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sickduck's avatar

Ehh I've resigned myself to the fact that a Biden presidency won't meaningfully move the needle on a number of things this nation desperately needs, but at the very least (and in the time of covid and climate change and border atrocities etc) he'll hire competent people as cabinet members--former governors and experts and respected longtime bureaucrats, as opposed to the Tom Prices and Ben Carsons and Betsy Devoses of the current dipshit brigade that Trump put in office.

I'm trying to find minor solace in the idea that at least the person in charge of public education will maybe have ever set foot in a public school and isn't hell-bent on destroying public education in favor of private Christian schools for the wealthy and fuck-all for the poor.

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rob's avatar

I’m sure he’ll hire “competent people”, but you won’t like what they’re competent at: advisors handpicked by Wall Street, soulless DNC lifers, people coming out the other side of the lobbyist revolving door. They won’t be as vulgar, as bigoted or as openly corrupt as Trump’s administration, but they’ll only “fix” what’s unacceptable to the neoliberal order and put an acceptable veneer on the rest.

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sickduck's avatar

Come the fuck on, hiring some neoliberal secretary of education who started as a teacher but then went to Goldman Sachs isn't better than Betsy Devos? Save me the orthodox bullshit.

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Jason's avatar

"Not Betsy Devos" is such a low fucking bar. I don't think we should let the existence of the Trump administration and its unique combination of incompetence and malice lead to a corruption of standards whereby we fool ourselves into thinking that the hypothetical Secretary of Education you have conjured up, who sounds horrible, is somehow "good" because they're not literally Betsy Devos.

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sickduck's avatar

Nowhere did I say that

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Jason's avatar

Nowhere did you say what? In any event, it's pretty difficult to read any of your comments here and not come to the conclusion that you are saying "Well, at least the SoE won't be as bad as Devos."

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sickduck's avatar

Nowhere did I say that a hypothetical Biden appointee would be "good." I said they'd be better than Betsy DeVos and far more beholden to labor and education-best-practices advocacy efforts than anyone in the Bush II or Trump administrations have ever been. That's a net positive. You appear to be part of a hive of commenters on here who believe that all political stripes not specifically tied to your Twitter timeline are inherently the same evil and exist beyond nuance or a world in which advocacy, lawmaking and organizational politics apply pressure to an administration and make progress depending on the even *slight* bent of an appointed secretary. It's keyboard warrior bullshit.

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Jason's avatar

Wow, for someone who wants to object to the somewhat semantic distinction between whether you said not-Betsy Devos would be "good" or just "better," you sure are imputing a lot of beliefs to me that I have said nothing about!

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rob's avatar

It’ll be marginally better, yeah! But Biden’s EduSec will likely continue to push for the privatization and charterization of schooling and will probably continue to protect the interest of university administration over victims of sexual assault and harassment. They won’t have that classic ultra-rich evangelical ghoul look and feel, but There’ll be enough left in tact so that the next DeVos type can pick right up where Betsy leaves off.

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sickduck's avatar

What the fuck are you pretending to advocate for here?

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rob's avatar

Treating Biden and his administration as the enemy the instant they enter the office should they win the election, and opposing them just as strongly as we do Trump?

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sickduck's avatar

lol awesome good luck champ

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Nicholas Slayton's avatar

I have a theory that if Kennedy loses to Markey he'll end up in Biden's cabinet. Buttigieg also is a likely lock.

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draintheswampfreethegators's avatar

so he will hire the swamp back... biden in public office 40+ yrs... and umm... can anyone name anything he did? (good or bad!)

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sickduck's avatar

When did the swamp go away??? You're really pretending there is no functional difference between Julian Castro and Ben Carson??

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Ronlad's avatar

Biden lied a lot. Guess what ended his 1988 Presidential bid? The fuckstick plagiarized a speech word for word. This useless fuck told a crowd in Scranton, PA he was a coal miner. Fucking crook. His son Hunter is a drug addict and a thief. Fuck this asshole.

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sickduck's avatar

Yes drug addicts are inherently bad people. Keep propagating conservative mantras. Good job dude.

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Ronlad's avatar

I think I'm going to be ill. Biden is a lying, POS. scum of the Earth. C'mon man are you a f***tard? Dumb ass.

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sickduck's avatar

Dumb ass

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Steve Hayward's avatar

Isn't this basically the cycle of American politics? Republicans in power fuck some stuff up, start a war, and cut taxes/services (pick one or all), then Democrats gain power and sort of fix things but don't necessarily make things much better than they were before. Then the cycle starts again.

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sickduck's avatar

Yeah it absolutely is. And it's absolutely more effective to lobby, petition and advocate within a generally competent, well-meaning neoliberal's bureaucracy than within that of a completely amoral kleptocrat like Tom Price or Chad Wolf or Betsy Devos. Pretending there isn't a difference there is just stupid.

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Steve Hayward's avatar

Sorry I wasn't trying to pretend there's not a difference, rather making the point that this cycle partially explains the lack of fast progress towards leftist issues. Too much time spent recovering from Republican administrations.

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sickduck's avatar

Oh absolutely agree. I totally wish we had a leftist champion as the nominee, but Biden is apparently what we get. So on day one we start rattling sabers for his cabinet appointments and policy moves.

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