this post was submitted on 09 Mar 2024
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320
Biden says he regrets referring to 'an illegal' and defends direct criticism of Supreme Court in State of the Union (www.nbcnews.com)
submitted 8 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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[–] [email protected] 130 points 8 months ago (5 children)

From the transcript of the speech:

REPRESENTATIVE GREENE: What about Laken Riley?

(Cross-talk.)

AUDIENCE: Booo —

REPRESENTATIVE GREENE: Say her name!

THE PRESIDENT: (The President holds up a pin reading “Say Her Name, Laken Riley.”) Lanken — Lanken (Laken) Riley, an innocent young woman who was killed.

REPRESENTATIVE GREENE: By an illegal!

THE PRESIDENT: By an illegal. That’s right. But how many of thousands of people are being killed by legals?

I don't see the problem. His response rightly points out that murders happen regardless of the perpetrators legal status.

[–] [email protected] 53 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (12 children)

It's just how propaganda works.

At any given time, there are a few different anecdotal-type "talking points" that are the new thing everyone's talking about. You're going to be hearing about Biden saying "an illegal" for a little while, even though as your transcript notes, it wasn't even him that chose the wording. People form their picture of the world through these little gestalt-facts, and if you can pick one that will shape the narrative you want to present, and arrange for people to hear it over and over from a variety of sources, and do that in a constant stream that all points to the same types of conclusions, it actually does a pretty good job at controlling how they'll perceive the totality of the situation.

It's almost exactly the same as how you will hear over and over that:

  • We broke a record for fossil fuel extraction in 2023
  • Biden's climate bill includes giving money to oil and gas companies

... and then all this weight of emotion behind how bad Biden is for the climate, how he's just the same, how it's such a shame that I as a good climate-change person can't support him... etc etc. Because the little factoids are in fact accurate, and properly sized and shaped to stick in your brain, they count as "supporting evidence" for Biden being bad on the climate.

The reality is, the way to analyze Biden's performance on the climate is to ask what's the total content of the climate bill he got passed, and what impact it's expected to have. That's it. Just like the reality is that how he performs on immigration has nothing at all to do with whether he said "an illegal" in this specific context.

If you hear someone repeating one of these specific little factoids, or if you start to see one specific one that is commonly repeated, my advice is to become suspicious of the message on top of which it is being placed, like a little evidence-cherry.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I mean the effects of the climate bill in comparison to the scale of the problem are fairly modest. And the US continues to slow-walk real change at the international stage as well. It’s a fair criticism.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago

That, what you said, is a completely fair statement. Let me expand on it. Here's a pretty solid summary of what was in the original bill. Here's what actually passed. They are both, sadly, fucking tragically, too little, and absolutely unforgivably late. But, blaming that aspect of it on Biden specifically, when he just got here and started immediately fighting to get something unprecedented in American climate action to start happening the instant he got in, seems unfair. As does shifting the conversation away from "how much is this gonna do" and towards "does this involve giving money to oil companies" or similar focus-grouped talking points, blaming him for not doing more, and saying he's just the same as the people who stopped him from doing it.

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[–] [email protected] 40 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I dislike Biden immeasurably less than Trump, and I plan to vote for him in November, yet:

“It is a red line," Biden said, adding, “but I’m never gonna leave Israel. The defense of Israel is still critical.”

That sounds to me like there is, in fact, not a red line.

Drawing a line without any consequences for crossing it is worse than not drawing a line at all (source: my pedagogy prof, many, many moons ago).

I realize that Biden did not, in fact, say that there were not going to be any consequences at all - but the other thing with lines is that the consequences need to be known in advance, and they need to be adhered to. From all I'm hearing in interviews, the US government seems very hesitant to commit to any consequences, and if the slaughter keeps going, it may save Netanyahu's political career, but seriously bite Biden in the tush come election day.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 8 months ago (3 children)

Didn't he say something about a 2 state solution being the eventual goal?

[–] [email protected] 11 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Yes, he has been saying this. What is lacking is a plan to get there. Against the opposition of the current Israeli government.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago (14 children)

How does the American president develop a plan when one side is refusing to even say if the hostages are alive and acknowledge the existence of the other party?

It's so weird that people act like Hamas/Palestinians aren't required to be a part of the process..... when they're the ones who have turned down the deals Egypt and Qatar have brokered.

[–] [email protected] -2 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Right. The principal parties of such negotiations are the Israeli- and the Palestinian Government, with Hamas in the mix, because they control the Gaza Strip.

Anyone outside those groups can make suggestions, demands, etc., but there are limited means for them to influence such negotiations. The US government can threaten to withhold support (at the risk of being labeled antisemitic or at least anti Israel), but I wouldn't bet my bottom dollar that it would make a difference in this climate.

I did not mean imply that Biden and his government can make a plan, and expect it to be followed. However, I feel that for his own benefit, Biden has to make a public display of making stronger demands for a resolution of this problem. It may not fix things in the Middle East in the short term, but it will demonstrate that he cares, and that the USA cares.

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago (1 children)

The two state solution here seems to be a border with Israel on one side and Egypt on the other.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 8 months ago (2 children)

This is just willful ignorance at this point, the administration has been saying consistently since at least a month after October 7th, that a two state solution was the only answer to permanently solve the crisis.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 8 months ago

Contrast what is being said with what is happening. Gazans are being pushed hard against that Egypt border. They are being starved and killed. Where does this end if US watches it continue?

[–] [email protected] 10 points 8 months ago

And yet they will do nothing to make it happen, just like every administration before them. At what point will you care that it's just lip service?

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago

This is the best summary I could come up with:

President Joe Biden in a wide-ranging interview with MSNBC on Saturday defended his direct criticism of the Supreme Court for its 2022 decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health and said that he regrets having referred to an undocumented immigrant as an “illegal.”

In the statement, a campaign spokesperson responded to news about the passage of a fetal personhood bill in the Iowa state House that could have negative implications for patients seeking in vitro fertilization treatments.

Trump’s record speaks for itself: his Supreme Court pick Amy Coney Barrett refused to say if she would oppose criminalizing IVF,” senior campaign spokesperson Lauren Hitt said in the statement.

Biden said Saturday that in his speech to Congress, he was attempting to highlight the differences between rhetoric offered by himself and former President Donald Trump about the border, pledging not to “treat any of these people with disrespect.”

The president added, “I don’t share [Trump’s] view at all,” saying that immigrants “built the country, [are] the reason our economy is growing,” but still, “we have to control the border and more orderly flow.”

Still, Biden was firm that Israel “cannot have 30,000 more Palestinians dead as a consequence of going after [Hamas],” likely citing figures showing that more than 30,000 people in Gaza have been killed, according to the Hamas-run Health Ministry.

The original article contains 759 words, the summary contains 219 words. Saved 71%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

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