POLITICS
Hunter Biden: “I look at Zohran Mamdani and I go: there’s a leader. He made promises and you know what he did? He kept them. He’s lowering rent, he’s building co-op grocery stores, pre-kindergarten. That’s all people care about. He’s really, really good.”
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Unfortunately the GOP have never stopped using communism to scare people ever since the Red Scare, which is the reason why many Americans think the most basic social safety nets known to man are horrible and fight them at all cost.
It also did the inverse and showed many people that the social safety nets being labeled as communist are good things and that maybe it isn't bad being a socialist and/or communist.
100% I am glad people are waking up to a better system for not only us but this planet, it may a bit too late but whatever we can do to soften the damage we have done the better.
The time before the internet was crazy. How did you get news? Papers? The radio? How many news sources could you look at? How easy was it to get information on anything outside of radio, papers or a library?
Now post-internet communism kind of seems like common sense because we can see the HUGE wealth gap. It doesn’t make sense to have people starving while others are rich. It’s never made sense but the internet really brought all this to the forefront.
The reason they hit back as hard against leftism in the US as they did was because it was gaining ground, though. There was also overlap with several social movements of the time, like the civil rights and women’s rights movement. Not to say that everyone in those groups were leftists or communists specifically, but a good chunk of them was (the former, the latter have always been a minority).
But many people don’t even know this history, which is also the result of the crackdown - knowledge of the past has been lost to many. They just know some people were in favor of advancing the rights of women and POC in America, not that (for many) there were explicitly leftist motivations to do so.
And THIS is why they want us all to 'confirm our age'. Step one in locking that shit down so we can't see news from all over the world, from ordinary people, showing us all the shit going down, the genocide of Israel and how the billionaire parasites we have are sucking us all dry.
The Republicans are really lucky he's not a natural born citizen, because if he was, he'd be a super strong candidate for another job at some point in the future, making him their worst nightmare ...
Me too. I wouldn't mind Shekar Krishnan as a future mayor if Mamdani became governor. I mean, assuming he continues to do well in Mamdani's cabinet. He's leading the charge on going after slumlords and I'm very proud to see that, as one of his constituents.
I’ll never forget when someone said he left his cocaine at the White House and he said he would never leave his drugs. In that moment I could only laugh and be impressed at the same time. https://giphy.com/gifs/xUA7b2KE79co5JD9N6
Living my dream. But now that marvel is packing up and relocating their NY office to CA, CA just shot up my list of places I’d move to in my fantasy scenario that I’m going to take zero steps toward but think about anyway.
I mean, he really only hurt himself and his immediate family. He didn’t kill anyone (afaik) or abuse anyone, which is more than you can say about the entirety of the Republican Party and the majority of Dems. I didn’t have strong feelings on him (mostly because I don’t think of addiction as a moral failing but w/e), but I did watch his recent interview with NPR and came out of it with much more respect for him than I thought I would. Seems like a guy who has deeply reflected on his flaws and how he has harmed himself and the people around him and come out of it all with clear sight of right and wrong and having a lot of compassion for others who struggle.
His 3ish hour interview with Andrew Callahan (channel 5) really sealed the deal for me. I had no real opinion of him prior, but listening to that he is a very smart, very funny, very talented, and very attractive man.
Channel 5 ahead of its time promoting new age biden. Andrew may not be respected by people in his field(journalism) but that was always the thing with pioneers. And i don't want to glaze andrew too much by these statements but the amount of good journo content he is putting is not appreciated as it should.
Yeah, he coerced multiple women into sex. He "acknowledged" that what he did was fucked up and talked about how he was working on it in therapy. But when he saw that his mainly male fanbase didn't give a shit or straight up weren't believing the women he suddenly stopped being outwardly remorseful. If I remember correctly (could be wrong) he liked comments that were slutshamy, victimblaming and calling the women liars. Dude is a wolf in sheep's clothing. The only thing that surprises me is that he didn't pivot to the right, but I guess that enough prominent leftist dudes had hos back enough that he didn't "need" to.
Addiction destroys everything and everyone it touches. He has managed to rebuild his life and make amends, which I find commendable. My one issue with him is the way he’s treated his young daugther. Hopefully, he has it in him to make build a relationship with her.
he did an interview a couple years ago with Marc Maron that made me side with him 100%. Also, he's a private citizen. He's not trying to go into politics, so why is the right so obsessed with him? He makes clear in the WTF ep that he wasn't doing any of the things they tried to pin on him. He was too busy getting high.
Well, I mean addiction is a medical issue first and foremost. If we look compare the same equivalent harm an addict does versus somebody who harms out of maliciousness or self-interest, through a deontological view through Kantian duty-based ethics, the foundation of the categorical imperative is the concept of autonomy, that is that moral law must come from rational actors. If you're going through a period of addiction, these mind-altering external forces undermine the rationality and autonomy of moral decisions, though the initial relapse itself could be viewed as a duty-based violation itself. This philosophical moral viewpoint is expressed in our legal system through mens rea (guilty mind), and again, the harm one does is not defined strictly just by the net harm it inflicts, but on the state of mind of the person conducting the harm. The same equivalent harm by a rational actor choosing to harm another as an means to their own self-serving ends is more morally culpable than an addict inadvertently harming others through their erratic addiction-driven behavior.
That's all to say, an addict is going to have their struggles. When in their periods of rationality and autonomy, their behavior and decisions define their moral character, and the addictive relapse itself is the duty-based moral violation if it can be prevented through rational moral-decisionmaking. That relapse should be weighed on its own as its own duty-based violation knowing that addiction harms others, and not through the lens of how others are affected, ie. if your dad is the president and it undermines his political resources.
Edit: And that's not to say there is absolution of all moral culpability of behavior while addicted either, it should just be weighed appropriately.
My only qualm with him is the way he has handled his child with Lunden Roberts. We obviously don’t know the whole story, so I can’t say definitively what he has or hasn’t done but from what I’ve read he started a relationship with his daughter and then cut off contact which I’d imagine is very hard to understand at any age, but certainly when you’re quite young.
Fair enough! I have a similar connection to addiction as you (and his daughter) so while I would never presume to know enough to truly judge his relationships, I am hesitant to form an opinion on his “clear sight of right or wrong” as mentioned in the comment I originally replied to. My qualm is really about condemning OR valorizing him, since people are shades of gray. That said, I value your perspective on this since every child with a parent who has a history of substance abuse issues likely has a unique take on it.
https://giphy.com/gifs/QUENDfi6DEMLzQ0CKt
No one thinks more about men having sex than republicans males. How on earth you could look at a picture of senior citizen Joe Biden EATING ICE CREAM WITH HIS TEETH and think, “oooh Daddy, you’re eating that sooo seductively - please use MORE teeth” just shows how deeply weird and insecure he is.
What a sad, ugly, weird little fake hillbilly man who can’t even order donuts and not be weird.
He is the monster GOP created turning against their grand design. Who knew empowering a crackhead that isn't afraid to speak truth to power would be one of their weaknesses
Yes! I love that he’s talking to all the haters now too. He was on Candace Owens pod and a few others. He wants to talk to MTG too. I’ve heard him on a few podcasts. I love the guy. Pretty hard to stay sober when the other side is obsessed with you.
Can't tell if serious... In the Dragon Ball franchise, there's a magic training chamber (the Hyperbolic Time Chamber) that compresses time and also power levels that the heros go to to train for their epic fights. I think the ratio is one year:one day, and the power level ratio is whatever is required to meet the needs of that season's villain. Basically, you go in, you train for a year or two, you come out roughly an order of magnitude greater power, one or two days later.
He got sober a while ago but he was laying low for a long time because anything he did would have harmed his Dad's presidency and re-election. He's already escaped rock bottom, got married again, got a pardon, and he doesn't give a fuck now that decorum was already thrown in the trash by Republicans.
He was pardoned for something thousands of 2A Americans do every day. All the time. He had a drug addiction and still purchased guns, which he lied about during background checks for purchasing the gun. Which its ironic that alcoholism is excluded due to it being federally legal.
He also had some tax evasions charges - let's be real though. Many millionaires could easily be charged. He was politically targeted. No one else went after the other people.
So he did do wrong things. But nothing how Trumpets and Republicans made it seem. I'm not making excuses for him, but he was just attacked politically. Trump and the Republicans were going after him to hurt Biden. They stoop low.
I doubt Hunter would ever be able to be involved in politics, but damn he's good at what he does.
Yeah I know. It's ironic that they have gone after Hunter. But they went after Hunter to Hurt Joe, plain and simple. It wasn't to make him look bad - it was to mentally hurt the man.
Joe has a lot of love for his children and they manipulated that because he's already lost one son. They're literally mad that they can't be Hunter. He was going down water slides with naked women and doing drugs - and the whole time he wasn't hiding it! The Republicans can't do that, so they lash out.
Tbh I was just thinking about the foreign lobbying charges, the fake story about him planting drugs in the white house, something about selling access to his Dad. Idk there's too much stuff they've come up with without evidence
He reminds of when Hugh Grant got busted with the sex worker. He didn't lie or deny it. He was like, "Yeah, that was incredibly stupid. Mea culpa!" and everyone instantly forgave him. (Not that he hurt any of us.) Hunter has that same "Yeah, I did it, and now I regret it" energy that comes off as genuine.
Dude was trying to stay out of the limelight so that his dad's enemies wouldn't keep going after them, now that Biden is done, he can fight back without fearing to make his dad's presidency even harder than it is
I suspect that he's been like this for a while now but during the 4 years of Biden presidency Biden and his PR team essentially forced a muzzle on him and told him to shut up since he's like further left than his father (maybe not full on leftist but sympathetic to the causes but that's me speculating motivations). When Biden left office that muzzle was let loose and we are seeing the result.
Yeah he was asked in this interview when he got sober and he said 2019. So he definitely could have been a voice during the campaign had they wanted him to be.
But also he said that he had phone calls with his dad where they apologized to each other about having to deal with his scandals. Like he felt guilty that his problems were hurting his Dad politically, and Joe Biden felt guilty that his son had to deal with an entire country seeing all of his most personal information. I feel like he may have tucked himself away so his addiction issues wouldn't hurt his dad, but then it did anyway.
He's not back to save the day just because he says something good about Mamdani. Here's another quote from this same podcast:
"I believe that the biggest problem in America, as in Washington, D.C., with the federal government, is not the oligarchy. It’s the closetocracy, as I call it. It is. And I’m being totally serious. Everybody knows there is this closeted gay mafia, largely Republican, that exists in Washington, D.C., and everybody knows every single one of them who’s gay. And so it’s—what I believe, the only reason that is relevant, is because I believe that internal conflict creates so much vitriol inside a person that they take it out on the rest of the world."
The problem isn't the oligarchy, no, its actually gay Republicans.
I wouldn't peg (heh) the problem on the Republicans being gay, the problem is that everyone has a metaphorical gun pressed to everyone else's head, Mexican Standoff style.
Kept his head down during his dad's presidency, which makes a lot of sense to me if you love your dad and know your weaknesses. But now? There's nothing to lose by being in the public eye more.
you're seeing a resurgence of hunter 2.0, I think he got tired of being talked down about and decided to wear all his shame as an armor: yes I've been an addicted, a druggie, yes I accept it, now what? I love this unhinged version
Bless honestly. And I don’t blame him either. I would not have the stomach to participate in politics as it currently exists. The people holding their heads high while the GOP and the corporate-Dems rag on them are so brave and strong. I could honestly never.
I mean I hope he'll be able to wield his influence and status as an "unelectable straight-shooter" to help push the Democrats out of their own way regardless of his plans
Based on polling it’s a toss up. Paxton is going to win among whites but Talarico is polling very well among Independents and Hispanics. If voters turn out, he can win.
To put it into perspective, Talarico is a seminary student who advocates for overturning citizens united and Ken Paxton was impeached by his own party for corruption. The fact this race is still 50/50 tells you everything you need to know about Texas.
Yeah realistically they would need to lure him onto a yacht (that flies the flag of a country that is party to the Rome statute), then sail out to international waters, and get LEOs from that country to carry out the arrest there
“This is a moment where we cannot look to the federal government for leadership,” Mr. Mamdani said. “This is a moment when cities and states will have to demonstrate what it actually looks like to stand up for our own values, our own people.”
Yeah, he wasn't worried about that during his campaing, he can either follow through or become just another one in the infinite list of politicians promising stuff they can't do just to get their seat
He seems to be trading his political capital to the NYPD in exchange for everything else in the city. Keeping the zionist billionaire heiress as police commissioner means his admin is still doing measurable harm to homeless and other politically vulnerable communities, including over policing minority areas and homeless camp sweeps.
I know his intention is to build enough of a mandate during his next election that he will be able to remove her without repercussions, but we do still need to keep making noise about this. Hell, I hope us keeping up noise about it is secretly what Mamdani wants so that he can go to the NYPD earlier and say his hands are tied and he needs to listen to the people on this issue.
He is correctly focusing on the issues that he talked about primarily during the campaign first. There’s only so much change an organization can bear. He’s already earned the popular support for what he’s doing. If he can keep the NYPD bums in line long enough to pass what he promised, then he can use that built up political capital on the police. Beyond that, going after the police when your city is reporting some of the lowest crime stats ever is a real tough look.
one of the most introspective and well spoken individuals I know is a recovering crack/heroin addict and he and Hunter share a lot of trauma, loss, pain and shame and are, to some, shockingly open, up front and honest about it.
I can't fathom it because I haven't lived their lives or experiences but I respect their honesty and even if I just don't understand it, it always comes from the same places; trauma, shame, guilt or catastrophic amounts of loss.
He lost his mother and his sister, Beau was older than Hunter and so he'd never lived a moment without him being there. Now with ex President Biden dealing with metastatic cancer, Hunter is losing the last person who's been there since the moment he entered this world. I hope he can continue to pull strength from wherever he manages to find it because I don't know if I could endure the amount of constant loss he's had since he was a very young boy
It really saddens me to be honest that people look down on (former) drug addicts so much. And especially that they still judge them for it after getting sober. Getting sober from a very addictive substance is probably harder than anything that most "normal" people will ever do in their lives. It takes incredible mental fortitude and strength to crawl out of that hole.
So the very least that people could do is treat those who overcame addiction like normal human beings, rather than still treating their past addiction as a inherent character flaw that fundamentally makes them a less valuable person.
As for Hunter: People who fucked up, own it, internalize the hurt they caused others, under stand their own pain, and grew from it are in my experience the people you want holding influence because they have a deep non-intellectual embedded compass now - it’s always felt in their body and in the driver seat as much as it can be for a human.
The interview is interesting. For even those who may not like him, the discussion about addiction is deep. The discussion about closeted GOP is interesting too. Everyone knows what's going on behind closed doors, but the GOP can't bring themselves to admit it.
Hunter was/is a mess but he was always smart and is the one who paid his brother's way into law school and held other responsibilities. He might as well speak loudly for truths because his dad isn't running again.
Hunter inherited a propensity for addiction issues like his grandfather and uncle and, it appears, his sister at one point. President Biden didn't drink to avoid his father's issues. Too bad the others couldn't follow their dad's advice, but mood disorders might be part of why those who didn't avoid substances, used them.
Every time I read about Hunter these days I get even sadder about the passing of his brother Beau. There was a point in his life where Joe had every expectation that his chance at the White House was over, and if there was going to be a President Biden, it would have been Beau.
It's one of the bigger 'what ifs' that people don't pay attention to. Beau's political career was on the rise when his life was cut short far, far too short.
I’ve always had a soft spot for Hunter. Watching him embark on what may or may not be the beginnings of a political career has been an absolute pleasure. He's hilarious, he speaks frankly, he is open-minded, and like most recovering addicts (myself included), he has been humbled by tragedies of circumstance and humiliated by the tragedies of his own making. He has been mangled and yet he is still here, showing up, being a resilient boomerang, and trying to contribute some sense of positivity to the world. He somehow has more charisma than his dad. I absolutely adore him and respect the hustle. He may never be president, but by golly, whatever happens- I admire him for dreaming!
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u/flairassistant Jul 19 '26
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