So, Vaush basically reacted to the far right winning in Europe, and when looking at the outgoing guy in Belgium, he basically noted how he had no policies and it's not a surprise he lost. People want SOMETHING and when you got these liberals who don't really do anything, they don't win elections for long. And yeah, that's been my take on liberals for a while. It's my issue with the democrats, although Vaush has admitted even the democrats have tried to do stuff. But yeah, even then, let's face it, biden's actual administration has been underwhelming as crap and barely passed anything. And that's arguably one of the reasons he's down 4-5 points compared to where he was in 2020.
The fact is, as I discussed a bit before in my "is conservatism evil?" thing, liberals are the real conservatives. And they're the GOOD kind of conservatives. They end up having this mentality of wanting to have a "steady hand" guiding the "ship of state" and to basically just be competent administrators who don't change much and maybe a tweak things around the edges, but otherwise, as Biden would say, "nothing will fundamentally change."
And that's okay. That's the GOOD kind of conservatism. "Eh, society is mostly fine as it is, let's not change much." But let's face it, it's not inspiring, and a lot of politics is based on dissatisfaction with the status quo, especially in the modern era. Neoliberalism has ruled for too long and now people are pushing back. In Europe, we saw this with the far left winning in the mid-late 2010s, and then they failed to do anything because of the EU and their imposed austerity (since the EU takes away a lot of powers governments like the US have in managing their own financial situation, and are more powerless like our state governments are). And now the far right is winning, in response to the failures of the left and the center, with people being angry over immigration and probably over the EU itself. Because let's face it, when these liberal do nothings offer anything, it's identity politics and wokeness, which does F all to actually appeal to people and comes off like a stern, finger wagging moral lecture than anything else. Not something you wanna do to voters. And then they lose.
I admit, the US situation is a bit different. I mean, in 2016, and 2020, I was all there with that specific analysis. I agreed with it wholeheartedly, and I did believe the answer was doing stuff. But post COVID, i think things got screwed up, with inflation, and the so called "worker shortage" (ahem, it's a JOBS SURPLUS, get it right). And right now, Americans aren't really in a state of mind to want nice progressive things. maybe if Biden did more progressive things and was able to maintain things, MAYBE he would be more popular. Maybe if we had a $15 minimum wage, and a public option, and student debt forgiveness, and the child tax credit expansion, maybe things would be better for him. At the same time, it's also possible it would all backfire as people would say that it's causing all of the inflation. I don't know. And that's why I'm personally more reluctant to attack Biden too much this election cycle, and to become a reluctant defender of him. Because I fully recognize that if he did go full tilt progressive, the right could blame inflation on him even more than they did, and it might work.
But yeah, at the same time, Biden is kind of in a position where he's darned if he does, and darned if he doesn't. And that's the story of his presidency as of late. He can't do more things, but he also can't NOT do more things. Basically the public is gonna hate him either way, and they're gonna wanna replace him.
In a sense, the liberals being do nothing did do that to themselves. I knew even if the post COVID inflation didnt happen, Biden would face some malaise, simply because it seems quite clear people are fed up with these managerial democrats in the centrist mold who don't do anything, but I'm also not really sure people want change either. If you actually push for solutions, then people attack him for trying to implement him, including stuff I've historically been for, like student debt forgiveness. That didnt move the needle at all, and the right dredged up a lot of resentment politics from white working class types complaining about how they never went to college, or they paid off their student loans and it's not fair to them, or blah blah blah. So does it help? Eh...not really.
I don't even have an answer for the American situation right now. That's how F-ed the left is. We literally are in a "darned if we do darned if we dont" situation post COVID. pre covid, yeah I do think left wing ideas were popular, would've sold well, and would've actually encouraged people to keep voting for lefties. Post COVID, it's like the center is just being pulled every which way as some complain from, some from the left, and he's in a no win situation of people hating him no matter what he does.
Still, i would say that under normal circumstances, the liberals need to change for the better. We shouldnt have an overton window where the change agent comes from the regressive evil right, and the left is just "let's defend democracy from the fascist hordes and do the bare minimum to improve peoples lives, you WILL turn out for us even though we're not doing anything for you, right?....right?....guys?" Really, it's why I keep saying we're in the worst timeline. But yeah. i do think vaush is onto something that just sitting there not doing anything and looking ineffective is a problem. And it's the bane of liberalism these days. Because liberals are what conservatives often SHOULD be, and conservatives are this psychotic evil alternative people eventually vote for because somehow they like them better than the liberals. I don't get why people go conservative any more. You'd think after 40 years of this crap people would have had enough (I outgrew that stuff in 2012 in my 20s), but here we are. And liberals are losing to these psychopaths. And we should be afraid here in November, because we look to be following suit. Shape up, guys.
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