[thatguymike]

You haven't experienced a government other than the Tories, so it seems a bit rich to say you haven't seen a difference from who's elected.

Some direct consequences of the last Republican government off the top of my head include abortion becoming much harder for many, many people; inequality-increasing tax policies; it becoming much harder for agencies to govern on things like climate change; and an attempted murderous coup in the capital? I don't think you can say it was inconsequential, regardless of your politics.

[zogrodea]

I mentioned I never saw a difference in my daily life specifically, in response to a Trump presidency being called "dystopian". I was of course alive when Labour was in charge and have memories of that time, but people still went by their daily lives just the same from what I can tell.

The same goes for much on your list, except for increasing inequality which impacts people's standards of living. Some other comments produced better lists regarding the impact of his presidency (things I had not heard before and some which I wasn't think of like the pandemic - although I'mm not really sure either way how much better someone else would be in his place for that one).

(Brexit did shake things up when that happened - I was hearing about jobs being paused at the time and people being unable to work.)

[_heimdall]

I don't actually remember exactly what the abortion changes were during his presidency specifically. Were most changes there at the state level during his office, or were there federal changes too? Roe was overturned on Biden's watch, though I guess you could pin that on Trump-appointed judges.

> inequality-increasing tax policies

Both parties are pretty bad about taxes though, especially when you consider money printing and federal deficit spending. Both aren'ttechnically a tax but they serve the same function of eroding individuals' buying power. The same goes for inflation, not technically a tax but it does erode the value of our money and if you ask the federal government they believe they, in conjunction with the Federal Reserve, can control inflation.

> it becoming much harder for agencies to govern on things like climate change

Are you thinking about the Chevron ruling here? If so that was Biden too, unless you want to blame the judges Trump appointed.

> attempted murderous coup in the capital

That's an unnecessarily inflammatory argument. We don't need to debate the specifics or exactly what happened, and I expect we largely agree, but if that was a murderous coup attempt it was an absolutely piss poor attempt and an even worse response from a government that would be legitimately under attack at that point. If it was a murderous coup inside the capital building I wouldn't expect our military to leave anyone standing.

[lobocinza]

Anyone calling that a "murderous coup" is just repeating narratives without thinking and/or just haven't lived enough to know what a real "murderous coup" is.

For context this is what a coup attempt look like and this isn't what I would call murderous: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LUzc2Ilw_O8

[stubybubs]

> unless you want to blame the judges Trump appointed.

I mean, yes. That was the point of Mitch McConnell withholding Obama's SCOTUS seat nomination because it was too close to the end of his term, only to ram through Trump's pick in record time when RBG died. This was the plan, to get the court.

"Under Biden" is completely disingenuous, the cases were not brought by the Biden administration, and were ruled on largely by Trump and Bush appointees.

[_heimdall]

That could easily be a Mitch McConnell problem though. The president's job in that case is to make an appointment, Congress's job is to review and approve those in a timely manner. People may not like who Trump appointed, I don't personally know enough about them beyond news articles to have a strong opinion, but Mitch is the one who held up the appointment for nearly a year if I remember right.

> "Under Biden" is completely disingenuous, the cases were not brought by the Biden administration, and were ruled on largely by Trump and Bush appointees.

I don't think it's any less disingenuous than blaming it on whomever appointed the judges. Blame the judges if you want, but now you want to pull in Bush as though he would have known so long ago thdt Roe would finally get challenged and that Congress would continue to sit on its hands rather than codify Roe into law?

The White House is often quick to take credit for anything they like that comes out of the supreme court on their watch. Shouldn't they then also get blamed for what they don't like that happens under their watch? Or do they get the good without the bad?

[stubybubs]

The president is supposed to govern for all Americans. In the past, the Democrats have appointed what many would call centrists. Merrick Garland for example, is not a left winger, and that would have been Obama's choice. The GOP has made no secret of stacking the courts with judges who are strict originalists when it suits them, and nakedly ideological when it doesn't.

Overturning Roe has been the GOP goal for a long time. Their plan involved capturing SCOTUS and they pulled it off. You could blame the GOP and also the system at it is being set up for abuse, but Roe and Chevron specifically were GOP end goals. GOP judges and private citizens or corporations bringing cases (sometimes hypothetical cases now!) to SCOTUS.

One this is for certain, saying "under Biden" and assigning him blame is disingenuous.

I am not aware of the White House claiming credit for SCOTUS decisions, but they do praise them if they agree with it. Media and others may erroneously assign credit but that's a different problem. At any rate, what other people do has no bearing on the truth of the matter and does not justify assigning blame.

[_heimdall]

> The president is supposed to govern for all Americans.

What does that really mean in practice though? A president could never goverm in a way that helps everyone. Any intervention will help some and hurt others. At best a President is going to frequently make decisions that serves the best interests of most Americans. That's a judgement call though, and is very hard to every really score.

> Overturning Roe has been the GOP goal for a long time.

I don't disagree here at all. The flip side of the coin, though, is that Roe was never law and was only legal precedent. The Republicans may have succeeded at a goal of overturning Roe, but the Democrats also failed to codify abortion rights into law.

Case law is fragile, Roe and Chevron are great examples. Anyone seeing a single court ruling as a victory and failing to build on that to pass bills solidifying the ruling into law need to realize that it only takes one court ruling to undo it.

Legislators need to legislate. Let's just say the RNC finally succeeded in a decades long effort to strike down Roe by packing the bench. Isn't the real failure there in Congress, who failed miserably at actually legislating when so many Americans agreed with some level of protections for abortion rights?