• Tar_Alcaran
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    11 months ago

    Didn’t Obama try to come up with a healthcare solution that was undermined by conservatives? Which Trump tried to neuter as hard as possible?

    Didn’t Biden try to forgive student loans, which conservatives kept stopping?

    I feel the “both sides are doing it” argument isn’t entirely true.

    • Jonna@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      You’re absolutely right that there IS a difference between the two parties.

      But Obama’s healthcare plan was a rebrand of a Heritage foundation (conservative) plan that had been enacted at the state level by Romney in Massachusetts, and the most progressive part (the Medicaid expansion) was a last minute compromise to make the plan CHEAPER because the majority of the plan is a tax payer subsidized government enforced insurance monopoly. It hasn’t ended medical bankruptcies and it doesn’t cover everyone.

      Biden is actually better than I expected, while he gave in to the antics of Sinema and Manchin a little too easily and he’s still drilling oil and gas, the “Inflation Reduction Act” is the best climate and infrastructure legislation we’ve had, just 20 years late and still too little. Meanwhile he lets the courts roll him on student loans, on reproductive rights, etc.

      So yeah, the Democrats are better than the Republicans but they still SUCK.

      Since Eugene McCarthy in the early 70s to Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow Coalition, and recently Bernie, working inside the Democrats has not worked. But obviously neither has working outside. We need to keep trying, and I wish I had a better answer. But we need to do better than the Democrats.

    • Alph4d0g@discuss.tchncs.de
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      11 months ago

      With respect, it looked like a “try” in many cases but consider his decades in politics and knowing likely outcomes of any given proposal. Then consider his best of the best, Ivy League-educated cabinet, advising him on every chess move. If you don’t look at both sides, you might find yourself in a disingenuous ruse.

      I tried but what could I do?
      How could I have known Joe Manshun would say no?
      We didn’t have a filibuster proof majority (which we could have eliminated with a simple rule change like we did with the debt ceiling- but oddly didn’t for infrastructure).
      Oh those legal challenges came out of left field and our best and brightest from Harvard never saw it coming.
      I co-authored the bankruptcy bill that exempted student debt when I was a Senator but now my intentions are different. Student debtors, I’m on your side now. Don’t you see?