The question is typically described as “the historicity of Jesus”. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historicity_of_Jesus
There are similar debates for other famous ancient figures.
The general academic consensus on Jesus (and many similar figures) is that they did exist and many of the details have been fictionalized.
“Worse than expected,” depends largely on the individual and what they were expecting. It comes down to expecting one thing and being disappointed in the outcome.
People who expected him to be an ally of immigrants are disappointed in his border policies.
People who expected him to fix Trumps “easy” trade wars are disappointed in his trade policies.
People who expected him to support labor are disappointed in his ban of the railroad workers strike.
People who expected him to champion human rights are disappointed in his support of the IDF.
He may have met your expectations and the expectations of the majority of Democrats. Biden’s 2020 victory depended on several groups who only showed up because they hoped that he would address their specific concerns.
What makes governments any more susceptible to corruption than a private organization?
I’m not actually talking about governments having absolute control. That’s a pretty extreme scenario to jump to from from the question of if it’s better for a private company or a government to control search.
Right now we think Google is misusing that data. We can’t even get information on it without a leak. The government has a flawed FOIA system but Google has nothing of the sort. The only way we’re protected from corruption at Google (and historically speaking several other large private organization) is when the government steps in and stops them.
Governments often handle corruption poorly but I can rattle of many cases where governments managed to reduce corruption on their own (ie without requiring a revolution). In many cases the source of that corruption was large private organizations.
Why is that better? It may not be ideal but governments have at least some accountability.
They could have left out, “for LGBTQ+ people” and it would have been just as accurate.
I’ve been called many names, including “tankie”, so I’ll take a stab at responding.
I’m not mad about the debate at all. I expected something fairly similar. I’m mad that Biden and the Democratic leadership seems to have put their own interests above the interest of the party.
If Biden had gracefully stepped aside and given just about any other Democrat his full support, we’d be in a much better position now. Instead we have a candidate with a ton of baggage and who presents an easy target for Trump’s style of argument. Many mainstream Democrats, including the NYT, are finally starting to realize this. Unfortunately it’s probably a year too late. At this point it would just make it look like Demoratic kingmakers forced him out.
If I went by the modern definition of “tankie” as, an ant-american authoritarian communist. I probably wouldn’t be mad at any of this. I’d be cackling with glee because either of the current nominees will be terrible for the US. Neither of them has a serious long term plan. Neither of them can articulate a policy position. Both of them will continue to erode the power and moral authority of the United States.
Like it or not. Trump is likely to be the next president https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/. At this point it’s probably wise to start thinking about how to limit his impact and how to start cleaning up the mess afterwards.