[jmyeet]

It's called the ratchet effect [1]. In our modern political paradigm, conservatives torch the economy, introduce heinous policies and give massive tax breaks to the wealthy until their popularity drops enough that Democrats get voted in and... do nothing. This has several names such as "controlled opposition" and the "mirage of dissent" [2].

As an example, take the current Iran war. There's very little opposition in establishment politics to the actual war. What you get instead are process objections, such as the president not consulting Congress. Objecting to the process is a way of appearing to be in opposition without being in opposition.

This was ultimately why Kamala Harris lost the 2024 election. "Trump bad" isn't a platform that people get excited for. People are asking "what are you going to do about it?" and her answer was... nothing. It was the culmination of years of what's been called "lesser evil voting" or "harm reduction voting". Democrats have adopted a platform of just not being quite as bad as the Republicans, probably because they have the exact same donors. And millions of voters stayed home in 2024 rather than vote for the status quo.

So back to the JCPOA, Biden should've done something but did nothing. Because he likes what Trump did. He agrees with it. And so do most Democrats. That's the point.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ratchet_effect

[2]: https://ia800503.us.archive.org/5/items/mirage-of-dissent-th...

[iamnothere]

Not helped by both parties uniting wherever necessary to freeze out outsiders (socialists, libertarians, or even liberal reformists). Anything to preserve the status quo.

[Sabinus]

I'd be interested to know when the Democrat party drove out liberal reformists.

[iamnothere]

Any time someone actually proposes effective reforms, they get frozen out. The status quo is all about symbolic action and posturing. This often gets framed as a “culture war” issue but for some reason the party old guard always ends up on the side opposing change, no matter who it is.

[Sabinus]

What should I search to find information about this? Who are the cast-out liberal reformists?

[jquery]

Other than Dems having a super majority for a few weeks with Obama, when was the last time they were “voted in” at a national level?

Biden did a pretty good job cleaning up after Trump. Was he perfect? Not even close. But Dem primary voters had the option of more progressive candidates and instead they circled around Biden. Did donors try and engineer a Biden win? Sure. Were voters obligated to go along with their scheme? Also no.

The blame for our situations rests squarely on the shoulders of the American people, who have been living so insulated from the consequences of their votes that they entertained a guy like Trump, twice.

[jmyeet]

First the super majority isn't a constitutional or even legislative barrier. It's simply a Senate rule. Rules for the Senate are established at the start of every Congress. There's no reason why the Senate couldn't simply eliminate the rule.

Republicans like the filibuster because they can force through most of what they want under reconciliation, which only requires a simply majority, and they can block Democrats with a minority. Democrats like the filibuster because it gives them an excuse to do nothing. Because a lot of what Democrats want to do isn't filibuster-proof.

Also, the filibuster once meant that you had to stand up and hold the floor to block a vote. Now we have a silent hold since the 1970s. If you for some reason believe in needing 60 votes to end debate, why not at least adopt the earlier interpretation that requires someone to stand at a podium? Because Democrats don't want to do anything. That's why.

Biden had four terrible decisions in his presidency:

1. Appointing Merrick Garland as AG. He's another establishment Democrat that didn't want to do anything, really, particularly not prosecute the insurrection that took place. He was embarrassed into doing so by the January 6 Committee. He basically lost 2 years of potentially prosecuting the administration;

2. His Israel policy, particularly the bear hug strategy and especially not ending the genocide;

3. Not raking MBS over the coals for not ending the Trump 2020 OPEC deal, wich exacerbated the inflation price shock; and

4. Running for re-election.

It's worth adding that the only reason Biden was the candidate was because the DNC was scared Bernie Sanders would be the candidate so they fixed the race in South Carolina thanks to Jim Clyburn in particular. Everyone dropped out of the primary and got rewarded with Cabinet posts, etc (eg Pete Buttigief as DoT Secretary). Except one. Elizabeth Warren stayed in to split Bernie's vote.

As for blaming the voters, I 100% disagree. The party leadership has repeatedly engineered situations to give the voters terrible choices and rely on lesser evil voting. After the 2017 election, the DNC got sued and argued in court that they had no obligation to stay neutral. That was a political promise not a binding promise. Basically, they argued that they were free to overrule the will of primary voters with superdelegates and manipualting of funds by then DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who when exposed and was forced out, just went and joined the Hilary campaign.

Voters stayed home in the millions in 2024 (vs 2020) because they were given no choice. They're not responsible for that. The candidate is. And if you end up being angry about Kamala losing, blame her for having a terrible platform, not the voters who decided a slightly better candidate was the only available choice.