Biden at One Year

A year ago, almost to the day, Joe Biden was sworn in as president of ...

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A year ago, almost to the day, Joe Biden was sworn in as president of the United States. The gang looks back at a year full of shifts to progressive policies from Biden. Is he living up to his promise of restoring normalcy in America? Plus, Gallup says 2021 saw the greatest shift in party preferences for as long as Gallup has been around. What does that mean for the country and our politics? Finally, are we on the brink of World War III with Russia threatening to go into Ukraine?

Show Notes:

–How Biden’s first year became a tale of two presidencies | POLITICO

–Sen. Jim DeMint on what type of Republicans he preferred

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  1. Avatar photo
    Ben Connelly

    I was wondering the same thing about Greenwald!

    Actually though, I think he’s sincere and isn’t being paid off. He comes from a strain of conspiratorial leftism that thinks the American Defense Industrial Complex is the root of all evil in the world and that the Soviet Union was much maligned. He probably thinks we’re in some Hollywood movie where the CIA is trying to have him killed.

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    Antebellum Whig

    this was a very interesting conversation.

    on Ukraine, I disagree slightly with David in re Putin apologists. maybe I'm not hearing it because I don't watch fox news or read the intercept, but the tone and substance of MSM coverage over the past 15+ yrs has been to paint Putin as a pantomime villain. he and the Russians have a valid point of view - it may be utterly amoral from our perspective but so what? - and it strikes me as a grave mistake not to consider it seriously.

    I'm not prepared to write a whole essay here but let's just say the Russians come by their mistrust of the west and their appetite for brinksmanship honestly (i.e. we've shown we shouldn't be trusted and are willing to be pushed around).

    my main worry is that we may be in a sort of 1914 moment where we stumble into something catastrophic.

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      Ben Connelly

      So I think it’s worth considering their perspective. But I highly disagree with false equivalence between the US and Russia. Putin thinks the greatest geopolitical disaster of the 20th Century was the fall of the Soviet Union. He has said so. He has people murdered in order to stay in power. I could go on. But while we probably disagree on what to do, I do agree with your point that we should be very careful about a potential 1914 moment.

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    BrandonAlleman

    The Dispatch needs to be forming a bigger list than just the NBA if they are serious about more than just impassioned lip service. Coca Cola, Nike, all the not yet named Corps that fought the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act. I hope for more reporting like Haley's and less of this. You're going to have to decide if you're more outraged about Americans doing business with PRC or just social justice Americans doing business with PRC.

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  4. Payette

    Great podcast! I second the recommendation for a series on the long term effects of campaign finance reform.

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  5. Avatar photo
    Faraday

    Can somebody tell me how the CCP treatment of the Uyghurs is being emulated/duplicated here in the US. Just curious.

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  6. Avatar photo
    Bill Dyer (aka Beldar)

    Somewhere between John the Car Salesman in Franklin, Tennessee, and the owners of the NBA teams — in terms of their respective abilities to influence American public opinion about the atrocities being perpetrated by the Chinese Communist Party, in the hopes thereby of helping deter or at least mitigate those atrocities — we surely find David French, Senior Editor of TheDispatch.com, columnist for Time, and author of "Divided We Fall" (which I've purchased and read).

    I applaud very enthusiastically Mr. French's arguments, made just after the one-hour mark in this podcast, against the perpetration of those atrocities, against the ChiCom dictators who are inflicting them, and against the NBA for so cravenly supporting those dictators and carrying their water in their attempts to trivialize the atrocities. I associate myself with, and adopt as my own, those remarks.

    To him, I say: That was an inspired and inspirational argument, sir. Well done; carry on.

    So who was it who posted that NBA highlight clip from Twitter yesterday? Because THAT GUY confuses me.

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  7. Acre00

    As disgusting as what the "owner" of the warriors said, I think the worst part is that he was correct.

    Most people, a vast majority, don't care about the Uyghurs. Not enough to make even a marginal sacrifice, anyway.

    That's what's truly disgusting. As Jonah said "Never Again" is a nice phrase people like to say, but no one wants to do anything to make it true. Nobody wants to pay higher prices to take China out of the supply chain; nobody wants to stop watching NBA or buying merch. It's ugly, but it's the truth.

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    Will Roberts

    Never again. Unless you have nuclear weapons, a lot of money, or are an obscure country in Africa. Then please be as genocidal as you wish.

    I didn't vote at all for president. My thoughts were if I didn't vote for Trump because of allegations of sexual assault couldn't vote for Biden when he had an allegation that was not well investigated. As David says character counts. Consistency counts. If we refused to sacrifice these things perhaps the parties would be forced to change. But every election has become the most important election in our lifetimes so that is not going to happen.

    It does seem to be a foreign policy disaster. If you are going to have the largest military in the world I think that makes you the world's police whether you like it or not. Sure we can't intervene everywhere. But we should be consistent with our obligations. Afghanistan was a signal to the world that we were no longer willing to do that. I don't think Trump would have done much different. At least with Trump you had the "I don't know what this guy is going to do next fear". Could have led to war with Iran very easily if anyone had died in the retaliatory strike after the Sulemani assassination. But luckily that didn't happen and I think the strike made people think twice about crossing the US. While Trump personally was very weird around Russia his administration was largely consistent.

    Biden seems to take a standard line but is not willing to back it up. And it seems Russia is going to call his bluff.

    I don't know what Sarah is talking about. I criticize her all the time. Like how she keeps talking about Biden being divisive but is unwilling to say anything bad about her former boss publicly.

    I double dog dare you to debate a progressive on voter suppression. Here that Dispatch. I double dog dare you....

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  9. Tdaglish

    I have to disagree with you that the owner of the Golden State Warriors was being sincere in his beliefs. I couldn’t help notice that his argument, that the United States is guilty of human rights abuses and we should clean up our own house before criticizing others, is down to the letter the same thing Chinese government reps say when they get challenged on the same question.

    I don’t think the Warriors owner was speaking his mind, I think he was reading the memo.

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      Antebellum Whig

      he was telling the truth inasmuch as he clearly DGAF about the uyghurs.

      but one can't help noticing how craven the NBA has been toward the PRC despite all its woke sloganeering.

      it would be as if an 80s billionaire with mining interests in South Africa was like "I'm sorry I just can't be bothered to care about apartheid."

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  10. Avatar photo
    Xaveria

    Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right ... here I am, stuck in the middle with you.

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