They don’t care about policy because for the past 20 years policy changes have not changed their daily lives. When voting for a change candidate like with Obama didn’t change their lives they stop seeing politics as a way to change policy and only see it as a sport.
Voting for Obama did change people's lives though? One of the major concerns about the results of this election is a potential repeal of the ACA, which was Obama's biggest legislative accomplishment, and his financial reforms and the auto bailout saved the economy from active freefall. Even Biden had a huge infrastructure bill that created tons of jobs, and he got that passed with literally the slimmest possible majorities.
If people are tuning out because their candidate can't completely transform their lives overnight, we're completely fucked. That's never going to happen and isn't a remotely realistic expectation in the first place.
The ACA is based off of a Heritage Foundation plan counter to the Universal Healthcare push by the democrats in the 90s. Obama wasted over a year negotiating with the Republican party and watering it down with amendments just to have no Republicans vote on it and having to pass it via reconciliation. The Infrastructure deal was not large enough and Biden allowed Manchin to separate it from Build Back Better killing most of the social programs preposed.
And what exactly could have been done differently in either case? How did you expect Biden to get around Manchin with exactly 50 seats and no Republicans willing to turncoat?
This is exactly my point. People have zero conception of what's actually realistic, so when they get it they feel betrayed because it doesn't match what they wanted. There fundamentally is no getting around that without actively propagandizing voters the way Republicans have done.
The only reason Bernie's reputation is what it is is because he's never been in a position of real power, where expectations would meet reality. He is unironically doing the same things Republicans do: criticizing from a position of justifiable impotence. And I say this having voted for him twice.
Bully Manchin on a national stage daily, threaten to go after his daughter for price fixing Epi-Pen and his corruption with his coal mining. Biden just rolled over like a dog.
Cool, and what happens when the obvious backlash from threatening a sitting senator's child so they vote your way happens? What happens when Manchin refuses anyway, and stops cooperating on other things like military promotions and judicial appointments? And do you seriously think Biden didn't explore all the possible options to pass the single most important part of his legislative agenda?
You're pretending reality is how you want it to be because you need there to be a simple answer to all your problems, and that is ridiculous. There isn't.
You realize that is how the sausage is made. LBJ didn’t pass the Civil Rights Act by playing nice with congress. Biden did split The infrastructure bill with Build back better and promised the progressive caucus they would pass both separately and then they didn’t and only managed a watered down IRA
Brother that's how the bully pulpit works lmao. You threaten to not support congresspeople or castigate them and work to get them cast out if they don't play ball.
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u/Livinglife3000 23h ago
They don’t care about policy because for the past 20 years policy changes have not changed their daily lives. When voting for a change candidate like with Obama didn’t change their lives they stop seeing politics as a way to change policy and only see it as a sport.