I’ve been invited to attend a Tim Walz rally tonight, and I have no idea what to expect. Share your stories and get me pumped up to see our next VP!
Update: Everybody was right, lots of standing and clapping, but what I really didn’t expect was the sense of family I felt with all these strangers around me. We’d bump into each other, and laugh it off, one guy was telling me about how his son was thinking about going to the college that I work at (I was still wearing my shirt from work), and we all just knew that we were working together to make great things happen. I’ll probably skip the next one, but it was a great experience. I’m glad I went, and would recommend going to one if you have a chance, and a candidate you believe in.
But did they really have the power to do more? President alone can’t do a whole lot if Congress is fighting them the whole way.
Yes.
He had a supermajority for almost a year. He could have codified Roe. He could have passed ENDA. Those two actions would have made such a huge difference for women and transgender people now, and I think it’s important to remember that it was a choice by President Obama not to pursue these things.
They had the supermajority for a grand total of 72 days and spent most of that time getting Obamacare passed, though they also passed stimulus spending and a few other things. Pretty decent job, all in all.
That’s an interesting way to frame rewarding the people who crashed the economy.
Another example of something that’s framed positively, but in reality, did not deliver. Obamacare is a for-profit health care system, so the access it promises only exists if you can withstand being price-gouged.
But the fact that he had a supermajority at all makes it inexcusable that he didn’t codify Roe or pass ENDA. It was an opportunity to make generational change and he simply didn’t care to do the work.