This is a helpful piece from Akilah Hughes. 💛
If this past week of nominations and appointments haven’t reminded you already, try to remember that Trump is essentially the dying smoke detector battery chirp of politicians. Every time you’re just about to take a deep breath and focus your energy somewhere productive, *BEEP* you get traumatized by his idiotic actions in a new and surprising way.
The truth of that! Whew. (But her suggestions for how to deal are 💯.)
My brother is trans and sobbed because at the very least, he will have to move to a blue state and at the very most he is scared he is going to jail. So fuck whoever voted for that man. I don’t care about your goddam gifs either.
I feel sick 🤢
The DNC has been such a joy this year.
The sun is going to come up November 6th and it’s either going to come up on a Fascist regime running the country or the first black woman president. I know who I’m choosing.
@ most of our Supreme Court
Of course the asshole is guilty and I want to celebrate but the cruel irony in all of this is that they will still probably let him run. Even though if he was just a Joe Schmoe, he would never even pass a government security clearance.
Ughhhhhhh this country!!!!
Ok Ohio! Ok Virginia! Ok Kentucky!
"But he's --"
It doesn't matter. It does. not. matter.
Not every battle is about progress. Sometimes it's just holding the line until we get reinforcements. And they are coming. The Gen Z vote was monumental in stopping the red wave, and there are increasing numbers as more and more come of age.
Hold the line.
I want to push back on the battle “not being about progress.” Because /Biden has accomplished a lot, actually, especially given a Republican-controlled House. One could argue that he hasn’t gone far enough, but that’s not the same as having accomplished nothing. So here’s some things Biden has done:
1) Raised taxes on the wealthy and corporations.
2) Highest appointment of federal judges since Reagan. Reagan started a trend of Republicans packing federal courts with uber-conservative judges, and blocking Democrat appointments, which is how we ended up with our current Supreme Court. Biden is doing his absolute best to turn the scales back the other direction by appointing as many liberal and left-wing judges as he can, as fast as he can.
3) $1.2 trillion dollar infrastructure package that will pour federal money into things like public transit, high-speed internet in places that don’t have it (which are overwhelmingly poor, and cut off from the rest of the world), and a whole lot of other basic things that make life easier for ordinary people.
4) Halted Federal executions. This doesn’t affect state-level convictions, but it does affect federal-level executions; those are completely off the table for as long as he (or any other) Democrat is President. (13 people were executed under Trump)
5) Rejoining the Paris Climate Accords and pushing for other environmental care legislation,
6) Pushed through the “Inflation Reduction Act” (named that to get Republicans to be willing to allow it through). It’s actually the largest climate bill in U.S. history and allows Medicare to negotiate the prices of certain prescription drugs for the first time. It includes 369 billion for a climate initiative to reduce greenhouse emissions and promote lean energy technologies. $300 billion in new revenue through a corporate tax increase. $80 billion for the Internal Revenue Service to hire new agents, modernize its technology, audit the wealthy and more. A $2,000 annual cap for out-of-pocket prescription drug costs for those insured by Medicare.
6) Overturned Trump’s ban on transgender people serving in the military.
7) Re-authorized the Violence Against Women Act
8) Pardoned marijuana
9) Forgave student loan debt (this one the Republicans in congress managed to partially stymie, but that’s not Biden’s fault--it’s the Republicans).
10) Managed to get a modest gun-safety bill through the gauntlet of Republican opposition. (The first one anyone’s managed to get passed in decades.) It’s far from perfect, or enough, but it did expand background checks on gun purchases and made it easier to prosecute illegal gun trafficking. And the reason it was as weak as it was, is because the Republicans have a majority in the House and they blocked anything stronger, it’s the Republicans’ fault. Not Biden’s. If we want sensible nationwide gun control, we have GOT to get the House a Democrat majority.
11) Passed a long-stalled Post Office reform bill.
There’s a lot there! And the things that he promised but didn’t manage to achieve, he put them before Congress and the Republicans in the House stopped them. If Democrats controlled the House as well as the Senate, most of them would have passed and now be the law of the land! The problem is not Biden.
Biden may not be very exciting, and he may not be as far left as we want. But he’s still got a lot done in the last three years.
stepping in as a Poor on Social Security to say that Joe Biden has done more for me than any other POTUS in my lifetime. Since he stepped into office I have seen:
-broadband internet help ($30/month toward my comcast bill, and even if I go delinquent, they are required to keep my internet connected albeit with a slower connection. the point is: my internet cannot be cut off) -multiple SNAP increases -direct stimulus -MAJOR improvements to Medicare. I have a $0 copay for EVERYTHING now through my Medicare Advantage plan. Including prescription medicine!! I pay nothing! Ambulance, hospital stay? Again, I pay nothing. Including vision and dental and hearing aids if I needed them. -my Medicare OTC card used to just give me a little to buy medicine. Now I get $205/month and I can use it for OTC medicines, groceries, and utility bills! This is literally more money in my pocket every month. -speaking of that, Biden has given us two historically large COLA raises for Social Security. Last year’s was the biggest raise in 4 decades. This year promises to be very good, too.
this doesn’t even count in the multiple kinds of student debt relief or the pandemic-era child tax credit, because they didn’t affect me personally, but I know both of those moves were life-changing for people i know. Not to mention a long overdue infrastructure bill. And the fact that he has accomplished all this with the weakest possible senate “majority” really speaks volumes.
Yeah, he’s old. No, he’s not a socialist. But he’s good at his job and he is making things happen for vulnerable people. Not to mention that he is SO much better at foreign policy than any POTUS I can remember. Remember how we were at war for decades? We’re not anymore. Yeah, Joe did that.
YOOOO staffers for the win here perhaps more elected officials shouldn’t treat them like shit (looking at you amy klobuchar) (keep unionizing, electoral staffers!)
if you have the means, here are some Democratic candidates whom you can donate to (or volunteer for!) running against Republican incumbents in the Senate. to not only defeat people like Susan Collins in Maine who voted in Kavanaugh, but also make the prospect of confirming a new justice in the next 4 months less appealing for them as they try to win re-election:
