He’s right, but he should be using the bully pulpit to push legislation regarding the Federal minimum wage, housing issues, health care, etc. I understand the political need for vapid photo ops, I just don’t like it.
He doesn’t have a bully pulpit yet. Republicans barely control the House and the Senate is gridlock 50/50. Give him a supermajority and see what he can get done
If you have a supermajority, you don’t need to use the bully pulpit. The bully pulpit is the outsized microphone that a president has to rally support and make his (or her, someday) point.
You have to be able to back it up with real legislative threats to be a bully pulpit. A president with no legislative cooperation can say whatever they want, but when everyone knows they can’t do anything, corpos will just laugh it off. Bully pulpit is really when you have enough power to be able to say, “You fix this or else we’ll fix it for you.”
The bully pulpit in Roosevelt’s mind wasn’t about pummeling legislators with presidential authority; rather, he believed the president could encourage the public to push their legislators on behalf of his agenda. - source
Not using the bully pulpit as president to push your agenda is almost malfeasance. If he has votes/support, there is no need for it.
He needs more than words. Words alone are useless. But believe what you want
It’s like people skipped that part of US History when they were in HS.
And I think you seem to be unaware of how much the presidency has changed since Roosevelt’s time. I don’t think it’s realistic to think Biden has the kind of influence just by existing that Roosevelt did. Minimally, Roosevelt was working with two Congressional parties who actually wanted what was best for the country who were capable of being ashamed. Biden… doesn’t have that.
Like, imagine for three seconds Biden threatening some of the things Roosevelt did. There’s just no way:
"Never before had a President threatened “to seize and operate a major industry”
http://www.let.rug.nl/usa/essays/1901-/theodore-roosevelts-broad-powers-erin-ruth-leonard.php
Strike Buster Joe Biden, supporting a union? I guess he doesn’t perceive them as a real threat.
He did shut down the railroad workers strike…and then got them the paid sick days they were striking to get
Probably treating this one differently because a railroad shutdown would have had much larger impact on people working in other industries.
No, he got them 4 of the 14 sick days they were trying to get, and NONE of the safety changes they were trying to get.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a union get everything they asked for. It’s not as good as it might have been, but it’s a lot better than nothing.
When a union tries and fails to get things, that’s the harsh nature of bargaining and limits of worker power. They decide when the contract is the best they’re gonna get. When they’re prevented from striking and then someone else decides they can have some benefits, it’s absolutely a different arrangement and doesn’t inherently have worker approval.
Do you think they would have gotten nothing if they had struck? Absolutely nothing? And you’re so certain of this, despite knowing that the strike would have cost billions of dollars for the rail corps?
Well, if they had decided to accept nothing, that’s their Perogative, but it’s not the place of the President to negate their rights to collectively bargain and negotiate on their behalf after gutting 100% of their leverage.
Did he reverse the order making it illegal for them to strike in the future? Real question – I hope so but haven’t seen it anywhere.
If he didn’t, that’s all smoke and mirrors.
Also he decided to run for re-election and the current main opponent has been touting themselves as the pro-autoworker person and Biden has been partly trying to present as the most pro-union president ever.
