ISIS can just call in international troops and they were sitting in Pakistan just waiting for the US to pull out. Afghanistan was always going to return to the Taliban as long as Pakistan was still supporting them. There's probably still a lot of local support for them.
Maybe: but internally, I doubt many Presidents have faced much criticism for pulling troops out and leaving a country to hang in the wind - bringing soldiers home tends to play well so long as it's not "retreat" - and the Afghan campaign never struck me as popular with Americans to begin with. What disappoints and frustrates, is that the troop removal made no apparent attempt to fill the remaining gap; a coalition of local allies maybe, while the ineptitude of the local forces begs the question: how much coordination was there between the US and Afghan armies? How was this Taliban resurgence even allowed to happen?
All the fingers and blame will be directed toward Biden for this but nobody will put the blame on the republicans who started this ridiculous war. I'm not sure what else Biden could do other than prolong the war. Afghanistan will inevitably end up back in Taliban hands and all that money and lives wasted will be on the republican's but they will blame Biden all the same.
Again. That’s a battle to be won at state level. You need to focus your attention in the right direction.
You consistently criticise the Dems for not doing things they can’t do.
I get the American desire to pull out of a country it never had any real business being in in the first place; just from the US's perspective it was a massive drain on resources, and graveyard for its soldiers ... but it's hard not to look at the growing return of the Taliban and feel this could have been handled better by Biden. How I don't know but I wonder what the US were doing all this time that upon removal from the equation, Afghanisation immediately reverts to 20 years ago.
By not getting rid of the filibuster and passing Electoral Reform, they are virtually guaranteeing that the Republicans can profit from their disenfranchisement efforts. The Democrats continue to play right into McConnell's hands.
Yes you can. It's the cog icon in the top right of mobile; the three dots / kebab menu in the right on desktop. You have 24 hours to edit the post
The "manual" says that you have 24 hours during which you can edit a post by clicking on 3 dots to the upper right, on the top line of your post...
But yes, very difficult to maintain interest in using this site now... Pity, as there have been some good discussions here over the years...
can't edit posts, what a **** site. 😎
Anything Trump did drew ratings thus non stop coverage of his **** tweets. Mainstream media can't replicate the same "magic" with Biden as he doesn't spend all his time on twitter screeching and tbh most mainstream media will take it easy on Biden because they lean to the left.
They haven't totally given on the Trump train as they still give him plenty of coverage , and are secretly praying he runs in 2024 to keep their dying mediums alive. They tried to elevate MTG, Tucker and RDS to fill the Trump void but look at their ratings nobody cares anymore thankfully.
Also think while Trump had a lot of friendly media platforms, the Dems have much more so they will go easy on Biden and the Dems.
Genuinely don't think their is many platforms in America that pretend to offer balance, CNN used to for a long time, but have gave up up recently and are all in the MSNBC way.
It makes absolute sense. The Democrats struggle to get 50 Senate seats. It’s far easier for the GOP to win a majority because most of the smaller states elect Republicans. Ending the filibuster is shooting themselves in the foot long term.
The senate is ridiculous
When elected in 2016, Trump was no longer the host of the so-called reality celebrity apprentice telly show. This was exchanged for the apprentice president show. Both exhibited drama and controversies. Trump frequently cast and pitted celebrities against each other during a tv season. And as apprentice president he continued to facilitate the drama and controversies between rival political parties and individuals.
In comparison, the current Biden-Harris administration is a telly bore lacking in drama and controversies. Makes me wonder how many Americans miss the Trump entertainment, and how many will vote for him in 2024 accordingly?
The reality is that while there are plenty of deficiencies within the Biden administration, it's all very pedestrian and boilerplate stuff for any given US government. No less important or controversial, but just not containing the almost pantomime and melodramatic levels of incompetence the Trump admin brought with each day. It was too easy to gawp as one read the headlines, punctuated with an exasperated "he did/said what??"
All is quiet on the western front since 20 January 2021. Unlike the daily noise that occurred during the 4 years prior. The banning of a particular person by several major social media platforms may account for a large drop in noise.
There are still major problems to solve by the new administration and Congress, some of which have gone unsolved for decades. Only time will tell if the Biden-Harris team will make a difference.
I realise that this is a bit of an odd concept for modern politics, but is it possible that Manchin is doing this because it's what the people who voted for him want him to do it? As we have all observed, the voters of WV aren't exactly in lockstep with the Democrat party, regardless of the letter after the name of their Senate representatives.
Its assumed that their is others who are not keen on getting rid of the fillibuster but are content to keep their head down and let Sinema and Manchin take the flack.
Sinema will be fine next time, she is running in a state which Trump despite running an abysmal campaign in barely lost so she clearly has a plan and its going to work.
Manchin is rarely the deciding vote on anything, when he votes no on a Democrat policy, he knows the numbers aren't their no matter his vote. Sly old fox.
https://twitter.com/HotlineJosh/status/1417840877188308994
The politics just don't add up for me. Manchin has said this is his last turn, and his WV seat will undoubtedly go Republican afterwards. Sinema is likey to lose her reelection bid imo, as she is going against the wishes of her electorate, and is in a historically Rep seat also.
Other than doing their corporate bidding, I don't see the advantages to them of towing a Republican line. They're actively hurting their party and likely future electoral success
The core of the Dem's current problem is that, while the did very well in Georgia, they failed to secure the overall Senate seats to command a working majority. Effectively, tbey hold 48 actual Dem seats plus two 'branded' Dem seats (Manchin & Sinema) and need the VP to push anything partisan over the line. Manchin & Sinema simply won't vote down the filibuster, so for the forseeable future, all Mitch et al need to do is run down the clock, block everything and await an extra seat in 2022. While Manchin & Sinema continue their pro- filibuster line, this Senate is only nominally Democratic and needs bi-partisanship to move anything on.
I hate it, but that's the way it is!
I can't understand how the Democrats went into this new Administration determined to repeat all the failed ideas of bipartisanship. It's genuinely baffling. If they pass Electoral Reform, they likely guarantee a continued majority in the House, and likely the Senate too.
Editorial on CNN this week, on how Biden is now having a very bad week.
Whether it is GOP stonewalling or internal Democrat bickering (and both are happening), the end result is the same. His approval rating is now below 50% and he has a slew of problems which aren't getting fixed. He has two choices. Either successfully deflect the blame, or fix the problems and get the credit.
Well you watch enough contemporary American news coverage from the 1980s and 1970s and yes between the GOP and dems there was obvious differences in how they believed the country should function but at least in my reading of, while they disagreed with how to do things, they did for the most part agree on a common set of universal facts. That as we can see in the era of trump is no more, because he and the GOP have told us that what they LITERALLY see with their own eyes in not in fact what we actually saw. The January 6th insurrection for example, now you can argue on issues of security failures but to try and pretend that the hours of video from both outside the US capitol and inside don’t show people forcibly entering a secure building and damaging it is ridiculous.
Indeed; while it's perfectly fair to say that the American Two Party system is itself broken and that both parties work to keep each other in power - it's a huge stretch to say the actual, internal ideologies and beliefs of the parties are the same. The modern GOP has clearly and increasingly wedded itself further into the right, as well aggressively hostile towards various social issues like Climate Change, inclusiveness - or indeed, basic CoVid structures.
Absolute nonsense.
Only one party is full of bigots, climate change deniers and insurgency supporters.
I wouldn’t say they are as bad as each other. The GOP as have been pointed out will just stop everything which the democrats don’t do. O the democrats have perfected the political circular firing squad. It’s rather impressive how the democrats can so easily nearly snatch defeat from the joys of Victory, which given their technical majority in the senate and very slim majority in the house, you’d think they’d have a united front but it’s not.
And visa versa. They are as bad as each other.
Perhaps it's time for a change in approach. If the past decade hasn't demonstrated the failure of a backdoor approach, I don't know what would. Biden has already seen Obama's presidency wasted through Republican intransigence. He's making a huge mistake of he allows McConnell and Dem outliers to stymie the necessary reforms
I do. The Veep isn’t anywhere near as important as you make it out as a position.
There is absolutely no way that will work, the GOP will make a huge deal out of executive overreach if he tries as well.
The only way is soft back door deals, which I’m sure he’s trying.
Gee I don't know, talk about the importance of electorial reform at a priority. Support getting rid of the filibuster, publicly call on those Senators to get with the program, or GTFO of the party.
Put more pressure how? They don’t need him for re election
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