I like Rick Wilson to a point: his hardball public persona is emotionally rewarding, but in keeping with that, his colorful metaphors (is that where you got Underpants Gnomes?) inevitably go too far sometimes. That's how I'm experiencing your shooting from the hip, like your projecting Bernie Broism onto me, then turning around and politically correcting me about leaving the "ic" off the word "Democratic". I put "kicked in the teeth" in quotes to point out it was your hyperbolic phrase.
1) So "shades of 2020" means that Biden should not be held to the prospect that he held out shortly before he was elected? I found Biden's quasi-promise to serve only one term was wonderfully refreshing and patriotic; it was the single biggest reason I voted for him in the 2020 primary. The second biggest reason was that I am a centrist and fervently hoped Bernie would lose.
Biden's oft-repeated vision--to "finish the job"--unconsciously discloses that his first administration (and not just Merrick Garland) failed to eclipse Trump. We are in this "all hands on deck" predicament under Biden's watch. I'm not the first former Biden voter to wonder 'how could we still be just neck and neck with Trump?' Now also one wonders why Team Trump seems so content to run against Biden.
By the way, I hear that Bernie just endorsed Biden. If you're anti-Bernie, I hope than dampens your enthusiasm for Biden. From my perspective as an older Boomer, Biden and Bernie (like Feinstein, Bader Ginsberg, and for that matter Jill Stein and Cornell West) embody a King Lear-like tragedy, a malfunctioning of that faculty that should flourish most in old age: selfless wisdom. In Biden's case, in order to defend himself he's drifting towards populist techniques like attacking the "main stream media" and playing to his base when he desperately needs more than that. I and most people urging Biden to withdraw his candidacy haven't disputed Biden's past virtues, and I don't despise him for being all-too- human, like Lear, so it's a highly pejorative to cast speaking-truth-to-power court jesters like John Stewart and Steven Colbert as wanting to "kick [Biden] to the curb".
2) So in your view its "clueless...wishcasting" for those who favor a prospective (i.e. not an Obama or Oprah) but undeclared candidate to collect whatever data they can about the chances of their potential candidate? Popularity is correlated with electability. If popularity data is the best you can get for an undeclared candidate, hold the darn "popularity plebiscite", recognizing that whatever fantasy advantage an undeclared candidate may have, the declared candidate will likely have expended vastly more to promote himself than the undeclared potential candidate. I grant you that polling about Michelle for President is manufactured news, but to distain all such polling is to turn away from testing one's assumptions, it's to not risk thinking anew when you need to.
As I pointed out, both Marianne Williamson and Dean Phillips ran against Biden. Don't know about Williamson, but I remember Phillips encountered the type of scorn I feel you direct towards me. If Biden had stooped to debate them, maybe we would have found out much earlier about the rate of Biden's decline. If money weren't equated with free speech*, maybe Biden wouldn't have had such an overwhelming funding advantage. Although lack of name recognition hampered Williamson and Phillips, such will not be the case for whomever would emerge from what would probably be the most widely watched open convention in history. Newness and relative youth have historically proven to be advantages in a candidate. We need all the advantages we can legally get to swamp MAGAism. For that, we must disenthrall ourselves.
The superdelegates are not numerous enough to outweigh the number of delegates pledged to Biden, and I understand the superdelegates don't even get to vote in the first round, so your 'grotesque star chamber image' (whose members are more personally elected than the delegates) is defamatory and grossly unfounded. I think it was good of Biden to recently remind his delegates that they are free to vote their conscience. It would have been ideal for him to stress the point that in their conscience, loyalty to country overrides loyalty to him. I trust that Democratic delegates are not as cultish as their Republican counterparts. I trust the same about you, although at moments I confess I wonder.
3) By my research, around 1/3 of registered Democrats voted in this year's primaries (if anything, the percent is lower than that given that in some states independents can vote in the Democratic primary). My claim isn't that primaries are "unfair", and I don't suggest they were rigged in an illegal way (viz. they are no more rigged than saying things are rigged because *big contributors donate to the likely winner for reasons of influence). No. My "complaint" is that primaries are inferior to ranked choice voting because they are needlessly troublesome for voters and consequently unrepresentative. Often--if not in Biden's case--this unrepresentativeness benefits extremists in both parties. In any case, the bottom line is: it seems plausible that, if a nationwide primary were held today EVEN AMONG JUST THE 17 MILLION minority of Democratic voters you mentioned, Biden would not get a majority vs. the set of plausible alternatives. We're in uncharted territory...but very importantly, therein lies opportunity.
I can't see any likely alternative Democratic candidate underperforming Biden vs. Trump. When Biden polls better than Kamala, forces of the Right have shown they will be able to suggest that, for practical purposes, they are really running against Kamala, dragging Biden's popularity down to Kamala's level. If Kamala polls better than Biden (which is where the trend seems to be headed), they will saddle Kamala with Biden. If the stereotype is true that Kamala's political skills are inferior to those of many other prospects, it's hard to imagine not just Kamala but ANY likely alternatives doing worse than Biden.
On the other hand, it's easier to imagine almost any of those alternatives doing much, much better than Biden ever could. Biden once responded to a reporter’s question by saying there were “50” democrats who could beat Trump. Biden isn’t conceivably in the top 10 of those 50. Whatever inharmony may go unsuppressed at the convention (I can tell you first hand the war in Israel is nowhere near as salient as Vietnam in '68, and such inharmony is anyway as likely to manifest with Biden as without him), I can't envision it not being overridden by what you rightly recognize is the unprecedented unifying urgency to beat Trump. Hopefully you trust me enough to still vote for Biden--if it comes to that--in spite of his tragic stubbornness. I trust YOU enough to act in whatever way is mostly likely to defeat Trump, no matter what happens to your hero.
There's opportunity here for Biden as well as for the country. He can withdraw in a way to facilitate a successful open convention. If he takes that opportunity, history will say about him what George III said of Washington's retirement, that he was “the greatest man in the world”.
Of course. Bernie is so much better than his movement. He's a team player and has had an influence on the Biden agenda; he won't get all of what he wants and he can live with that.
My respect for Our Revolution is very low. My respect for Bernie the man is enormous.
Rick ~ I have had this persistent image over the last couple of days Joe Biden pulling a Roy Hobbs this election, the Old Man having one last BIG HERO MOVE in him...maybe you and your editing room crew at LP would have some fun grabbing actual or potential Dem voters by the feels by referencing this 👉 https://youtu.be/i94ldGNNSQ0?si=q8SZ_B9vp5G8ugPl . People love a comeback story, so we now see the opportunity for this to be the flip of the narrative.
Amen, Christie. Americans love an underdog who's been unrighteously beaten up and then who gets back on his feet to triumphantly prevail. It's the oldest American story, starting with the ragtag colonists and their hand forged weapons defeating the world's most powerful and well-equipped army in the Revolutionary War. (Although I have to say that that scene from The Natural, with all the stadium lights exploding, was more than a little cornball, LOL).
Michael Steele had an excellent point on Joy's show last night discussing Joe's blistering Detroit rally. Joe hears all the criticism, all the nasty editorials, all the weak kneed cowardly Democrats questioning his fitness and he flashes back to when he was a kid in school being bullied for his stutter. And he EXPLODES WITH RIGHTEOUS FIRE. That's the Joe Biden who can beat Trump.
You guys need to talk about WHY Donny can't learn. ADD plus narcissism plus Norman Vincent Peale, of The Power of Positive Thinking, who married Trump and Ivana.
Donald has a LEARNING DISABILITY...no attention span, no patience, anyone who tries to teach him he attacks. Ask Rex Tillerson.
He compensates with manipulation and lies. He can always do that, he likes it, because he's a sadist, and it often works. He believes in it. He believes his lies trump reality, that he can lie his fantasy into reality, as long as he just keeps INSISTING. When up against Covid,it failed miserably, and Donald reacted by blaming reality for being "so unfair" to him He saw Covid as an evil plot against HIM. No wonder he misses "The Apprentice", nothing allowed to contradict the lie.
I don't think Donald will like having this pointed out. I think he will HATE it. Should be right up your alley.
Oh, I bet Trump has already told Zaslav he'll fire Lina Kahn.
Bob: 1) If head-to-head polls are meaningless, why do you even bring up Michelle Obama? Just because she doesn't want to run has nothing to do with how she polls. It's the pollsters, not the results, that are goofy to ask about her. Polls (and betting markets, which are even more gloomy for Biden than the polls) are, unfortunately, all we have to work with, and they consistently reflect overwhelming dissatisfaction with both Trump and Biden (and, very likely underneath, their aging incumbency--this year, worldwide, erstwhile office holders seem to lack their usual advantages). 2) Biden's campaign has already spent tens of millions promoting him vs. an order of magnitude less than that spent by Marianne Williamson and Dean Phillips combined and $0 spent by serious alternatives like Gretchen Whitmer, Amy Klobuchar, Gavin Newsom, and other excellent alternatives, including, on her own behalf Kamala Harris (AKA in Biden's words, "Vice President Trump"--sorry for the snark, but that's nothing compared to the debate clips that will appear in Trump ads, clips that Biden can't remember whether he's seen). Given that, one would expect none of these serious alternatives to be anywhere close to Biden in the polling, but they are. (Re: ad spending, see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XlXPaOVO40M). 3) A lot of us felt "kicked in the teeth" when Biden announced in 2022, contrary to his earlier hint, that he would not--George Washington-like--bow out. His unfitness as a candidate (albeit relative to other Democrats, not relative to Trump) was not evident enough at that point to entice serious contenders, and in any event, our primary system is broken, attracting a small subset of voters. Here in Missouri we were given a 4-hour window to vote in the Democratic Presidential primary, the order of the primaries was manipulated to favor Biden, and the primary in Florida was basically aborted. The Democrat establishment which nudged the primaries in favor of Biden could hardly be called a star chamber against Biden!
As observed by George Clooney, Biden's rate of decline has increased since the primaries. To quote Lincoln, "The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew, and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country" I suspect most voters would be inspired by Biden's selflessness in dropping out (what a contrast to Trump!), and the ensuing Democratic convention would attract great interest and excitement.
My goodness, shades of 2020. This is the quintessential Bernie bro argument. It is astoundingly clueless about how elections actually function. Pure wishcasting smattered with the usual complaints about the rigged DNC and the unfairness of low primary turnouts.
I brought up Michelle Obama for the obvious reason that hypothetical head-to-heads are essentially meaningless. A candidate has to be running for a poll to be meaningful; you can hypothetically vote for anyone and it's costless. Oprah. Batman. Taylor Swift. George Clooney. You're confusing a popularity plebiscite with an election. Elections require candidates who are willing to undergo the process of running. No one save Dean Phillips was willing to do that.
Your Underpants Gnomes theory of how this will work is that superdelegates at the convention will nullify the votes of the 14 million people who voted for Joe Biden in the primaries. That's precisely a star chamber. It is hard to imagine anything more grotesquely undemocratic.
Spelling the adjective Democratic as "Democrat" kind of gives the game away, just sayin'.
George Clooney has a human rights lawyer wife who's so far on the left she represented Julian Assange. Please tell me her concerns about Palestine didn't help motivate her husband's Hollywood dillettane editorial. This is not casting the leading man for an action flick.
I'm sorry not sorry that "a lot of [you]" felt "kicked in the teeth" by Biden electing not to become a lame duck and moot the advantage of incumbency. Maybe if Trump faded into the woodwork after his loss and the Republicans stuck to their guns after J6 and exiled him from the party, this would be just a normal election cycle and Joe could afford to do the George Washington thang. But it's not. It's an all-hands-on-deck moment. Joe beat him before.
"[You] suspect" most voters would be inspired by that. You suspect a lot of things. But you offer no evidence that kicking the presumptive nominee to the curb and thus alienating the majority of Democrats who feel very passionately about Uncle Joe, who has been not just a good, but an excellent president, wouldn't cause more harm than good by dividing the party.
It's the old Bernie bro song and dance. Special pleading in the guise of imagined consensus.
I’ve been trying to figure out why wealthy donors are turning against Joe Biden. Human motivators are fear and greed. This is my theory:
Joe Biden has reversed the economic structure of this country, and it’s beginning to piss off some Democrats who enjoy the status and privilege of wealth while feigning a support of economic equity. As Biden’s plans begin to bear fruit and the likely outcome if he is allowed to finish the job becomes clearer, some of the “elite” Democratic donors have become fearful that the redistribution of the country’s wealth will come from their pockets. They don’t want a Donald Trump presidency, so they are putting pressure on Democratic senators and representatives to persuade Biden to step aside for a candidate who will be more responsive to them. Policies that help the unwealthy are all well and good as long as it doesn’t get out of hand. The story goes something like this: “If those unions get too powerful, workers will demand outrageous wages and benefits and that will cut into my pocketbook. We can’t have that!” A subtle but powerful undercurrent of classism fuels their fears. If public education is properly funded, children from poor families will be competitive in colleges and the job market. SAT scores will no longer be linked to parental income. Unconsciously or perhaps consciously, the wealthy elite push back against the idea of creating competition for their children by funding an equitable society.
Union my whole life after being in the airforce. Worked non union also. Sure you got deadbeats in either. But the main misconception is that non union is better pay, better benefits, can fire bad employees. All b.s. I retired at 59. Needed 81 points. Had them and retired before the union negotiated away my pension as most of the union members in a right to work state are gop. I got my pension, health care till 65 ( had to pay about 200 more but worth it), when I got laid off I got called back in the order I got laid off. As a woman, got same pay as a man. I would not have been able to keep my job as most supervisors asked me on dates and I said no ALWAYS. I could go on but I made a good wage and was middle class. But large Corp like space ex. Hire young people, entice them with chicken wings, free beer , and work them into the dirt without overtime, use lots of temp workers and fire at will. Gets millions from the government but treats workers, as they get older , as expendable.
This kind of treatment, Joe Biden is trying to stop little by little. It goes hand-in-hand with lesser treatments of the poor and middle-class like excessive bank fees, overdraft fees, late fees, and credit cards and banks and stupid fees, like charging families to sit together on an airplane unless it person works in a union job, or is an activist, they usually don’t understand about the benefits of unions and the ways in which they’re being taken advantage of these stupid add on fees.
It's incremental to be sure, but Joe's been more assiduous on concretely helping the poor and working class than Carter, Clinton and Obama. Indeed, since LBJ's Great Society. Carter's heart was in the right place, but all his advisers were neoliberals; he was much more interested in deregulation and adopting the Bork antitrust doctrine.
Does anyone remember a thing Bill Clinton did for the poor and working class? I remember his egregious deal to "end welfare as we know it" with Newt Gingrich, which is why I didn't vote for him in '96 (he was gonna win, anyway).
It was a monumental task for Obama to finally get the ACA passed, and all praise to him and the Democrats for it, but the insurance companies (and Joe Lieberman) made sure to strip out the public option.
And then compare all of that to what Joe has managed to achieve.
I think there's certainly some of this dynamic, Lyn, and Biden's been leaning into Bernie-grade economic populism on the stump lately. But I think nearly all of the Biden megadonors will come home after the nomination. Here's why:
These guys really loathe Trump. Whatever they might think of the redistributive aspects of Biden's agenda, they know in their bones that Trump would tank the economy (as those 16 Nobel laureate economists have said). They're not looking for another corporate tax cut and Biden megadonors aren't in fossil fuels and extractive industries. They care about global warming. What happened is, they bought into the panic after the debate, which Biden is in the process of fixing with his rallies and his recent press conference. He will not be pushed out.
And once they see that, that pressure from skittish Senate Democrats won't work with Biden because it would amount to nullifying his primary voters, they'll come back around. Guaranteed.
I know they dislike Trump. I think that is why they don’t want to vote for him, but they do want someone besides Biden who they think will be kinder to their bottom line. A lot of them don’t really understand much about politics. They do not realize that Kamala Harris is the only possible candidate because she’s the only one with a large enough war chest to run. I don’t see her handing That over to a competitor. They also don’t seem to realize that it takes a ton of work and time to organize a campaign. I am a volunteer in a very small county in Central Florida. I am fortunate that the president of our DEC is willing to help me and mentor me in organizing a Senior Caucus I also have an experienced state president who is helpful in all possible ways. Unless Joe Biden becomes so ill, he cannot feel the role of president or dies, replacing him is ultimate foolishness somebody with authority and pool with these doofuses needs to inform them about the facts of life before they totally create their worst nightmare
I think a lot of them have a very superficial understanding of politics, especially the George Clooney types. As you said earlier, they're insulated from the consequences of wealth inequality (they benefit from it) and so see politics in theatrical, West Wing terms. It's why Bill Clinton and Obama were so feted at Hollywood and tech bro mansions -- whatever their policies, they were charismatic rock stars. They see Biden and go "oh this guy's a venerable actor, stellar career, but he's way too old to cast him next to [fill in hot actress name] in that new action-adventure movie."
But once it comes around to Biden v Trump after the conventions, they'll be back. Even George Clooney, who will have several cartons of egg on his face ;)
Joe already has an extremely built-out field organization. People tune into the campaign after Labor Day and the donors will be back on board. Also, big national ad buys used to be the biggest money suck in presidential politics but that's getting increasingly irrelevant as the Great Cord Cutting continues apace.
I’m not worried about Joe’s money. I’m concerned that the donors might influence enough senators and representatives and down ticket folks to stand against Joe that it splits the party.
Except it's the Underpants Gnomes theory of political change. For those not familiar with South Park, the Underpants Gnomes theory is 1) Collect underpants. 2) ???????? 3) Profit. Nobody knows how this is supposed to work. It's not like the '68 Chicago convention, where incumbent VP HHH had an implacable terrier nipping at his heels in Eugene McCarthy. No Democratic heavy hitter, to my knowledge anyway, has said they want to challenge Biden at the convention. Throwing it entirely open with Joe releasing his delegates would just create undifferentiated chaos.
Once Joe gets the nod at the convention (and that's a done deal), they'll all come back around because every last one of them wants to beat Trump.
Please reconsider your demeaning of those of us who want the President to follow through on his noble suggestion in 2020 that (with the examples of Ruth Bader Ginsberg and Dianne Feinstein in mind) he would serve only one term. We want that because we are convinced that any one of several other Democratic politicians from a younger generation would be, with all due respect for Biden's considerable achievements, far better candidates than Biden, candidates who offer the prospect of a landslide victory, not just ekeing out a come-from-behind win over Trump, which is Biden's best hope. A landslide is what is needed not just to defeat Trump but to crush Trumpism. Doesn't it give you pause that Trump seems anxious that Biden not drop out? How is it that several Democrats poll as well as or better than Biden against Trump even though none of them (as of now) have Biden's name recognition, even though none of them--in contrast to Biden--have lifted a finger to campaign for President?
First of all, hypothetical head-to-heads are the the most meaningless polls out there. Do you know who beats Trump in the ultimate landslide in a hypothetical matchup? Michelle Obama, that's who. Does anyone with the slightest knowledge of the former First Lady think she has the slightest intention to run? Of course not. You might as well poll Trump against Batman ;)
Second of all, there are _other_ hypothetical head-to-heads that show Biden doing better than all the others. Which ones to believe? There's really no criteria to judge between them.
Thirdly, the time to bow out was a year ago. No serious Democrat challenged him in the primaries (Dean Phillips doesn't count, LOL) and Biden won every primary with Saddam Hussein-esque margins despite strong protest votes from the pro-Palestine contingent.
So what you're suggesting is for the Democratic Party to kick all those people who voted for Joe Biden in the teeth -- nullify their votes. On behalf of whom? A star chamber is whom -- superdelegates at the convention. You want to lose the election, there's the formula right there.
Every assertion in your post about changing out Biden is pure conjecture.
O. M. G. Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr. was SPITTIN' FIRE in Motown tonight.
Everybody with the slightest twinge of doubt needs to watch that Detroit rally and try to tell me or anyone else that this man doesn't have what it takes to both win the election and do the job.
Great talk, thank you for the focus: booting Trumpsky out of politics and booting the MSM in the behind for being so destructively shallow. They have lulled the nation into a stupor. We have got a lecherous criminal and an absolutely blithering idiot waving an American Nazi handbook and no alarms are going off? JFC. A Moonstruck Cher “Snap out of it!” Are needed. I would also encourage somebody look at the Epstein docs however distasteful. They were released by judge Delgado because “details in the record will be outrageous to decent people.” They are.
I listened to the podcast on a long drive home from work tonight and had a lot of time to think it over. It really came down to this: is Ezra Klein wrong and Rick Wilson correct or vice versa. Let’s set aside the snide, overtly Trumpist digs at the MSM. BTW, Rick, like it or not, you too are a bona fide NYT best selling member of “The Media”. Also, while certainly a minority, there are media figures — like yourself— who continue to voluby argue that Biden should remain in the race. In short, your shots directed at the MSM are a red herring. It simply comes down to this: post debate, is Biden still ( or ever) capable of passing the so-called Bannon line in the general election as he did in 2020 by wracking up votes among independents and moderate Republicans. I’d vote for Biden’s desiccated husk of a corpse over Trump. So fucking what? I’m a Dem. My concern is single-mindedly focused on the critically important undecided voters in swing states who may be enticed by a different nominee. Is yours?
Wilson's description of the 'reporters' and the corporations directing them aren't "shots". They are accurate characterizations of a money-machine that's feeding off of and promoting conflict; the Horse Race Industrial Complex is real, and it has a philosophy.
" ... who may be enticed by a different nominee" begs so many questions it's hard to know where to begin. First of all Rick is an ex-Republican, not a Democrat, and by his own admission has no standing to make suggestions to the Democratic Party about their nominee.
Second of all, you haven't begun to seriously contemplate the process of what it would take to both convince Biden to drop out, and then find a consensus candidate appealing to the party. A "consensus" candidate chosen by superdelegates at the convention, which is _just certain_ to delight the Party rank-and-file. Somehow the idea of dissension and competition among replacement candidates is completely off the radar screens of the Underpants Gnomes brigade.
Michael Steele did a recent podcast with Rick.Near the beginning, Rick related what a very senior, liberal Democrat told him about what an open convention would be like. All the divisions, all the crazies, displayed for the country, resolving to a contest between Newsom and Harris, if he wins, every black Democrat walks out, and the election's "in the gutter".
In 2020, pundits could not wait to write Biden off. Then SC,then WI, and it was over. Biden was THE unifying candidate in 2020, and he still is.
Loved that pod, RC. All of the supposed challengers to Biden at the convention, Newsom, Whitmer, Shapiro, Buttigieg, Klobuchar have, to a person, explicitly declined to run. So it will be a butthurt fest of Hamas fans and how-come-I-didn't-get-my pony progressives with absolutely nobody presenting a viable alternative.
And the GOP, united with Putnoid fervor behind Trump, will feast on the self-inflicted carnage. George Clooney needs to go live in a homeless shelter for awhile.
Totally agree with you, Rick. The very people (mostly Democratics!) trying to destroy Joe Biden - while he is on the international stage hosting a momentous 75 year anniversary of NATO - are short-sighted, self-serving (that WH intern should be dismissed asap), & weakening our democracy! You are so right: attack disgusting Trump and his myrmidons - not your sitting President. And the “liberal” media?! My gosh, they must know that they will be shuttered by a Trump administration? It’s so dangerous, so stupid, and so disrespectful to a man who saved us from a second Trump debacle. Didn’t your parents tell you that you don’t air your dirty laundry in public?! Grab your 10 minutes in the spotlight bashing Biden (thanks a lot, Clooney) and then watch our way of governing go down the drain.
Amen, Doc. The Democratic rank-and-file are consolidating behind Biden because they see he's under attack and read it as being deeply unfair. And they (WE!) will be beyond furious if they see Uncle Joe was pushed out by the Underpants Gnomes brigade.
You are soooo correct. If someone got issues, put them behind closed doors. Clooney knows him well enough to call but instead wrote a hit piece. I think it has to do with his wife amal and the Gaza/ Israel war. But who knows. Temper tantrums need to be behind closed doors. I am an independent,veteran, late out of the closet lesbo. Every time a dem or gop talks to me I ask them to try to convince me to be either WITHOUT rhetoric. They can't. But I do lean left. More over the last 8 to 10 years. I voted for reagan (mistake), daddy Bush, ( not too bad) . After that, things started to turn. Lbgtq people are not bad people. Not the boogeyman. I would put a gay festival up against a trump rally any day of the week.
What Biden did in the NATO speech was the same thing he did in the debate.
I like Rick Wilson to a point: his hardball public persona is emotionally rewarding, but in keeping with that, his colorful metaphors (is that where you got Underpants Gnomes?) inevitably go too far sometimes. That's how I'm experiencing your shooting from the hip, like your projecting Bernie Broism onto me, then turning around and politically correcting me about leaving the "ic" off the word "Democratic". I put "kicked in the teeth" in quotes to point out it was your hyperbolic phrase.
1) So "shades of 2020" means that Biden should not be held to the prospect that he held out shortly before he was elected? I found Biden's quasi-promise to serve only one term was wonderfully refreshing and patriotic; it was the single biggest reason I voted for him in the 2020 primary. The second biggest reason was that I am a centrist and fervently hoped Bernie would lose.
Biden's oft-repeated vision--to "finish the job"--unconsciously discloses that his first administration (and not just Merrick Garland) failed to eclipse Trump. We are in this "all hands on deck" predicament under Biden's watch. I'm not the first former Biden voter to wonder 'how could we still be just neck and neck with Trump?' Now also one wonders why Team Trump seems so content to run against Biden.
By the way, I hear that Bernie just endorsed Biden. If you're anti-Bernie, I hope than dampens your enthusiasm for Biden. From my perspective as an older Boomer, Biden and Bernie (like Feinstein, Bader Ginsberg, and for that matter Jill Stein and Cornell West) embody a King Lear-like tragedy, a malfunctioning of that faculty that should flourish most in old age: selfless wisdom. In Biden's case, in order to defend himself he's drifting towards populist techniques like attacking the "main stream media" and playing to his base when he desperately needs more than that. I and most people urging Biden to withdraw his candidacy haven't disputed Biden's past virtues, and I don't despise him for being all-too- human, like Lear, so it's a highly pejorative to cast speaking-truth-to-power court jesters like John Stewart and Steven Colbert as wanting to "kick [Biden] to the curb".
2) So in your view its "clueless...wishcasting" for those who favor a prospective (i.e. not an Obama or Oprah) but undeclared candidate to collect whatever data they can about the chances of their potential candidate? Popularity is correlated with electability. If popularity data is the best you can get for an undeclared candidate, hold the darn "popularity plebiscite", recognizing that whatever fantasy advantage an undeclared candidate may have, the declared candidate will likely have expended vastly more to promote himself than the undeclared potential candidate. I grant you that polling about Michelle for President is manufactured news, but to distain all such polling is to turn away from testing one's assumptions, it's to not risk thinking anew when you need to.
As I pointed out, both Marianne Williamson and Dean Phillips ran against Biden. Don't know about Williamson, but I remember Phillips encountered the type of scorn I feel you direct towards me. If Biden had stooped to debate them, maybe we would have found out much earlier about the rate of Biden's decline. If money weren't equated with free speech*, maybe Biden wouldn't have had such an overwhelming funding advantage. Although lack of name recognition hampered Williamson and Phillips, such will not be the case for whomever would emerge from what would probably be the most widely watched open convention in history. Newness and relative youth have historically proven to be advantages in a candidate. We need all the advantages we can legally get to swamp MAGAism. For that, we must disenthrall ourselves.
The superdelegates are not numerous enough to outweigh the number of delegates pledged to Biden, and I understand the superdelegates don't even get to vote in the first round, so your 'grotesque star chamber image' (whose members are more personally elected than the delegates) is defamatory and grossly unfounded. I think it was good of Biden to recently remind his delegates that they are free to vote their conscience. It would have been ideal for him to stress the point that in their conscience, loyalty to country overrides loyalty to him. I trust that Democratic delegates are not as cultish as their Republican counterparts. I trust the same about you, although at moments I confess I wonder.
3) By my research, around 1/3 of registered Democrats voted in this year's primaries (if anything, the percent is lower than that given that in some states independents can vote in the Democratic primary). My claim isn't that primaries are "unfair", and I don't suggest they were rigged in an illegal way (viz. they are no more rigged than saying things are rigged because *big contributors donate to the likely winner for reasons of influence). No. My "complaint" is that primaries are inferior to ranked choice voting because they are needlessly troublesome for voters and consequently unrepresentative. Often--if not in Biden's case--this unrepresentativeness benefits extremists in both parties. In any case, the bottom line is: it seems plausible that, if a nationwide primary were held today EVEN AMONG JUST THE 17 MILLION minority of Democratic voters you mentioned, Biden would not get a majority vs. the set of plausible alternatives. We're in uncharted territory...but very importantly, therein lies opportunity.
I can't see any likely alternative Democratic candidate underperforming Biden vs. Trump. When Biden polls better than Kamala, forces of the Right have shown they will be able to suggest that, for practical purposes, they are really running against Kamala, dragging Biden's popularity down to Kamala's level. If Kamala polls better than Biden (which is where the trend seems to be headed), they will saddle Kamala with Biden. If the stereotype is true that Kamala's political skills are inferior to those of many other prospects, it's hard to imagine not just Kamala but ANY likely alternatives doing worse than Biden.
On the other hand, it's easier to imagine almost any of those alternatives doing much, much better than Biden ever could. Biden once responded to a reporter’s question by saying there were “50” democrats who could beat Trump. Biden isn’t conceivably in the top 10 of those 50. Whatever inharmony may go unsuppressed at the convention (I can tell you first hand the war in Israel is nowhere near as salient as Vietnam in '68, and such inharmony is anyway as likely to manifest with Biden as without him), I can't envision it not being overridden by what you rightly recognize is the unprecedented unifying urgency to beat Trump. Hopefully you trust me enough to still vote for Biden--if it comes to that--in spite of his tragic stubbornness. I trust YOU enough to act in whatever way is mostly likely to defeat Trump, no matter what happens to your hero.
There's opportunity here for Biden as well as for the country. He can withdraw in a way to facilitate a successful open convention. If he takes that opportunity, history will say about him what George III said of Washington's retirement, that he was “the greatest man in the world”.
Roger Stone denies calling for assassination of Trump opponents.
https://www.cnn.com/2024/01/16/politics/roger-stone-investigation-democrats/index.html
NYT Op Ed today
Bernie Sanders: Joe Biden For President
Tears are streaming. Good tears.
Of course. Bernie is so much better than his movement. He's a team player and has had an influence on the Biden agenda; he won't get all of what he wants and he can live with that.
My respect for Our Revolution is very low. My respect for Bernie the man is enormous.
Rick ~ I have had this persistent image over the last couple of days Joe Biden pulling a Roy Hobbs this election, the Old Man having one last BIG HERO MOVE in him...maybe you and your editing room crew at LP would have some fun grabbing actual or potential Dem voters by the feels by referencing this 👉 https://youtu.be/i94ldGNNSQ0?si=q8SZ_B9vp5G8ugPl . People love a comeback story, so we now see the opportunity for this to be the flip of the narrative.
Amen, Christie. Americans love an underdog who's been unrighteously beaten up and then who gets back on his feet to triumphantly prevail. It's the oldest American story, starting with the ragtag colonists and their hand forged weapons defeating the world's most powerful and well-equipped army in the Revolutionary War. (Although I have to say that that scene from The Natural, with all the stadium lights exploding, was more than a little cornball, LOL).
Michael Steele had an excellent point on Joy's show last night discussing Joe's blistering Detroit rally. Joe hears all the criticism, all the nasty editorials, all the weak kneed cowardly Democrats questioning his fitness and he flashes back to when he was a kid in school being bullied for his stutter. And he EXPLODES WITH RIGHTEOUS FIRE. That's the Joe Biden who can beat Trump.
I wrote twice to the NYT of which subscribe, short letters about them gaslighted us like they did with Hilliary's emails.
Yes, Joe Biden is old and we have a young, capable VP.
Tom Friedman, F-all the way off. And the rest of "the media", just crawl off my ass already.
If I might paraphrase: “every moment spent not breaking rumps kneecaps is a moment wasted”. Field team six baby!
You guys need to talk about WHY Donny can't learn. ADD plus narcissism plus Norman Vincent Peale, of The Power of Positive Thinking, who married Trump and Ivana.
Donald has a LEARNING DISABILITY...no attention span, no patience, anyone who tries to teach him he attacks. Ask Rex Tillerson.
He compensates with manipulation and lies. He can always do that, he likes it, because he's a sadist, and it often works. He believes in it. He believes his lies trump reality, that he can lie his fantasy into reality, as long as he just keeps INSISTING. When up against Covid,it failed miserably, and Donald reacted by blaming reality for being "so unfair" to him He saw Covid as an evil plot against HIM. No wonder he misses "The Apprentice", nothing allowed to contradict the lie.
I don't think Donald will like having this pointed out. I think he will HATE it. Should be right up your alley.
Oh, I bet Trump has already told Zaslav he'll fire Lina Kahn.
Excellent summation, RC. Once again, if I could like posts at all, I'd like this 1000 times.
Bob: 1) If head-to-head polls are meaningless, why do you even bring up Michelle Obama? Just because she doesn't want to run has nothing to do with how she polls. It's the pollsters, not the results, that are goofy to ask about her. Polls (and betting markets, which are even more gloomy for Biden than the polls) are, unfortunately, all we have to work with, and they consistently reflect overwhelming dissatisfaction with both Trump and Biden (and, very likely underneath, their aging incumbency--this year, worldwide, erstwhile office holders seem to lack their usual advantages). 2) Biden's campaign has already spent tens of millions promoting him vs. an order of magnitude less than that spent by Marianne Williamson and Dean Phillips combined and $0 spent by serious alternatives like Gretchen Whitmer, Amy Klobuchar, Gavin Newsom, and other excellent alternatives, including, on her own behalf Kamala Harris (AKA in Biden's words, "Vice President Trump"--sorry for the snark, but that's nothing compared to the debate clips that will appear in Trump ads, clips that Biden can't remember whether he's seen). Given that, one would expect none of these serious alternatives to be anywhere close to Biden in the polling, but they are. (Re: ad spending, see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XlXPaOVO40M). 3) A lot of us felt "kicked in the teeth" when Biden announced in 2022, contrary to his earlier hint, that he would not--George Washington-like--bow out. His unfitness as a candidate (albeit relative to other Democrats, not relative to Trump) was not evident enough at that point to entice serious contenders, and in any event, our primary system is broken, attracting a small subset of voters. Here in Missouri we were given a 4-hour window to vote in the Democratic Presidential primary, the order of the primaries was manipulated to favor Biden, and the primary in Florida was basically aborted. The Democrat establishment which nudged the primaries in favor of Biden could hardly be called a star chamber against Biden!
As observed by George Clooney, Biden's rate of decline has increased since the primaries. To quote Lincoln, "The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew, and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country" I suspect most voters would be inspired by Biden's selflessness in dropping out (what a contrast to Trump!), and the ensuing Democratic convention would attract great interest and excitement.
My goodness, shades of 2020. This is the quintessential Bernie bro argument. It is astoundingly clueless about how elections actually function. Pure wishcasting smattered with the usual complaints about the rigged DNC and the unfairness of low primary turnouts.
I brought up Michelle Obama for the obvious reason that hypothetical head-to-heads are essentially meaningless. A candidate has to be running for a poll to be meaningful; you can hypothetically vote for anyone and it's costless. Oprah. Batman. Taylor Swift. George Clooney. You're confusing a popularity plebiscite with an election. Elections require candidates who are willing to undergo the process of running. No one save Dean Phillips was willing to do that.
Your Underpants Gnomes theory of how this will work is that superdelegates at the convention will nullify the votes of the 14 million people who voted for Joe Biden in the primaries. That's precisely a star chamber. It is hard to imagine anything more grotesquely undemocratic.
Spelling the adjective Democratic as "Democrat" kind of gives the game away, just sayin'.
George Clooney has a human rights lawyer wife who's so far on the left she represented Julian Assange. Please tell me her concerns about Palestine didn't help motivate her husband's Hollywood dillettane editorial. This is not casting the leading man for an action flick.
I'm sorry not sorry that "a lot of [you]" felt "kicked in the teeth" by Biden electing not to become a lame duck and moot the advantage of incumbency. Maybe if Trump faded into the woodwork after his loss and the Republicans stuck to their guns after J6 and exiled him from the party, this would be just a normal election cycle and Joe could afford to do the George Washington thang. But it's not. It's an all-hands-on-deck moment. Joe beat him before.
"[You] suspect" most voters would be inspired by that. You suspect a lot of things. But you offer no evidence that kicking the presumptive nominee to the curb and thus alienating the majority of Democrats who feel very passionately about Uncle Joe, who has been not just a good, but an excellent president, wouldn't cause more harm than good by dividing the party.
It's the old Bernie bro song and dance. Special pleading in the guise of imagined consensus.
Wow. Great. I sent to my brother but I hope he can get it. Is it public . It needs to be. I got republican friends that need to hear and see this.
I’ve been trying to figure out why wealthy donors are turning against Joe Biden. Human motivators are fear and greed. This is my theory:
Joe Biden has reversed the economic structure of this country, and it’s beginning to piss off some Democrats who enjoy the status and privilege of wealth while feigning a support of economic equity. As Biden’s plans begin to bear fruit and the likely outcome if he is allowed to finish the job becomes clearer, some of the “elite” Democratic donors have become fearful that the redistribution of the country’s wealth will come from their pockets. They don’t want a Donald Trump presidency, so they are putting pressure on Democratic senators and representatives to persuade Biden to step aside for a candidate who will be more responsive to them. Policies that help the unwealthy are all well and good as long as it doesn’t get out of hand. The story goes something like this: “If those unions get too powerful, workers will demand outrageous wages and benefits and that will cut into my pocketbook. We can’t have that!” A subtle but powerful undercurrent of classism fuels their fears. If public education is properly funded, children from poor families will be competitive in colleges and the job market. SAT scores will no longer be linked to parental income. Unconsciously or perhaps consciously, the wealthy elite push back against the idea of creating competition for their children by funding an equitable society.
Union my whole life after being in the airforce. Worked non union also. Sure you got deadbeats in either. But the main misconception is that non union is better pay, better benefits, can fire bad employees. All b.s. I retired at 59. Needed 81 points. Had them and retired before the union negotiated away my pension as most of the union members in a right to work state are gop. I got my pension, health care till 65 ( had to pay about 200 more but worth it), when I got laid off I got called back in the order I got laid off. As a woman, got same pay as a man. I would not have been able to keep my job as most supervisors asked me on dates and I said no ALWAYS. I could go on but I made a good wage and was middle class. But large Corp like space ex. Hire young people, entice them with chicken wings, free beer , and work them into the dirt without overtime, use lots of temp workers and fire at will. Gets millions from the government but treats workers, as they get older , as expendable.
This kind of treatment, Joe Biden is trying to stop little by little. It goes hand-in-hand with lesser treatments of the poor and middle-class like excessive bank fees, overdraft fees, late fees, and credit cards and banks and stupid fees, like charging families to sit together on an airplane unless it person works in a union job, or is an activist, they usually don’t understand about the benefits of unions and the ways in which they’re being taken advantage of these stupid add on fees.
It's incremental to be sure, but Joe's been more assiduous on concretely helping the poor and working class than Carter, Clinton and Obama. Indeed, since LBJ's Great Society. Carter's heart was in the right place, but all his advisers were neoliberals; he was much more interested in deregulation and adopting the Bork antitrust doctrine.
Does anyone remember a thing Bill Clinton did for the poor and working class? I remember his egregious deal to "end welfare as we know it" with Newt Gingrich, which is why I didn't vote for him in '96 (he was gonna win, anyway).
It was a monumental task for Obama to finally get the ACA passed, and all praise to him and the Democrats for it, but the insurance companies (and Joe Lieberman) made sure to strip out the public option.
And then compare all of that to what Joe has managed to achieve.
I think there's certainly some of this dynamic, Lyn, and Biden's been leaning into Bernie-grade economic populism on the stump lately. But I think nearly all of the Biden megadonors will come home after the nomination. Here's why:
These guys really loathe Trump. Whatever they might think of the redistributive aspects of Biden's agenda, they know in their bones that Trump would tank the economy (as those 16 Nobel laureate economists have said). They're not looking for another corporate tax cut and Biden megadonors aren't in fossil fuels and extractive industries. They care about global warming. What happened is, they bought into the panic after the debate, which Biden is in the process of fixing with his rallies and his recent press conference. He will not be pushed out.
And once they see that, that pressure from skittish Senate Democrats won't work with Biden because it would amount to nullifying his primary voters, they'll come back around. Guaranteed.
I know they dislike Trump. I think that is why they don’t want to vote for him, but they do want someone besides Biden who they think will be kinder to their bottom line. A lot of them don’t really understand much about politics. They do not realize that Kamala Harris is the only possible candidate because she’s the only one with a large enough war chest to run. I don’t see her handing That over to a competitor. They also don’t seem to realize that it takes a ton of work and time to organize a campaign. I am a volunteer in a very small county in Central Florida. I am fortunate that the president of our DEC is willing to help me and mentor me in organizing a Senior Caucus I also have an experienced state president who is helpful in all possible ways. Unless Joe Biden becomes so ill, he cannot feel the role of president or dies, replacing him is ultimate foolishness somebody with authority and pool with these doofuses needs to inform them about the facts of life before they totally create their worst nightmare
I think a lot of them have a very superficial understanding of politics, especially the George Clooney types. As you said earlier, they're insulated from the consequences of wealth inequality (they benefit from it) and so see politics in theatrical, West Wing terms. It's why Bill Clinton and Obama were so feted at Hollywood and tech bro mansions -- whatever their policies, they were charismatic rock stars. They see Biden and go "oh this guy's a venerable actor, stellar career, but he's way too old to cast him next to [fill in hot actress name] in that new action-adventure movie."
But once it comes around to Biden v Trump after the conventions, they'll be back. Even George Clooney, who will have several cartons of egg on his face ;)
Please grammar errors. I’mdriving and can dictate, but I can’t edit the post
No worries. I'm only a grammar Nazi if someone is otherwise being a jerk ;)
Joe already has an extremely built-out field organization. People tune into the campaign after Labor Day and the donors will be back on board. Also, big national ad buys used to be the biggest money suck in presidential politics but that's getting increasingly irrelevant as the Great Cord Cutting continues apace.
Joe will have more than enough money to compete.
I’m not worried about Joe’s money. I’m concerned that the donors might influence enough senators and representatives and down ticket folks to stand against Joe that it splits the party.
Except it's the Underpants Gnomes theory of political change. For those not familiar with South Park, the Underpants Gnomes theory is 1) Collect underpants. 2) ???????? 3) Profit. Nobody knows how this is supposed to work. It's not like the '68 Chicago convention, where incumbent VP HHH had an implacable terrier nipping at his heels in Eugene McCarthy. No Democratic heavy hitter, to my knowledge anyway, has said they want to challenge Biden at the convention. Throwing it entirely open with Joe releasing his delegates would just create undifferentiated chaos.
Once Joe gets the nod at the convention (and that's a done deal), they'll all come back around because every last one of them wants to beat Trump.
Please reconsider your demeaning of those of us who want the President to follow through on his noble suggestion in 2020 that (with the examples of Ruth Bader Ginsberg and Dianne Feinstein in mind) he would serve only one term. We want that because we are convinced that any one of several other Democratic politicians from a younger generation would be, with all due respect for Biden's considerable achievements, far better candidates than Biden, candidates who offer the prospect of a landslide victory, not just ekeing out a come-from-behind win over Trump, which is Biden's best hope. A landslide is what is needed not just to defeat Trump but to crush Trumpism. Doesn't it give you pause that Trump seems anxious that Biden not drop out? How is it that several Democrats poll as well as or better than Biden against Trump even though none of them (as of now) have Biden's name recognition, even though none of them--in contrast to Biden--have lifted a finger to campaign for President?
First of all, hypothetical head-to-heads are the the most meaningless polls out there. Do you know who beats Trump in the ultimate landslide in a hypothetical matchup? Michelle Obama, that's who. Does anyone with the slightest knowledge of the former First Lady think she has the slightest intention to run? Of course not. You might as well poll Trump against Batman ;)
Second of all, there are _other_ hypothetical head-to-heads that show Biden doing better than all the others. Which ones to believe? There's really no criteria to judge between them.
Thirdly, the time to bow out was a year ago. No serious Democrat challenged him in the primaries (Dean Phillips doesn't count, LOL) and Biden won every primary with Saddam Hussein-esque margins despite strong protest votes from the pro-Palestine contingent.
So what you're suggesting is for the Democratic Party to kick all those people who voted for Joe Biden in the teeth -- nullify their votes. On behalf of whom? A star chamber is whom -- superdelegates at the convention. You want to lose the election, there's the formula right there.
Every assertion in your post about changing out Biden is pure conjecture.
O. M. G. Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr. was SPITTIN' FIRE in Motown tonight.
Everybody with the slightest twinge of doubt needs to watch that Detroit rally and try to tell me or anyone else that this man doesn't have what it takes to both win the election and do the job.
Great talk, thank you for the focus: booting Trumpsky out of politics and booting the MSM in the behind for being so destructively shallow. They have lulled the nation into a stupor. We have got a lecherous criminal and an absolutely blithering idiot waving an American Nazi handbook and no alarms are going off? JFC. A Moonstruck Cher “Snap out of it!” Are needed. I would also encourage somebody look at the Epstein docs however distasteful. They were released by judge Delgado because “details in the record will be outrageous to decent people.” They are.
I listened to the podcast on a long drive home from work tonight and had a lot of time to think it over. It really came down to this: is Ezra Klein wrong and Rick Wilson correct or vice versa. Let’s set aside the snide, overtly Trumpist digs at the MSM. BTW, Rick, like it or not, you too are a bona fide NYT best selling member of “The Media”. Also, while certainly a minority, there are media figures — like yourself— who continue to voluby argue that Biden should remain in the race. In short, your shots directed at the MSM are a red herring. It simply comes down to this: post debate, is Biden still ( or ever) capable of passing the so-called Bannon line in the general election as he did in 2020 by wracking up votes among independents and moderate Republicans. I’d vote for Biden’s desiccated husk of a corpse over Trump. So fucking what? I’m a Dem. My concern is single-mindedly focused on the critically important undecided voters in swing states who may be enticed by a different nominee. Is yours?
Wilson's description of the 'reporters' and the corporations directing them aren't "shots". They are accurate characterizations of a money-machine that's feeding off of and promoting conflict; the Horse Race Industrial Complex is real, and it has a philosophy.
Viewers, clicks, Time Spent Watching, ratings, rates, income, profit, dividends, shareholder's quarterly reports.
But .. but ... but ... Rick is a NYT bestselling author !
ROTFL
" ... who may be enticed by a different nominee" begs so many questions it's hard to know where to begin. First of all Rick is an ex-Republican, not a Democrat, and by his own admission has no standing to make suggestions to the Democratic Party about their nominee.
Second of all, you haven't begun to seriously contemplate the process of what it would take to both convince Biden to drop out, and then find a consensus candidate appealing to the party. A "consensus" candidate chosen by superdelegates at the convention, which is _just certain_ to delight the Party rank-and-file. Somehow the idea of dissension and competition among replacement candidates is completely off the radar screens of the Underpants Gnomes brigade.
Michael Steele did a recent podcast with Rick.Near the beginning, Rick related what a very senior, liberal Democrat told him about what an open convention would be like. All the divisions, all the crazies, displayed for the country, resolving to a contest between Newsom and Harris, if he wins, every black Democrat walks out, and the election's "in the gutter".
In 2020, pundits could not wait to write Biden off. Then SC,then WI, and it was over. Biden was THE unifying candidate in 2020, and he still is.
Loved that pod, RC. All of the supposed challengers to Biden at the convention, Newsom, Whitmer, Shapiro, Buttigieg, Klobuchar have, to a person, explicitly declined to run. So it will be a butthurt fest of Hamas fans and how-come-I-didn't-get-my pony progressives with absolutely nobody presenting a viable alternative.
And the GOP, united with Putnoid fervor behind Trump, will feast on the self-inflicted carnage. George Clooney needs to go live in a homeless shelter for awhile.
Bob, did Rick hire you as his PR flack? Slavish doesn’t begin to describe it.
Trolly comment, bro. I take it as a compliment, of course. Also an indication that you have nothing like a rebuttal to my argument.
I'm an incredibly strong-minded person, but I find that people who like to be contrarian for contrarian's sake are the biggest conformists of all ;)
What's a red herring is your inane equation of Rick Wilson with the NYT's editorial slant.
Ben, with all due respect, you need to stop playing 4-D Swing Voter chess with the Underpants Gnomes and get with the program.
Totally agree with you, Rick. The very people (mostly Democratics!) trying to destroy Joe Biden - while he is on the international stage hosting a momentous 75 year anniversary of NATO - are short-sighted, self-serving (that WH intern should be dismissed asap), & weakening our democracy! You are so right: attack disgusting Trump and his myrmidons - not your sitting President. And the “liberal” media?! My gosh, they must know that they will be shuttered by a Trump administration? It’s so dangerous, so stupid, and so disrespectful to a man who saved us from a second Trump debacle. Didn’t your parents tell you that you don’t air your dirty laundry in public?! Grab your 10 minutes in the spotlight bashing Biden (thanks a lot, Clooney) and then watch our way of governing go down the drain.
Respectfully disagree with the 'mostly Democratics', it's primarily the "media" and "press" who have picked up, nurtured and promoted this narrative.
The reactionary Dems are allowing themselves to be panicked like gazelles smelling a lion. Or an opportunity.
Yes, a sorta " her emails " all over again. Don't be gaslighted!
Amen, Doc. The Democratic rank-and-file are consolidating behind Biden because they see he's under attack and read it as being deeply unfair. And they (WE!) will be beyond furious if they see Uncle Joe was pushed out by the Underpants Gnomes brigade.
That Clooney chose the NYT, the dark heart of "Biden Old" for months, to speak in is just a wee bit of a tell.
You are soooo correct. If someone got issues, put them behind closed doors. Clooney knows him well enough to call but instead wrote a hit piece. I think it has to do with his wife amal and the Gaza/ Israel war. But who knows. Temper tantrums need to be behind closed doors. I am an independent,veteran, late out of the closet lesbo. Every time a dem or gop talks to me I ask them to try to convince me to be either WITHOUT rhetoric. They can't. But I do lean left. More over the last 8 to 10 years. I voted for reagan (mistake), daddy Bush, ( not too bad) . After that, things started to turn. Lbgtq people are not bad people. Not the boogeyman. I would put a gay festival up against a trump rally any day of the week.
My issue are that Trump Inc. will destroy the country.
Amal fancies herself a human rights activist. That could very well be it.
Amen, Patti.