I will be voting for Biden if his name is on the ballot. I strongly oppose what he is putting forward as American policy toward Israel. I think the US government is helping carry out a genocide. A Trump win would be 100xs worse. I am absolutely sure of that and because of that sureness I feel no ethical conflict for my vote. None. But it makes me SICK that this IS where we are. I have no idea where all of this ends up. We, the American people, have allowed this to be the reality. So I accept my part in it. I am not a revolutionary. But I think I should have been. I am not at all optimistic about where this ends up. Not at all.
I would vote for any Democrat on the ticket. I think most Democrats would. So I don’t know if changing candidates would be a bad option. I’m guessing Biden will be the nominee. What does it say about Biden that this is so close and his opponent is a psycho, felon, who stole top secret documents and tried to overthrow the government? What does it say about Biden? What does it say about us? It’s pathetic. We better hope we don’t get what we deserve. I think we are in for some bad times.
There's an interesting counter-reaction going on in certain Democratic circles, where supporters are decrying the fact that the New York Times didn't call for Trump to leave the race! I'm trying to put my finger on this -- it's not a sour grapes feeling, but it's a form of denial that is remarkable to watch. We in the Democratic camp can do nothing to influence what is going on in the Republican camp. Republicans don't care what the NYT has to say.
It's really a very strange reaction -- the dynamics in the parties are very different. Conservatives have a cult of personality at the moment. I hadn't considered the Democrats in the same light.
I've heard folks say they would vote for a tin can at this point (Sam Seder). This is a sad state of affairs. Voters should not be reduced to this. We should be engaged and feeling fulfilled to cast our vote. It should be a process that completes us. That's not the dynamic is that at play at the moment.
"What does it say about Biden that this is so close and his opponent is a psycho, felon, who stole top secret documents and tried to overthrow the government? What does it say about Biden? What does it say about us?"
Those are good questions! It absolutely should not be this close. I'm really not one historically to pin so much responsibility on such organs as the media, but I do think they have done us a disservice in the name of (a false sense of) balance. Once Trump left office, even though he has stuck around and then began mounting a path back to the nomination, media outlets were loath to treat him as the manifest threat he showed himself to be. We have been badly served, in the interest of presenting a horse race.
Well, to that last point, I would say that shaking up the race with an open convention and a fresh candidate would present a very interesting horse race indeed.
As for the times we're in for . . . well, to stop gazing at America's navel for a bit, I posted in a note yesterday about France's elections. Marine Le Pen's far-right National Rally party swept the first round of voting. The right wing has never been in control of France. I had to think about this a bit. Whereas the US and Britain, and other countries besides, have gone conservative, right, even far right over the course of several decades, France has been the strong node, the beacon of liberalism in the heart of Europe. Talk about a bellwether. Are we in for bad times? I think probably so, and much of that is out of our hands.
I think the Democrats suffer from something, but I don’t know what to call it. Maybe the best way to put it is that they enjoy being lied to about reality or perhaps “the Emperor’s New Clothes” delusion. They simply must believe the hype about “Dark Brandon” and how he’s the second coming of FDR (ie insisting that the Emperor is, in fact, splendidly attired), because the truth is too painful to have to admit (ie the Emperor is naked, and the best the Democratic Party could come up with in a supposedly existential election is a senile old man). Those who try to inject a dose of reality into the situation by bringing up the Palestinian genocide, Biden’s own political record, or any kind of historical context in general have to be chased off as heretics. It’s not a cult of personality, but a cult of un-personality, since Democratic supporters have to ignore “Biden as historical figure” and turn him into a tabula rasa that they just write whatever fanfic they need to make him more palatable.
As for the global rise of the far-right, a lot of it has to do with the US funding every right wing nut job imaginable for almost fifty years during the Cold War. It’s absurd for so many Western pundits to ask where the secular leaders are in non-Western countries when they ought to know that such individuals were massacred during the Cold War. In EU bloc, a lot of it has to do with increased migration due to wars that NATO itself instigated, plus climate change. Since the NATO countries aren’t going to stop destabilizing the Middle East or change their habits to get climate change under control, I don’t see the appeal of the far-right ending anytime soon. Much like the US, there is no real left in Europe anymore, so the only people who are allowed to criticize the status quo are the far-right.
"Dark Brandon" came about as a way of sticking a thumb in the eye of raucus MAGA fans who were giddy at being able to say "Fuck Joe Biden" in the form of "Let's go, Brandon!" Democrats were pleased to be able to neutralize this slogan, and they did so by generating memes. The White House played along, releasing merchandise with memeage (there were some coffee mugs, as I recall). It was all good fun.
The "best president of one's lifetime" / "best prez since FDR" -- I don't know where that came about. I know some folks were comparing Biden to LBJ, which at first may have reflected Biden's commitment to elevating qualified and visible people of color to high positions. And folks like Sam Seder will wax about Biden's notching of environmental wins.
I'll give Biden his props -- he's done some things. For me, however, that doesn't outweigh the moral, ethical and legal stain that he's garnered on his record in aiding and supplying Israel with genocidal weaponry, military expertise and diplomatic cover.
And, as other people commenting on the post-debate fallout have said, at this point, it's not even necessarily about Biden's record, though of course that figures in. It's not whether he can do the job -- it's whether he can beat his opponent. These are two different skill sets. I think some Democrats are learning this lately, to their chagrin. Hillary Clinton was far more qualifed than Donald Trump to run the country. That meant nothing at the ballot box.
I agree with your last point about chickens coming home to roost, and the root causes of this destabilization.
There are risks either way and it is difficult to find some media accounts about those. details. I don't care which way we go as long as some actual wise experts in Dem Party organizations can assess the comparative risks and scenarios.
And I could be fine with a substitute, but we have basically run out of time. The nomination will be held via virtual roll call as has been discussed for the last 2-3 months in order to get Biden on the Ohio ballet. That is important because it should help boost the numbers of Sen. Brown and the downballot state offices as well.
Bloomberg had a piece (yesterday?) saying that the virtual roll call would be on July 21 and the Ohio deadline is Aug 7, so we've got 3-5 weeks before the nomination is held.. It looks like Kristol may have missed this since he mentions a brokered convention.
From June 21: "On Thursday, members of the Democratic National Committee approved moving up the Biden-Harris nomination and to allow for an “electronic” roll call. The vote was 360 for, two against and five abstaining. The date for nominating Biden and Harris has not been set, but it will be before Ohio’s Aug. 7 deadline."
Thank you for pushing back on ageism. It is so deeply embedded, its disturbing. DK predictably dealt with it through claims of Biden's good health, then "what about trumps age", etc - all the while repeating the framing focused on chronological age instead of personal experience and assets.
I agree completely. Newsom, Whitmer, Harris? You'd think we could come up with others. But Biden clearly won't bow out willingly, just like RBG. How to make that happen? No idea.
I named Newsom months ago. I respect both Whitmer and Harris, but I do not think that putting either of them on the top of the ticket would be the wise thing to do. What the strategy of the Democratic Party should be, at this late date, is to peel off voters from the undecided (as distinguished from “uncommitted”) column, and to make (admittedly superficial) inroads into Trump’s base. That base is both racist and misogynist. We do not want to adopt either of those positions ideologically.
Having a male at the top of the ticket cannot be called tokenism. I do think that having a female would prevent peeling off some of Trump’s voters. Same for a candidate of color. I’m as progressive as they come, but here we’re talking about American realpolitik.
And that’s not even considering the ~ 20% of voters who say they are for RFK, Jr. I haven’t even considered how to reach out to those folks. I suspect that a good number of them are simply voting in protest of the “rerun” that we currently seem to be having between the two main parties. A fresh candidate possibly would draw some of those folks away from RFK, Jr.
Some people have brought up the fact that Harris is second in line and should be the obvious replacement if one were to be chosen. I liked Harris quite a bit in the 2020 primary season and was glad that Biden selected her to be his running mate. She broadened the coalition. Some feel that passing Harris over would be seen as a betrayal to Black people, Black women especially, and that would trigger a civil war within the party.
My solution, such as it could be called that, would be to have Harris come onto the new ticket as the vice president. Then she would be a bridge this time around, too, but in a different way. She would represent continuity in a time of turmoil. Keeping her would nullify perceptions that people of color were being tossed overboard. Such a move would bring logistical difficulties of its own — generally, the presidential candidate gets to choose his or her running mate; and we would have issues of compatibility to consider. But I think retaining Harris as VP solves many of the pitfalls that critics have raised.
Pritzker has also been mentioned in this overall conversation, but I don’t know much about him at all (except that he’s an heir to the Hyatt Hotel fortune), so I can’t speak to his viability. But the fact that his name is bandied about indicates that there are options out there.
As for Biden not bowing out willingly, I think he’s being served badly by his advisers. Also, he has a hero complex. He truly seems to believe that only he has the capability to beat Trump. He’s the only one so far who has, but that doesn’t mean that he’s the only one who can. That’s the error in his logic.
I forgot about Pritzker. He would be great. I don't see Kamala winning for prez either. Newsom has been their golden boy. As a Californian I think he's been an ok governor, but the GOP, probably knowing he'll be next up have had a big campaign against him for ages, blaming all California's problems on him.
I will be voting for Biden if his name is on the ballot. I strongly oppose what he is putting forward as American policy toward Israel. I think the US government is helping carry out a genocide. A Trump win would be 100xs worse. I am absolutely sure of that and because of that sureness I feel no ethical conflict for my vote. None. But it makes me SICK that this IS where we are. I have no idea where all of this ends up. We, the American people, have allowed this to be the reality. So I accept my part in it. I am not a revolutionary. But I think I should have been. I am not at all optimistic about where this ends up. Not at all.
I would vote for any Democrat on the ticket. I think most Democrats would. So I don’t know if changing candidates would be a bad option. I’m guessing Biden will be the nominee. What does it say about Biden that this is so close and his opponent is a psycho, felon, who stole top secret documents and tried to overthrow the government? What does it say about Biden? What does it say about us? It’s pathetic. We better hope we don’t get what we deserve. I think we are in for some bad times.
There's an interesting counter-reaction going on in certain Democratic circles, where supporters are decrying the fact that the New York Times didn't call for Trump to leave the race! I'm trying to put my finger on this -- it's not a sour grapes feeling, but it's a form of denial that is remarkable to watch. We in the Democratic camp can do nothing to influence what is going on in the Republican camp. Republicans don't care what the NYT has to say.
It's really a very strange reaction -- the dynamics in the parties are very different. Conservatives have a cult of personality at the moment. I hadn't considered the Democrats in the same light.
I've heard folks say they would vote for a tin can at this point (Sam Seder). This is a sad state of affairs. Voters should not be reduced to this. We should be engaged and feeling fulfilled to cast our vote. It should be a process that completes us. That's not the dynamic is that at play at the moment.
"What does it say about Biden that this is so close and his opponent is a psycho, felon, who stole top secret documents and tried to overthrow the government? What does it say about Biden? What does it say about us?"
Those are good questions! It absolutely should not be this close. I'm really not one historically to pin so much responsibility on such organs as the media, but I do think they have done us a disservice in the name of (a false sense of) balance. Once Trump left office, even though he has stuck around and then began mounting a path back to the nomination, media outlets were loath to treat him as the manifest threat he showed himself to be. We have been badly served, in the interest of presenting a horse race.
Well, to that last point, I would say that shaking up the race with an open convention and a fresh candidate would present a very interesting horse race indeed.
As for the times we're in for . . . well, to stop gazing at America's navel for a bit, I posted in a note yesterday about France's elections. Marine Le Pen's far-right National Rally party swept the first round of voting. The right wing has never been in control of France. I had to think about this a bit. Whereas the US and Britain, and other countries besides, have gone conservative, right, even far right over the course of several decades, France has been the strong node, the beacon of liberalism in the heart of Europe. Talk about a bellwether. Are we in for bad times? I think probably so, and much of that is out of our hands.
I think the Democrats suffer from something, but I don’t know what to call it. Maybe the best way to put it is that they enjoy being lied to about reality or perhaps “the Emperor’s New Clothes” delusion. They simply must believe the hype about “Dark Brandon” and how he’s the second coming of FDR (ie insisting that the Emperor is, in fact, splendidly attired), because the truth is too painful to have to admit (ie the Emperor is naked, and the best the Democratic Party could come up with in a supposedly existential election is a senile old man). Those who try to inject a dose of reality into the situation by bringing up the Palestinian genocide, Biden’s own political record, or any kind of historical context in general have to be chased off as heretics. It’s not a cult of personality, but a cult of un-personality, since Democratic supporters have to ignore “Biden as historical figure” and turn him into a tabula rasa that they just write whatever fanfic they need to make him more palatable.
As for the global rise of the far-right, a lot of it has to do with the US funding every right wing nut job imaginable for almost fifty years during the Cold War. It’s absurd for so many Western pundits to ask where the secular leaders are in non-Western countries when they ought to know that such individuals were massacred during the Cold War. In EU bloc, a lot of it has to do with increased migration due to wars that NATO itself instigated, plus climate change. Since the NATO countries aren’t going to stop destabilizing the Middle East or change their habits to get climate change under control, I don’t see the appeal of the far-right ending anytime soon. Much like the US, there is no real left in Europe anymore, so the only people who are allowed to criticize the status quo are the far-right.
"Dark Brandon" came about as a way of sticking a thumb in the eye of raucus MAGA fans who were giddy at being able to say "Fuck Joe Biden" in the form of "Let's go, Brandon!" Democrats were pleased to be able to neutralize this slogan, and they did so by generating memes. The White House played along, releasing merchandise with memeage (there were some coffee mugs, as I recall). It was all good fun.
The "best president of one's lifetime" / "best prez since FDR" -- I don't know where that came about. I know some folks were comparing Biden to LBJ, which at first may have reflected Biden's commitment to elevating qualified and visible people of color to high positions. And folks like Sam Seder will wax about Biden's notching of environmental wins.
I'll give Biden his props -- he's done some things. For me, however, that doesn't outweigh the moral, ethical and legal stain that he's garnered on his record in aiding and supplying Israel with genocidal weaponry, military expertise and diplomatic cover.
And, as other people commenting on the post-debate fallout have said, at this point, it's not even necessarily about Biden's record, though of course that figures in. It's not whether he can do the job -- it's whether he can beat his opponent. These are two different skill sets. I think some Democrats are learning this lately, to their chagrin. Hillary Clinton was far more qualifed than Donald Trump to run the country. That meant nothing at the ballot box.
I agree with your last point about chickens coming home to roost, and the root causes of this destabilization.
There are risks either way and it is difficult to find some media accounts about those. details. I don't care which way we go as long as some actual wise experts in Dem Party organizations can assess the comparative risks and scenarios.
And I could be fine with a substitute, but we have basically run out of time. The nomination will be held via virtual roll call as has been discussed for the last 2-3 months in order to get Biden on the Ohio ballet. That is important because it should help boost the numbers of Sen. Brown and the downballot state offices as well.
Bloomberg had a piece (yesterday?) saying that the virtual roll call would be on July 21 and the Ohio deadline is Aug 7, so we've got 3-5 weeks before the nomination is held.. It looks like Kristol may have missed this since he mentions a brokered convention.
From June 21: "On Thursday, members of the Democratic National Committee approved moving up the Biden-Harris nomination and to allow for an “electronic” roll call. The vote was 360 for, two against and five abstaining. The date for nominating Biden and Harris has not been set, but it will be before Ohio’s Aug. 7 deadline."
https://chicago.suntimes.com/2024-democratic-national-convention/2024/06/21/dnc-chicago-prime-time-roll-call-biden
Thank you for pushing back on ageism. It is so deeply embedded, its disturbing. DK predictably dealt with it through claims of Biden's good health, then "what about trumps age", etc - all the while repeating the framing focused on chronological age instead of personal experience and assets.
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4750468-joe-biden-kamala-harris-gavin-newsom-andy-beshear-gretchen-whitmer/
I like the sound of Andy Beshear.
I admit I know very little about Beshear. He does have some name recognition.
I agree completely. Newsom, Whitmer, Harris? You'd think we could come up with others. But Biden clearly won't bow out willingly, just like RBG. How to make that happen? No idea.
I named Newsom months ago. I respect both Whitmer and Harris, but I do not think that putting either of them on the top of the ticket would be the wise thing to do. What the strategy of the Democratic Party should be, at this late date, is to peel off voters from the undecided (as distinguished from “uncommitted”) column, and to make (admittedly superficial) inroads into Trump’s base. That base is both racist and misogynist. We do not want to adopt either of those positions ideologically.
Having a male at the top of the ticket cannot be called tokenism. I do think that having a female would prevent peeling off some of Trump’s voters. Same for a candidate of color. I’m as progressive as they come, but here we’re talking about American realpolitik.
And that’s not even considering the ~ 20% of voters who say they are for RFK, Jr. I haven’t even considered how to reach out to those folks. I suspect that a good number of them are simply voting in protest of the “rerun” that we currently seem to be having between the two main parties. A fresh candidate possibly would draw some of those folks away from RFK, Jr.
Some people have brought up the fact that Harris is second in line and should be the obvious replacement if one were to be chosen. I liked Harris quite a bit in the 2020 primary season and was glad that Biden selected her to be his running mate. She broadened the coalition. Some feel that passing Harris over would be seen as a betrayal to Black people, Black women especially, and that would trigger a civil war within the party.
My solution, such as it could be called that, would be to have Harris come onto the new ticket as the vice president. Then she would be a bridge this time around, too, but in a different way. She would represent continuity in a time of turmoil. Keeping her would nullify perceptions that people of color were being tossed overboard. Such a move would bring logistical difficulties of its own — generally, the presidential candidate gets to choose his or her running mate; and we would have issues of compatibility to consider. But I think retaining Harris as VP solves many of the pitfalls that critics have raised.
Pritzker has also been mentioned in this overall conversation, but I don’t know much about him at all (except that he’s an heir to the Hyatt Hotel fortune), so I can’t speak to his viability. But the fact that his name is bandied about indicates that there are options out there.
As for Biden not bowing out willingly, I think he’s being served badly by his advisers. Also, he has a hero complex. He truly seems to believe that only he has the capability to beat Trump. He’s the only one so far who has, but that doesn’t mean that he’s the only one who can. That’s the error in his logic.
I forgot about Pritzker. He would be great. I don't see Kamala winning for prez either. Newsom has been their golden boy. As a Californian I think he's been an ok governor, but the GOP, probably knowing he'll be next up have had a big campaign against him for ages, blaming all California's problems on him.