Max Notes
We continue to receive criticism of our criticism of the Biden Administration—and I get it. The fear of another Trump term is palpable and growing as Trump continues to clear hurdles toward the GOP nomination and no matter how much of a slam dunk most of the charges against citizen Donald appear to be, I think it’s hard for any of us to imagine him actually doing time in prison or, at a minimum being disqualified.
Many of you have expressed frustration in my refusal to contain my anger toward Joe Biden. Again, I get it. But let’s be clear, voicing displeasure with our leaders is paramount to achieving real change.
Three years ago progressives did our job. We watched as the DNC circled the proverbial wagons around a man that previously sought and lost the nomination (1988 and 2008) because the establishment was threatened by the surge in support for Bernie Sanders.
One by one, the other avatars of the establishment fell in line to prevent Bernie from running the table in the primary. First Bernie took Iowa. (He trounced Biden but other delegates were later reapportioned.) Then New Hampshire. And then Nevada. A chill went down the spine of the DNC (metaphor since the DNC is spineless) and so Yang, Bennet, Patrick and Steyer jumped ship to support Biden. And when Bernie still put up admirable numbers in South Carolina, even after Clyburn threw his formidable base behind Biden, Klobuchar and Buttigieg fell in line before Super Tuesday, with the latter leveling an all out assault on Bernie. Bloomberg and Warren followed shortly thereafter with Warren petulantly holding back her endorsement of Biden until the death of Bernie’s campaign was a certainty.
And so we fell in line. We backed Joe Biden in his third bid to secure the nomination and pulled the lever for him to prevent a second Trump term. In return we made a few demands.
The Green New Deal.
Expanded health coverage.
$15 minimum wage.
Student debt erasure.
End foreign wars.
Continue direct child tax credit payments.
Extended parental leave.
Greater protection for workers.
We understood that most—but not all—of these things were obtainable with the Democratic majority but he would have to act quickly. We knew Medicare for all was off the table. But everything else was attainable.
Here’s where the lines of communication begin to break down.
Most people assume that all politicians lie to get elected. So when Biden made strides in certain areas, some progressives were stunned and happily surprised. But let’s be clear. When he and Bernie had their fucking kumbaya moment our demands were clear. You don’t get the support of our guy unless you fight for these things. Now that we’re three years into it, we have some legitimate beefs. And while Trump poses a grave threat to our democracy, marginalized people and the planet, Joe Biden is still the fucking president and we’d like a word.
The Green New Deal didn’t happen. We got a ton of investments into clean energy initiatives that will take time to implement but it’s a great start. But we’ve still done nothing to slow emissions in the meantime and, in fact, we’ve doubled down on fossil fuel production and opened up new areas for exploration. That wasn’t the deal.
There were 29 million uninsured people in the United States in 2019. In 2022 that figure fell to 25.6 million. Is that enough for you? Are we supposed to settle for this? Sure, Biden extended provisions to cover prescription drugs for seniors but millions of people were dropped from Medicaid in 2023 so it’s likely that these gains were reversed despite the fact that unemployment remains incredibly low. So what happens when there’s a spike in unemployment? That wasn’t the deal.
Biden issued an order to increase minimum wage just for federal workers to $15 in 2021. In 2022 it was blocked by a federal court. The federal minimum wage for all remains $7.25. That wasn’t the deal.
Several organizations and policy groups have demonstrated how the Biden administration can eliminate all student debt lawfully without going through Congress. Instead, Biden chose to leverage pandemic relief rules to eliminate up to $10,000 of all debt and up to $20,000 in some cases. And it got shot down. Since then the administration has done a workaround to eliminate several billion dollars but most student debt holders don’t qualify. That wasn’t the deal.
We asked Biden to end all foreign wars. He pulled us out of Afghanistan and he should be commended for that. (Unless you live in Afghanistan under Taliban rule, then you might want to have a word with him for the manner in which we abandoned the ship.) Since then, we have armed Ukraine and Israel for their war efforts, sold arms to nearly every country in the world and “strategically” bombed a handful of nations when we needed to remind everyone of what we’re capable of. Essentially, he outsourced war. That wasn’t the deal.
We asked him to continue the direct child tax credit payments. He ended them. That wasn’t the deal.
We asked for extended parental leave. Didn’t happen. Not even close. That wasn’t the deal.
We asked for greater protection for workers. Biden made it easier to unionize, so that’s great. That was part of the deal.
And that’s about it.
When you ask progressives to choose the lesser of two evils this is the mental tally we do. When you’re surprised by our tepid response and call our criticisms of Biden irresponsible, now maybe you understand. Or maybe you don’t. But at least you know.
Other things I’m obsessing over…
With the awfully acted and horrifically written Jack Reacher season two closing out, I was concerned that basic white guys (BWG) like me would have nothing to look forward to. Worry no more as the universe provides. The BWG (middle-aged edition) trifecta is nearly upon us:
- Billy Joel is releasing a new song for the first time in 73 years. Not impressed? You try writing a song with a glass of wine in one hand and steering wheel in the other.
- Jon Stewart is returning to host The Daily Show once a week until the election. Love it, Jon. But not sure once a week is gonna git ‘er done.
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And Road House is getting a reboot. TBH, I was skeptical about this one at first. Why touch perfection? It rarely ends well (See: Miami Vice film version. Michael Mann’s same capable hands weren’t able to recapture the magic.) But I’m willing to give Road House a try because it appears to have a level of self awareness that honors the significance of this film in cinema history. In the pantheon of great cinematic BWG figures, Dalton looms large among Michael Corleone, Charles Foster Kane, Tristan Ludlow & Tyler Durden (a two-fer for Brad), John McClane, Indiana Jones, Furious Styles and Gordon Gekko.
-Max
