They’re both old. Don’t focus on their gaffes or their age. It doesn’t matter that Donald Trump confused Nikki Haley with Nancy Pelosi, or that Joe Biden mistook the president of Egypt for the president of Mexico. . . . What does have bearing, however, is what each man says about the intentions and plans he has if either of them wins the office of president in November of this year.
"It's important." The phrase has a history, going back to the Louisiana campaign for governor in 1991.
Democrat Edwin Edwards was a candidate to return to office as governor of Louisiana. He was notorious for his corruption. He later served time in federal prison for bribery, extortion, and money laundering. He was "the crook." His opponent was Republican David Duke, a former Grand Wizard of the KKK. Duke had left the KKK, but he retained connections to White supremacist and neo-Nazi organizations. Louisiana resident Kirby Newburger had a printer make 250 of these bumper strips as a lighthearted goof. They caught on, and similar ones soon appeared on thousands of vehicles.
Edwards won in a landslide.
There is a gathering storm that may come to nothing, or may totally upset the 2024 election. Recent polls show Biden losing to Trump. The polls are getting repeated mention in The New York Times and other places Democrats get news they trust. Some long-standing Democratic strategists are speaking out now, urging Biden to drop out.
Gavin Newsom is scrupulous in not running for president, but he is doing so conspicuously. "No. No, thanks. Not now. No, really," is an increasingly transparent way of saying "Yes."
But most Democrats are hunkering down and making the best of the situation. That means, like Truscott, that they openly acknowledge that there is a problem with Biden. They define that problem in the least dangerous and incapacitating way, as mere stuttering. Then they compare that minor defect to the alternative. It might work. Being a stutterer is better than being too old and feeble. It is better than being a lying, felonious rapist. Or a crook.
The question for the public is whether the problem with Biden is merely his stutter.
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9 comments:
I’m not sure how valuable March polls are in national elections, especially given the ultimate performance of polls in recent cycles. Moreover, the media has a dangerous but familiar vested interest in Trump managing to making it a horse race.
Yesterday at the White House, with Italian PM Meloni, Biden said we need to “join with Jordan and our other partners airdrop food on Ukraine”. He meant Gaza. The stutterer knows it’s Gaza, but has difficulty spitting that out. “Guh..ga” etc.
This was the latest substantive brain fade from Biden, and he was even reading from his now-ubiquitous cue cards. Democrats need to stop pretending his problems are just mechanical process, not substantive decline. It’s important.
Man, if Biden doesn’t drop out, which I don’t think he will, Trump is going to be president again. A person who already attempted to overthrow democracy. Maybe Biden can have him taken care of Putin style since the Supreme Court isn’t sure whether a president can be held accountable for breaking the law. The trouble is Biden has too much integrity to do something like that.
I often wonder if the data in polls come to fruition because people are persuaded that the polls SHOULD inform their choice? The idea is that if everyone else is doing this I should too. It’s like those real life examples where there’s a fire alarm and nobody leaves the building because nobody is leaving the building.
It’s like the celebrity phenomenon of famous for being famous.
I recently spoke with a “special needs” friend who said he just voted for Trump in the primary. I asked him if he understood that Trump wanted to be a dictator like Putin, and a vote for him was chipping away at the foundations of democracy. He asked, if that’s true, why are so many people voting for him? A good question indeed.
Dr. John Gartner is a psychologist and former assistant professor at John’s Hopkins University Medical school. The way he describes it, Biden’s brain is aging and Trump’s is dementing. Physically, Biden has a stiff gait whereas Trump waddles, and not very far. Nonetheless, these are our candidates: an aging statesman and an unhinged “I am your revenge” megalomaniac. As the blogger Peter quoted says, what ultimately matters are the plans each has for the country.
Biden has a long and distinguished record of service to his country and there’s no reason to think that wouldn’t continue. Trump, on the other hand, called for “termination” of the Constitution to reinstate him as president after the 2020 election. There’s no reason to think that won’t continue either. I keep hearing that voters aren’t stupid, but supporting a pathological liar and rapist with 91 felony counts against him definitely is. Hopefully, such stupidity is less prevalent than the polls suggest.
Polls are not truth, fortunately. But no matter November's outcome, the worst thing Trump has done to me is to reveal that so many tens of millions of my fellow citizens are capable of supporting such a demented treasonous traitor. All my life, I as an American felt superior to the European dupes who allowed their countries to be led by a Fuehrer, a Duce, a Caudillo, a Stalin. And we've done it for no good reason! (The Germans faced a most frightening future in 1932; we Americans were simply "stupid with cake.") I enjoyed my delusion; now, I'm stuck with the stark ken that so many Americans have eagerly followed such a deeply flawed, destructive man. That's important, too....
The Democrats seem to be determined to make Biden flavored lemonade out of their lemon of a candidate. The question is, will the voters want to drink that bitter brew.
Kamala Harris is not much of a sweetener. Maybe the Democrats should be trying to get a different vice presidential candidate. God knows, they need to do something.
I spent time in Germany and the people there are wonderful, so I often pondered how they could have allowed themselves to be led down such an evil, destructive path. What’s the difference between them and us? By the time we were raining bombs, napalm and Agent Orange down on Vietnam, it finally dawned on me that there isn’t any difference.
There’s nothing about our system that precludes such a descent into madness, only the people. Right now, we have far too many people now beguiled by a madman who makes no secret of his admiration for Putin and contempt for the rule of law. It can happen here.
Biden is so far beyond Trump in terms of intelligence, knowledge, experience, character, morals, ethics and international respect that the election should be a no-brainer, which says a lot about those who prefer the lying rapist anyway. There ought to be a law against electing someone who tried to overthrow the government. Oh, that’s right – there is.
The veneer of American Exceptionalism as a country of equality under the law has been torn away, and is currently being shredded. System and personal corruption have visibly melded .
Political Power is weilded in fulfillment of personal thirst for power over others and greed for their resources.
The first draft of the obituary of American Democracy was issued on a Jan 6th, a day that proves to be of more consequce and destructive infamy than its predecessor.
Political corruption and disregard for the rule of law are now visibly systemic.
American citizens demonstrate that they are vulnerable to demagogery as were Germans in the 1930s and the Jim Jones and other suicidal cults.
The stench is.already rising from the corpse of the superbly orchestrated demise of separation of powers of governent and the concept of checks and balances.
The interment of the American Experiment in Democracy is scheduled to.begjn on Nov 5th and following ,regardless of the.outcome of what may.be America's last free election.
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