husband, same with Obama, same with both Bushes, junior and senior. Trump isn’t part of that political class… but his stance would be “nuke Palestine” and/or “what’s in it for me, personally?”

if Biden wanted to he could call up Netanyahu and end the genocide almost immediately

He could call him up and tell him the US was cutting off support, but that wouldn’t end it immediately. It would also be a major cost to him politically, because a lot of democratic donors are rich jews who believe in the Zionist project. But, he’s probably not even making that kind of a political calculation, he’s probably just doing it because he strongly believes in helping Israel.

It sucks, but there are 2 dominant political parties in the US, and one wants to help Israel because it thinks Israel is the only real democracy in the middle east, so no matter what it does, it’s not as bad as the nearby arab states. The other party thinks that the rapture is about to happen and that there needs to be a holy war in the middle east before all the non-evangelicals get wiped out and Jesus comes back to take the righteous to heaven – oh, and it’s a good place to sell weapons and generate big profits.

Yeah, moving somewhere else isn’t an option, but pow pow bang bang shooty shooty sure is!

Exactly how a gun nut would think.

And the key to getting to a reasonable society is for everybody to wear guns.

You love it? You don’t look at this and think “This can’t possibly be how a reasonable society works”?

You say the problem is being worked on in these things take time for multiple things. In other words, Biden has not done anything on these fronts

What an idiotic thing to say.

Biden is milk toast at best

You should look up that expression because you’re misusing it.

That may be, but he’s better at hiding it than Hillary. She seemed to always be making it clear that it was her turn. That message came across much more strongly than anything else.

Yes, I really think a major reason that the US is failing is the lack of an equivalent to Australia’s ABC, Britain’s BBC, Canada’s CBC, all the way to (I wish this were true) New Zealand’s ZBC.

Those public broadcasters anchor the news reporting space. Many people think they’re biased, and it’s probably true that they aren’t 100% neutral, and definitely have an institutional bias. But, the kinds of people who work for those public broadcasters really believe in their mission to tell the truth. Normal news consumers still end up in filter bubbles, but it’s really easy to pop out of those filter bubbles for a second and check out the public broadcaster. In the US, even the supposedly centrist for-profit broadcasters are heavily biased because they need to make money. The bias isn’t necessarily left or right, but it’s in favor of whatever’s sensationalist and will keep people glued to their TVs.

Student loans have not been canceled

Some have.

Non-Competes are still in effect

https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2024/04/ftc-announces-rule-banning-noncompetes

Landlords are still price fixing and rent is still out of control

The problem is being worked on, the solution wasn’t instantaneous.

Amazon, Google and apple nor any other large companies have been broken up with antitrust

Not yet, these things take time. The final antitrust case against AT&T lasted 8 years, and it was only one of many. The antitrust case against IBM lasted almost 13 years.

Despite giving the IRS funding, the rich are still not paying taxes

Again, these things take time.

I don’t know if you’ve been to America or met most Americans, but most of us are really struggling.

So… something that has been happening since at least the Reagan years wasn’t turned around in 4, so Biden’s doing a bad job?

Because:

1. That’s something Israel is doing, not something the US is doing. As usual, the US is helping / shielding Israel, and that’s a problem, but that’s not the same as being directly responsible for it.
2. If Trump were in charge, it would only be worse. He’d be encouraging Israel to nuke Gaza.

• $35 cap on Insulin
• Student loan cancellations
• Restoring net neutrality
• Banning non-compete agreements
• Pardoned people convicted for simple marijuana possession convictions
• Funding important infrastructure projects
• Banning abusive and junky bank fees
• Going after landlords who are price fixing
• Minimum 15% tax on corporations, who otherwise use every trick in the book to hide their profits in tax shelters overseas
• Rejoined the Paris Accord
• Antitrust actions against Amazon, Google, Apple, various airlines, book publishers, even meat packers
• Blocking mergers that would reduce competition, like Krogers acquiring Albertsons
• Reducing fees real estate agents collect for home sales
• Requiring airlines to refund passengers for delayed or canceled flights
• Automatically recognizing a union when a corporation interferes with a union vote
• Massive climate wins in the Inflation Reduction act
• Giving IRS funding so it can go after the rich tax cheats, instead of just the poor people who make small errors
• Allowing Medicare to actually negotiate drug prices, instead of being forced to accept whatever the drug companies decide

And, this is despite a senate where Sinema and Manchin supposely give democrats a razor slim majority, but in reality they block almost everything. And, despite a congress that is currently republican controlled and block even the things their constituents want because they don’t want to let Biden have a win.

In what way (other than Gaza) is he not doing a good job?

It’s more like it’s in a coma right now. It’s not responding to stimulus, but there are signs of life. Theoretically if democrats win decisively, the Republican party could be forced to move to the center to become electable again.

But, if the Republicans win, it could be the end of democracy in the US. The Republicans know the odds of their winning another free and fair election are near zero, so their best bet to stay in power is to make sure they don’t have to face any more free and fair elections.

Despite all the chaos, despite the Republicans attempting to kill the democratic process, the Biden administration has actually managed quite a few meaningful and positive things. He’s not a very inspiring option as “leader of the free world”, but as someone who sits at the head of the table and delegates things out, his record is pretty good. But, it’s pretty damning that the system has Americans choosing between a criminal fascist, and an old man who probably won’t last 4 years.

They don’t really care too much about their base. It’s really their donors and themselves that they care about. The donors and the important people in the democratic party are very rich, so a Trump dictatorship would merely be an inconvenience and embarrassment to them. If it really got bad they’d move to another country and try to gain support as the legitimate government in exile.

I’m actually surprised we haven’t heard Trump talking about nuking Gaza yet.

In a first-past-the-post system, an independent only ends up stealing votes from the mainstream candidate that’s closest to their position. He’d undermine the Democratic candidate, making a Republican win more likely. He’s smart enough not to want to do that.

I agree, but I wish there were some way to ensure that voters were making an informed choice.

In the case of Bobby Sands, I assume they were. That was a high profile case. It’s even vaguely possible to make the case that he was a political prisoner.

But, almost daily I see interviews with Trump voters who seem to have lost their connection with reality. And, it’s not even a wrong but consistent worldview. It’s just a bunch of incoherent conspiracy theories that fall apart under the most gentle questioning. Unfortunately, there’s probably no way to restrict voting to only sane and well informed voters, because any restriction you put in place could be abused.

Probably not.

The army wouldn’t go along with it. Even in countries with dictators, they need to purge the army before they try anything too radical. And, often, the generals retain a lot of power.

Especially given that prosecutions are often racially biased, and sometimes politically biased.

If an opponent with a criminal record can’t run, you incentivize an immoral president to have their political opponents charged with anything they can think of.

OTOH, the American electorate is filled with idiots. You would hope that people would see through a purely political conviction and not let that stop them. But, the reality is probably the opposite, a serial killer who ate his victims could run, and if the party got behind that candidate, half the electorate would not know he was a serial killer, or they’d vote for him anyhow, or they’d think his conviction was just a psy-op and his victims were crisis actors.