It is still too early to know what the outcome of the post-debate controversy about President Biden's candidacy for re-election will be. On the one hand, no leading Democratic politician has yet called for him to step down--a sad contrast in my opinion to 1974 when, for different reasons of course, prominent Republicans abandoned Richard Nixon. On the other hand, stories indicate that leading donors--once again, a constituency that the White House is more likely to respect--still believe that the party needs a new candidate. I am taking a moment, however, to say that the behavior of Biden, his family, and above all the people around him and the DNC leadership disgraces the Democratic Party. They seem motivated by a feeling of total entitlement, with no regard for the fate either of the party or the country. If they succeed in getting Biden renominated, they will deserve his defeat, no matter what it turns out to mean for the country.
Three quarters of the population, polls show, think that Biden is too old to continue n office. The debate proved to most of us that they are right. But he and his family and his staff don't care. They simply repeat their mantra that the nation has to re-elect him in order to prevent the catastrophe of a Trump victory. I agree that the Trump victory will be a catastrophe, but it does not follow that we have to rally around Biden now to avoid it. Instead, it makes it all the more essential to come up with a stronger candidate than Biden to prevent it.
From Bill Clinton through Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and now Biden, Democratic leaders have combined neoliberalism on the economic front with progressive stances on social issues and lip service to New Deal principles, confident that this proves them more virtuous than the Republicans. This will be the third election in a row in which they assume that the nation must prefer them to Trump. There is however no such mandate. A new poll now shows Trump a few points ahead in New Hampshire--and let us not forget that a simple switch in New Hampshire to Al Gore would have given him the White House without Florida. Evidence from New York also suggests that Trump may do considerably better in the popular vote in blue states, and thus in the nation as a whole, this time.
Throwing the Democratic nomination open now would take over the news cycle from the issues of Biden's age and Trump's latest outrage, a most welcome event. The country would love to see some new blood in the race and watch the spectacle of candidates fighting it out, perhaps even in multiple ballots, which last occurred in 1952. Do not forget that Abraham Lincoln, who was not even a true national figure in early 1860, emerged from such a battle in the Republican convention of that year. But today, I read, the Biden forces want to give him the nomination via DNC ballot even before the convention meets. They originally made this plan to meet a deadline fixed in Ohio, but Ohio has lifted that deadline The only reason to use a DNC vote now is to quash opposition to Biden before it can get off the ground.
The moment of national crisis that Strauss and Howe first predicted thirty years ago is here. It requires us all to think first of the fate of the nation, not of ourselves. The Biden White House is failing that test.
9 comments:
Enh. I don't know. Certainly Biden isn't ideal. Certainly somebody else would make a better president, although I have no idea if the Democrats could come up with such a person. Would Harris be better? At this stage, though, to sub in another candidate... would that have the desired effect? Or would Door Number Three be at a disadvantage compared to where Biden would be? It all seems very uncertain. And the Democrats aren't good enough at colouring outside the lines to deal with these questions.
I'm just hoping that the election is an undramatic Democrat win, consistent with the notion that we're already in a High.
I'm looking forward to your thoughts on the recent Supreme Court decisions.
David, I agree with most of this except for the conclusion that this is the 4th Turning moment. I think it more likely such a moment will require an ominous external threat to snap us back to reality.
Oh, and, another thing I meant to say. As long as we're talking about people withdrawing from their position. The one who really ought to withdraw is Trump. After all, he's the one causing most of the trouble here. He's not a fact of nature; he's a person. Biden should do the right thing for the country? If only even once Trump had done the right thing for anybody. It's got people saying that the president has to quit his job because the Worst American Ever can't be held to any standard at all.
It is a 4T moment because it's the final collapse of the establishment, represented by the Democrats, and all it stands for. Biden has become Buchanan--appropriately enough, generationally! Either the re-election of Trump, or the selection of a new candidate (other than Harris) by the Democrats and their election will be a revolutionary event.
Matthew, my post is more addressed at the rest of the Democratic Party than at Biden himself. The whole Republican party has already caved into Trump. The Democrats must not do the same. Indications this morning suggest that they will not.
How quickly we forget! Biden's State of the Union Address showed him very capable of expressing himself and thinking on his feet. He got huge accolades from the press. Now, several weeks later, he failed to perform against the bulls_it artist of the millennium, and he is unfit for office.
I'm no fan of the Democratic Party, because it has forsaken the vision of government being the mechanism for lifting all peoples of America to their potential. But of the past six or seven Presidents, Joe Biden has done more to restore the vision of FDR in everything he has done.
I'll take an old fart with a clear vision of what our country needs, but occasional lapses of ability to rebut a blizzard of lies, over some young Democrat who doesn't even know the history of our country and believes his/her job is to make the rich richer.
But I don't think the election really matters any more. SCOTUS gave us a King, and they'll give Trump the election by hook or by crook -- despite the vote. If Trump loses the election, I fully expect the electoral college to be rigged and the SCOTUS to approve the rigging. I hope I'm wrong, but I'm taking bets.
I'm thinking Gavin Newsom and Stacy Abrams--both younger, stronger and dynamic!
I would vote for Biden if he was comatose lying in a bed for the next four years. It is the minions of Trump, as well as this awful excuse for a real human being, who are the most frightening. Trump can't become a dictator by his lonesome. Bannon for example, coming out of prison, becomes the SECSTATE. The same is true for all the Trump sycophants. We know them well.
All that said, I agree with what you have written. Another Democratic candidate is required, and not Kamala Harris. Unfortunately, we have experience with those who cling to power to the detriment of our country. Witness Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
It begs the question of who has been running the govt all this time? Jill Biden and aides propping Joe up while the cabinet runs their areas themselves. Wilson had his wife in this manner after his stroke as liaison and Reagan slept through cabinet meetings but was informed on major issues presumably. We must assume that Joe is less competent than Reagan was and that major decisions are made not by the president but collectively drawing in Obama, Hillary, military, congressional, CIA types to get a smooth consensus on things like Ukraine, Gaza, depending on who has a greater interest in what area. IOW it is a govt of management and not one of strong leadership. in effect the bureaucracy does 99.9% of the work and elected officials have less say so that presidents are not so important. The general attitude of the press for example seems to dictate a lot and then lobbyists to Congress. In news shows experts are often ex-CIA or they feed articles to the press so we see that Trump will have little power anyway. Recall the UK comedy 'Yes Minister's to get the gist of what I mean here. Elections are popularity contests in a school class but the teens have no say over policy. Others called deep state( military, CIA) or middle state( bureaucracy) and superficial state( press, donor corporations) direct events not politicians( king for a day). See how this used to be taken seriously by the deep state, Kennedy killed, later less so, Nixon death by press revelations and Trump endless lawfare while a befuddled old man sits on the king's s throne, with less power than King Charles ever had. ( ' must sign his own execution'). We are making all too much of this.
“. . . it's the final collapse of the establishment, represented by the Democrats, and all it stands for. Biden has become Buchanan--appropriately enough, generationally! Either the re-election of Trump, or the selection of a new candidate (other than Harris) by the Democrats and their election will be a revolutionary event.”
This (above) — and maybe Mike Benz’s melodramatic 11 minute rant on Ukraine and the origins of the Censorship Industrial Complex — is among the best summaries I have seen of the significance of the crisis.
Absolutely, it isn’t Biden’s competence in isolation that has been called into question, but the competence of “the establishment” including most definitely not just the Democratic Party elite, but the Media establishment that is trying to gaslight us into thinking “everyone” was “surprised” by Biden’s debate performance. Even now, most reports use Biden’s “age” as the term for the “issue” rather than simply admit that Biden suffers from a progressive neurodegenerative disease.
As a data reference, I went back to the February 28 letter from Biden’s primary care doctor, where his last physical was discussed in purported detail. A very elaborate “explanation” for Biden’s Parkinson’s Disease symptoms was weaved thru the whole thing. So I suppose the Media has plausible deniability, in that “primary source material” like the doctor’s letter supported denial. The NY Times ran a story on the regular visits of a PD specialist to the White House without establishing any reason to think that doctor saw Biden (except at the time of Biden’s annual physical). The AP, I think it was, then ran a fact check against the “unfounded” speculation that flowed from The NY Times story (or rather The NY Times headline attached to their non-story story, which had never proven any connection to Biden, branding the speculation false.
My point, if I have one, is that the erosion of independence in politics and media has created a blob where contending interests and factions and actors should be. You have written persuasively about many aspects of this evolution. A thoroughly unreliable Media has made it very difficult for a citizen to think, which is to say, very difficult for democracy. We have to doubt everything because we are not allowed to know anything for sure. Did Biden just have a bad night? Did the U.S. blow up Nordstream? We are not allow to know, only to doubt. And, in our fog, to fill in with narrative.
As for a 4T, that began in 2006-8. The regime put into power then is the one failing of credibility and legitimacy now. The 4th Turning took a very dark turn very unlike the previous examples. In any case, Biden doesn’t parallel Buchanan — we are much further along the path.
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