It comes from the Russian for emperor or ‘Caesar’ doesn’t it?
Quite commonly used by the media in the UK too.
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Well, yes. I assumed that was a given.
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Because Big Money came in and said enough is enough.
The largest 100 company CEOs wrote a letter saying they’d cut off funding to the GOP unless the GSA started the transition process.
And in about 37 seconds, the GSA said they’d start the transition process.
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When has Trump ever done what is in the best interests of the GOP as a party? Furthermore, the GSA is, supposedly, a decidedly non-partisan agency who should not be influenced by issues.
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I would assume the GSA has probably said to him they were going to start the transition process, and he has jumped in front of their announcement to look like he has asked them to.
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So, I read that Biden has named a lot of people for key roles which were already in place under Obama… It was to be expected, but this doesn’t bode well for the future imo.
It seems that the democrats, instead of reinventing themselves and proposing new policies in accordance to the world as it is now, will merely push the restart button and continue Obama’s misplaced policies which brought Trump into power in the first place, four years ago.
What could ever go wrong with that, eh? As a Johnny Foreigner, I’m especially worried regarding what could happen on the international stage with this lot in place.
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That is a concern. The world needs new solutions to both old and new problems. The US need to lead on that IMO.
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Trump’s election had little to do with Obama’s policies.
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What is a concern?
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Climate Change could be one I think. While I’m sure Biden would want to carry on with Obama’s work on it, the reality we all really need to ramp up what we are doing. I see the US having to lead on much of that.
Carry on as we were, combined with fixing a Covid hit economy isn’t a great recipe to doing that.
I honestly hope I’m wrong. Sadly it seems that my hopes that big events such as Covid would be the catalyst to big change that doesn’t seem to be case. It’s all about getting back to normal it seems.
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I don’t think Obama was that bad actually. He ended up being hampered by what he could achieve through rather ridiculous polices by the opposing party that was influenced by what was basically pure tribalism rather than any concern for the nation as a whole, imho. He was then succeeded by a pure, unadulterated moron who did all he could to reverse what Obama tried to do.
Obama wasn’t perfect but I genuinely believe that had he forged ahead and gave a shit about extending olive branches to people who didn’t give a shit about undermining him anyway and if he didn’t get succeeded by Trump his policies would have come to more fruition and America would have been in a far better place today. Lots of ifs and buts in that statement but America has really shot itself in the foot over the past few years. Lots of great intelligent people there with great minds but as a collective they let the loons take over the asylum.
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I think what that sentiment misses is the sheer scale of the damage to the US Federal Government. Getting the government working again has to happen before any significant policy innovation is even possible. Biden is building arguably the most experienced US government leadership in our lifetimes - without question the most experienced Democratic administration. While there may indeed be concerns about international policy, that has equally been the case with every single US administration in the post-war era. Biden was not going to solve that, it is unlikely that he truly wants to, the best we can hope for is that he will be a genuine interlocutor for dialogue.
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@Hope.in.your.heart are those persons getting their old portfolios??? If not, maybe Biden is trying to see if those persons can bring something new to the table, reinvent themselves, while retaining his trusted, proven colleagues.
I thought Climate Change was an area that he was thought to have done well on considering much of what he tried to do was being blocked by congress?
I think @Arminius is correct - this is about getting the infrastructure up and running again and assessing the lay of the land for future policy.
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It really isnt. It’s a really bad read on what caused the rise of Trump and where the most serious room for criticism of the Obama Presidency are.
EDIT: However, what I will say is that if someone had legitimate concerns over the direction of the Obama administration, they are likely going to remain over a Biden one given the people being hired.
Biden has a broad plan for addressing climate change, one that is enthusiastically backed by Sunrise and AoC. He has directed all the Federal agencies under his umbrella to make Climate Change at the core of everything they do, which is why Kerry has been brought in as the Climate Tzar, as those efforts will need to be coordinated to give them their best effect.
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A more accurate way of framing it is that a lot of the appointees have extensive experience as Deputy Secretaries or similar, and are now being moved up to the Cabinet tier. While normally that would mean a government with virtually no real change, that is a radical change from what has happened in the past 4 years - that next tier or three down has been absolutely gutted, and will have to be rebuilt before the US government has anything like its normal capacity. That is true not just of the State Department and the Pentagon, but also HHS, Homeland, EPA, CDC, you name it.
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Thanks both, I obviously hadn’t researched it enough and took the comment of returning to the same faces as returning to the old ways and nothing more.
Not sure if this is an excuse for his foreign policy decisions though.
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Oh, in many ways it will. Many of these people now getting the senior positions were either advisors or deputies and heavily involved in many of the policies enacted under Obama. My issue is with the reflex of treating criticism of the Obama administration as being made on good faith.
As I edited my previous post to say, if you had legit criticisms of the Obama foreign policy you will likely have them of Biden’s as well. However, I think what the criticisms of the Obama foreign policy demonstrated is that the US president is damned is he does and damned if he doesn’t.
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