Biden’s policies were generally really, really fucking fantastic for ordinary Americans.
problems -
inflation was thought to be transitory in 2020, turned out to be a massive issue that won’t be resolved for a few more years even though the rate of inflation is slowed. It takes years to over come multiple years of 6-9% inflation, especially when you already have years of tepid nominal wage growth at the bottom that doesn’t keep up with inflation. When those wages finally started to rise they further added to the inflationary problems. No president is winning reelection with the inflationary environment we were in. This is a full stop reason.
Biden’s physical limitations - not so much his age, but his stutter - has left him uneasy communicating the last few years. Plus I think he wanted to give us all a break from the president being the headline every day. It was remarkable, I enjoyed it all. But he left a vacuum, Trump and the republicans filled it.
biden and the democrats don’t know how to engage in a bloody street fight like republicans do. Purity politics, when they go low we go high nonsense, all of it. How Trump gets away with sabotaging a good border bill? Schumer is a terrible communicator too. Gloves have to come off, you have to attack, sound bites, ruthless jabs, just get after them.
democrats don’t have an enemy, for those that say they don’t stand for anything, that’s actually nonsense. Standing for principles like equality, safety, personal autonomy just don’t get you anything. What gets you something in this political climate is demonizing others. Go hard to the paint on the oligarchy. Fuck the billionaires. And if they agree the oligarchy is bad, they can give money and speak up, but we still need to go after the oligarchy with the same fervor pitch that the republicans go after Muslims, gays, trans people and Hispanic immigrants.
nominate liberal populists. If you go after the oligarchy, you need someone who has the policy initiatives for the working class. Biden was that guy, but so was sanders and Warren, those like them are the future of the party. Reform for college education finance - take the banks out of the profit taking business for school finance, housing, it’s been decades upon decades since we created the conventional loan system, we need new reforms to make more first time home buyers, we need massive health care reform to make healthcare more affordable and accessible, we need to fund and protect social security. These are fundamental things we have to address, democrats talk too much about it and haven’t done anything with it when they’ve had power. That alone is a major issue with democratic candidates and the voters.
as for wokeness and all the extra liberal stuff, yeah equal rights matter. But I don’t give a fuck if you put pronouns in your email signature, but I do care that doctors, parents, and patients have autonomy. I do care that women have power and control over our bodies (abortion and trans rights). I do care that trans people should be free from discrimination. The Federal Equality Act was there for the passing but Dems couldn’t get it done. That shit needs to happen. The roll backs for women, queer, gay and trans people is just medieval. I’m not going to apologize for that position, but I can say it’s a major issue in our political culture not because queer folk are dangerou or bad, we are an issue because everything else is so bad.
the good news is the Dems historically and even now have the winning positions, the bad news is democrats are absolutely awful politicians.