usernamesAreTricky @ usernamesAreTricky @lemmy.ml

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Listen to his "ahaha" at the end

https://bsky.app/profile/acyn.bsky.social/post/3ldw2c76xre23

Yes, but: Hagerty pushed back on Democrats' assertions that Musk is pulling Trump's strings, saying Trump is "clearly the leader" of the Republican Party.

A good sign of being the leader is constantly having to say you are the leader

Because legislation was a much faster route so they started there. It took a bit before died in the senate

You mistake me for a centrist, and that I am not. You mistake me as a fan of Biden, and that too I am not

Yes, we definitely need so much more. We're not going to get it if we shit on any and every single piece of good news. We're just going to end up with people too burnt out to do anything. Take the small wins and use them as motivate to build for much larger change we need

A lot of activists put work to make those changes. I am defending the activists and people who put the work in and got wins that no one acknowledges

In history, it's almost always been the people like that who get change through even with imperfect and flawed people. Lincoln didn't decide to free enslaved people on his own. He only opposed its expansion and even at that he was quite weak on it. He was willing to give much of that up to stop the civil war at first. But he was closer to the goal of abolitionists and they worked hard to get him to change his tune. Fredrick Douglas is often the classic example of that. He was pissed by Lincoln, called him the "white man's president" and kept speaking with him in the hopes that he'd actually do what he said he would do and go beyond it

They eventually started to get concessions even if for frustrating reasons. They needed more union soliders and so they convinced to make a mostly symbolic gesture of the emancipation proclamation. It only freed enslaved people when the union regained land. It didn't free any of the enslaved people behind union lines

But it got the ball rolling, now the union was in a more of a moral fight rather than just trying to keep the union together. Even though the win was small and nowhere need what needed it started shifting how the Union had to appear to itself and to other countries. It eventually ended up leading to the 13th, 14th, and 15th ammendments

It's easy to find fault in anything. It's much harder to build that change. I encourage you to find some route to change that's productive and build something with it

We just had 38 house republicans publicly vote for a funding bill that Trump publicly supported. He can only lose 3 on future bills.

We've had his pick for attorney general already withdraw from consideration after he knew he wouldn't get the senate confirmation votes

They aren't in lockstep in the way they need to be to be invincible

The US has managed to recover from the brink before so long as people fight

The very second US president, John Adams, threatened to be an all powerful leader after he passed the Sedition act. He used it to prosecute his political opponents for their speach. People fought against it, even if they had to write anonymously out of fear of persecution.

But the Federalist party that Adams was a part of was still only mostly on board. Took multiple votes despite them having control of congress. One of the provisions they ended up adding to get it through was one to make it expire in 2 years and soften the language a little. People fought it hard and eventually they let it expire once adams had lost the very messy elections of 1800 in part because of it

Joe Manchin is barely a democrat - though he's probably the best you'd get out of West Virginia. In other parts of the world, he'd be a different party and he's already left the Democratic party

Look, Biden could have just gone home, blamed Manchin, called it a day on so many issues but he didn't. He actually tried to do what he could via executive action in many areas. He got zero credit for quite significant legislation and executive action

He managed to get one of the largest US climate bill through (Inflation Reduction Act), large infrastructure investments, etc.

Biden has many many faults. You don't need to claim there's ones in the areas where he did really try and got only shit on for it

The filibuster, which Biden did try to push for removal in certain areas. Joe Manchin and Sinema wouldn't budge on it

Not true that it was a huge margin. Don't let their claims of mandate fool you

They won the popular vote by one of the smallest margins in recent history. Smaller than hillary did in 2016. They didn't even get 50%, they got 49.9% of the popular vote

They lost a seat in the house. They will have a 3 seat majority vs their much larger majority in 2016. They have already infighting and struggling with less than that today. They'll be down to a one seat majority for a couple of months too with their plans to pull people from the house into the admin

State and local dems did generally decently. Certainly much better than they did in 2016 where republicans had much more control of state legislature

For an example, north carolina republicans had their super majority broken up

Don't let apathy consume you. There are winnable fights. There are even people who've already regretted there vote before he's taken office. Was talking with people working with those hit by Helene in rural North Carolina who mentioned they heard a notable number of people with that exact sentiment

Going to copy paste my comment from elsewhere

He started the process for medical marijuana legalization in 2022 via rescheduling to schedule 3 (Harris had called for full legalization, Biden only called for medical). It's not as simple as a singular executive order when done without congressional action alone. The existing law makes the process very convoluted to reschedule. Lots of steps inbetween with people that have actively tried to slow it down

The formal rule for it ended up being fully proposed in May 2024, and the DEA has dragged it out and kept delaying it. The DEA managed to push the inital first hearing out until Dec 2nd and there keep being legal challenges from outside groups to push it back further and further

Dems also tried getting it through via legislation which is much faster. Passed in the house but it died in the senate

https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/3617

Or he tried getting through via legislation because he knew that'd be much faster, but only once he knew he didn’t have the votes for it, he then pivoted to the slower executive action

There was a bill passed in 2022 in the house to do exactly that which ran into roadblocks in the senate

https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/3617

He started the process for medical marijuana legalization in 2022 via rescheduling to schedule 3 (Harris had called for full legalization, Biden only called for medical). It's not as simple as a singular executive order when done without congressional action alone. The existing law makes the process very convoluted to reschedule. Lots of steps inbetween with people that have actively tried to slow it down

The formal rule for it ended up being fully proposed in May 2024, and the DEA has dragged it out and kept delaying it. The DEA managed to push the inital first hearing out until Dec 2nd and there keep being legal challenges from outside groups to push it back further and further

When they have even fewer seats. They actually lost a house seat this last election. They'll have just three seat majority - and a one seat majority for some of it too because they plan to pull people from the house

Trump also threatened to primary anyone who voted for a bill without raising the debt ceiling. 170 republicans voted for a funding bill without a debt ceiling increase. He's managed to weaken his future threats because he doesn't seem likely to primary that many

On the senate side, he's already had to pull Gatez because they didn't have the senate votes for it. They're not in lockstep about everything

Don't get me wrong, they'll probably still get plenty of terrible stuff through, but they are not all in agreement about everything and there are still plenty of winnable fights here. They had larger house majorities after 2016

I don't disagree that Biden certain was problematic when in congress on student loans, but it's worth noting that the action he had planned to do was well beyond just one-time student loan forgiveness

He's lowered the bar for discharging student loans via bankruptcy via executive action. It shouldn't have been nearly impossible before, but it's now moved into the realm of at least sometimes possible now

In the fall of 2022, the U.S. Department of Education and the U.S. Department of Justice jointly released updated bankruptcy guidelines aimed at making the process for student loan borrowers less arduous

Previously, it was difficult, if not impossible, for most people to part with their education debt in a normal bankruptcy proceeding.

[...]

While the government used to fight discharge aggressively in almost every case, there is now a policy to agree when the borrower can show financial need and a history of good faith efforts to pay the loans said Latife Neu, a bankruptcy lawyer in Seattle.

“I’ve helped several people take advantage of the expanded ability to discharge their student loans in bankruptcy,” Neu added.

https://www.cnbc.com/2024/03/12/biden-makes-it-easier-to-forgive-student-debt-in-bankruptcy.html

He also tried to cap interest rates, and reduce the monthly payment requirements, increase federal student aid, etc.

Cutting monthly payments in half for undergraduate loans. The Department of Education is proposing a new income-driven repayment plan that protects more low-income borrowers from making any payments and caps monthly payments for undergraduate loans at 5% of a borrower’s discretionary income—half of the rate that borrowers must pay now under most existing plans. This means that the average annual student loan payment will be lowered by more than $1,000 for both current and future borrowers.

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2022/08/24/fact-sheet-president-biden-announces-student-loan-relief-for-borrowers-who-need-it-most/

He did try to do wide scale student loan reliefs but the supreme court kept blocking his attempts. The rules they are talking about were his second attempt at writing around the court rulings for broader relief. He kept at it with different approaches to work around that ended up smaller and more narrow because of stupid court rulings. His plans blocked by courts would also would have done stuff like capping interest payments for future loans and so much more.

Republicans kept challenging his rules at every step because they thought that people would blame him for their lawsuits. Sadly it seemed to have worked and created perceptions exactly like the comment I'm responding to

The rules were unfinished. He had tried to do earlier wide scale debt relief that was struck down by the courts. This was another attempt at it and trying to write around their BS rulings. Republicans were already threatening that second version

He's been focusing on more narrow areas to provide relief because those have been harder to sue about

Biden is still pursuing other avenues for debt relief before his term is up. On Friday, his administration announced an additional $4.28 billion in debt relief for 54,900 borrowers in Public Service Loan Forgiveness — a result of ongoing improvements to the program. Despite not being able to pass broad relief, Biden, over the course of his term, has provided relief to nearly 5 million borrowers through changes to various programs.

Rules were unfinished - they were trying to rewrite a second version after Republicans kept blocking it in court. The unfinished rules already had republicans threatening to sue about it. Presumably ran out of time to complete it

He's still looking at other more narrow areas that are less able for Republicans to make BS challenges on

Biden is still pursuing other avenues for debt relief before his term is up. On Friday, his administration announced an additional $4.28 billion in debt relief for 54,900 borrowers in Public Service Loan Forgiveness — a result of ongoing improvements to the program. Despite not being able to pass broad relief, Biden, over the course of his term, has provided relief to nearly 5 million borrowers through changes to various programs.

Not that they won't largely follow him, but they are not in lockstep clearly and he needs everyone to agree. He's going to be working with a 3 seat majority in the house with it being temporarily a one seat majority for a couple of months based on the people they are planning to pull

If he can lose 38 here after he publicly backed a bill, he can lose 3 on other bills

The language one uses matters in the long run even from hypocrites. It shifts national conversations and can sometimes force your hand. Eventually the people who fully believe the messaging will take over the party. It's part of how the Republicans have let their own party shift so far to the right

In terms of Wilker, I hadn't read about that from him but looked into it some more as the article linked was brief. Found some others with more insight in to what he thinks about that. It very much still sounds like he thinks the system is broken, but doesn't want to lose harder by not fully playing in it

We have to be a party that can legislate based on our values. If that means a bunch of donors jump ship, so be it.

[...]

Wikler acknowledges he’s part of a broken political system and still believes, as he did at 17, that money should not determine who can run for office. “I think we should have public financing of elections.” But, he adds, “I don’t believe in unilateral disarmament.”

https://isthmus.com/news/cover-story/teaching-an-old-party-new-tricks/

Democrats are starting to talk about things like rule by Billionaires much more than they historically ever have. Not just bernie starting to take it seriously

House Minority Leader Jeffries

Republicans would rather cut taxes for billionaire donors than fund research for children with cancer.

That is why our country is on the brink of a government shutdown that will crash the economy, hurt working class Americans and likely be the longest in history.

Welcome back to the MAGA swamp.

https://bsky.app/profile/hakeem-jeffries.bsky.social/post/3ldqkdrwg3c2j

(Dems ended up being able to restore funding for pediatric cancer research with some senate dem maneuvering)

Or we can look at some of the people running for DNC chair

Ben Wikler, Wisconsin Dem Party Chair who's a front runner for DNC chair

Last time I checked, no one voted for a President Musk.

A multibillionaire's stranglehold over Donald Trump and the entire GOP should infuriate all of us.

Millions of people voted to bring down the cost of eggs—not for an oligarch to try shutting down our government.

https://bsky.app/profile/benwikler.bsky.social/post/3ldroxio5cs2a

Ken Martin, Minnesota DFL Chair, also a front runner for DNC chair

An unelected billionaire and a yet-to-be inaugurated president who says he’s a billionaire are taking away child cancer research money for the holidays.

https://bsky.app/profile/kenmartin.bsky.social/post/3ldp366lch22y

James Skoufis, NY 42nd District State Senator, running for DNC chair

Billions were spent last cycle, much of it lit on fire via glossy mailers and TV ads that only made some DC consultants rich.

Those dollars should go to our state/local parties and coalition building, folks who do hard work that win us elections yet receive crumbs from the DNC.

https://xcancel.com/JamesSkoufis/status/1869530119452479962#m

The democratic party is actually actively promoting the "President Musk" language for that exact reason. They're also trying to aim to say it during appearances where Trump is watching

The “President Musk” messaging is by design, at least partially. This week, according to a source with direct knowledge of the matter and another person briefed on it, at senior levels of different Democratic congressional offices, and also within the Democratic National Committee, discussions have been had about having party leaders and elected officials actively portray Musk as effectively Trump’s boss, and to do so during television appearances that the president-elect is likely to see. The idea is that it’s a cost-free opportunity to potentially drive a petty wedge between the notably mercurial and ego-obsessed Trump and his similarly emotive pal Musk, and to sow some chaos in the upper ranks of the Republican Party.

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/president-musk-dems-troll-trump-elon-1235211922/