The Biden Cabinet and Administration

On the whole, I'm impressed. Certainly there's some skeletons (with the proposed Defense Secretary notably) in terms of past policy positions but ultimately that flows from the executive - if Biden heeds the outcry against casual drone escelation it matters little if SecDef once defended the policy (and contrawise if he's for it, then it'll likely happen)

These seem to be on the whole highly skilled and highly respected and that's what we need more than anything right now. Biden's team doesn't have to be stacked with Bernie-ites, they simply have to be wise enough to recognize the shortcomings of the Obama Administration and identify ways to do marginally better.

And when a really problematic name gets floated out as "under consideration" by the neo-liberal old guard, the progressives have been vigilant to say "no, fuck that" and so far have not been defied.

What does bolt neck know about climate science?

My initial impulse was to say "Probably more than any Trump cabinet person knows about the area that they were supposedly in charge of."

But he doesn't have to be an actual scientist to play the role that he is doing, as I understand it. He mainly has to have the willingness and ability to push policy and to bring information from the White House to wherever it's needed and vice versa.

https://www.axios.com/biden-john-kerry-climate-envoy-c8f09519-41b1-439a-8b88-f4ddd1f5b2e0.html

Yeah, I'm no fan of Lurch's but he at least has an understanding not only of how the government is supposed to work and will pay some attention to actual scientists.

He’ll probably just talk to the climate and put it asleep and that’s how we solve climate change.

No, no ... you see, if we all just ran around screaming "Look at me, I'm a socialist! Che Guevara rocks!" we would win in a landslide. Because reasons.

We'll never know if that's true.

But from where we're at, do you think that what looks like being essentially another term for the Obama Administration is going to fix the massive structural problems that led to people voting for Trump and to make the kinds of changes necessary to halt or at least mitigate the slide towards climate disaster?

Yeah, all we know is Bernie got crushed on Super Tuesday even though he massively out funded Biden, largely because older black folks voted for him in huge numbers. And yeah, I voted for Bernie in the primaries, both times.

Considering many of those were racism and misogyny, not much can be done about that. That and people are just fucking stupid. All Trump did was accelerate those massive structural problems with tax cuts for the rich and outright corruption. And we know it would have been worse in a second term.

As to climate issues, he also accelerated those by repealing virtually every major regulation and actively promoting fossil fuels.

And the CDC is ecstatic because they won't have someone actively working against public health for their own political gain, leading to at least tens of thousands of unnecessary deaths, and likely hundreds of thousands before it is over.

Plus we got to stop the acceleration of Christofascism.

So I'm pretty happy.

I can hardly think of anyone more contemptible than someone in the States who was smart enough to know all of that and still didn't vote for Biden because of 'purity.'

Since I have neither defended Trump's record or advocated that anyone vote against Biden in the general election, this would appear to be something of a non sequitor.

The election is over and the Trump Administration will soon be in the past. This thread is about Biden's cabinet and administration. So my questions remain.

Ah, so 'we'll never know how Bernie would have done' was not about the election. Yeah, fuck off with that level of dishonesty.

The bleeding has stopped. It looks like the possibility of fascism or civil war has at least been delayed, if not averted.

So yeah, the election does continue to matter to the cabinet, the consequences of voting downstream for the GOP is a huge issue, and a brief scan of just about any American newspaper would have shown you this.

You weren't going to get a far left cabinet because of that, due to the fact that the GOP senate still has the ability to block cabinet picks.

We'll at least have a competent administration that acknowledges climate change is real, and one that isn't dedicated to fleecing the poor.

Your assumption that people voted for Trump due to 'structural issues' was never supported by the facts.

Did you get out of bed on the wrong side?

@MikeH92467 brought up Bernie. I merely dismissed the issue as unresolvable. If we want to get into electoral performance, I might point out that any candidate that fails to utterly annihilate someone as terrible as Biden's opponent was, is a disappointment.

I've already agreed that Biden's cabinet isn't a surprise (for some of the reasons you mention) and that it is more competent than Trump's. But if you're using "better than Trump" as the bar then you're in deep trouble indeed.

"The bleeding" has not stopped with regard to climate change, and that issue is going to make worries about the subversion of your political system seem very quaint indeed if there is not immediate radical action taken. This reality is not something that you can negotiate with, nor does it care about what is politically possible.

As for the reasons why people voted for Trump, I'm all ears. There are not 70 million racists in the US. A sizeable (and decisive) portion of that was in the former rustbelt where "Make America Great Again" meant that good-paying jobs were to come back. And of course Trump didn't actually bring them back - but that's not the issue. The issue is that the discontented precariat still exists and may very well vote for easy answers again if Biden's team fails to make their lives better.

We'll never know for sure if Bernie would have won or lost, true. But we can make reasonable projections based on what we do know.

1. Bernie is a better speaker than Biden and better at energizing crowds and using "the cyber" than Biden.
2. Bernie is not so good at attracting black voters and older voters among Democrats
3. Bernie supporters have claimed to be able to tap into disaffected voters, independent voters and young voters but have never been able to translate those claims into actual votes on a large enough scale.
4. Big Money doesn't want Bernie because he scares them and would be fighting against the possibility of a Bernie presidency with vigor.
5. Bernie almost certainly would have gotten fewer Republicans to cross over to vote for him than Biden did.
6. Bernie almost certainly would have inspired more Republicans and others who didn't vote to show up because booga-booga socialism!
7. Trump's main lines of attack against Biden -- that he was too wimpy to stand up to the Left and something-something Hunter Biden's laptop -- didn't work.
8. Trump would have attacked Bernie far more ruthlessly than any Democrat ever did.

Add it all up, and I think that Bernie would have likely lost most of the states Biden flipped and therefore the presidency. He might have even lost some of the ones that Hillary and Biden won. I can't think of any states that Biden lost that Bernie would have been likely to win.

I am not sure that structural problems led to people voting for Trump. Structural problems (i.e. the Electoral College) led to him being elected. But it is cultural problems that led people to say: I'm tired of these Washington politicians with their knowledge and public service. I want someone who has never shown interest in anybody but himself, who has a track record of failure and lies, because he promises to look out for the America I am used to. Yes, this guy up to his eyeballs in debt who has gone to Ivy League schools and has gold-plated buildings cares about me, the little guy. Plus, he says what he means and he means what he says, except when he doesn't, and that's OK too. He owns the libs.

As to climate change, it seems like the Biden administration will get back with the Paris Accords and takes matters fairly seriously.

Not interested in re-running the debate about Bernie, like I say.

By structural issues, I mean structural economic issues. So yeah, some of that.

It obviously remains to be seen but the reassuring rhetoric aside, the records of the people that he is appointing don't fill one with confidence that they take it nearly seriously enough. The Paris Accords don't go far enough and are basically nonbinding so rejoining them is the absolute minimum that one might expect.

not to split hairs here, but didn't Biden publicly say a few months ago that without a doubt his running mate would be a female of color? Granted this isn't repaying political favors, but it sounds to me like he's putting race & gender ahead of any other "qualifications" when he makes a statement like that.

Oy.

Trump got the 2nd most votes ALL TIME in American presidential elections.

He increased his take from the year he won in 2016.

While that's certainly an indictment of the American voter, it is not an indictment of any politician running against him.

Biden's coalition was 40% liberal, 48% moderate, and 10% conservative.

While it's true there are more registered Democrats in the US, there are NOT more liberals. Most of the country is still moderate.

That is likely to change in the next decade, but we aren't there yet.

Ridiculous hyperbole. It just makes you look stupid. We are far, far better off under a competent Biden administration than the most corrupt and incompetent group of all time. Hell, the head of DHS is a latino that put together the DACA program. The Sec of Treasury nom is a former fed chair that was backed by Elizabeth Warren because she's not a corporate stooge.

So as long as you understand that your comment has nothing to do with what is actually POSSIBLE, we'll go from there.

As you admit that it isn't politically possible in a matter that is overtly political, you just come off as ridiculous.

Yeah, we get it. You only see the world through a single lens.

And, oh by the way, the Rust belt voted for Biden. PA, MI, MN, WI. The only one that didn't was OH, and racism there is more and more prevalent every day.

Enough with the constant attacks from the left. Things are better now than they have been in a long time.

He actually said only that his running mate would be a woman, not necessarily one of color. Before he chose Harris, speculation included plenty of white women, including Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer.

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/07/27/joe-biden-vp-running-mate-pick-tracker-377652

Saying that he was going to choose a woman (or even a woman of color) would only mean that he was "putting race & gender ahead of any other 'qualifications'" if one thought that there were not qualified women and people of color.

You are ignoring the last four years.

Does Biden have any Young Turk picks so far? No, he doesn’t. He’s got a lot of old hands with extensive experience working in the federal bureaucracy.

Which is exactly what we need right now. We’ve had four years where one of the main goals of the administration* was the "deconstruction of the administrative state" (their words). Almost anyone at high level with any intelligence and/or integrity has been forced out. The government as an institution has been thoroughly hollowed out and demoralized.

Until that is rebuilt putting a Bernieite in charge won’t do anything except placate the kids who have no understanding of politics and how the government actually works.

Long term it would damage the progressive cause as they wouldn’t be able to actually accomplish anything.

Biden has said he is a transitional president. His goal is to try and repair the damage Trump has done and then move out of the way.

I’m not judging him solely on what he is able to accomplish but how well he puts the next Dem into a position to accomplish things.


*along with grift, putting the American people in danger to reduce the regulatory compliance costs of mega-corps and the straight up wealth transfer from the people to the mega rich

What Anc said. Unca Joe is coming in as a janitor to clean up the mess that the orange moron made. You have to have people who know what they're doing to get that done. Once the structures of government are back to something non-stupid, then we can pursue the progressive fantasies.

This once again entirely ignores what I've written in this thread and misconstrues my last post. If you're not even going to read my posts properly and just use them as an excuse to posture like this, I'm done with you.

I really hope that you are right. But I fear that unless his feet are constantly held to the fire he will continue that transfer of wealth, albeit in a less gangsterish way, as Clinton and Obama did before him. It is a necessary start to realise that neoliberalism is the problem rather than a solution and that critical examination is called for rather than sycophancy.

I'll note that his student loan debt plan is pretty damn progressive as far as US politics go, and that being one of his first goals for the administration is (pleasantly) surprising, because of yours and @Ancalagon's analysis.

I stand corrected - the only qualifier was being female, not a female of color. BTW I believe there are plenty of qualified females and people of color, but to publicly announce that you would indeed choose a woman rather than choose somebody who happened to be a woman is wrong IMHO. It values a person by their gender, rather than their capabilities. Just my 2 cents.

Thank you for your passive/aggressive reaction.

Quick question - student loans have been around for a long time. The first Federal student loan program started in 1965 for example. Can someone with student loan experience tell me if any past administration has ever attempted to forgive student loans on a large scale? Or has the student loan situation only reached a crisis level within the past four years? I honestly don't know.

Sorry hoss, barking up the wrong tree here - I'm not clever enough to attempt any psychological games. I'm just calling it as I see it. Joe laid out his agenda and priorities on choosing a running mate right there on TV in front of god & everybody. Not judging him, he's a career politician and he will say what he needs to say to get where he wants to go - that's his job and he obviously did it well.

I would never accuse you of being deliberately passive/aggressive.

This really is bizarre bc most gays I know see him as the gay equivalent to Uncle Ruckus from The Boondocks, always downplaying the fact that he's gay and poluciesfpolicies that have made me wonder if he'd be part of the RNC if not for that. Beyond that, I couldn't tell you a thing about his personality

At any rate, the guy was in high school at the same time I was. If Biden passes over him, he'll have plenty of time in his career to move on up and get picked for something down the road.

Out of curiosity, what was your opinion of McCain choosing Palin as his running mate?