Primate politics:
Gorilla males hang onto their harem as long as they can. They get old. They get vulnerable.
Then a younger, stronger bachelor gorilla gets up the nerve to fight him and take over the harem.
American politics:
Same thing.
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| Male gorilla with his harem |
An astute observer of both juries and primates told me not to expect Joe Biden to "take one for the team." and resign from office after two years.
He said the lingering Silent Generation and Boomer politicians won't turn things over willingly to people their 40s and 50s. They will hang onto power as long as they can, even though it plugs up the flow of new leadership required by their own policy goals. He said:
They know it is selfish. They know it is counter-productive. They do it anyway because they feel entitled. Human nature is to hang onto power until it gets wrest out of their failing aged hands. And the next generation doesn't deserve that power until they can do that to the old guys.
Biden may imagine himself another FDR, but I think the better metaphor is that he is a specialty relief pitcher able to pitch one or two innings, then he is done. He was the indispensable man for striking out a heavy-hitting opposing batter, but now he should leave the mound and give Kamala Harris a chance to show her stuff. If she can't do it, some other reliever will emerge. It would be good for the team.
It isn't the way either gorillas or humans do it. Dianne Feinstein is 88, and was elected to a six-year term in 2018. She has filed paperwork to run for another six-year term for the 2024 election. Senator Chuck Grassley is 88 and he has filed for re-election in 2022. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg hung on to her seat until her death at 87.
Biden is keeping open the potential of running for re-election. Any Democrat who announced a run now must run as an opponent of Biden. Biden is plugging the pipeline.
Donald Trump, too. He says he might run in 2024. He is alert to anyone--Nikki Haley, Ron DeSantis, Ted Cruz, Chris Christie--making signals of a run themselves. He demands other potential aspirants announce, clearly and publicly, that if Trump runs they will not. The harem is his.
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| A bachelor posturing. |
There is a bachelor gorilla, impatient and frustrated, scouting the cranky old silverback from a distance: Christ Christie. He's one of many, so he is hoping to shame and diminish the other, more timid bachelor gorillas. Some of them have agreed to Trump's demand of deferral, but Christie speaks out. He said it takes courage to flirt with running because "Donald Trump's own conduct is meant to instill fear" among potential rivals.
Christie positions himself as Mr. Courage:
If you’re going to run for president, you better have enough confidence in yourself that it doesn’t matter who else runs. If you believe you’re the right person, belly up to the bar and run against whoever winds up showing up.
He is also Mr. Integrity. He ratified most of Trump's behavior as president, perhaps making him acceptable to Trump supporters, but only up through November 3rd. Trump's behavior after that was the breaking point, he says.
I think that there are lots of Republicans who believe exactly what I believe, but no one's saying it to them. The only voice they're hearing right now are voices that say that the election was stolen and that's just not true. So you need other voices to speak out. So I'm doing it.
Christie is signaling interest. He is posturing. Christie said he will make a decision after the mid-terms. It was easy to see Christie in 2015 and 2016 in New Hampshire.
I have seen Christie up close about a dozen times. He is an extraordinarily skilled story teller. He can move a crowd. He dominates. He projects the powerful authoritarian confidence, the my-way-or-else manner GOP voters discovered they liked in a party leader. I predict he will overwhelm soft-spoken, earnest Mike Pence. GOP voters don't want pious. They want a warrior. He projects like a warrior.
Here is 42 seconds of him, in late 2015:
If power gets taken from Trump it will be from someone a lot like Trump.
We will be seeing more of Chris Christie.
12 comments:
I watched Mister Straight Talk Chris Christie this very morning on CNN, tapdancing and equivocating when asked by Jim Sciutto about a potential Trump candidacy in 2024. When pressed, Christie said they'd debate their "differences" if and when the time came, instead of what he should have said, namely that Trump is certainly beyond the pale for the Republican Party.
Except as a fundraiser? Arguably, Trump is floating a run to keep the money flowing--he has living expenses, after all, and politics is his most reliable source of income right now. Also arguably he will NOT officially announce, nor run, because at that moment the scrutiny concerning where that money came from and has gone changes overnight. Kingmaker makes him the most coin.
Unfortunately for Harris most Democrats based on polling believe she's already shown her stuff. It's been found unprecedentedly wanting. Maybe new tell-alls from Willie Brown and Montel Williams would restore some swagger. She was disliked and undistinguished in the Senate, and her main career policy achievement was Tough On Crime, which is racist now for the Left.
Good column today. But I disagree with Low Dungeon that Harris was undistinguished in the Senate. She scored big points in debates and in cross-examinations.
However, unless she takes office before Biden's term is over, I fear that she would not be easily elected. She has not been polling well or going on the attack about the negative stuff airing about her. She has mostly been pushed aside, tho she got good points on her visit to France, which at least got some publicity. Mostly, she is too quiet.
I hope that Biden does run again. As you mentioned, he is not as old as many senators or congresspersons. I have disagreed with your assessment of his mental state, which looks fine to me. He has to suppress his stutter, that is all. He is in far better shape than I am at a similar age, lol.
It’s hard to make predictions, especially about the future.
2024 remains a long way off. Until then, let’s pretend we’ll come up with qualified individuals who have the country’s best interests at heart, who take seriously the Constitutional mandate to “promote the general welfare” and are willing to run for office. And let's pretend we’d be smart enough to elect them. It could be like the “hundredth monkey effect”: we might make it so.
Joe Biden should not resign. He won the nomination. Democrats would have nominated KH for president if they had wanted her. She did not do well in the primaries.
When talking about vice presidents, don't forget VP Dan Quayle.
Dan Quayle was a joke. Don't forget the Darth Vader of VPs, Dick Cheney. Nor should we leave out that "nattering nabob of negativism," Spiro Agnew. Yes, we've had other veeps that make Harris look good, but here's hoping Biden lasts out the term.
Peter, you say that GOP voters want a warrior. Actually, what Trumplicans want is another ignoranus, and I don't know that Christie fills the bill. They may have to recruit Tucker Carlson or Sean Hannity.
The value that Christie brings is the opposition to Trump and Trumpism.
He's following Liz Cheney. More will find their spines and collectively they will push MAGA into the fringe where it belongs. Great. Not a bachelor, a pack.
Think hyenas.
I posted a few days that I believe VP Harris has been marginalized by Biden, even if unintentionally. His assignments for her have been no win situations like the Immigration, and I don't think it's a coincidence that the Media piling on comes all at once. I think the big media are not about to allow a woman, especially one who happens to be at least partially of black heritage, to get anywhere near the Oval Office, unless she's carrying a tray with coffee and pastries.
And I've been agitating for the dinosaurs involved tut he Democratic Party to get out of the way, and turn it over to younger generational Leaders for a long time. If Biden is a real Leader, he'll step out of the way before 2024, not necessarily resigning, but that would not be a bad thing, but announcing his retirement at the end of this term, as should Speaker Pelosi, Steny Hoyer and all the other octogenarians in Congress (heres looking at you, Sen. Feinstein).
President Biden only should resign for a valid medical reason. Otherwise, the American people would consider it to be the biggest bait and switch in American history. I do not expect him to run for re-election. It will help Harris if Biden is perceived to be doing well at the end of his term. If not, it could get very ugly with Democrats attacking each other and identity politics in high gear.
Why not...if you're going to do it anyway...retire after the 2022 midterms? This would give the VP two years on the job to prove she's qualified and capable to all the doubters.
Asking for a friend.
Chris Cristy..smug, over weight bully , the perfect fat cat image of the old school Republican Party. But will never pull the fox watcher bone heads who love guns and racism. He don’t act like a born again neither. Can’t see him on a flag with an AK47 waved by a proud boy. What will be his motto? Christy for Christ? Don’t tread on me,( if you can find me.) Tole Gate tell all. Make American Huge.
Ralph Bowman perfectly describes the Jersey Whale, arrogance personified, and perhaps his most trumplike characteristic is his willingness to throw his toafiest sycophants under a bus, when their usefulness wears thin.
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