Mapping 46 - what should/will Biden do?

[Free]

The first and foremost thing that should be on Biden's mind, even before he takes office, is the COVID-19 epidemic. And signs are pointing to this being the case.

After that?

DACA recipients hopeful for President-elect Biden’s immigration reform plans

Estefany Pineda was relieved when she learned Joe Biden would become the next president.

www.boston25news.com

 

[Free]

Might be helpful looking over the "priorities" docs at their transition site:

The White House

President Biden and Vice President Harris promised to move quickly to deliver results for working families. That’s what they’ve done.

buildbackbetter.com

 

[Lucifer]

First thing needing done is a deep clean of the white house. that place is full of covid.

 

[Casey Pelous]

I should think getting all those kids in cages out of cages and reunited with their (freed) parents would be a high priority.

First thing needing done is a deep clean of the white house. that place is full of covid.

And cooties.

 

[Sid]

Practice golf?

 

[Sid]

What, isn't that what Americans presidents do as a hobby in general?
He is to old to practice basketball dunks.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

Rejoin the Paris Accords and start trying to resolve the crisis of the Iran nuclear deal -- that is a very big problem between the US, on the one hand, and Germany, France and the UK, on the other.

Health care and financial support for people through the pandemic has to be the first thing on the domestic agenda.

A lot depends on how Georgia goes -- to my mind, if Biden and Harris lay out an attractive programme for the next four years, and speak in support of their candidates in Georgia, turning the senate elections into a referendum on whether the voters there want health care, voting rights and a green new deal or whether they want Mitch McConnell smirking as he blocks these at every stage, then that might have a very positive effect on Biden and Harris' first term.

 

[danielravennest]

A lot depends on how Georgia goes

Both Loeffler & Perdue were caught trading stocks at the time the confidential briefings on COVID happened early in the year. That's going to be a major issue in this campaign. Perdue was previously chairman of Reebok and Dollar General stores (big chain of low priced stuff, for folks in other countries), and worth about $15 million. Loeffler's husband runs the NY stock exchange, and they are worth $165 million. So this can be painted as a contest between the rich and regular people. Oh, and Loeffler is against the Black Lives Matter movement, which should get her lots of votes in the Atlanta area (not).

While help from Biden, Harris, and Obama is welcome, we have plenty of reasons to reject them locally. The presidential vote shows we have the numbers. The main thing will be getting people to vote *again* in two months.

 

[Aribeth Zelin]

Both Loeffler & Perdue were caught trading stocks at the time the confidential briefings on COVID happened early in the year. That's going to be a major issue in this campaign. Perdue was previously chairman of Reebok and Dollar General stores (big chain of low priced stuff, for folks in other countries), and worth about $15 million. Loeffler's husband runs the NY stock exchange, and they are worth $165 million. So this can be painted as a contest between the rich and regular people. Oh, and Loeffler is against the Black Lives Matter movement, which should get her lots of votes in the Atlanta area (not).

While help from Biden, Harris, and Obama is welcome, we have plenty of reasons to reject them locally. The presidential vote shows we have the numbers. The main thing will be getting people to vote *again* in two months.

I'd think that the fact it went blue this election, and is staying there through the recounts is a nice booster for going and voting again.

And maybe the fact that Twitler lost might be enough to keep a few republicans at home.

 

[Khamon]

He should appoint competent staff then eat some pie.

 

[Essence Lumin]

Even before he takes office, he seems big on working across the aisle. How's that going to work? Only 3 US republican senators even admit that he has won.

The Nation describes the problems he / we face with him running a campaign that tried to be inclusive of republicans.

The High Cost of Defeating Donald Trump

Joe Biden built an impressive coalition to defeat a sitting president. Too bad he did so at the expense of his own party.

www.thenation.com

Centrist Democrats and their allies among Never Trump Republicans are trying to blame the poor congressional showing on progressive Democrats. The argument is that slogans like “socialism” and “defund the police” scared off centrist voters. House majority whip Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.) warned in the caucus call that if “we are going to run on Medicare for All, defund the police, socialized medicine, we’re not going to win.”

These claims are absurd and a transparent attempt to scapegoat and silence the party’s activist wing. It’s worth recalling that Biden, the party’s standard-bearer, repeatedly expressed disdain for Medicare for All (promising to veto it if it ever passed), socialism (boasting that he had beaten the socialist Bernie Sanders), and the movement to defund the police (advocating more federal funding for the police).

In using Republicans to delegitimize Trump, Biden was also in effect legitimizing the Republican Party. His implicit argument was that the only real problem was Trump and that once Trump was out of the way, the two parties could go back to normal cooperation. Biden completely ignored the extent to which the GOP had become Trumpized and major Republicans like Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell had been deeply complicit in Trump’s corruption.

The real lesson of the election is that if you run a Republican campaign, you will get Republican results. Democrats had better hope that Biden is merely a placeholder president and that in 2024 he’ll be replaced by a Democratic leader who runs a Democratic campaign.

 

[Noodles]

COVID is definitely number one. And keeping the country afloat with it.

Personally, above all else, including kids in cages and universal healthcare, needs to be some serious reform to elections and term limiting and maybe age limiting.

Basically, clean up the base line process so the Republicans can never get elected again without cleaning up their bull shit.

Otherwise, any other changes are pointless, because Trump 2 will come along in 2024, and appeal to the idiots, and then wipe any progress away.

 

[Free]

some serious reform to elections and term limiting and maybe age limiting.

Term limits, yes. Age limits...not so much.

I would set a hard limit on terms whether consecutive or...cumulative. Basically, a simple rule for each position that states "One can serve in the U.S. Senate/Congress/SCOTUS for a maximum of ## years."

 

[Innula Zenovka]

Term limits, yes. Age limits...not so much.

I would set a hard limit on terms whether consecutive or...cumulative. Basically, a simple rule for each position that states "One can serve in the U.S. Senate/Congress/SCOTUS for a maximum of ## years."

I'm not sure about term limits, at least not for elected politicians.

I mean, Congressman Jim Clyburn has represented South Carolina's Sixth District for the last 23 years, but so long as his constituents want him, and he can survive any primary challenges from other Democrats, why should they be denied their choice?

 

[Aribeth Zelin]

I'm not sure about term limits, at least not for elected politicians.

I mean, Congressman Jim Clyburn has represented South Carolina's Sixth District for the last 23 years, but so long as his constituents want him, and he can survive any primary challenges from other Democrats, why should they be denied their choice?

This - or John Lewis - while term limits would help us get rid of bad apples like a certain cluster of senators, it would also deprive us of good ones as well.

 

[Free]

I mean, Congressman Jim Clyburn has represented South Carolina's Sixth District for the last 23 years, but so long as his constituents want him, and he can survive any primary challenges from other Democrats, why should they be denied their choice?

One might argue that Biden's 36 years in the Senate, until he was pulled out to take up the VP slot, was too long.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

One might argue that Biden's 36 years in the Senate, until he was pulled out to take up the VP slot, was too long.

Yes, but the problem with Mitch McConnell isn't that he's been in the Senate for too long and now it's time for some other equally corrupt and far-right, but younger and more energetic, Republican to take over from him the arduous duties of enabling Republicans and blocking Democrats and to bring new thinking to the task in hand.

I really think that people should be able to choose their own representatives -- the remedy, surely, is to do something about gerrymandering and voter suppression.

 

[Jolene Benoir]

Based on some of the folks that have been running under the Republican umbrella lately, I dunno. We are seeing people who have no experience, and frankly no knowledge like QAnon and Tea Party members. They are running with the express idea to inculcate even more people with their ideologies and thwart any progress in government, if they understand it at all.

 

[Free]

the remedy, surely, is to do something about gerrymandering and voter suppression.

Which has been going on for decades, and while some keep trying to break those efforts "they" just keep finding new ways to accomplish them.

The remedy is to rethink what our remedies are.

 

[Jolene Benoir]

Which has been going on for decades, and while some keep trying to break those efforts "they" just keep finding new ways to accomplish them.

The remedy is to rethink what our remedies are.

It should be interesting to see how the census will affect gerrymandering, given that bad intentions were involved from start to finish.

As to voter suppression, that largely happens at the local/state level and very few of those folks were removed from office. ETA: I think the Stacey Abrams model of fighting suppression may well be one of the more effective ways of fighting that. It showed success.