• mozz@mbin.grits.dev
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    8 months ago

    Now I think it’s you being a bit ridiculous. By that logic, no American can ever legitimately criticize a Presidency.

    That’s fair. I wasn’t trying to say “you can’t criticize the president because you’re not in that position,” but that is sorta what I said, and that’s a little ridiculous, you’re right.

    What I was meaning to say has one important caveat though, see: So on overall greenhouse gas emissions, and on overall amount of money forgiven on student loans, Biden has a great record. The total number of tons and total number of dollars is moving more significantly in the right direction than anyone else who’s ever been president. And, he objectively tried to do a lot more than he did, but had to pare it back because other powerful people in government told him no. All of that is a little hard for FuglyDuck to directly argue against, because it’s… well, it’s true. So he’s doing a little rhetorical dodge where he picks some element that’s one small-minority piece of the whole issue, and says if Biden really cared about student loans or climate or whatever, he’d have done this piece in a different fashion. So clearly he’s doing damage on purpose and we need to not vote for him.

    It’s honestly a pretty solid strategy for FuglyDuck to focus in on single issues like that, because I don’t really know the issues well enough to say he’s wrong. So what I’m saying instead is, look, Biden achieved objectively a good overall record on this issue. To pick out some piece of his overall big picture and say, sure he’s winning the game, but he obviously doesn’t really care, or else this minority piece would be different, to me isn’t reasonable.

    It’d be different if FuglyDuck was saying “Sure, Biden achieved a significant success with the climate bill, but I still think he fucked up on decision X.” That shows he’s in it for some honest purpose even if he and I disagree on some details. The fact that he ignores me repeatedly when I’m referring to the bigger picture, and keeps insisting the individual issues are the only things that matter (and only the ones that happen to line up with his overall narrative), makes me a lot less trusting of the overall “Biden hates the climate” picture he seems to be trying to paint.