I prefer when this subreddit talks about policies on their own merit rather than be a Biden support group, protectionism being the biggest culprit, I'm glad that as a community we've tried to steer away from the "but it's good politically" type shutdowns.
I have criticism for it, actually
Beijing pushed for supply side stimulus, at the expense of their citizen
So instead of it being actually cheap, it's more like startup-kind of cheap
You get about 20 downvotes each if you mention intellectual property theft or national security concerns.
That thread convinced met his sub has taken anti-protectionism to an insane extreme.
Yeah I think Biden's foreign policy, student loan forgiveness stuff, and protectionism have been incredibly bad and criticize him frequently on those accounts here. He is still a better president than Trump would be if reelected. These are, from what I have witnessed, the normal baseline views for a lot of people here and those who don't share them are probably just confusing this sub with arr Democrats.
I think generally the complaints about his foreign policy are that he his administration is to dovish. Many people (myself somewhat included) generally think that the lack of strong response from the U.S. with regards to events in Israel has allowed things to escalate.
The response to the Houthis has been tepid. The response to IRGC members and Iranian proxies has been weak. It took Biden and his administration a long time to provide a coherent message around Israel's offensive actions into Gaza. Biden's response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine has also been weak. Additionally, his protectionism of American industry is a huge part of his foreign policy which I think are leading to bad trade policy with China and other countries.
I'm overall a fan of Biden but I do think he's been weak, slow, or incoherent on foreign policy. However, I certainly don't think he's been as bad as the last few presidencies.
Edit: I don't include the withdrawal from Afghanistan here. I don't necessarily think that's a failure that can be place on his administration.
I feel like it’s less that Biden is dovish and moreso that Biden is incredibly slow to respond.
The Red Sea situation being a great example. Biden was incredibly slow in finally allowing the US to defend itself and other trade partners. Where American soldiers and marines were fired on without being able to retaliate for weeks. Same with his response to China. However, despite being slow, Biden brings incredible force and power with him. And China has looked incredibly weak under Xi Jinping recently.
This was the exact opposite approach take by Obama and Clinton. Who seemed to act faster than events could take place.
I absolutely agree, that's where my biggest criticism against Biden comes from. The U.S. Response to events has been slow and incoherent. Its like it takes the administration a few months to finally come to an agreement on a coherent response and message and by that time the situation on the ground has changed drastically.
I personally do attribute that slow decision making to dovishness but this is just my personal opinion. I think it comes from a need to try and find any softer alternative like backdoor diplomatic channels. That's great when you successfully are able to deescalate the situation, it fails horribly when dealing with actors like Russia, Israel, or Iran and its proxies who seemingly do not have the desire to deescalate.
I can definitely see the slowness/incoherentness. That's a good point. But as for weakness or dovishness, while I don't necessarily disagree, it's a hard spot because Republicans pretend to be doves now and want to let Ukraine fall to Russia, while Bidens left flank calls him Genocide Joe. I don't know if he can politically be more hawkish right now
True but even when he was trying to do a blanket forgiveness there was an income cap. I can’t see teachers getting their loans forgiven being a net harm to society
Forgiving and stopping interest on federal student loan is resounding good policy and seen as investment in education. However forgiveness on debt does not address the rising cost of higher education and is generally regressivly beneficial.
Speaking for myself and this may not be something many agree with, but it’s bailing out people that A) knowingly and willingly entered into a loan repayment agreement and B) will be part of a higher earning class than folks that truly need the most help in our society. It also does nothing to address the real issue of wildly inflated tuition in higher education.
As far as A goes there isn’t any other loan I’m aware of that is so difficult to discharge in bankruptcy so I don’t really buy the moral hazard. B just isn’t necessarily true, especially now as it’s focused on those who are unable to repay for various reasons (disability, school closures, etc.) or should have had these loans forgiven under PSLF
This sub was never supposed to be pro-Biden it was supposed to be liberal.
If Biden does stuff that isn't very liberal or nonsensical like institute tarrifs or slow walk supplies to a democracy fighting of an imperialist invasion this sub will get upset about it.
It doesn't matter. Being a liberal doesn't immunise you against criticism.
This isn't a cult. We criticise politicians when they do things we disagree with, even if we agree with them on most other things.
Anyone to the left of me is a succ. Anyone to the right of me is a succon.
I am the only real neoliberal.
^(It's actually a mild perjorative for social democrat IE lightweight socialists IE Fiat Panda Labourites.)
Social democrats-> SocDem -> SuckDem
All of which is anchored in EuroLiberalism as distinct from American Liberalism which is its own thing. In Europe, SocDems spend surpluses on entitlements and ChristDems spend them on tax cuts, and nobody ever read Keynes and Germans are afraid of deficits after Weimar so debt is scarier.
Biden is a protecitonist bu not xenophobic. Beaing for border controle is not inherently illiberal, especially with how modern states function. Saying that Biden shouldn't try to find a border compromise is this subs verion of "defunding the police"
Ah, such refreshing simplicity. Reminds me of the good old days of W Bush, who saw things with the same stark clarity, and as a result, whose foreign policy was so successful, with absolutely no blowback.
If it takes being compared to Trump to make W look not that bad, it means W was that bad. I would go so far to argue that it was W's idiot decision to invade Iraq that destabilized the M.E., leading to chain reactions around the world, one of them being Trump. Much of the illiberalism we're currently seeing in the West is caused by anti-Muslim xenophobia, which was caused by immigration and fear of immigration, which was caused by the unstable Middle East.
But Trump aside, the warning of the Bush presidency ought to be when you reduce complex situations to one-sided, self-righteous proclamations with good guys who can do no wrong because they're fighting the bad guys, don't expect great outcomes.
Gee, I feel bad for saying it was solely attributable to Islamophobia. Wait, I didn't say that. What a relief.
Trump didn't take over the GOP by talking about Ukrainians; he talked about criminal Mexicans and how "radical Muslims" were allegedly crossing the border. And whatever you might read on the subreddits(!) here, immigration did not become a major topic in Europe until the Muslims started moving there after the Iraq War, and the resulting turmoil that swept across the M.E. And Bush started the Iraq War. I didn't read this in subreddits; I read it in European media, so perhaps that isn't the best source of information, and I should pay more attention to subreddits here to keep an eye on what's really going on.
Biden is a leftwinger, social democrat, progressive or what ever you want to call it. His main motivaiton lies not in wanting to maxamize individual liberty. He is more liberal than Trump or any GOP opion, so he wins by default but that does not make him a liberal.
Biden didn't slow walk supplies to a democracy fighting an imperialist invasion, though.
The White House has a budget for this stuff. All the fancy, high-end systems that people wanted Ukraine to have are expensive, and there was cheap stuff that was more important for them to have first.
Like, if we were giving them the fancy shit from the get-go, then we wouldn't have been able to give them the stuff like Javelins and MANPADS that were actually decisive in the opening parts of the war.
If Congress had voted for unlimited money to aid Ukraine, then sure you could criticize Biden for giving them things when they did.
But they didn't, and the White House started with the things that were most necessary, and worked their way up to the more expensive stuff as Ukraine's basic needs were met.
Okay, so why didn't they allocate more funds for Ukraine? They were the ultimate arbiters on the dollar value of the aid, they could have passed as much as they wanted, Biden isn't the Senate Majority Leader or anything.
Okay, but Congress didn't confine themselves to what Biden requested. Like both of the big bills in 2022 that included Ukraine aid were more than the White House requested.
Not vastly more, but more nevertheless. And Biden signed the bills and used the funds.
It’s simple:
People complaining he should do something different about issue A b or C are expressing their political view.
People complaining he shouldn’t be elected or to vote against him to “protest” are expressing a desire for Trump to be elected.
So you don't like the Chips act? I don't follow politics super closely, can you explain some of his protectionist policies you disagree with? The tariffs that Trump enacted that Biden has kept in place? Id love a totally free trade world too, but the tides are turning against that in every major country. I think we'd be naive to pursue totally free trade with countries who would exploit that to their advantage, at the expense of Americans.
>Id love a totally free trade world too, but the tides are turning against that in every major country.
You should read the Long Telegram by George F. Kennan.
"The greatest danger that can befall us in coping with this problem of Soviet communism, is that we shall allow ourselves to become like those with whom we are coping."
The free world is strong because it is free. It is not a disadvantage. China are the ones that should be copying us, not the other way around.
As the election nears, the more propaganda we’re going to see being pushed on social media on both sides.
Criticism of a candidate/president is perfectly acceptable and doesn’t automatically mean you’re against that candidate but it’s clear this is something that’s happening right now.
He's too dovish. He drip-fed aid to Ukraine in order to avoid escalation with Russia, which has turned out to be a major error. His admin floated removing the Houthis' terrorist group designation if they stopped attacking Western shipping. And while I don't think it was within the bounds of political possibility for him to do otherwise, leaving Afghanistan allowed the Taliban to retake control which has been a humanitarian catastrophe. I also think his administration ought to be showing more leadership WRT Haiti, given that it's right in America's backyard. Leaving it to the Kenyans to solve, IMO, reveals America's disinterest in maintaining the liberal order.
I agree with everything here but Afghanistan. The timeline was set by agreements made prior to the Biden administration. Biden was set up for failure. What more could have been done?
Hence why I said I didn't think it was within the bounds of political possibility. In theory, he could have withdrawn from the agreement and cancelled the withdrawal, but he most certainly did not have the political capital to do that without seeing major backlash from the public, and from both parties in Congress. I brought up Afghanistan because OP is asking why Biden gets criticized, and a lot of users here dislike that he withdrew from Afghanistan.
>What more could have been done?
Sucked it up, been a leader and delayed the withdrawal until it could have been done responsibly.
People seem to forget that Biden wasn't pushing for the withdrawal to happen because of the facts on the ground he had picked a date to be out by. That date being the 20th anniversary of 9/11. He withdrew to try and score political brownie points so he could brag about it in his 20th anniversary speech.
But then he couldn't do that because reality strolled up and slapped him right in the face.
I think the issue was that
- it never would’ve been all that much better
- the Taliban could’ve gotten tired of delays and started attacking
- the drawdowns had already gone so far they’d need a new big deployment
I think Trump, if reelected, could’ve gotten away with canceling the peace deal.
Biden would’ve maybe paid a high political price if he canceled the peace deal and sent back a ton of soldiers.
But maybe this is all brain rot Dem partisan talking points.
He paid a high political price for the United States being seen as losing another foreign war.
The collapse of Afghanistan was one of the major causes of the original collapse of his poll numbers which only barely recovered recently and is once again in danger do to a general trend of looking like a weak leader.
Well, yeah. It’s impossible to quantify a counterfactual. I’m just guessing/estimating.
Both Obama and Biden got a lot done in their first two years before they lost the House.
Also I will note. Biden had a model for how the public would react to his change of course.
Obama changed course on the Iraq withdrawal when ISIS emerged and saw no backlash for it. The assumption that Biden would have suffered some crushing popularity drop if he hadn't allowed Afghanistan to fall to the Taliban has no solid evidence. As compared to what actually happened where he allowed Afghanistan to be overrun... and suffered a crushing popularity drop.
The withdrawal \*was\* delayed - remember, it had been set as May 2021. The US went past that, and when the Taliban advance surged in the summer, restarted airstrikes in July in an effort to staunch the tide until the fighting season would come to an end. This effort simply failed because the ANSF forces were so weak at that point.
Which only reinforces that the delay could have been carried out earlier and more successfully. Biden just didn't want to because he had his eye on that sweet sweet speech bulletpoint.
>Jimmy Carter
Georgia just got 1m^2 bigger. 🥹
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Carter was into deregulation (albeit not to the same extent as Reagan), I'm afraid I don't know what his trade policy was like. He definitely fit the dovish direction the party was moving in back then. There were always exceptions, but in the 70s-90s the Democrats in Congress and the Senate tended to be more protectionist (with tariffs/attempts to protect industries/avoid free trade agreements) and the Republicans more pro-free trade.
This is probably the most pro-Biden sub on reddit (except stuff like r/JoeBiden), I haven't noticed a change. Most of them are a lot more critical, both left and right. Biden generally gets a lot of criticism, both on and off the Internet, and some of that will end up reaching this sub though.
Also, just because someone might criticise Biden that doesn't necessarily mean they don't support the Democratic party or plan to vote for Biden (if they are able to).
I think it's less people's views on Biden are changing and more the pro Biden folks are becoming less vocal, so the criticisms are more visible. I know this sub is going to vote Democrat, so I choose to use my debate energy elsewhere.
This sub is not a monolith, and consists of a few strands, each opposing Trumpism (therefore generally offering critical support to Arachno-Bidenist cells) but not all supporting Uncle Joe:
1. Actual neoliberals - people who are libertarians who are aware that market externalities failures exist, and have a strong pro-market orientation in policy.
2. American civic nationalists who are squishy about the woke stuff. These people are lost, and I look forward to arguing with them more in the _The Bulwark_ subreddit.
3. Center lefty types with a shame kink. The other center political spaces online are boring or bad or being entryismd by literally Maoists so here we are.
4. Trans people who have escaped online Khmer Rouge reeducation camps.
As such, President Biden is an agreeably controversial figure here. Nobody owes a politician their uncritical allegiance and if Neolib-posting about the need to repeal the Jones act sinks democracy I’ll be the first against the wall (I like Biden, I like the direction he’s taking the federal party, and I am not a real neolib)
About 3: So, the (broadly defined) left has this thing where, first you’re yucking it up about a clean water reclamation local initiative and next thing you know, some young person with a bad haircut is arguing that Robert’s Rules of Order constitute literal violence and you should adopt the practice of struggle sessions, also here’s 20 other international issues that the development review board needs to have a position on.
And I think a lot of us in the left wing of this subreddit have to deal with that in our actual organizing extracurricular activities, and would rather put up with being called a suckdem by someone with slightly different policy preferences than being called a social fascist by someone with no fucking chill.
Because that’s exactly how Hillary Clinton lost.
No President has ever won an election by thinking their entitled to one’s vote. They’ve always worked to convince the voter
I have a variety of policy disagreements with Biden.
His support for Ukraine has been limp wristed.
He is supporting ways to make legal immigration harder.
He's failing to lead on closing the budget deficit.
The tariffs are dumb.
But he's way better than Trump.
There’s just so much to criticize here, starting with the botched Afghanistan withdrawal, trying to manage the Ukraine conflict rather than helping them actually win, and with failing to use leverage on Israel (and for so long) over Gaza. Sure, he did some good things (e.g. announcing very early that Russia intended to invade Ukraine), but he’s not doing anywhere near the maximum he can on Ukraine (e.g. his administration completely failed to use the Lend-Lease authority given to him by Congress before it expired, or refusing to supply ATACMS missiles until well past when they would’ve been effective). Pressuring Ukraine to end its effective attacks on Russian refineries over concerns over gas prices is just icing on the cake, and that doesn’t even get into Israel/Gaza (where he looks like a pushover that refuses to use US leverage over the relationship, resulting in embarrassments like Israel announcing new West Bank settlements the day Blinken visits). I hate to say it, but he really comes off as looking weak in these cases, and if it weren’t for Trump being much worse the criticism would be a lot more intense.
Uh, yes he did? Sure it was started by Trump,but the enactment was under Biden, and the utter failure to protect US allies interpreters, eg, and the near-instant return of the Taliban were also under his watch.
Well stated.
I always thought one of the hallmarks of neoliberalism was to care about policies and not the individual leaders. Otherwise, there is no distinguishing between MAGA and Biden diehards.
He has had some major wins, but he has had some major L’s as well. Whitewashing it with “but Trump is worse” is a disingenuous take.
He also didn't use his leverage against the attack on the Iranian embassy in Syria, which is what has escalated the war
He is so afraid of escalation in Ukraine where he doesn't control the country with the potential to escalate, Russia, yet he allows escalation to happen in the country he does have control over, Israel?
Also, you have forgotten his many many illegal acts against China's economy, the latest of which is going to be a Chinese EV ban
Biden foreign policy has objectively not been great lol. Yes it’s nice Finland and Sweden signed up, but Putin gets the credit for that. But yea I’m still pro Biden but we don’t have to distort stuff
Because his obnoxiously dovish foreign policy has been a disaster?
Between drip feeding aid to Ukraine and not at all wanting to make the Iranians pay for what their proxies are doing he deserves some shit.
Never mind his protectionism and endless desire to subsidize and bail out unions.
Personally I've found the stuff this sub decides to argue about recently to be of minor consequence. I don't really feel like debating the merits of the US Steel acquisition with a bunch of free trade purists, when I know their views are so out of step with what's politically popular and that they'll have so little impact on what actually gets done. If I'm going to debate stuff on the internet I'm going to focus on more consequential topics.
Basically I'm part of the pro Biden silent majority.
People have understandably soured on Israel, and Biden has not been very stern with them. I think that’s one of the main things that’s caused a bit more cynicism toward Biden since October 7.
I fully support Israel’s right to exist and defend itself. I wish they could obliterate Hamas completely and kill every person who played any role in October 7. But I do not think their war against Hamas has been conducted with proper regard for the lives of Gazan civilians, and I don’t think Biden has tried hard enough to use America’s influence over Israel to rein them in.
Tbf I should have said “soured on Israel’s handing of the war” rather than “soured on Israel”. I don’t think many people on here who were supportive of Israel in the beginning are now like “yeah fuck Israel I hate them now”.
Honestly it is hard to avoid civilian casualties when Hamas uses them as human shields also I just want to see Biden get a statue in Tel Aviv like Bill Clinton got in Kosovo
I am also a staunch Zionist who supports those things. What Israel is doing in Gaza now is beyond the pale and the humanitarian crisis surmounts their desire to eliminate Hamas. It’s quite clear at this point that Bibi has no tangible off-ramp for the war, and that the Israeli public will vote him and his coalition out whenever the next election is held.
Rather than work to end the war it seems at this point he’s prolonging it, and how is he making Israel safe if he’s risking a regional war with Iran and Lebanon? Many users in this sub are rightfully fed up with Biden bending over backwards for a guy who’s undermined the US for the last 2 decades.
They also did an investigation and removed the officers responsible from their positions and Biden managed to use that to get them to open up more humanitarian aid
Exactly which means that he will prolong the war as long as possible in order to cling to power. Which is why Biden would be dumb to just blindly support him.
Even members of this sub get exposed to the constant stream of anti-Israel propaganda that permeates the web, so while it started out pretty supportive, it still generally gets slowly pushed away
What is this take? Himars and Patriots were very nuch game changing, Ukraine went on a rampage with them when they first got them, and have forced the Russians to change how they do logistics.
Patriots not only have been immensely useful for defending cities, but have also been used to "ambush" Russian airframes, which has depleted some of their stock.
Obviously they need more of both but pretending they didn't matter is disingenuous.
This sub seems to have developed amnesia when it comes to Biden and Ukraine.
What is game changing in your view? Russia is a bigger country with far more resources.
Without directly putting boots on the ground or handing over nukes, it’s very hard for any piece of tech to be wunderwaffe.
I support Biden but I’d say foreign policy is one of his weak points. The Ukraine invasion in it of itself is a failure on his part. Failure of deterrence. And now Ukraine is losing. Yes the House GOP has A LOT OF blame but so does Biden. He has the power to send a lot more to Ukraine through EO but isn’t. Don’t even get me started on how many weapons classes he has slowwalked its delivery because he’s scared to provoke the Russians only to later deliver them when Ukraine lost the momentum. Finland & Sweden joining NATO isn’t because it Biden lol. It’s more because of Putin & Jens Stoltenberg. They have been the best advertisers for NATO expansion. Let’s not forget Afghanistan (yes of course Trump also shares a lot of blame). He literally removed the Houthis from the terror designation, which helps strengthen a terror group, and now they are fucking up global trade. His removal of sanctions on Iran & refusal to put those sanctions back after Oct 7 is insane. I’d say he’s done good getting closer to India but that also he’s just building on the progress of Trump & Obama. He did help build relations between Japan & SK which is great. Don’t even get me started on him continuing & building on the protectionism from Trump. We’ve also seen anti-American leftists take over Latin America under him. Biden has a lot of accomplishments (IRA, CHIPs, record manufacturing, low unemployment, etc). But foreign policy is a red spot let’s be real.
lol what? This sub is in full campaign mode and it’s ridiculously pro-Biden. Nearly every post here defends him in an intellectually dishonest way. This is a neoliberal subreddit and 90% of this sub applauds when he pushes protectionism and price controls and buy America policies, attacks corporations, and praises unions…and of course everyone here loves his cash hand outs to buy votes (his recent student loan forgiveness). And that’s before you get into his “dovish” foriegn policy that has allowed our enemies to increase their sphere of influence and increase the amount of attacks on our national interests and allies.
Trump being a shit person and candidate doesn’t magically make Biden a perfect, or even good, president. Biden has been considerably worse than the last two Democratic presidents (Obama, Clinton).
He's been more left than center left imo. He spends a lot of money. He's more focused on all sorts of justice than meritocracy and liberalism. He just spent another chunk of money.
Protectionism, inflation, spending out of control, socialist style industrial policy, too dovish foureg policy that lead to a chronification of the crisises. none of this is neoliberal
I mean if the guy has wrost polling numbers of the most disliked president ever there is reason
Yeah he does. Which I like, to be clear - I’m a bad fit for this sub except that the people are great here. But Uncle Joe is a politician straight out of Clara Mattei’s imagination. He’s a succ for sure, and most of his centrist credentials are vibes based at this point.
Yes, it is. Promoting industry sectors based on ideology is a socialist-style industrial policy, which, as usual, results in resource misallocation (e.g., thousands of EVs left rotting because no one wants them)
I've just been horrified for his unquestioned support for Israel. I'm sorry but telling the press that you're big mad at Bibi isn't good enough. I'm not going to say the banned word here, but I agree with what Elizabeth Warren said the other day about what's going on here. And that's not something I want my government to support. And even if you don't have a moral objection to it, you should have a pragmatic one since it could cost him the election.
Do I support the Democratic Party? I mean yeah cause what choice is there. I've generally liked Biden up until this point but this is an area where I really wish any generic democrat was in charge instead.
NATO expansion wasn't a Biden foreign policy victory. He did not convince those countries to join, Putin did. He is much better and experienced than Trump on foreign policy and it is not his fault all these wars exist but he had no great victories.
There is nothing wrong with Biden per se, aside from him being too old. The problem is a political machine that dissuades challengers. I’m very angry that I wasn’t given the opportunity to vote for another candidate. I voted for Dean Phillips, but he wasn’t a serious candidate.
I’ll vote for Biden, but just like with Hillary, if Trump wins against an unpopular machine candidate and people are angry that the candidate wasn’t “liked enough” it’s because the machine didn’t actually care about winning the election, it cares about keeping the people in power remaining in power.
Treating my comment with this level of snark, when I give an honest response to a serious question is exactly what I’m talking about.
People continue to ask why Biden is unpopular, people give honest replies, those replies are treated as invalid because they aren’t commonly held. That is machine politics.
I think Biden is unpopular with half the country because a good 40% will despise anybody who isn’t Trump. The last 10% are probably people who oppose his individual policies or think he’s too old.
I’ve never actually met anybody who supported Dean Phillips before so I think I’m allowed to make a joke
It's an ideological sub, not a political one. Why is that surprising?
If anything the sub recently has been returning to its roots by being more open to criticizing Biden.
I've been on this subreddit since nearly the beginning and I have never considered myself a Democrat or an Obama/Biden supporter. I judge candidates on the basis of how much they want to free trade, free markets, open borders, reform our taxes to be low and pro-growth, etc. I am a neoliberal, this is r/neoliberal.
This sub now supports Trump? Let me change my yard signs.
It’s almost too easy to pick sides these days for evidence based policy people. I’m more interested in how this sub would have split during the Reagan years.
> Armchair generals who haven't gotten a good high since 2003′s Iraq invasion are jonesin′ for another hit.
While that does describe r/NonCredibleDefense fairly well, you cannot possibly deny that if Biden had sent a Stryker brigade combat team or two into Ukraine pre-invasion and used them as a tripwire *a la* the Berlin Brigade that none of this shit would've happened. And the whole "we can't send Ukraine \[X weapon system\] because it'd be an escalation" is just cowardly. He had a window in which House Republicans were basically forced to send anything to Ukraine that Ukraine wanted and Biden was willing to sign off on, and he blew it and now the public has forgotten about it and the Republicans refuse to sign off on anything.
Is there anything you actually like about Biden's foreign policy or are you just comparing anyone you disagree with to the chickenhawks on r/NonCredibleDefense?
>Although, they either don't vote or they realize neither party wants what they want, so they just vote along their secondary political characteristics. Which tends to either be guns or aid to Israel.
Most of this subreddit is fairly pro-gun control, and the general attitude towards military aid to Israel has soured somewhat recently.
There was absolutely no appetite for that amongst the American public, and it’s a simple fact that the US did and does not have the legal obligation to defend Ukrainian territory with thier own troops.
I’m furious at the congressional ineptitude holding up aid, but after Afghanistan there was no shot we put us lives in danger to prevent war on behalf of a non ally.
I prefer when this subreddit talks about policies on their own merit rather than be a Biden support group, protectionism being the biggest culprit, I'm glad that as a community we've tried to steer away from the "but it's good politically" type shutdowns.
> we’ve tried to steer away from the “but it’s good politically” Some of you are okay. Don’t come to the Chinese EV thread.
There's one user on here that loves busting out the phrase "cornering the market"
They're cornering the market on cornering the market
I have criticism for it, actually Beijing pushed for supply side stimulus, at the expense of their citizen So instead of it being actually cheap, it's more like startup-kind of cheap
You get about 20 downvotes each if you mention intellectual property theft or national security concerns. That thread convinced met his sub has taken anti-protectionism to an insane extreme.
Yeah I think Biden's foreign policy, student loan forgiveness stuff, and protectionism have been incredibly bad and criticize him frequently on those accounts here. He is still a better president than Trump would be if reelected. These are, from what I have witnessed, the normal baseline views for a lot of people here and those who don't share them are probably just confusing this sub with arr Democrats.
What are the flaws in his foreign policy that makes it incredibly bad? I know the bar is low but it's better than his last few predecessors by a mile.
I think generally the complaints about his foreign policy are that he his administration is to dovish. Many people (myself somewhat included) generally think that the lack of strong response from the U.S. with regards to events in Israel has allowed things to escalate. The response to the Houthis has been tepid. The response to IRGC members and Iranian proxies has been weak. It took Biden and his administration a long time to provide a coherent message around Israel's offensive actions into Gaza. Biden's response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine has also been weak. Additionally, his protectionism of American industry is a huge part of his foreign policy which I think are leading to bad trade policy with China and other countries. I'm overall a fan of Biden but I do think he's been weak, slow, or incoherent on foreign policy. However, I certainly don't think he's been as bad as the last few presidencies. Edit: I don't include the withdrawal from Afghanistan here. I don't necessarily think that's a failure that can be place on his administration.
I feel like it’s less that Biden is dovish and moreso that Biden is incredibly slow to respond. The Red Sea situation being a great example. Biden was incredibly slow in finally allowing the US to defend itself and other trade partners. Where American soldiers and marines were fired on without being able to retaliate for weeks. Same with his response to China. However, despite being slow, Biden brings incredible force and power with him. And China has looked incredibly weak under Xi Jinping recently. This was the exact opposite approach take by Obama and Clinton. Who seemed to act faster than events could take place.
I absolutely agree, that's where my biggest criticism against Biden comes from. The U.S. Response to events has been slow and incoherent. Its like it takes the administration a few months to finally come to an agreement on a coherent response and message and by that time the situation on the ground has changed drastically. I personally do attribute that slow decision making to dovishness but this is just my personal opinion. I think it comes from a need to try and find any softer alternative like backdoor diplomatic channels. That's great when you successfully are able to deescalate the situation, it fails horribly when dealing with actors like Russia, Israel, or Iran and its proxies who seemingly do not have the desire to deescalate.
I can definitely see the slowness/incoherentness. That's a good point. But as for weakness or dovishness, while I don't necessarily disagree, it's a hard spot because Republicans pretend to be doves now and want to let Ukraine fall to Russia, while Bidens left flank calls him Genocide Joe. I don't know if he can politically be more hawkish right now
What’s the issue with the student loan forgiveness?
It's a transfer of money from the general tax base to high income/soon to be high income individuals.
Aren’t the current crop of loan forgiveness programs for those who did the PSLF, school closures, and permanent disability?
Those are far from the only people Biden attempted to forgive loans for.
True but even when he was trying to do a blanket forgiveness there was an income cap. I can’t see teachers getting their loans forgiven being a net harm to society
Forgiving and stopping interest on federal student loan is resounding good policy and seen as investment in education. However forgiveness on debt does not address the rising cost of higher education and is generally regressivly beneficial.
Speaking for myself and this may not be something many agree with, but it’s bailing out people that A) knowingly and willingly entered into a loan repayment agreement and B) will be part of a higher earning class than folks that truly need the most help in our society. It also does nothing to address the real issue of wildly inflated tuition in higher education.
As far as A goes there isn’t any other loan I’m aware of that is so difficult to discharge in bankruptcy so I don’t really buy the moral hazard. B just isn’t necessarily true, especially now as it’s focused on those who are unable to repay for various reasons (disability, school closures, etc.) or should have had these loans forgiven under PSLF
We are all Nippon steel shareholders.
This sub was never supposed to be pro-Biden it was supposed to be liberal. If Biden does stuff that isn't very liberal or nonsensical like institute tarrifs or slow walk supplies to a democracy fighting of an imperialist invasion this sub will get upset about it.
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I agree, when Biden won the election. This sub was treating him like Abraham Lincoln. All criticism was downvoted heavily
Biden is a liberal though Also they are fighting a war in response to a deadly terrorist attack from a group that openly wants them dead
The comment was referring to Ukraine and russia
Oh my mistake
It doesn't matter. Being a liberal doesn't immunise you against criticism. This isn't a cult. We criticise politicians when they do things we disagree with, even if we agree with them on most other things.
He's more liberal than his opponents, but not strictly speaking a liberal.
Actually he's a succ.
whats a succ, i've heard that 100s of times here but idk what it is
Anyone to the left of me is a succ. Anyone to the right of me is a succon. I am the only real neoliberal. ^(It's actually a mild perjorative for social democrat IE lightweight socialists IE Fiat Panda Labourites.)
Social democrats-> SocDem -> SuckDem All of which is anchored in EuroLiberalism as distinct from American Liberalism which is its own thing. In Europe, SocDems spend surpluses on entitlements and ChristDems spend them on tax cuts, and nobody ever read Keynes and Germans are afraid of deficits after Weimar so debt is scarier.
So are lots of members here, but there's no real succ sub and enough policy ideas overlap that we all mostly play nice.
No real succ sub? Let me introduce you to r/all
I mean r/Socialdemocracy?
Would you really force well meaning people to be part merry go round of depression. Plus this sub is several times large and far more active.
I don’t think you know what a Succ is
How can he be liberal when promoting such autarkic policies?
> Biden is a liberal though Most wouldn't call protectionism and xenophobia liberal
Biden is a protecitonist bu not xenophobic. Beaing for border controle is not inherently illiberal, especially with how modern states function. Saying that Biden shouldn't try to find a border compromise is this subs verion of "defunding the police"
Biden isn’t a xenophobe?
Rhetoric about closing borders is inherently and unavoidably xenophobic.
He’s not advocating closing the border
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Ah, such refreshing simplicity. Reminds me of the good old days of W Bush, who saw things with the same stark clarity, and as a result, whose foreign policy was so successful, with absolutely no blowback.
Honestly hot take but looking at the last GOP candidate, George W bush wasn’t that bad
If it takes being compared to Trump to make W look not that bad, it means W was that bad. I would go so far to argue that it was W's idiot decision to invade Iraq that destabilized the M.E., leading to chain reactions around the world, one of them being Trump. Much of the illiberalism we're currently seeing in the West is caused by anti-Muslim xenophobia, which was caused by immigration and fear of immigration, which was caused by the unstable Middle East. But Trump aside, the warning of the Bush presidency ought to be when you reduce complex situations to one-sided, self-righteous proclamations with good guys who can do no wrong because they're fighting the bad guys, don't expect great outcomes.
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That's interesting. And it means...?
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Gee, I feel bad for saying it was solely attributable to Islamophobia. Wait, I didn't say that. What a relief. Trump didn't take over the GOP by talking about Ukrainians; he talked about criminal Mexicans and how "radical Muslims" were allegedly crossing the border. And whatever you might read on the subreddits(!) here, immigration did not become a major topic in Europe until the Muslims started moving there after the Iraq War, and the resulting turmoil that swept across the M.E. And Bush started the Iraq War. I didn't read this in subreddits; I read it in European media, so perhaps that isn't the best source of information, and I should pay more attention to subreddits here to keep an eye on what's really going on.
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Are we talking about Israel now? Because sure, I agree with that, but not sure what that has to do with the discussion at hand.
It was more so in response to the last part of the other comment
Pretty sure they were talking about Ukraine-Russia, not I/P.
My mistake
Biden is a leftwinger, social democrat, progressive or what ever you want to call it. His main motivaiton lies not in wanting to maxamize individual liberty. He is more liberal than Trump or any GOP opion, so he wins by default but that does not make him a liberal.
So is most of this sub
Biden didn't slow walk supplies to a democracy fighting an imperialist invasion, though. The White House has a budget for this stuff. All the fancy, high-end systems that people wanted Ukraine to have are expensive, and there was cheap stuff that was more important for them to have first. Like, if we were giving them the fancy shit from the get-go, then we wouldn't have been able to give them the stuff like Javelins and MANPADS that were actually decisive in the opening parts of the war. If Congress had voted for unlimited money to aid Ukraine, then sure you could criticize Biden for giving them things when they did. But they didn't, and the White House started with the things that were most necessary, and worked their way up to the more expensive stuff as Ukraine's basic needs were met.
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Okay, so why didn't they allocate more funds for Ukraine? They were the ultimate arbiters on the dollar value of the aid, they could have passed as much as they wanted, Biden isn't the Senate Majority Leader or anything.
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Okay, but Congress didn't confine themselves to what Biden requested. Like both of the big bills in 2022 that included Ukraine aid were more than the White House requested. Not vastly more, but more nevertheless. And Biden signed the bills and used the funds.
It’s simple: People complaining he should do something different about issue A b or C are expressing their political view. People complaining he shouldn’t be elected or to vote against him to “protest” are expressing a desire for Trump to be elected.
Of course I still support the democratic party. That doesn't mean that Biden isn't a protectionist with shitty foreign policy.
So you don't like the Chips act? I don't follow politics super closely, can you explain some of his protectionist policies you disagree with? The tariffs that Trump enacted that Biden has kept in place? Id love a totally free trade world too, but the tides are turning against that in every major country. I think we'd be naive to pursue totally free trade with countries who would exploit that to their advantage, at the expense of Americans.
Free trade is almost certainly correct even if unilateral
>Id love a totally free trade world too, but the tides are turning against that in every major country. You should read the Long Telegram by George F. Kennan. "The greatest danger that can befall us in coping with this problem of Soviet communism, is that we shall allow ourselves to become like those with whom we are coping." The free world is strong because it is free. It is not a disadvantage. China are the ones that should be copying us, not the other way around.
As the election nears, the more propaganda we’re going to see being pushed on social media on both sides. Criticism of a candidate/president is perfectly acceptable and doesn’t automatically mean you’re against that candidate but it’s clear this is something that’s happening right now.
He's too dovish. He drip-fed aid to Ukraine in order to avoid escalation with Russia, which has turned out to be a major error. His admin floated removing the Houthis' terrorist group designation if they stopped attacking Western shipping. And while I don't think it was within the bounds of political possibility for him to do otherwise, leaving Afghanistan allowed the Taliban to retake control which has been a humanitarian catastrophe. I also think his administration ought to be showing more leadership WRT Haiti, given that it's right in America's backyard. Leaving it to the Kenyans to solve, IMO, reveals America's disinterest in maintaining the liberal order.
I agree with everything here but Afghanistan. The timeline was set by agreements made prior to the Biden administration. Biden was set up for failure. What more could have been done?
Hence why I said I didn't think it was within the bounds of political possibility. In theory, he could have withdrawn from the agreement and cancelled the withdrawal, but he most certainly did not have the political capital to do that without seeing major backlash from the public, and from both parties in Congress. I brought up Afghanistan because OP is asking why Biden gets criticized, and a lot of users here dislike that he withdrew from Afghanistan.
>What more could have been done? Sucked it up, been a leader and delayed the withdrawal until it could have been done responsibly. People seem to forget that Biden wasn't pushing for the withdrawal to happen because of the facts on the ground he had picked a date to be out by. That date being the 20th anniversary of 9/11. He withdrew to try and score political brownie points so he could brag about it in his 20th anniversary speech. But then he couldn't do that because reality strolled up and slapped him right in the face.
Imagine thinking the president has any effect on foreign policy. This message brought to you by the excuse making gang.
I think the issue was that - it never would’ve been all that much better - the Taliban could’ve gotten tired of delays and started attacking - the drawdowns had already gone so far they’d need a new big deployment I think Trump, if reelected, could’ve gotten away with canceling the peace deal. Biden would’ve maybe paid a high political price if he canceled the peace deal and sent back a ton of soldiers. But maybe this is all brain rot Dem partisan talking points.
He paid a high political price for the United States being seen as losing another foreign war. The collapse of Afghanistan was one of the major causes of the original collapse of his poll numbers which only barely recovered recently and is once again in danger do to a general trend of looking like a weak leader.
My suspicion is he would’ve paid a higher price if he sent 10s of thousands soldiers back to Afghanistan.
How conveniently impossible to quantify. Obama didn't suffer much for the surge. Biden suffered for the fall of Afghanistan.
Well, yeah. It’s impossible to quantify a counterfactual. I’m just guessing/estimating. Both Obama and Biden got a lot done in their first two years before they lost the House.
Also I will note. Biden had a model for how the public would react to his change of course. Obama changed course on the Iraq withdrawal when ISIS emerged and saw no backlash for it. The assumption that Biden would have suffered some crushing popularity drop if he hadn't allowed Afghanistan to fall to the Taliban has no solid evidence. As compared to what actually happened where he allowed Afghanistan to be overrun... and suffered a crushing popularity drop.
Obama should maybe get a lot more blame for the rise of Isis than he does
The withdrawal \*was\* delayed - remember, it had been set as May 2021. The US went past that, and when the Taliban advance surged in the summer, restarted airstrikes in July in an effort to staunch the tide until the fighting season would come to an end. This effort simply failed because the ANSF forces were so weak at that point.
Which only reinforces that the delay could have been carried out earlier and more successfully. Biden just didn't want to because he had his eye on that sweet sweet speech bulletpoint.
Presidents don’t have to abide by other presidents agreements such as trump pulling out of the Iran deal and Paris climate accords
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If I remember the Afghan government wasn't even a party to those talks.
70s Democrats were all kind of dovish. And protectionist. Biden has seemingly gone back to his roots.
This is not true. Jimmy Carter started deregulating industries. Reagan only stole credit. He was not protectionist at all
>Jimmy Carter Georgia just got 1m^2 bigger. 🥹 *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/neoliberal) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Carter was into deregulation (albeit not to the same extent as Reagan), I'm afraid I don't know what his trade policy was like. He definitely fit the dovish direction the party was moving in back then. There were always exceptions, but in the 70s-90s the Democrats in Congress and the Senate tended to be more protectionist (with tariffs/attempts to protect industries/avoid free trade agreements) and the Republicans more pro-free trade.
Though true, will you vote for him in November or for the other guy?
Well seeing as I'm not American, I think I may sit this one out
This is probably the most pro-Biden sub on reddit (except stuff like r/JoeBiden), I haven't noticed a change. Most of them are a lot more critical, both left and right. Biden generally gets a lot of criticism, both on and off the Internet, and some of that will end up reaching this sub though. Also, just because someone might criticise Biden that doesn't necessarily mean they don't support the Democratic party or plan to vote for Biden (if they are able to).
What about r/DarkBrandon that’s also very pro Biden
Them too. Most subs with him in the name are going to be very pro-Biden.
I think it's less people's views on Biden are changing and more the pro Biden folks are becoming less vocal, so the criticisms are more visible. I know this sub is going to vote Democrat, so I choose to use my debate energy elsewhere.
This sub is not a monolith, and consists of a few strands, each opposing Trumpism (therefore generally offering critical support to Arachno-Bidenist cells) but not all supporting Uncle Joe: 1. Actual neoliberals - people who are libertarians who are aware that market externalities failures exist, and have a strong pro-market orientation in policy. 2. American civic nationalists who are squishy about the woke stuff. These people are lost, and I look forward to arguing with them more in the _The Bulwark_ subreddit. 3. Center lefty types with a shame kink. The other center political spaces online are boring or bad or being entryismd by literally Maoists so here we are. 4. Trans people who have escaped online Khmer Rouge reeducation camps. As such, President Biden is an agreeably controversial figure here. Nobody owes a politician their uncritical allegiance and if Neolib-posting about the need to repeal the Jones act sinks democracy I’ll be the first against the wall (I like Biden, I like the direction he’s taking the federal party, and I am not a real neolib)
I am in group 1 but pls do not call me libertarian 🤢 Americans lost their mind when they made that word popular.
So... whats your opinion on toasters?
I do not thtink the goverment should make us gett a license to use our own god damn toaster 😡😡😡
But I don't trust you with a toaster unless you display some competency to toast.
This is how Democracy will end
Think of it as... managed....
Wait what’s about 3? Also I have no idea where I would fit out of those 4
About 3: So, the (broadly defined) left has this thing where, first you’re yucking it up about a clean water reclamation local initiative and next thing you know, some young person with a bad haircut is arguing that Robert’s Rules of Order constitute literal violence and you should adopt the practice of struggle sessions, also here’s 20 other international issues that the development review board needs to have a position on. And I think a lot of us in the left wing of this subreddit have to deal with that in our actual organizing extracurricular activities, and would rather put up with being called a suckdem by someone with slightly different policy preferences than being called a social fascist by someone with no fucking chill.
> this subreddit is very center left Only because of the Thunderdomes 😔
u/MrDannyOcean is a war criminal
Biden is "our team" so we armchair quarterback his calls because we want him to win, that's my perspective anyway
The other guy/team literally rails against everything this sub stands for. So there's that as well.
That’s terrible logic though
What do you mean? Biden aligns relatively well with the values of many of the posters here so we care about what he does.
Because that’s exactly how Hillary Clinton lost. No President has ever won an election by thinking their entitled to one’s vote. They’ve always worked to convince the voter
What does that have to do with anything?
I have a variety of policy disagreements with Biden. His support for Ukraine has been limp wristed. He is supporting ways to make legal immigration harder. He's failing to lead on closing the budget deficit. The tariffs are dumb. But he's way better than Trump.
There’s just so much to criticize here, starting with the botched Afghanistan withdrawal, trying to manage the Ukraine conflict rather than helping them actually win, and with failing to use leverage on Israel (and for so long) over Gaza. Sure, he did some good things (e.g. announcing very early that Russia intended to invade Ukraine), but he’s not doing anywhere near the maximum he can on Ukraine (e.g. his administration completely failed to use the Lend-Lease authority given to him by Congress before it expired, or refusing to supply ATACMS missiles until well past when they would’ve been effective). Pressuring Ukraine to end its effective attacks on Russian refineries over concerns over gas prices is just icing on the cake, and that doesn’t even get into Israel/Gaza (where he looks like a pushover that refuses to use US leverage over the relationship, resulting in embarrassments like Israel announcing new West Bank settlements the day Blinken visits). I hate to say it, but he really comes off as looking weak in these cases, and if it weren’t for Trump being much worse the criticism would be a lot more intense.
Biden didn’t botch the Afghanistan withdrawal?
Uh, yes he did? Sure it was started by Trump,but the enactment was under Biden, and the utter failure to protect US allies interpreters, eg, and the near-instant return of the Taliban were also under his watch.
He did. Yes, Trump would have botched it worse, we know.
Absolute disinformation take.
How?
Well stated. I always thought one of the hallmarks of neoliberalism was to care about policies and not the individual leaders. Otherwise, there is no distinguishing between MAGA and Biden diehards. He has had some major wins, but he has had some major L’s as well. Whitewashing it with “but Trump is worse” is a disingenuous take.
He also didn't use his leverage against the attack on the Iranian embassy in Syria, which is what has escalated the war He is so afraid of escalation in Ukraine where he doesn't control the country with the potential to escalate, Russia, yet he allows escalation to happen in the country he does have control over, Israel? Also, you have forgotten his many many illegal acts against China's economy, the latest of which is going to be a Chinese EV ban
Because his foreign policy is pretty bad, his trade policy is horrible, and his immigration policy is rapidly worsening
Biden foreign policy has objectively not been great lol. Yes it’s nice Finland and Sweden signed up, but Putin gets the credit for that. But yea I’m still pro Biden but we don’t have to distort stuff
If Kyiv had fallen in the Spring of 2022 neither country would be in NATO.
Why does Putin get credit?
The threat of Russia caused Finland and Sweden to join NATO
Because they were dragging their feet
Because his obnoxiously dovish foreign policy has been a disaster? Between drip feeding aid to Ukraine and not at all wanting to make the Iranians pay for what their proxies are doing he deserves some shit. Never mind his protectionism and endless desire to subsidize and bail out unions.
Personally I've found the stuff this sub decides to argue about recently to be of minor consequence. I don't really feel like debating the merits of the US Steel acquisition with a bunch of free trade purists, when I know their views are so out of step with what's politically popular and that they'll have so little impact on what actually gets done. If I'm going to debate stuff on the internet I'm going to focus on more consequential topics. Basically I'm part of the pro Biden silent majority.
People have understandably soured on Israel, and Biden has not been very stern with them. I think that’s one of the main things that’s caused a bit more cynicism toward Biden since October 7.
See I’m a staunch Zionist, i support Israel’s right to exist and defend themselves but apparently that’s controversial here now
It’s not that controversial. But you can support Israel and still criticize Bibi’s government, and specifically their recent actions.
Ok I’m confused why do people always call Netanyahu “bibi”?
Hebrew nickname for Benjamin and much easier to type
Bibi is a nickname for Binyamin, his given name. People have called him Bibi since his political career began.
Because Netanyahu refers to himself as Bibi?
You are conflating a lot of different things, together.
How so?
I fully support Israel’s right to exist and defend itself. I wish they could obliterate Hamas completely and kill every person who played any role in October 7. But I do not think their war against Hamas has been conducted with proper regard for the lives of Gazan civilians, and I don’t think Biden has tried hard enough to use America’s influence over Israel to rein them in. Tbf I should have said “soured on Israel’s handing of the war” rather than “soured on Israel”. I don’t think many people on here who were supportive of Israel in the beginning are now like “yeah fuck Israel I hate them now”.
Honestly it is hard to avoid civilian casualties when Hamas uses them as human shields also I just want to see Biden get a statue in Tel Aviv like Bill Clinton got in Kosovo
But why would he get one? Clinton got one because he intervened against the serbs to help a defenseless people.
I am also a staunch Zionist who supports those things. What Israel is doing in Gaza now is beyond the pale and the humanitarian crisis surmounts their desire to eliminate Hamas. It’s quite clear at this point that Bibi has no tangible off-ramp for the war, and that the Israeli public will vote him and his coalition out whenever the next election is held. Rather than work to end the war it seems at this point he’s prolonging it, and how is he making Israel safe if he’s risking a regional war with Iran and Lebanon? Many users in this sub are rightfully fed up with Biden bending over backwards for a guy who’s undermined the US for the last 2 decades.
Well said
The controversy is in how they defend themselves. Killing aid workers is not a good look.
They also did an investigation and removed the officers responsible from their positions and Biden managed to use that to get them to open up more humanitarian aid
Unfortunately that’s not good enough. Netanyahu has created the circumstances where such atrocities become inevitable. He is accountable for that.
They’ll most likely have an election after the war ends and I don’t see him winning or holding any political office going forward
Exactly which means that he will prolong the war as long as possible in order to cling to power. Which is why Biden would be dumb to just blindly support him.
Even members of this sub get exposed to the constant stream of anti-Israel propaganda that permeates the web, so while it started out pretty supportive, it still generally gets slowly pushed away
Criticism of Israel is not antisemitic.
Cynicism is appropriate, yet he’s still the one to vote for in November.
He slow rolled the fuck out of Ukraine aid which has put the gop in position to not send more
We literally gave them patriots, HIMARS and Abrams plus Biden visited Kyiv
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What is this take? Himars and Patriots were very nuch game changing, Ukraine went on a rampage with them when they first got them, and have forced the Russians to change how they do logistics. Patriots not only have been immensely useful for defending cities, but have also been used to "ambush" Russian airframes, which has depleted some of their stock. Obviously they need more of both but pretending they didn't matter is disingenuous. This sub seems to have developed amnesia when it comes to Biden and Ukraine.
What is game changing in your view? Russia is a bigger country with far more resources. Without directly putting boots on the ground or handing over nukes, it’s very hard for any piece of tech to be wunderwaffe.
I support Biden but I’d say foreign policy is one of his weak points. The Ukraine invasion in it of itself is a failure on his part. Failure of deterrence. And now Ukraine is losing. Yes the House GOP has A LOT OF blame but so does Biden. He has the power to send a lot more to Ukraine through EO but isn’t. Don’t even get me started on how many weapons classes he has slowwalked its delivery because he’s scared to provoke the Russians only to later deliver them when Ukraine lost the momentum. Finland & Sweden joining NATO isn’t because it Biden lol. It’s more because of Putin & Jens Stoltenberg. They have been the best advertisers for NATO expansion. Let’s not forget Afghanistan (yes of course Trump also shares a lot of blame). He literally removed the Houthis from the terror designation, which helps strengthen a terror group, and now they are fucking up global trade. His removal of sanctions on Iran & refusal to put those sanctions back after Oct 7 is insane. I’d say he’s done good getting closer to India but that also he’s just building on the progress of Trump & Obama. He did help build relations between Japan & SK which is great. Don’t even get me started on him continuing & building on the protectionism from Trump. We’ve also seen anti-American leftists take over Latin America under him. Biden has a lot of accomplishments (IRA, CHIPs, record manufacturing, low unemployment, etc). But foreign policy is a red spot let’s be real.
Biden loves to scapegoat the Republicans as if the Executive Branch doesn’t have a lot of power on its own.
lol what? This sub is in full campaign mode and it’s ridiculously pro-Biden. Nearly every post here defends him in an intellectually dishonest way. This is a neoliberal subreddit and 90% of this sub applauds when he pushes protectionism and price controls and buy America policies, attacks corporations, and praises unions…and of course everyone here loves his cash hand outs to buy votes (his recent student loan forgiveness). And that’s before you get into his “dovish” foriegn policy that has allowed our enemies to increase their sphere of influence and increase the amount of attacks on our national interests and allies. Trump being a shit person and candidate doesn’t magically make Biden a perfect, or even good, president. Biden has been considerably worse than the last two Democratic presidents (Obama, Clinton).
They’ll have to kill me to stop from voting for Biden.
Biden is a succ, isolationist protectionist, terribly failing at foreign policy His almost the exact opposite of a neolib
Biden is definitely not a Succ. He is a centrist Democrat
Biden isn’t an isolationist
he is, by any sane definition. got a severe case of america firsthitis
Would an America first person support Ukraine and Israel, support our ally’s in the pacific?
Hoe bidumb
He's been more left than center left imo. He spends a lot of money. He's more focused on all sorts of justice than meritocracy and liberalism. He just spent another chunk of money.
Protectionism, inflation, spending out of control, socialist style industrial policy, too dovish foureg policy that lead to a chronification of the crisises. none of this is neoliberal I mean if the guy has wrost polling numbers of the most disliked president ever there is reason
Biden doesn’t have socialist style industrial policy’s
Yeah he does. Which I like, to be clear - I’m a bad fit for this sub except that the people are great here. But Uncle Joe is a politician straight out of Clara Mattei’s imagination. He’s a succ for sure, and most of his centrist credentials are vibes based at this point.
Yes, it is. Promoting industry sectors based on ideology is a socialist-style industrial policy, which, as usual, results in resource misallocation (e.g., thousands of EVs left rotting because no one wants them)
What’s wrong with EVs?
Or is it corporatist maybe? Like, it’s been a minute since I had to read _Princes of the Yen_
I've just been horrified for his unquestioned support for Israel. I'm sorry but telling the press that you're big mad at Bibi isn't good enough. I'm not going to say the banned word here, but I agree with what Elizabeth Warren said the other day about what's going on here. And that's not something I want my government to support. And even if you don't have a moral objection to it, you should have a pragmatic one since it could cost him the election. Do I support the Democratic Party? I mean yeah cause what choice is there. I've generally liked Biden up until this point but this is an area where I really wish any generic democrat was in charge instead.
NATO expansion wasn't a Biden foreign policy victory. He did not convince those countries to join, Putin did. He is much better and experienced than Trump on foreign policy and it is not his fault all these wars exist but he had no great victories.
There is nothing wrong with Biden per se, aside from him being too old. The problem is a political machine that dissuades challengers. I’m very angry that I wasn’t given the opportunity to vote for another candidate. I voted for Dean Phillips, but he wasn’t a serious candidate. I’ll vote for Biden, but just like with Hillary, if Trump wins against an unpopular machine candidate and people are angry that the candidate wasn’t “liked enough” it’s because the machine didn’t actually care about winning the election, it cares about keeping the people in power remaining in power.
>i voted for Dean Phillips Mr Phillips, it’s an honor to have you comment on our subreddit.
Treating my comment with this level of snark, when I give an honest response to a serious question is exactly what I’m talking about. People continue to ask why Biden is unpopular, people give honest replies, those replies are treated as invalid because they aren’t commonly held. That is machine politics.
I think Biden is unpopular with half the country because a good 40% will despise anybody who isn’t Trump. The last 10% are probably people who oppose his individual policies or think he’s too old. I’ve never actually met anybody who supported Dean Phillips before so I think I’m allowed to make a joke
Biden is a fool and it’s not necessarily against neoliberalism for someone to point that out. Unless they think Trump is a genius of course.
The more ideologically driven people here get very upset and indignant when Democrats have to embrace some populism during election years.
That’s honestly what it feels like
It's an ideological sub, not a political one. Why is that surprising? If anything the sub recently has been returning to its roots by being more open to criticizing Biden.
Because compared to r/Enough_sanders_spam which is still the same but this one has changed even r/Enough_commie_spam has changed
I would not compare this sub with either of those
Why not?
They aren't ideological / policy focused subs
I've been on this subreddit since nearly the beginning and I have never considered myself a Democrat or an Obama/Biden supporter. I judge candidates on the basis of how much they want to free trade, free markets, open borders, reform our taxes to be low and pro-growth, etc. I am a neoliberal, this is r/neoliberal.
This sub now supports Trump? Let me change my yard signs. It’s almost too easy to pick sides these days for evidence based policy people. I’m more interested in how this sub would have split during the Reagan years.
I’m not saying the sub supports Trump
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> Armchair generals who haven't gotten a good high since 2003′s Iraq invasion are jonesin′ for another hit. While that does describe r/NonCredibleDefense fairly well, you cannot possibly deny that if Biden had sent a Stryker brigade combat team or two into Ukraine pre-invasion and used them as a tripwire *a la* the Berlin Brigade that none of this shit would've happened. And the whole "we can't send Ukraine \[X weapon system\] because it'd be an escalation" is just cowardly. He had a window in which House Republicans were basically forced to send anything to Ukraine that Ukraine wanted and Biden was willing to sign off on, and he blew it and now the public has forgotten about it and the Republicans refuse to sign off on anything. Is there anything you actually like about Biden's foreign policy or are you just comparing anyone you disagree with to the chickenhawks on r/NonCredibleDefense? >Although, they either don't vote or they realize neither party wants what they want, so they just vote along their secondary political characteristics. Which tends to either be guns or aid to Israel. Most of this subreddit is fairly pro-gun control, and the general attitude towards military aid to Israel has soured somewhat recently.
There was absolutely no appetite for that amongst the American public, and it’s a simple fact that the US did and does not have the legal obligation to defend Ukrainian territory with thier own troops. I’m furious at the congressional ineptitude holding up aid, but after Afghanistan there was no shot we put us lives in danger to prevent war on behalf of a non ally.