Access to this page has been denied
thehill.com
px-captcha

President Biden is heading to North Carolina on Thursday to announce $82 million in new investments to connect homes and businesses in the state to high-speed internet.

He will go to the Raleigh-Durham area in the critical battleground state to make the announcement, alongside Gov. Roy Cooper (D). The funding comes from the American Rescue Plan, which was the COVID-19 relief package Biden signed into law in 2021, and aims to connect an additional 16,000 homes and businesses in North Carolina.

The investment, according to a fact sheet from the White House, will also create jobs in manufacturing and construction to produce “Made-in-America fiber-optic cable that will build out internet infrastructure across the country.”

  • givesomefucks@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    10 months ago

    Why he’s doing this:

    Former President Trump beat Biden for North Carolina in 2020. Trump also won the state in the 2016 election, beating former Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.

    All this stuff coming out now is just token measures to make it look like he’s helping people so they vote for him.

    And sure, they’re better off than if nothing was done, but it’s going to be obvious for voters they’re only getting attention because an election is coming up.

    Trying to help them the whole term and not just pre election would get a lot more votes, and help a lot more people.

    But would be a bigger hit to donors pocketbooks.

    The article is light on details too, so I suspect most of this money is going to telecoms again for them to run the fiber, and like every other time we’ve given them money, they’ll likely just keep it and not do anything

    • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
      0·
      10 months ago

      Presidents do this every time they’re up for re-election. This is nothing new. Of course they’re going to pander to states they want to win.

      • givesomefucks@lemmy.worldEnglish
        0·
        10 months ago

        Sure it doesn’t work and voters have wised up to it… But this is what we always do so we’ll keep doing it even tho it doesn’t work!

        You know what we haven’t tried and will likely work?

        Actually putting the work in and trying to help Americans the entire term and not trying to only do the bare minimum for appearances to trick people into thinking they’re being helped…

        At least that way, even if we don’t get the votes, we’re helping people.

        For fucks sake, the most common reason most non voters have given for decades is that neither party legitimately wants to help them, they just get tossed crumbs before an election, and that’s only if they live in a battleground state.

        This shit isn’t complicated. It’s just helping Americans makes donors unhappy, and Dems consistently underestimate how much voters can see thru this pandering.

          • givesomefucks@lemmy.worldEnglish
            0·
            10 months ago

            Yeah, election results…

            In addition to surveys of non voters.

            I get a random person on social media not knowing that, but our president and his campaign team should.

            • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
              0·
              10 months ago

              Please present this evidence. Just saying you have evidence is not actually having evidence. I would like to see these surveys and how they show that voters have wised up to political pandering.

              • givesomefucks@lemmy.worldEnglish
                0·
                10 months ago

                Politics is simply not the way to make change, they said. Two-thirds of nonvoters agree, for example, that voting has little to do with the way that real decisions are made in this country; they are 21 points more likely to say so than people who voted.

                A majority also said they believe it makes no difference who is elected president and that things will go on just as they did before. Nonvoters were 29 points more likely to say that than people who voted. (Read more about why they didn’t vote, in their own words.)

                And

                Nonvoters are also more likely than voters to say that traditional parties and politicians don’t care about people like me; the mainstream media is more interested in making money than telling the truth; the American economy is rigged to advantage the rich and powerful; success in life is pretty much determined by forces outside our control; and to feel that most issues discussed in Washington don’t affect them personally.

                https://www.npr.org/2020/12/15/945031391/poll-despite-record-turnout-80-million-americans-didnt-vote-heres-why

                The article already says NC voted trump the last two elections, and I already quoted it…

                So I’m going to assume you don’t need another source for that

                • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
                  0·
                  10 months ago

                  Well I’m going to need a source for why non-voters matter to a president when pandering to a state. They weren’t going to vote anyway.

                  • givesomefucks@lemmy.worldEnglish
                    0·
                    10 months ago

                    Well I’m going to need a source for why non-voters matter to a president when pandering to a state

                    What?

                    You want a source for why a candidate pandering for votes would care about people that aren’t going to vote?

                    Literally the only point of pandering for votes, is to get votes…

                    If not, what the fuck is the point of pandering at all?

                    And why are you saying it doesn’t work?

                    That’s how Obama and Bill Clinton got elected…

                    And let me guess, you’re just going to ignore everything you were wrong about and ask for a source on that too…

                    That’s called “sealioning”

                    Edit:

                    Yep. That’s definitely what’s happening and worth a block