President Biden warns of 'oligarchy' as he bids farewell to five decades in politics
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2025/01/15/president-biden-bids-farewell-to-five-decade-political-career/77722498007/Open linkView original on lemmy.world438
Comments178
And spent the past 4 weeks doing fuck all to stop it. Whatever, I guess this is just the ultimate post-Reagan Dems "they go low, we go high" moment.
"Trump is a Nazi and he will end the world if you dont vote Democrat." > "Alright, I'm gonna hand the reigns over to the nazi who's going to end the world. It's the principled thing to do."
If he refused to hand over the White House that would make him a dictator himself. Like it or not Americans voted for Trump. Even the ones that didn't vote for whatever dumb reason.
Sure, and Weimar Germany voted for Hitler. Tell me, what exactly is the point of democracy if someone can legally be elected to end democracy? What exactly is the point, if you can just vote someone in who will end democracy? I would argue that one non-democratic act is literally and absolutely superior in every way to literally ending democracy.
But what the fuck do i know I'm just a trans woman sitting here absolutely horrified that several of my trans friends who live in the southern states could be arrested in a week or two for existing. That trans youth across the country are going to be forced to detransition. A whole generation of dead kids because a dictator takes over the country and to appease his rabid voter base puts their rights on the chopping block.
It was all a fucking lie. WW2 wasn't the last time. The holocaust wasn't the last time. No one learned a single fucking lesson. All the liberals who say "If I was in Germany I'd never have supported the nazis" are absolutely categorically full of shit. It never mattered. They could start rounding people up in the street and peoples primary response would be either annoyance at the blood on their shoes or passive distant pity. And I'm so fucking done with it honestly. Democracy is an empty word. It means nothing. If you live in America you have never once lived in a democratic society, not even if you're a boomer. It's just now the dictators are no longer even pretending that the system has any other purpose than mass violence and exploitation. They don't have to pretend. They've convinced half the world those things are good.
Are you under some pretense that I myself can stem the tide of transphobic violence? Are you suggesting it is personally my responsibility to end fascism, even as millions of people stand by doing nothing while the lives of an entire community are threatened?
How dare you use the words "mad" or "afraid" to describe the feeling of living under the impending threat of state violence.
Oh okay, it's that simple. That's why we're here... Wait.. uhhh... No
Yep fucktard fuck around stage complete! Now comes at least 4 years of finding out.
I sure as shit did not vote for Trump. I only want him upside down like a certain Italian leader he emulates.
I can’t blame him. When my shift ends it’s somebody else’s problem.
Especially if your shift ends and you should have been retired nearly 20 years ago.
Yah except it was by choice he didn't retire sooner
Except that firefighters dont usually let the fire grow and spread while sitting on their hands and then hand it off at the end of the day with a shrug.
But cops will absolutely make everything worse for others. We can cherrypick jobs as examples.
Well, in this example the fire was already raging when Joe's shift began and he prioritized protecting the neighborhood bank and insurance office before any of the houses. At the end of his shift he makes a statement to watch out for the people who work in those places while the inferno levels the rest of the neighborhood.
Or Biden has been fanning the flames since the Reagan Admin with neoliberal bullshit.
The genocide wasnt somebody elses problem. Nor was the election that he bungled and sabotaged.
To be fair the entire last 4 years has been past his naptime at every moment of every day, so he had to delegate everything to whatever randos he could find.
IBGYBG: Motto of the leadership of the Democratic Party
IBGYBG? Ivan Brought Guns, You Better Go? That's an odd motto to have 🤔
Taking shape? Like it's new? Like it's only now just emerging? Jesus Christ, Biden...
Fucking neoliberal trash.
Guess you shoulda done something about that Joe. Like say, when you were president?
Properly prosecute Trump, for example.
He did. He helped build it.
Sleepy Joe is a good nickname because apparently he's been asleep for the last 50 years.
You could have spoken up about this and done something about it over the last 4 years buddy.
He said democracy was at stake more times than I can count. But he was met with laughter, old man jokes, humiliation, claims of hyperbole and fear mongering, and takes like this from media:
https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/4198204-no-president-biden-american-democracy-isnt-at-stake/
But eggs went up 25¢ so Hitler.
I mean he should've put his money where his mouth was in Trump's prosecution. The fact that Trump is walking free right now is unequivocally the fault of Biden and Garland.
These are not related. He was met with that treatment after saying 1 thing (democracy is in danger) while being a pathetic choice for saving it yet continuing on anyway. The actual response to him claiming danger was "cool, whatcha gonna do about it?"
"Democracy is in danger! That's why I, Me. We Beat Medicare, should stay in the race until the last minute!"
"Democracy is in danger, so I'm going to run a campaign which specifically and exclusively caters to the Nazis that put us in danger rather than spend an ounce of time appealing to the base"
"Democracy is in danger, so when my internal polls show I'm going to get creamed this election, I'm going to stay in and tell the world I'm sundowning"
"Democracy is in danger, so I'm going to spend the next year sending billions to a fascist nation committing genocide despite 70% of Americans opposition and 90% of my base hating that move"
Fuck Biden and the DNC for putting us in this position. When a fascist rose, y'all spent your time jacking each other off about the importance of legacy. Your legacy is ashes and a public that despises you.
Maybe if he could speak with more gusto than a dying electronic greeting card, we'd actually believe that he meant it.
Yup. That's the job.
Haha omg this aged like milk
Before that, too. He's very much contributed to it himself, what with the bankruptcy bill, that awful crime bill that was so beneficial to the oligarchs who profit from carceral slavery, his tireless advocacy for MBNA, and much, much more.
His political NASCAR jacket would be so full that you wouldn't be able to read the individual names, but it would have an enormous Israeli flag on it.
It's only an oligarchy bc he lost
What is it that you propose he had done in the last 4 years?
The 2016 Maga tax plan doesn't expire until 2026, so that's out the window.
Executive orders can't really do much about economy or individuals.
Congress was deadlocked senate 50:50 and house majority was lost in 2022.
The FTC and other federal offices were already investigating monopolies and giving out massive record breaking billions in fines.
He cancelled billions if not trillion or more in debts for students, veterans, medical debts, etc.
The treasury and the fed controlling rates reversed the inflation that peaked in his first year as president despite it not serving the interests of hedge funds.
Seems like Biden was a good president who followed the rules and did everything that he could.
Rank choice voting.
I don't think a president can decide how elections are done, for obvious reasons. Thats definitely for Congress and individual states to decide, moreso the latter as each state decides how to alott their EC votes themselves.
Did he try? Was it even part of his agenda?
No, because he doesn't want it to change. Because he's a plutocrat.
He shouldn't try, thats what despots do. Trump can try changing how elections are done and maybe the good people fight him off or maybe this country gets what it deserves and sets an example for future generations.
Lol, no. No despot ever made elections more democratic
No, they don't, because any individual in power who changes elections is always the person you don't want changing elections.
You have to realize that any singular person cannot comprehend the relative good or bad of their actions and therefor all good moral principles come from selflessly putting that power in the hands of voters.
If people want to change how voting works, they have that option. The USA are just dumbasses who keep voting against it.
It is not and was never Biden's job to fix everything at every level of government.
Biden was an og Congressional neoliberal. A prominent one. He helped Reagan convert Republican's former opposition party into the corpo bribe taking, social inclusion!... Economic die in the streets... party it is today, locking arms with Republicans to defend our murderous economy from us as they stoke social division between us so we don't look up at our sociopath owners.
Voted for him out of harm reduction compared to Trump, a vote for quiet not peace, but fuck Joe Biden.
I agree fuck him he wasn’t bad but boy did he lack a spine
It really impressed me how he pardoned that corrupt judge on the way out. Just to prevent anyone from having positive memories of him.
Not even any corrupt judge. He pardoned the Cash4Kids judge.
Yeah, thanks dude, for not actually doing anything about it. Enjoy your millions in retirement.
Fixed it for them.
If we allowed Biden and the DNC to write the tax plans it would have made billionaires eat shit. Instead the country reelected the guys who made the last awful tax plan just as it expires next year.
He did try many times to get rid of student loans, only for Trump’s judicial picks to say it’s illegal to forgive loans of poor people
Fun fact: if he hadn't deliberately means tested student loan forgiveness to death, the GOP lawyers wouldn't have been able to argue discrimination and he knew that.
He wanted the credit for trying, but his owner donors didn't want his "attempt" to actually succeed.
Or
He's a fucking liberal that believes means-testing actually works.
Except for all the times that it doesn't. This is one of those times.
People who are rich enough to not need student loan forgiveness don't have student loans in the first place. Either they come from a rich family that paid for their college or they did so themselves after becoming rich.
With that in mind, means testing student loan forgiveness to death was a hell of a lot of downside including the argument that the fascists used to kill it, in exchange for absolutely no upside.
Regardless of his personal beliefs, half a century worth of experience should be WAY more than necessary to find out how things work regardless of how you think they SHOULD work.
He either knew that means testing would doom it to failure and did it anyway, means tested it BECAUSE he knew it would cause it to fail, or he was WAY too incompetent and naive for someone who'd been in the game for longer than most people have been ALIVE.
Either way, he fucked it up.
Whether it actually works has nothing to do with whether he believes it works.
Whether or not he believes in something working after FIFTY YEARS of trying and mostly failing it says a lot about how stubborn and/or bad at his job he is.
We did. As usual, they didn't do what they and people like yourself who's drunk the kool-aid keep pretending they're going to do.
We literally didn't, lol, the Trump era tax plans expire next year.
He was president and the Dems had congressional majorities for some of the time. If they really wanted to significantly overhaul the tax code, they could have.
They want to PRETEND that they're on the side of the people against the billionaires to fool the gullible into thinking that they're the good guys rather than the least bad ones, but they know who pays them and it ain't you..
The senate was a 50:50 deadlock unable to pass anything without Republicans agreeing or they faced filibuster, and even then they needed all 48/47 DNC and independents to vote in unison if none of the Republicans crossed the isle, then utilize VP tiebreaker.
The house was a DNC majority for only his first two years.
And as I explained to you multiple times, the tax plan did not expire under Biden's presidency.
“They”? I think you mean Sinema and “Mansion”.
I mean them, Biden, Pelosi, Schumer, Jeffries, and the rest of the DNC leadership.
It’d be much better for him to just stay quiet and fade away into obscurity. Every word out of his mouth since that absurd debate has hurt him, his party, and the country at large. His legacy will not be what he hopes.
Biden may not be super-wealthy, but his presidency is a reflection of our country’s political stagnation. And while he’s no oligarch, he’s certainly the poster boy for elite entitlement to power.
Just a reminder, only a few days ago, Biden still said he would have beaten Trump. This man is not living in reality anymore.
Super-wealthy? No. Still wealthy. Worth $10 million, plus all of the government benefits.
https://www.investopedia.com/joe-biden-net-worth-8655652
Oh damn, I didn’t realize he was that wealthy. Should’ve looked it up. All the more reason he should have retired ages ago.
It's almost impossible to be a Federal politician and not be wealthy.
Especially when you're on the side of the establishment, which Biden was his entire far too long career.
To be fair, when he was a senator, he was the lowest paid one iirc. Or at least close to it. Being VP must have changed all that.
Explains one of the many reasons why Trump ran. Get out of jail free card, and help get out of bankruptcy.
With hundreds of companies lining up to give him money as bribes, I'd say he's already got what his greed wanted.
Thank God Joe promised to address this issue before taking office:
"Nothing will fundamentally change."
Ah. Die of gonorrhea and burn in hell, then.
Damn. Looks like you guys are headed for a system that treats rich people and poor people differently. Where you can get away with countless felony charges just for being of a particular status in society.
Where they'll push for the death penalty for someone that shoots a CEO but sleep when schools get shot up(see below). I feel bad for you guys that all of this is only going to start happening to you on January 20, 2025.I mean we've always really been that place but at least the 1% had the decency to pretend they were for fair and equal treatment and justice for all.
Can you please cite a source on school shooters who got off scott free?
Ok, so I was going with the online buzz around Luigi described in this article. According to the article, the claim is debunked but it then goes on to describe how school shooters have received terrorism charges and ended up with life in prison, but gives no examples of school shooters being given the death penalty. So I'm half wrong, as far as I'm concerned. They did almost immediately start talking about the death penalty for Luigi. And they haven't gone that far with school shooters.
Several school shooters have been tried with the death penalty, no different than Mangione in that regard. In case you were unaware, Luigi hasn't even been tried until his court date in February, after which a Jury will give their verdict and then a much later date Sentencing will be decided.
It would be unusual for capital punishment to be carried out in Mangione's case even if he gets that sentence, even among those who are given the death penalty usually end up waiting years or even decades and by then a politician might come out and commute it forcing them to live out their lives in prison, such as the Biden administration commuting 37 such sentences but choosing not to commute several such as the Boston Marathon Bomber.
Thanks for the better context. So all the talk and buzz is online hype that I got caught up in, clearly. Editing my original comment.
This just in: Oligarch warns about other oligarchs
This fucking guy...
He even turned off the “Contact Us” portion of whitehouse.gov. Trash.
Really... You think Joe gave the order to turn that off? I can't even imagine
You suppose either that:
What’s the best explanation?
He has staff who have autonomy to make decisions on the trivial things, so he can focus on big picture. In any org over about 35 people, you kind of need to do that, otherwise the exec is going to be killed by a thousand papercuts
He has staff to ignore the plebs for him. Who do we think we are, Netanyahu?
Yeah, thanks for not doing anything about it and instead just coast for the last 2 fucking months. Super helpful.
Man worth 10 million dollars warns of rule by the rich.
I guess he would know.
(With all due acknowledgement that 10 million is chump change for the likes of Elan and Musky)
Dude 10 mil is like LA upper middle class
Hence "with all due acknowledgement" because I understand that 10 mil is nothing, comparatively.
But I also understand that, to the Amazon warehouse worker with a net worth of a few thousand, or the disabled person who isn't allowed to have a net worth greater than 2 thousand, 10 mil is a a fuck ton of money. You know, comparatively.
Y'all mfs are in the thousands? I can't save more than 500 bucks without the universe creating that exact amount in a surprise expense as soon as I've saved it.
Same! I have been able to save money exactly three times in my life, and every time I got to those points, either my car needed repairs for something or new tires, an animal gets sick and needs my immediate attention, or even my own health is at risk.
The universe has never treated me very kindly, although it does throw me some crumbs every once in awhile.
Just wanted to let you know you are not alone!
We should be rioting
I know. Most people are happy to be blissfully ignorant though, so the numbers would be very hard to get.
Yeah, hypothetically anyway. I technically count as being "in the thousands" because I own my home and car but I have no savings, no retirement, and have only 3 digits in my bank account which will go down to 2 digits soon enough.
That's the tricky thing about "net worth." It can be a very
descriptivedeceptive way of measuring things.Edit: is the autocorrect error why I was getting down votes? I can't figure out what else people would be objecting to :(
I'm pretty sure it still puts him in the top 5% of our population by net worth
For real, a couple of nice vehicles, a couple of properties, a business of 30-50 employees, and maybe a small team of domestic employees cleaners, sitters, contractors, security... thats what 10mil buys you. and im stretching it.
basically described my boss, minus the cleaners , sitters and security guards thing. (and his business is a modest sized car dealership..)
He's a guy that spent his entire career setting us up for this...
Remember when he helped make sure student loan debt couldn't be erased during bankruptcy?
Good times Joe. /s
Remember when Joe Biden pushed for crime bills to systemically arrest BIPOC so prisons never ran out of labor and "tough on crime" looks good to the media?
Classic Uncle Joe!
Oligarch warns of oligarchy
No
Biden has his faults, sure, but Trump & co are on such another level that it's literally not funny anymore
"No one's standard of living will change, nothing will fundamentally change"
https://www.salon.com/2019/06/19/joe-biden-to-rich-donors-nothing-would-fundamentally-change-if-hes-elected/
Without Biden, Trump and Co. had a pretty fucking decent shot at losing. Sorry, but between his breathtaking hubris for running again, and his inflexibility on Israel, I will never, ever forgive that man. He had one fucking job, and he fucking blew it. Same-sex marriage will be "state by state" by the end of the year, and I will be an old man before my LGBT and female friends and family have their rights restored - and that's if they have their rights restored.
That is a cost of decades upon the ones I love. I cannot and will not forgive that because he has a "D" next to his name when he did more than any single person to ensure that theocratic fascist cretinous scum with an "R" next to their names got locked into power.
Whataboutism
Maybe.
It's also very true
The point is that both are terrible and should be imprisoned for their crimes. By saying 'but Trump tho" you're trying to take the discussw away from condemning Biden in this article about Biden.
Trump has committed (and currently is committing) an amount of crimes that should leave him rotting in a.jail cell for centuries
What are Biden's crimes?
Genocide
Really now?
Cool....
Anything you have to support your slightly ridiculous claim?
Also, and I really look forward to this answer: do you think trump will stop all this, give the Palestinians their land back and let them have their own state ...? Or do you think he'll eradicate them, wipe his ass with them while he's pointing and laughing at them while they're dying?
Do you really believe that trump will do better than Harris?
On what fucking planet is Biden an oligarch
Are you fucking kidding me? He's a plutocrat.
You have to have a LOT more money than Joe has to be a plutocrat. A LOT more
Its still rule by the rich if the politicians are appointed and work for the rich.
Also Biden is rich by every measure
Should retire, right now, so Kamila is president for a few days. Just so technically she's a president. Just to annoy trump
Just to make all those Trump 47 bumper stickers look silly.
I'm not a fan of any of them but this would be hilarious.
I am personally for small fuckery to Trump fans, just to make them squirm and piss their pants.
let me be frank, they'd feverishly fork over a few more fistfuls of fiat for some fashionable forty-eight fittings
Ah yes, the healthy Democracy of a developed nation...
wanton baby murder wasn't enough to get him to change his position, so, i wouldn't hold my breath about this one
Are you trolling or in it for the long game? Cause, there might not be any Palestinians left next time the US gets to vote.
i don't know why you're bitching at me when i agree with you lol
Cause you're selling when there is nothing to sell. And you are doing in an ineffective way. You don't wake the normies up by screeching at them.
She’s already been Sitting President, if you count that.
I can honestly say I have never given less of a fuck about what a president has had to say about his legacy.
Give it 4 years
You're more optimistic than I am because I don't think there's going to be a non-Russian style election in four years.
Rot in hell Joe.
He could use his Supreme Court given powers and do something with that?
We know, grandpa milktoast
*milquetoast
he had most opportunity do something about about it and did absolutely nothing to say the country and its people.
He could have put them all in gitmo or worse as an official act for security reasons including the illegitimate supreme Court members and it would have been totally legal,per the courts ruling
bro was given the choice to either ride off in disgrace, or be the man who willfully chose to do something that would start a second civil war. bro chose the former.
people are going to die. he just chose not to be the one to make the decision. its the runaway train / track problem. do nothing, and something horrific happens do something, and something horrific still happens.
Good riddance.
Lol he's a part of it
He probably should have led with this speech.
Joe biden lost a winnable election due to his own vanity and lack of human decency. Fuck him. He governed better than any democrat since what Lindon Johnson? But its far too little too late to pay for a lifetime of fucking people over
Well at least he's saying it. Hopefully that reflects a renewed interest in reform, but I'm not going to hold my breath.
My guess is analysts blame the misinformation campaign run against him and Kamala and are going to try and shift the message, 12 years too late. Hopefully.
Crazy he didn't notice the USA has been an oligarchy the whole time lmao.
This warning would not have happened if Harris had won but the oligarchy would still exist. Bit too late to notice it now.
Crazy he is laundering billions of dollars for military contractors by funneling them into a genocide
Shoveling money to defense contractors is as American as Apple pie.
Timely.
I no longer have any charity for these outgoing presidential remarks. What he is saying makes sense, but given that he didn’t bring this up or do anything about it when he had power, these sentiments are hollow pandering at best. Fuck you Joe Biden, your legacy is that you presided over the dissolution of American democracy and did genocide. No hollow words on your way out will change that.
Thanks for the comments to read through. I can now confidently say that America is a failed experiment based on these conversations alone.
It makes me feel less crazy that people in here are saying exactly what I've felt for years.
God it's nice to know others can see that the rotating seat of emperor has no clothes.
I see only hate for Joe, but you'll miss him. You have 4 looong years ahead of you to think about that... Or more.
Thanks for the warning Joe. Too bad you didn’t do everything you could have done to prevent it.
Pretty fucking rich to warn everyone of the tech industial complex that he himself had a direct hand in creating with the Patriot Act. This kickstarted the idea of the US three leters creating PRISM and basically created an impermeable blanket of protection for big tech to spy on Americans and then turn around and sell that data back to the goverment.
https://theintercept.com/2021/04/27/biden-september-11-patriot-act/
Good president, did everything he could for us and we hated him for it. Lack of education has ruined the USA.
Damn, everything he could for you like checks notes funding a genocide while the number of homeless rises at double digits percent each year. If that's the best a president can do, you need a change of system NOW
I wouldn't give him straight As, but I acknowledge he tried his best. Netanyahu felt pressured enough to come over and beg US Congress directly to stop restricting weapons shipments. Biden sent a naval fleet to provide aid to Gaza directly, even going so far as to construct a pier for shipments.
Losing Israel as a strategic base of operations amid aggression from Iran allied with Russia and China amid their aggressive expansion was simply never an option.
On several occasions white house staffers gave statements that Biden would swear expletives at the Israeli administration for doing high profile attacks on civilian encampments.
The USA vetoed many ceasefire agreements in the UN but also had their own ceasefire agreements vetoed by Russia and China.
My man here pulling out every trick to minimise the support with billions of dollars to a genocide. "Poor wittle Joe, the president of the most powerful country in the world, had no alternative but to send millions to genocide. But he cursed while doing so, so it's OK actually". Fuck that shit
the problem with that argument is Israel doesn't give a goddamn about Russia and China, or the West, and their conflict with Russia and China. they wont take a side against them, they wont do anything other than work to secure their own position in the Levant.
Ukraine has been asking for Israeli help since day 1 and Israel has left them on read. Israel doesn't give a fuck about what anyone does in the world, only about what they can do for Israel, Israel isn't an ally. its basically a co-belligerent with a supremely effective lobbyist movement.
But Israel is directly opposed to Iran who funds militarization of Hamas. Iran is allied with Russia and China, and opposes the USA heavily (although there have been high and low points in the relationship).
It is a proxy war.
Nethanyahu did't beg. Congress gave him longest standing ovation in living memory. Biden did nothing but bend over while Nethanyahu walk all over him, proclaiming that he preferred Trump the entire time.
Loosing any bases where never on the table. Biden allowed this to happen by ether incompetence or malice. Torpedering any premises of a rule based international order in the process.
Half of congress didn't even show up for it.
That is simply not true.
My man here pulling out every trick to minimise the support with billions of dollars to a genocide. "Poor wittle Joe, the president of the most powerful country in the world, had no alternative but to send millions to genocide. But he cursed while doing so, so it's OK actually". Fuck that shit
After next week we're going to see what support of a genocide really looks like.
Dude. The genocide has been ongoing during Biden administration, stop finding excuses, and "orange man worse", we know that Trump sucks, that's not a defense of a genocide supporter
Joe Biden doesn't control israel.
Joe Biden didn't have to sell weapons to your single favorite person for your single favorite activity.
The genocide couldn't happen without the military, diplomatic and economic support of the USA (and its vassal European states) to Israel.
Israeli givernment just ratified the ceasefire.
Israeli's announced the deal on wednesday and then:
Also, there are still ongoing hostilities with Lebanon.
But hey, since the Ceasefire happened before Trump took office, does that mean we're going to give credit to Biden for ending the war in Gaza? Are you going to thank him?
I support charging and penalizing Biden in the severest extent possible for genocide. Where you spend post after post kissing his rear. I often wonder if you're being paid.
In the end I guess we'll both just have to be content with Biden going down as an epic failure and complete idiot who got away with a genocide, betrayed his party, and threw his country to the fascists.
All this hate is neat. Hey, is the armchair comfy?
are those knee and elbow pads you are wearing comfy?
Biden: beware of oligarchy
Losers who didn't vote for him or Kamala: STFU OLD MAN
I certainly did vote for him and Harris.
And still say STFU OLD MAN.
I'm also donating monthly, to Represent.Us and The Forward Party.
Indeed.
Everytime we get a "should've voted 'us' to stop 'them'" take the source is a dumb simpleton tribalist no matter what American Party the 'us' and 'them' is referring to - same stupid, simple, tribe-wedded parrotinbg, different tribe loyalty.
Biden is part of the fucking oligarchy. Voting for him would not have a changed a damn thing about the oligarchy.