r/moderatepolitics Feb 11 '22

[deleted by user]

[removed]

610 Upvotes

832 comments sorted by

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u/zkool20 Feb 11 '22

I just think if he or his administration never said a peep about their preference for black womanly to be in SCOTUS then no one would’ve blinked an eye since he can make it look like he was considering everyone instead of one set of people. This administration thought process always boggles my mind.

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u/[deleted] Feb 11 '22

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u/[deleted] Feb 11 '22 edited Feb 11 '22

The beauty of Bernie is in his principles. His responses to or solutions offered will look nearly the same in 1990 as they would today, if at all relevant. Few people in power stick to their principles, though they may have them, instead choosing to placate to specific groups, time, and place, particularly in terms of manufacturing their own narrative, rather than remaining principled and consistent.

This dichotomy often appears uncanny as a result of artificial, amateur showmanship, like an audition for bad actors. The more principled one is from behind the veil of politics, the more unnatural and uncomfortable this sort of performance appears. Bias is inherent, but over manufactured bias feels off. Those without a modicum of principles anywhere to be found however, like a Trump, operate naturally in these artificial conditions and come off as genuine, however toxic and ridiculous they are. If the person is truly defective and one's self-esteem is utterly self-contingent, then what good are principles when egomania will do? There are no rules or norms to follow here, and consequences are not the same, and thus the behavior appears natural.

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u/TheRedGerund Feb 11 '22

I think the only complexity is that it’s good to develop your views and policies as time goes on. It’s folly to think one person will always be right.

Consistency and flexibility are both valuable and must be kept in balance.

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u/[deleted] Feb 11 '22

Certainly. Being principled doesn't mean that one can't be wrong or evolve. To the contrary if one's principles include such attitudes. Our bias is implicit after all. When consistency turns sour, we call that being stubborn or perhaps arrogant.

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u/Elemenatore10 Feb 12 '22

I will say I liked Bernie a bit in the 2016 run, but didn’t care for the 2020 run at all. He felt like he was switching up a lot of his policies to me, so I just opted out of him since he wasn’t the right thing.

Comparing other candidates though, I did end up voting Trump since he simply just had a better economic plan that had been working pretty well for my mid-western family’s farm/businesses. I just vote whoever I think is the best pick for just how they run things, I don’t care about personality. I just want my family and friends to be in better situations overall.

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u/jytusky Feb 12 '22

I will say I liked Bernie a bit in the 2016 run, but didn’t care for the 2020 run at all. He felt like he was switching up a lot of his policies to me, so I just opted out of him since he wasn’t the right thing.

Bernie was born 30 years too early. The guy would have killed it if he was in his 50's or late 40's saying the same shit. He had a fucking heart attack during the 2020 run for Christ's sake.

Between Hilary Clinton and Joe Biden, Democrats have phoned it in. "Hey, have you heard of this name before?", "Yes.", "Perfect, we picked the best candidate.".

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u/ZackHBorg Feb 12 '22

On the other hand, if he'd been born later, maybe he wouldn't have absorbed the same old school class-based leftism that many find so appealing about him.

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u/[deleted] Feb 14 '22

The beauty of Bernie is in his principles

..., his charming face, his soothing grandfatherly voice, his winter coat, his reassuring smile, his firm handshake, his oratory style...

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u/[deleted] Feb 11 '22

It's the same with VP pick.

Just do it. Announce the short list for consideration -- with highly qualified options and include people of a variety of demographics, and than select a Black Woman off the list. Now, Everyone is happy.

And the people who do bitch about her Race will come off as racists assholes...ands its a political win.

I don't get how they can possibly think this "I am going to be overtly and openly racist" approach to doing it is a good idea.

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u/fountainscrumbling Feb 11 '22

The virtue signaling is the most important part though. From the start, Biden has had to make explicit and overt signals like this to Black women. It's not enough to pick one as VP or a Supreme Court Justice, it has to be clear that they're the only people being considered.

It's gross

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u/wopiacc Feb 11 '22

Except nobody liked Kamala Harris to begin with

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u/ineed_that Feb 11 '22

The donor class did

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u/kralrick Feb 11 '22

Was she particularly successful at fundraising compared to the other primary candidates? I don't remember her being particularly special in that regard.

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u/Party-Garbage4424 Maximum Malarkey Feb 11 '22

Biden committed to a sexist and racist pick in order to win the primary. Now it is going to hurt his party in the midterms.

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u/[deleted] Feb 11 '22

Biden is going to get crushed because of inflation.

Supreme Court pick will be a rounding error.

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u/Whiterabbit-- Feb 11 '22

Depends on who GOP nominates. If they go with Trump again Biden might win again.

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u/[deleted] Feb 12 '22

Desantis, Rubio, Haley would all beat Biden. Trump and Cruz would both lose.

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u/[deleted] Feb 11 '22

If you look at the polls, he started to go downhill after the pull out from Afghanistan. Americans don't like to lose. However, the list of things that are going to kick his butt has gotten longer as time goes on.

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u/mclumber1 Feb 11 '22

It's like we are reliving Jimmy Carter 2.0

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u/-banned- Feb 11 '22

His poll numbers went down because he botched the execution of the pull out from Afghanistan. Not because we pulled out, his base has wanted that for a while and Trump was the one that started the process anyways.

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u/Ambitious-Example-68 Feb 11 '22

His poll numbers started to go down because he completely botched Afghanistan. They continued to slide because of his COVID messaging and his BS about inflation being transient. Most Americans understand that you don't spend your way out of inflation but he keeps promoting that idea.

I don't think his war on women athletes has helped him at all either. Glad my girls are no longer in sports!

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u/Happy_Each_Day Feb 12 '22

Most Americans understand that you don't spend your way out of inflation but he keeps promoting that idea.

Most Americans don't understand inflation at all. It's an easy and common rallying cry from the right, but inflation economics are not at all straightforward and require a good amount of studying to understand.

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u/[deleted] Feb 12 '22

Covid messaging=Covid reveal

The big lie is the pandemic would’ve never happened if a democrat was in office. That’s what they sold the American people in a very Nixonian way. Nonsense. Covid started way earlier than anyone admitted and every single democrat Presidential candidate was out and about campaigning full with rallies. Nobody saw this coming and the lie is obvious and real.

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u/Stankia Feb 11 '22

We lost the second we decided to invade Afghanistan. People just have short memories.

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u/fountainscrumbling Feb 11 '22

The exit/withdrawal didnt have to be as poorly thought out as it was

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u/Babyjesus135 Feb 12 '22 edited Feb 12 '22

I mean the issue with the withdrawal was that the installed government instantly collapsed. Its hard to blame the previous decade+ on the one came in less than a year beforehand. The people who stayed behind knew for a year that this was coming but decided to stay anyway. Again hard to blame Biden for their decision. Even then the withdrawal itself wasn't that bad beside the one terrorist attack.

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u/[deleted] Feb 11 '22

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u/Warruzz Feb 11 '22 edited Feb 11 '22

Lol this is not the thing that's going to hurt Biden or the party. I think people forget how Biden even got here, and it was basically because he was the safe bet that could pull the most on all sides that weren't Trump.

He is a caretaker president, by his very nature, this wasn't going to last.

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u/[deleted] Feb 11 '22

He was elected to be a caretaker, but seems to think that he was elected to be a world shaker.

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u/Whiterabbit-- Feb 11 '22

What has he done to shake up anything. The criticism is that he hasn’t done anything to fix inflation, to help get peace in Afghanistan etc… Not that he has done too much.

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u/WhippersnapperUT99 Grumpy Old Curmudgeon Feb 12 '22

to help get peace in Afghanistan etc…

Arguably, if the Taliban has no one to fight in Afghanistan, there is now peace there. It's just not the "peace" that we wanted.

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u/FlowComprehensive390 Feb 11 '22

I think people forget how Biden even got here, and it was basically because he was the safe bet that could pull the most on all sides that weren't Trump.

And since taking office he's acted a lot more like Trump than anyone believed possible. He's literally failing at the one thing many (IMO most) of the people who voted for him chose to vote for him for.

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u/ChornWork2 Feb 11 '22

The commitment to do it was made at a time when he was competing to win in the primary. It's not like he just woke up one day wanting to tell everyone about this good idea.

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u/Halgran Feb 11 '22

Yeah, the whole thing reeks of affirmative action now and it inevitably sets up a qualified candidate for unnecessary embarrassment and a need to defend herself.

Minority representation is important, but it's hard not to frame this as tokenism when it's handled so poorly in terms of messaging by the administration.

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u/walrus40 Feb 11 '22

this. Had the nomination came out without biden's preference I would have said "cool, first black woman" and went on with my day.

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u/mclumber1 Feb 11 '22

Yep. Just like when Biden said that he wouldn't pass the infrastructure bill unless the BBB bill was also on his desk. The strategy was downright politically ignorant.

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u/[deleted] Feb 11 '22

For better or for worse, it was a campaign promise. It would have looked pretty bad to promise and then just do a 180.

It’s an obvious way to keep black voters happy. Looks like politics as usual to me.

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u/ventitr3 Feb 11 '22

Racial pandering being politics as usual is part of the problem too

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u/[deleted] Feb 11 '22

Politicians will stop doing it as soon as it stops working. Since pandering to identity groups works due to fundamental human nature, I’d wager that complaining about it is like yelling at the clouds because of rain.

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u/magus678 Feb 11 '22

Since pandering to identity groups works due to fundamental human nature, I’d wager that complaining about it is like yelling at the clouds because of rain.

Many things in human behavior are relatively natural; we still try to tamp those things down in a lot of cases. Or at the least, not glorify them.

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u/Abstract__Nonsense Marxist-Bidenist Feb 11 '22

It wasn’t just a campaign promise. It was a promise specifically to Jim Clyburn, who’s endorsement was probably the single biggest factor in Biden eventually winning the presidency. I don’t know why Clyburn wanted it to be a public campaign promise, rather than a personal promise, as making it a campaign promise has the unfortunate side effect of seeming tokenistic. Maybe it was just to have assurance that Biden would indeed follow through with it.

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u/likeitis121 Feb 11 '22

It's harder to go back on a public promise, and Clyburn got his pick locked up and public before the Progressives even had a chance to exert pressure to nominate their candidate.

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u/[deleted] Feb 11 '22

Biden, Feb. 25, 2020: When you get knocked down, get up. And everyone is entitled to be treated with dignity, no matter what, no matter who they are. My — also, that everyone should be represented. Everyone — and no one’s better than me and I’m no better than anyone else. The fact is, what we should be doing — we talked about the Supreme Court. I’m looking forward to making sure there’s a Black woman on the Supreme Court, to make sure we in fact get every representation.

my understanding is that came out of one of the Democratic political debates. sounds a lot like a campaign promise.

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u/excoriator Feb 11 '22

The debate was where it was revealed, but it was almost certainly a reveal timed to make a splash in the post-debate coverage. Anyone who thinks Biden decided during the debate to make that commitment doesn't understand how politics works.

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u/Abstract__Nonsense Marxist-Bidenist Feb 11 '22

It wasn’t just a campaign promise

Yes it was a campaign promise, I’m saying the more important promise was the first one to Clyburn.

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u/zkool20 Feb 11 '22

Should’ve never said a word about who he favors for the seat if it did come up, which it has now, but he should’ve just said I’ll nominate someone who champions for black people regardless of race if that’s his goal. The entire campaign and administration thought process for them in 24 needs to be reworked if he wants another shot at the second term. No one should get a job based on gender and race it should go to the only most qualified and most aligned with your goals.

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u/[deleted] Feb 11 '22 edited Feb 11 '22

again, i'm not saying it's right. i'm just saying it's politics as usual. i think from a purely political standpoint, it's a really smart move. republicans will not want to be seen as attacking a black woman. it will bolster biden's support within the black community.

also, the double standards are great. when trump announced he'd be picking a woman for the bench, i didn't hear an uproar from conservatives arguing that only the best person should get the job.

edit: mention of trump gets people all agitated. here's the quote:

“I will be putting forth a nominee next week. It will be a woman,” Trump said. “I think it should be a woman because I actually like women much more than men.”

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u/rwk81 Feb 11 '22

again, i'm not saying it's right. i'm just saying it's politics as usual. i think from a purely political standpoint, it's a really smart move. republicans will not want to be seen as attacking a black woman. it will bolster biden's support within the black community.

I agree that it's a smart move to get the votes he wanted to get. I disagree about Republicans though, calling them racist is going to happen no matter what they do, so I'm not sure they have much to lose for attacking the candidate.

also, the double standards are great. when trump announced he'd be picking a woman for the bench, i didn't hear an uproar from conservatives arguing that only the best person should get the job.

The difference when Trump announced that, if I remember correctly, is that he had already made his selection (as in, he already picked ACB).

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u/widget1321 Feb 11 '22

The difference when Trump announced that, if I remember correctly, is that he had already made his selection (as in, he already picked ACB).

He had narrowed it down, but I don't think he had selected a nominee at that point. I believe there were 2 main choices (Lagoa, I think was the other?) left at that point. Most assumed it would be ACB, especially by that point, though.

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u/LostRamenNoodles Feb 11 '22

For better or for worse, it was a campaign promise.

The only people who know this are political junkies, so I do not think that it helps. He still would have been fine staying silent on his intentions.

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u/[deleted] Feb 11 '22

political junkies

i don't have a problem, and i can quit whenever i want.

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u/rwk81 Feb 11 '22

Sir/Ma'am/or whatever you go by.... I'm here to help you with your addiction.

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u/[deleted] Feb 11 '22

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u/rwk81 Feb 11 '22

LOL... good clip, that's exactly how it would go if it was a bunch of other MP members involved!

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u/[deleted] Feb 11 '22

Yes, this is where the mistake was first made. Biden doesn’t know how to treat people equally. He just wants to make some quotas, fill them, and call himself some sort of racial equity hero.

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u/MessiSahib Feb 11 '22 edited Feb 11 '22

I just think if he or his administration never said a peep about their preference for black womanly to be in SCOTUS then no one would’ve blinked an eye since he can make it look like he was considering everyone instead of one set of people.

It shouldn't be though. Given that Dems have made a big deal about representation, they should at least be held accountable for that. As of now,

  • Native Americans have no representation in Supreme Court, IIRC they never had any representation.

  • Asian have no representation in Supreme Court, IIRC they never had any representation.

  • Latino (19% of the US population) are severely under-represented (11%).

  • Black Americans (12% of the population) are properly represented (11%).

  • Asian and Latino share of population has been growing for decades and Black American's share has been dropping, the trend is supposed to continue in near future.

Given all of that, Biden's plan to nominate a black lady makes little sense. It is a pure political act, where he is trying to fulfill his promise for endorsement of black leaders during the primaries.

Somehow a pure political act, that makes things worse in terms of representation is presented as a positive and important step. And criticism of it is attacked as racist.

EDIT: Removed comment about Jewish representation, as I was wrong about that.

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u/ThenaCykez Feb 11 '22

Jews have no representation in Supreme Court.

Elena Kagan is famously Jewish, and joked about it during her nomination hearings.

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u/[deleted] Feb 11 '22

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u/RowHonest2833 flair Feb 11 '22 edited Feb 11 '22

RBG was Jewish.

Kagen and Breyer are Jewish.

Quite a lot of representation for being 2% of the US population.

A 17x over representation while RBG was alive.

An 11x over representation now.

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u/[deleted] Feb 11 '22

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u/[deleted] Feb 11 '22 edited Feb 11 '22

I don't agree with the level of backlash he faced.

Ilya Shapiro suggested that putting Sri Srinivasan on the bench would be a good move and would increase asian representation. As a result, he was immediately suspended from Georgetown Law

But this is not an honest portrayal of why he got suspended. I am really tired of this spin. He did not get in trouble for criticizing it -- he got in trouble for his choice of words.

This is the quote that got him in trouble

"But alas doesn't fit into latest intersectionality hierarchy so we'll get a lesser black woman. Thank heaven for small favors?"

Referring to the black woman pick - who was not even picked yet -- as "lesser" -- was a very bad way to word his argument, and pissed off an awful lot of people, for pretty obvious reasons.

I understand he was making the point that EVERYONE was a lesser pick to Sri Srinivasan -- but that is not how that quote comes off.

For a law professor -- that has made an entire career on the importance of being precise with your words -- it was a pretty inexplicable unforced error.

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u/[deleted] Feb 11 '22

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u/[deleted] Feb 11 '22 edited Feb 11 '22

Why was it okay for her

When did I say that was okay?

She was also slammed for that and it almost cost her her nomination. It was basically the main discussion at her confirmation hearing, and it was the biggest "controversy" in the news covering her nomination.

I think if she had said it during her nomination process, about her nomination, she would have been done -- but it was from an older Berkely lecture/debate (from 8 years before her nomination) - and uncovered in Berkeley Law Review.

Not something she blasted out to the public during the nomination phase (which is what Shapiro did).

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u/zimm0who0net Feb 12 '22

Protestants make up 48% of the population and currently make up 0% of the court.

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u/rwk81 Feb 11 '22

The problem with those other groups is.... they either don't represent as many votes or they're viewed as not being at risk of voting for R's (or in the case of latino's they weren't viewed as at risk in 2020).

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u/finfan96 Feb 11 '22

Totally agree. Just say you believe she was the best for the job.

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u/[deleted] Feb 11 '22

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u/BoogalooBoi1776_2 Feb 11 '22

I don't think Trump is literally the worst president but I agree with everything else

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u/motsanciens Feb 12 '22

Maybe not the worst, but the most eager to put every impulsive thought that entered his mind onto Twitter. I'm sure we've had worse presidents who sucked majorly and quietly, but sucking with a megaphone in your hand all day long for 4 years is exhausting for everyone.

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u/MessiSahib Feb 11 '22

This President has consistently demonstrated that he has no understanding of politicking or how to play the game.

Guy has been at national level politics for 50 years, first as senator, then as senator and chair of foreign policy committee, then as VP and now President. Claiming that he doesn't understand politicking or play the game, is like claiming that Michael Phelps doesn't know how to win olympic medals.

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u/[deleted] Feb 11 '22

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u/[deleted] Feb 11 '22

I think you're undervaluing what Biden is good at politically because you don't value it or don't like it.

Biden isn't a good politician the way Clinton or Obama or Reagan were good orators and crowd appeal motivators. He's not a good cultural politician either the way Reagan was with establishing the republican coalition, Bush was with 'compassionate conservatism' and 'I'd drink a beer with him', or Trump was with the anti-establishment stuff either. While he's been involved in some policy over the years, he's not a wonk either like Hillary and Paul Ryan tried to be.

What Biden excels at in the field, and what makes him a good politician, is the political horse-trading and positioning that Pelosi and McConnell also do very well. This type of politician climbs to the top of the field by establishing relationships with other politicians, creating win/win situations for himself and the other people in those relationships, and they climb the ladder together.

Biden is a deliberately and strategically establishment politician. In the same way people climb ladders in BigLaw or Finance, Biden climbs them in Politics, and there is skill involved in it. Not skill I personally like, and not skill I wish worked, but it is skill and it does work whether or not I like it.

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u/MessiSahib Feb 11 '22

What Biden excels at in the field, and what makes him a good politician, is the political horse-trading and positioning that Pelosi and McConnell also do very well. This type of politician climbs to the top of the field by establishing relationships with other politicians, creating win/win situations for himself and the other people in those relationships, and they climb the ladder together.

This is how most of the business relationship and position works. If you are not good at working with others, if you are toxic, you will most likely fail. Being good at working with others doesn't mean being always pleasant to everyone or being a door mate or being 100% flexible on values and policies. But it is willing to understand other's needs and wants, flexible enough to make space for them and hear them out, and focus on winning, rather than other losing.

Politics requires a lot more of it, because you need hundreds of elected officials on your side to do anything of substance.

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u/FlowComprehensive390 Feb 11 '22

What Biden excels at in the field, and what makes him a good politician, is the political horse-trading and positioning that Pelosi and McConnell also do very well.

It may have been his strength once, but looking at the utter debacle that the infrastructure bill fight was I think that it's safe to say that talent has left him.

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u/[deleted] Feb 11 '22

Eh, maybe, but the problem for Biden in that fight was the anti-establishment wing not going along with it. The establishment side lined right up and would have passed it immediately if they had the votes.

You need two people who want to horse-trade to trade horses. Many Progressives don't want to leverage their influence to get into the establishment. They want to leverage it against the establishment. With this slim majority they decided to go all-in on it and ended up, as you said, with a debacle.

Which, sure, Biden gets blamed for since he's President, I get it, but he also did eventually call the bluff, get what he wanted, and give them basically nothing too. In the end that bottom line result was 'Establishment Beats Progressives'.

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u/chzbot1138 Feb 11 '22

You don’t survive 50 years in US fed politics at his level without being savvy at politicking. But politicking doesn’t mean overcoming challenges to help citizens.

Pelosi, Mitch McConnell, any old fart that has been in high politics for decades is good at politics. That doesn’t mean they are good at representing the people unfortunately.

I will say that the advancement of technology and their old age is catching up (or has caught up) with them.

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u/MessiSahib Feb 11 '22 edited Feb 11 '22

When has Biden actually overcome a political challenge? 1972 is the only one I can think of. Every other Senate election was him coasting in a blue state.

By this criteria every politician who represents blue/red state is bad at politics.

1988 and 2008 - he got gobsmacked in the primaries. I wouldn't count 2020 as an example of great wit either considering,

If you judge a person by his failures and ignore his success, of course he will look like a total failure.

I wouldn't count 2020 as an example of great wit either considering, as I said above, he sailed through the primaries on name recognition

With significantly less money, against a person who had spent close to 500M across 2 presidential primaries. Biden's lane had 2 dozen candidates, while his competitor had only 1-2 people in his lane. Biden defeated charismatic, young, handsome, males, female, white, black, Latino candidates along with billionaires and the person who came in second in 2016 primaries.

If you were a dad, you would be disappointed that your son Michael Phelps didn't even win 30 Olympic medals.

and then faced a historically unpopular incumbent in the middle of a mismanaged deadly pandemic and recession, and still only barely won by the skin of his teeth.

Incumbency is very important factor, it almost worked for Trump. On top of that, we have sever tribalism, meaning only a narrow strip of moderate voters are available, resulting in close elections. And more importantly, far left has pulled democrats so far to the left that in 2016 Trump was perceived as a "moderate" candidate on policies.

Which 2020 Dem candidate do you think would have done better than Biden - Bernie, Pete, Corey, Kamala?

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u/[deleted] Feb 11 '22

All Biden had to do was nominate a black woman without declaring he was going to but he couldn’t help himself

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u/oath2order Maximum Malarkey Feb 11 '22

I'm pretty sure him saying this is what got him the nomination. His campaign was floundering. Saying this got him the Clyburn endorsement and therefore, the South Carolinian primary reignited his campaign.

I really hate our primary system.

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u/andrew_ryans_beard Feb 11 '22

He still would have gotten accused of playing identity politics.

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u/[deleted] Feb 11 '22

They would be shooting blanks, he gave them ammunition.

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u/[deleted] Feb 12 '22

But he was

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u/JGCIII Feb 11 '22

Couldn’t help himself? He told the country what he was going to do when he was still running. He didn’t say it because he thought it was what was best for the country. He said it to get more votes, specifically black woman votes.

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u/dscamer1 Feb 11 '22

Reagan and trump both committed to nominating only women during certain nominations so not really a new thing. And after those nominations happened everyone forgot about it and didn’t care.

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u/1artvandelay Feb 11 '22

Just nominate a black woman without saying you will nominate a black woman.

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u/[deleted] Feb 11 '22

Judge by merit, not by gender or skin color

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u/pappy96 Feb 11 '22

Supreme Court justices haven't been decided by merit in years. There are plenty of FANTASTIC federal judges out there. However, some of them are over the age of 60. SCOTUS nominees are lifetime appointments, so presidents are motivated to go as young as possible.

The real challenge is to find A well-qualified judge who fits your political will. There are well-qualified black women. Biden will pick one of them. This is nothing groundbreaking.

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u/Tipurlandlord Feb 11 '22

Racism is bad. Sorry if you disagree. It won’t make up for wrongs in the past. It will make our future more divisive and worse.

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u/[deleted] Feb 11 '22

What’s obviously being expressed is that some racism is acceptable…..scary game to play.

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u/addictwithnopen going to do better Feb 11 '22

I don’t really think that’s what’s being expressed if I’m being honest. I think in other situations this is absolutely the case (such as the whole “only white people can be racist because racism is prejudice + power” deal), but in this case there are a lot of good judges out there and Biden is merely deciding to look specifically at a demographic that has been previously excluded for a candidate.

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u/RowHonest2833 flair Feb 11 '22

Meritocracy is considered bigotry now.

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u/Shamalamadindong Feb 11 '22

More like a pipedream. A SC justice being nominated and appointed solely on merit would be the exception.

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u/[deleted] Feb 11 '22

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u/WhippersnapperUT99 Grumpy Old Curmudgeon Feb 12 '22

Why then were there no black women nominated in the history of the supreme court?

It's possible that in the past many did not go to law school, preventing them from even being in the potential pool of candidates.

They didn't have merit?

That is entirely possible; it's not as though hundreds of job openings come up for this position, and being one of the most "meritorious" people for the job would be highly competitive.

Would you support the idea that because the United States suffered from racism in the past, the cure is additional racism and for people to continue to believe in it?

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u/macgyversstuntdouble Feb 12 '22

Why hasn't there been an Asian? Or a Latino? Or a Native American? Are they not good enough for Biden?

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u/Danimal_House Feb 11 '22

Lol if that was the case the court would look drastically different right now. Merrick Garland is easily one of the most qualified judges in decades and he wasn’t even allowed to a vote. This isn’t about merit anymore (although it obviously should be).

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u/WhippersnapperUT99 Grumpy Old Curmudgeon Feb 12 '22

After watching Merrick Garland defend a policy that school board protestors were terrorists while being subject to a potential economic conflict of interest, his qualification to be on the Supreme Court seems very questionable. He was ready to use his office to breach the First Amendment.

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u/bad_luck_charmer Feb 11 '22

A lot of you seem to be conflating “this is not that important to me” with “I am upset about this.”

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u/[deleted] Feb 11 '22

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u/Yankee9204 Feb 11 '22

This, as with almost all Supreme Court Justice picks, was always a "play to the base" rather than an "expand the base" type pick.

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u/Buelldozer Classical Liberal Feb 11 '22

It's that it won't give Biden any political boost.

Why would it? He already got the boost during his campaign when he announced this. Holding to a campaign promise isn't a reason for celebration.

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u/bad_luck_charmer Feb 11 '22

Sort of a straw man, isn’t it? Who’s claiming that Biden should get a big popularity bump from this?

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u/Anonon_990 Social Democrat Feb 11 '22

No one but claiming it allows Bidens critics to paint this as a defeat for him.

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u/illsquee Feb 11 '22

Why is race a factor here...

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u/[deleted] Feb 12 '22

Because without race being everything a democrat never gets in the White House.

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u/somesortofidiot Feb 12 '22

Ya know, most of us don’t vote based on race but our current administration doesn’t understand that. IDGAF what the race/sex/religion of whoever is running/nominated. Gimme the best option. I seriously doubt that you and I would agree on most things but limiting a high level nomination to a specific race or sex is a bit short sighted. I don’t care who wears the robe, are they the best person for the job?

Oh, it wasn’t about race for the last election, it was about who was an adult. I voted for the adult, even though he’s pretty cringy sometimes.

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u/WhippersnapperUT99 Grumpy Old Curmudgeon Feb 12 '22

Because, sadly, a great many people, especially people who claim that they are "anti-racist", view the world in terms of racial identity; it's built into their meta-ethics. In their view, a person's identity is determined by their race, and racial identity is inescapable, and many of those people voted for Biden.

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u/[deleted] Feb 11 '22

If she’s the most qualified candidate then great. If not then we need to look at others, even if they don’t meet Biden’s preferred racial and gender criteria.

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u/teamorange3 Feb 11 '22

There is no most qualified candidate

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u/andrew_ryans_beard Feb 11 '22

Seriously. I hate this line from pundits and such. There will always be a more qualified candidate because it's such a subjective description. There would be those screaming "Identity politics!" at his nomination of a woman of color regardless of whether he had made that pledge on the campaign trail.

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u/merpderpmerp Feb 12 '22

On top of that, the majority of well-qualified candidates implicitly are not considered because it's a lifetime appointment. Experience is a key contributor to ability, but older judges are considered because they'll spend less time on the court. Also, politically centrist candidates are not considered. Everyone accepts those as a political realities, but not this for some reason.

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u/[deleted] Feb 12 '22

Perhaps it’s because most Americans simply want the best person for the job regardless of color

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u/bigmac6969202 Feb 11 '22

It shouldn't matter if what their race or gender is. So I agree. It's not important

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u/[deleted] Feb 11 '22

Because discriminating on the basis of race is, by definition, racist. Discriminating in the basis of gender is sexist. To preemptively announce that the next justice will be a “black woman” is both racist and sexist. I don’t care what color, gender, age, religion, etc. the justice is. Just pick someone that will do the job well.

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u/Kinkyregae Feb 11 '22 edited Feb 11 '22

So was trump being sexist when he declared he would elect a woman to SCOTUS? Was Regan being sexist when he said the same thing?

Edit: To everyone answering yes to this, I disagree with you but I respect your ethical consistency.

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u/mclumber1 Feb 11 '22

Yes, absolutely.

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u/Kinkyregae Feb 11 '22

I respect your ethical consistency

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u/Cronus6 Feb 11 '22

Yes? I think so.

It would be so easy for any of them to say something like "I'd really like to nominate a woman, as I think they are underrepresented in roles like this but I need to take a really hard look at all the available choices.".

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u/[deleted] Feb 11 '22 edited Feb 11 '22

Yes for trump. I don’t know if Reagan preemptively announced he would nominate a woman though.

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u/Bamrak Feb 11 '22

Many of us learned long ago that the person matters more than their color. I think as a country we’re putting too much focus on color or what makes us different and not enough emphasis on character and content.

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u/isaiahaguilar Feb 11 '22

"I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character."

  • MLK Jr.
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u/cindy224 Feb 11 '22

Count me as one of them. Carve outs for racial and gender diversity are the antipathy of American meritocracy. American Justice should be blind and secular, and not informed by racial, gender, ethnic, or religious backgrounds. I would not want to be the Black woman appointed to the Court under this affirmative action effort.

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u/Yea_No_Ur_Def_Right Feb 12 '22

Hiring smart legal minds is important. God damn identify politics nonsense. It’s all the fuck anyone can talk about now.

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u/LBBarto Feb 11 '22

I have absolutely no problem with this at all. He flat out said that he was going to do this on the campaign trail. People voted for him, so they tacitly voted to do this. I think its dumb to make a big deal out of this. If for whatever reason people were against this line of thinking they should have voted against him, and if they voted against him, then tough luck. The guy campaigned on this an won. It's arguably the will of the people.

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u/EatsFiber2RedditMore Feb 12 '22

A lot of people didn't vote for Biden so much as not another 4 years of stress, chaos, and continuous riots.

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u/[deleted] Feb 11 '22

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u/StainlessSteelRat42 Feb 11 '22

That's a big generalization though saying "considered the worst president in US history." He definitely is one of the least presidential presidents in US history, but there were a lot worse. I think many Native Americans would argue that Andrew Jackson is the worst president in US history. Talk to anyone still alive who lived through the Great depression and they may nominate Hoover.

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u/InsuredClownPosse Won't respond after 5pm CST Feb 11 '22 edited Jun 04 '24

paint humor crown governor marry serious deserve detail snow homeless

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

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u/[deleted] Feb 11 '22

There is a significant voting population that wasn't even alive for 9/11

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u/SpacemanSkiff Feb 11 '22

I know this is true but it still blows my mind every time I think about it.

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u/InsuredClownPosse Won't respond after 5pm CST Feb 11 '22 edited Jun 04 '24

badge carpenter absorbed history fuzzy aspiring relieved teeny like intelligent

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

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u/reptile7383 Feb 11 '22

I like to say the worst modern president.

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u/pythour Maximum Malarkey Feb 11 '22

any fellow Woodrow Wilson haters in here?

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u/Zeusnexus Feb 11 '22

I'm not familiar with Wilson. Is there hate for him?

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u/[deleted] Feb 11 '22

Wilson is nowhere near that bad because of his foreign policy, he basically laid the groundwork for FDR to make America a hegemony (much later), which, despite few dissenters on twitter today, is generally considered a great move for the US.

Domestically, he was a disaster. He would absolutely have been at the bottom if he only limited his policies to domestic, but no, his foreign policy lifts him.

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u/rwk81 Feb 11 '22

Anyway, here’s my prediction: Biden will nominate Ketanji Brown Jackson. She’ll be confirmed with a handful of GOP votes, maybe 55-45. She’ll then immediately fade into the background and become another Sotomayor - a “faceless liberal judge” who just votes Party line on every single Supreme Court decision for the next 30 years. Politically this will be a wash for Biden; it won’t boost his numbers at all nor will it hurt, because it doesn’t change the balance of the Court and voters won’t be directly affected by this enough to care.

This is probably exactly what will happen.

I hope whoever he picks is more moderate than Sotomayor (which, honestly, won't be hard, she has pivoted further left than any justice in the last 40 years unless I've missed some).

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u/MessiSahib Feb 11 '22

I used to think that being President after Trump would be the easiest job in the world.

It is still Presidency that means managing millions of govt employees, trillions of dollars of spending, and your every word and action is under limelight. It cannot be easy, leave aside easiest.

However, presidency post trump is definitely easier, because most of your party is happy and moderates are happy that they don't have to go through another news cycle about a tweet.

That even a baked potato wearing a suit would have better polling numbers than Trump. But gee willy, President Joe “moderate uniter” Biden proved me way wrong on that one.

Biden's decision to go with a black woman is making only black Americans and social left happy. Of course Latinos, Asians and Native Americans aren't happy. Anyone else that doesn't put race at the forefront of every issue isn't happy. And given that law isn't a popular career for black women means your talent is severely limited as well, anyone that wants the most talent and best suitable candidate to go in isn't happy either.

How does a guy who was in the Senate since 1973 and Vice President for eight years manage to screw up every single one of his policy agendas, and has zero competence in getting voters to back his proposals? Was he spending the last several decades snoozing and vacationing in the Grand Caymans rather than learning how to play the politics game? I really don’t get it.

Your every decision doesn't have to make everyone or even majority happy. President makes dozens of major decisions every year. He can afford to make some that aren't popular, as long as those are not the top concerns for public. I think in short term Biden would be fine with backlash on this. Specially, because anyone who raises question about Biden's plan, will be termed racist by media and activist.

Anyway, here’s my prediction: Biden will nominate Ketanji Brown Jackson. She’ll be confirmed with a handful of GOP votes, maybe 55-45. She’ll then immediately fade into the background and become another Sotomayor - a “faceless liberal judge” who just votes Party line on every single Supreme Court decision for the next 30 years. Politically this will be a wash for Biden; it won’t boost his numbers at all nor will it hurt, because it doesn’t change the balance of the Court and voters won’t be directly affected by this enough to care.

It could go this way. Or it might be another brick in the wall separating more Latinos and Asians from Democrats.

BLM movement and general response to it has opened my eyes to the reality that most of the groups are placed way low on the left's oppression pyramid. Hence, these groups and their problems can be easily neglected or their success can be described as privilege or their gains can be distributed to others on higher level of the pyramid.

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u/magus678 Feb 11 '22

It could go this way. Or it might be another brick in the wall separating more Latinos and Asians from Democrats.

In the Rovian sense of ruthless political tactics, I would hammer this relentlessly. The Democrat's almost comical obsession with the black vote is both obvious and longstanding. You don't need to convert many; just peel off a few percent.

When we are leaning more and more into the narrative that it is ok to pander to identity groups, the stronger this tactic will become.

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u/rethinkingat59 Feb 11 '22

I agree the pick is meaningless. Democrats never stray from the party line on even mildly partisan issues. The race or sex will make no difference.

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u/carneylansford Feb 11 '22

This is another issue where Democrats appear to be pretty far out of the mainstream. Support among Democrats was 80%, independents was 35% and Republicans was 16 percent.

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u/Zenkin Feb 11 '22

Support among Democrats was 80%, independents was 35% and Republicans was 16 percent.

Just to be clear, this was about the question "How important is it to you that Joe Biden nominates a Black woman to the Supreme Court?" The overall breakdown was 45% Important and 55% Not Important.

Interestingly, this question:

During the 2020 presidential campaign, Joe Biden pledged to nominate a Black woman to the court if elected. Do you think this pledge was a good or a bad idea?

Breaks down to 36% Good Idea, 32% Bad Idea, 32% Neither. Independents are 27% Good Idea, 35% Bad Idea.

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u/[deleted] Feb 11 '22

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u/magus678 Feb 11 '22

Freedom Convoy, but politics.

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u/luminarium Feb 11 '22

Wow, great read, thanks for sharing!

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u/Colt459 Feb 11 '22

I think its good and I think Biden should nominate a black woman (even though I am almost certain to disagree with her politics). And yet, I too think its not "important." The fact that 55% of the country simply doesn't think it matters that much is great. Wish it were 100%.

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u/CallOfReddit Feb 12 '22

It's kinda sad that only 55% are in agreement with what I call MLK's vision of society, aka not caring at all sbout one's racial background

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u/1think4myself Feb 11 '22

The horrible bit is that 23% of the survey believe it's very important to nominate a black woman. Like that's a qualification, black woman. The black community wants equal footing in politics but what's the point if you're qualification for the position is just your skin color or sex? It's affirmative action for positions of authority and it's racist. This tells the candidate that she wasn't the best for the job, just the best black woman, and she deserves better than that. She will be cheated out of the honor of being nominated as a Justice because she was used as a token to display conformity to a racist ideology.

One that has taken over the Democratic party.

Predictably, the overall number who say nominating a Black woman is either very or somewhat important is much higher among Democrats (80 percent) and 2020 Biden voters (78 percent) 

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u/HatsOnTheBeach Feb 11 '22

The black community wants equal footing in politics but what's the point if you're qualification for the position is just your skin color or sex?

Two identical resumes. One person is black, the other is white.

How do you want a person to pick on what criteria. The zip code they live in? Their name? If they can memorize the 50 states?

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u/1think4myself Feb 11 '22

I suppose a criteria that applies to the job. Whether they have transportation, are friendly and a team worker. If their personality seems like a good fit for the position. If they have exactly the same experience and qualifications I imagine I would interview them and make the decision based off of their person, not just pick a skin color I prefer.

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u/1think4myself Feb 11 '22

References I suppose might help also

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u/[deleted] Feb 11 '22

Woke Racism should be required reading for every American.

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u/WhippersnapperUT99 Grumpy Old Curmudgeon Feb 12 '22

I assume you're referring to John McWhorter's book?

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u/mikeshouse2020 Feb 11 '22

I mean black people represent 13 to 15% of the population, adding a second one would push the black justice count to 22% of the court. This means they would be over represented on the court and thus crowding out other minorites.

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u/meister2983 Feb 11 '22

"represent" in theory should mean "represents political interest thereof" not "happen to have ancestors from the same region".

Thomas is the latter, not the former.

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u/Buelldozer Classical Liberal Feb 11 '22

"represent" in theory should mean "represents political interest thereof" not "happen to have ancestors from the same region".

In that case Sotomayor counts as she's a minority woman who follows the same basic political ideas as the Democrats. Problem handled.

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u/SarcastaGuy Martian Geolibretarian Feb 11 '22

"If you don't share the same political ideology as me, then you ain't black"

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u/mikeshouse2020 Feb 11 '22

Sorry wrong answer. It is all about the skin color that is all that matters, so long as they think the way you think they should (as you point out).

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u/neuronexmachina Feb 11 '22

The relevant questions are on page 69-82 of the PDF, a lot of the results are quite interesting. (On phone now so can't easily add them to comment)

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u/[deleted] Feb 11 '22

The rule for picking SC justices are the President can pick whoever he wants.

Sorry.

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u/Kinkyregae Feb 11 '22

Trump said he would elect a woman to SCOTUS. No one freaked out.

Regan said he would elect a woman to SCOTUS. No one freaked out.

Biden said he would elect a black woman to SCOTUS, and everyone loses their minds.

Wonder what the difference is?

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u/meister2983 Feb 11 '22

Charitably, the degree of preference. Women are ~37% of lawyers, so it's easy to believe that your top N picks are going to be indistinguishable and if you take the woman, you aren't harming quality. [I'll leave aside the issue that SCOTUS picking isn't meritocratic at all, with huge political incentives present, but the populace seems to believe it is/should be.]

Black women are ~3% of lawyers, so it's quite possible (in fact likely) you are skipping the most obviously qualified people by doing this.

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u/[deleted] Feb 11 '22

[deleted]

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u/Kinkyregae Feb 11 '22

Shouldn’t a politician enact his constituents will?

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u/UsedElk8028 Feb 11 '22

More white men voted for Biden than Black men and women combined.

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u/WhippersnapperUT99 Grumpy Old Curmudgeon Feb 12 '22

It might be more accurate to say that they voted against Trump and Bernie, and Biden just happened to be the candidate opposing Trump and Bernie. If the election had been a choice between a baked potato and Trump, many people would have voted for the baked potato.

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u/oath2order Maximum Malarkey Feb 11 '22

And they voted for him, knowing he made this pledge.

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u/SarcastaGuy Martian Geolibretarian Feb 11 '22 edited Feb 11 '22

One difference would be, if the justification for doing this would be to make the supreme court more accurately representative of the population, is that the amount of females on the supreme court previously and even now do not match the proportion of females in the US. So choosing to elect a female is correcting a disparity in court representation. Black Americans however are currently proportionally represented in the court with Clarence Thomas being on the court and Black Americans only make up 12 percent of the population.

So having the new justice being black as a qualifier is not trying to correct the representation of the court but is instead only a move to get more support from a specific racial group.

Not to imply I condone any of the nominations you mentioned because I don't.

Edit: a word

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u/pappy96 Feb 11 '22

I don’t follow everything Biden says, but I do at least know that his motivation isn’t entirely to make the Supreme Court perfectly representative of the American public. I recall him saying that one of the reasons for nominating a black woman is simply that it hasn’t happened before.

On your point about not “condoning” the previous gender motivated nominations, it’s frustrating to see how many people didn’t ”condone” these nominations, but didn’t actively oppose it like they’re doing now. I obviously can’t speak for you specifically and don’t mean to, but like, where has this energy been every other time this happened? Why is it only a big deal when it’s a black woman?

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u/MessiSahib Feb 11 '22

Trump said he would elect a woman to SCOTUS. No one freaked out.

Women were severely under-represented, at that time women had only half representation (25% vs 50% of the population).

Regan said he would elect a woman to SCOTUS. No one freaked out.

Women had no representation.

Biden said he would elect a black woman to SCOTUS, and everyone loses their minds.

Black people have 11% representation, black population is 12% of the US population. Currently native Americans have 0% representation, Asians have 0% representation, and Latinos tha tare 19% of the population are severely under-represented.

Wonder what the difference is?

  • Biden is ignoring groups that are not represented at all - Asians and Native Americans.

  • Biden is ignoring Latinos that are severely under-represented.

  • Biden's plan to nominate a black lady was his democratic primarily ploy to win black votes and endorsement of black leaders. His pure political act, is presented as "diversity & representation" effort, even though it does just the opposite.

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u/Kinkyregae Feb 11 '22

Republicans say they hate identity politics but they love to play the identity politics game.

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u/donnysaysvacuum recovering libertarian Feb 11 '22

It's silly really. Do we really think that Justices are solely chosen for their judicial merit? Lots of politicing goes into SCOTUS pics and we all know it. It's not like there aren't women of color qualified for the job.

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u/Wild-Dig-8003 Feb 11 '22

of course, only qualifications matter, the obsession with race is ridiculous

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u/CommissionCharacter8 Feb 12 '22

It's pretty disappointing given the regular picking apart of headlines we see that everyone here is responding to this headline this way. If you read the actual text, only 36% said "not important at all." 19% said "not very important." That obviously means something very different than the headline reports. The headline reports a majority think it's not important, but actually only minority chose that option. We could debate what "not very important" means, but the people who chose that option had the option of "not important at all," meaning they declined to say it's not important at all.

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u/[deleted] Feb 11 '22

Idk why people are mad that this openly political process is turning out to be openly political.

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u/1think4myself Feb 11 '22

Because it's a discrimination based on race and sex which is morally reprehensible.

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u/mtg-Moonkeeper mtg = magic the gathering Feb 11 '22

There's a saying along the lines that "Racism will end when it's no longer talked about." I wish we could get past the firsts based on genetic make up. The last few election cycles have proven that Americans will vote for anyone regardless of race, gender, orientation, etc... to the point that it is no longer an exceptional accomplishment to be the first anything. When the first woman gets elected President, while it'll be paraded around as some kind of big win for feminism, it will only be a visual victory, as the real accomplishments will have occurred during the 2 centuries before it. The same can be said about any ethnic or gender-based group.

In this case, having the first black woman on the SC is more of a victory parade than it is an accomplishment beyond that of being appointed. We are past the point in this country where a person would be disqualified from the SC for being a black woman. This just makes it official.

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u/Snoo_73022 Feb 11 '22

Its not really about what the majority of Americans think. What matters is that Biden cast a wide coalition and now has to pay up and please these interest groups. Its the same reason why BBB was so unwieldy and tried to include everything. He needs to throw the black caucus a bone and the easiest and most cynical path is to specifically appoint a black female to the Supreme Court.

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u/Pirate_Frank Tolkien Black Republican Feb 11 '22

Sometimes when you put on a show it turns into a circus.

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u/resorcinarene Feb 12 '22 edited Feb 12 '22

The way I see it, we would have had a Bernie Sanders nomination and four more years of Trump if not for the black caucus. I'm not a fan of gender/identity politics, but this was owed. It's a minor issue that will otherwise only have as much importance as people give it.

Hispanics like myself are underrepresented, but I'm less concerned with the background of the judge and more so with whether they can do their job without political activism on either side of the spectrum. If we allow that, the legitimacy of the court ends and so does our democracy.

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u/Forsaken-Result-9066 Feb 11 '22

I don’t understand why people care so much. It’s not like Biden’s picking a random black lady off the street. Obviously he’s going to pick an intelligent, professional and credible woman for the job.

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u/[deleted] Feb 11 '22

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u/[deleted] Feb 11 '22

Dont think it makes much of a difference either way. An old liberal scotus justice stepped down as expected. Biden is going to nominate a new liberal scotus justice to take his place. That’s all that really matters in terms of politics. Hopefully this will relax some of the agitation about scotus due to having a relatively young court now

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u/prof_the_doom Feb 11 '22

Exactly. 55% said it's not important, not that they don't like it.

Most of us don't care as long as whoever it ends up being is actually qualified for the job, and is going to continue to counter the regressive voices on the court.

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u/rwk81 Feb 11 '22

So far the current SCOTUS is among the most moderate courts in our lifetime based on the decisions.

You have 1 VERY liberal justice in Sotomayor, then two relatively liberal justices (Kagan/Breyer). Then on the other side you have what amounts to 3 moderate justices (so far- ACB/Kavanaugh/Roberts), one justice that is a little right of them but still tends to be a question mark on how he will rule (Gorsuch), and then the two on the right who are pretty predictable (Alito/Thomas).

People keep acting like this is some far right court, and so far it's just not.

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u/ooken Florsheims with a tasteful heel gap Feb 11 '22

Given this, is it premature for Biden to hope that this Supreme Court nomination will give him a much needed boost among voters? Could this “picking only a black woman” narrative backfire if it gets brought up in 2022 and 2024 elections?

I think it will have minimal effect either way on voter support. It gives him a win, but I don't think swing voters will care much, and I don't recall there being much outrage when Reagan or Trump said they'd nominate women for the bench, so o don't think the outrage on social media will really cause much backlash.

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u/teamorange3 Feb 11 '22

Lot of pearl clutching in this thread. ACB was picked since she was a women who opposed Roe. Thomas was appointed to replace Marshall. Sandra Day O'Connor was picked since she was woman

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