In 2020 I said we are being forced to choose between two old, rich, white men who have nepotism issues. I held my nose, as I always have, and voted for the Democrat. When MAGA won the House in 2022, Biden should have stepped aside (because he was already a lame duck, and any reason would have sufficed), and let Kamala be sworn in. An open primary would have been fine, and would have solidified the Democratic party as being a party for voters, not a cult. I think Kamala would have won the Democratic primary, and she also wouldn't have had to run as a candidate handcuffed to Biden's shitty policies (cough, Gaza). I have no doubt she would have immediately fired Garland (which would have been a huge win for Democrats), and Trump would have been in prison well before 2024. But, wishful thinking is just wishful thinking.
I don't think Biden's announcement of his health issues changes anything. It is very sad, and I hope he and his loved ones get all the help and support they need - which will far exceed what most Americans get when faced with the same serious diagnosis. Because, unlike other rich democracies (barely), we can't have nice things.
If it makes anyone feel any better, I think Democrats would have lost the White House even if Biden decided not to run after the midterms. Ok that didn’t make me feel better either.
Unfortunately he got very unpopular early on and never recovered. Could have been the Afghanistan pullout, maybe inflation, maybe just a lack of coherent political communication from the WH and the party at large. I didn’t understand it because to me it was a no brainer that Biden was repairing the severe damage that the demented criminal left behind. But that’s not what the swing voters decided.
I don’t exactly get it—my theory is that Democrats have to improve political communication rather than change their policies, but that’s also my bias talking—but Democrats better figure out how to not get rolled next time. Because that whole election was a farce.
Biden's support cratered in the summer of 2021 -- Delta variant, rising inflation, and then the botched Afghanistan withdrawal.
You'll notice, though, that Democrats focus on Biden *personally* and not his policies, thus why Harris seemingly thought it sufficient to just run as "I'm not Biden," when a close look at the poll numbers would indicate that a successful nominee would need to clearly articulate how they would be different than Biden on policy.
I'm not sure blaming Trump for pandemic-related inflation would necessarily work because unlike the needless deaths, the inflationary pressures were not something Trump caused or exacerbated.
I think if Democrats could have conveyed a narrative that Trump botched the pandemic—including the economy during 2020 affecting what would happen beyond that—voters would have blamed Trump and not Biden for it. FDR presided over a bad economy but people still blamed Hoover for having handed him a Depression to deal with. But Dems in 2021-2024 simply could not or would not blame Trump for letting supply chains wither, imposing trade barriers in 2019 (both of which contributed to inflation—along with pandemic relief of course, but no one wants to complain about THAT).
Now, “blame the last guy” only goes so far, you do have to show how you’re fixing it, but that shouldn’t have been too heavy a lift when the guy who “broke” it is running against you again! Think how Republicans would have handled it if the show was on the other foot. I can only conclude that Democrats made a strategic blunder in giving Trump a pass, or they just didn’t have the capability of making that argument to swing voters.
I have a few theories about why Trump is treated the way he is. The first being he sells. He is a macabre train wreck and his ceaseless coverage feeds that insatiable need to stare.
Another is that news changes so fast around him that the desire to get the scoop causes them to trip over themselves to be the first to report on, well, anything.
Lastly, Trump is an existential threat. He just is. And the evil and cruelty he brings to the fore, that his minions happily execute, is horrifying. It’s evil so potent and blinding you can’t look at it directly, it’s like looking at the sun. (Yet another thing from which he suffers no consequences.) Despite presumably knowing their history, and the ease and stealth with which fascism can infect a country, the media still handles him with kid gloves. To report what is actually happening, would be much too a sobering reality, they can’t bring themselves to face it. Both because it’s terrifying and hard to comprehend, and because there is perhaps a fear that they won’t be believed and, perhaps even more importantly to them, that they would lose access to the WH. So they elide the truth, they say he is “taking an unorthodox approach”, or he “defies tradition” or he “has his own bombastic style”. It’s inexcusable and wrong, but almost inevitable as it’s the way access driven media has always operated. Striking a balance between attracting eyeballs while not going so far as to lose the engine driving their business model.
I still don’t believe, not to sound like THEM, that this last election was entirely on the up and up. Elon’s last minute cash infusion was highly sus, I find it hard to swallow that Harris lost all 7 swing states (despite how racist and sexist this country is) and Trump has admitted to some interference here and there because his flaccid, failing brain is constantly admitting to stuff out in the open. I also don’t think the Butler “assassination attempt” was entirely genuine either but that’s a story for another time.
All that being said, all the best to President Biden for effective treatment and recovery. He’s a dedicated public servant, was a great, under-appreciated president who accomplished a lot under impossible circumstances, and a genuinely decent human being.
I think there’s something to that. He’s been a “favored” celebrity for a long time, and with that baked in viewers just aren’t ready to accept that he’s a fascist and a bigot. (Notice when other candidates say the same things he does, it flops) As a society we decided to give this man a pass on everything (helped along by his being an entertainer rather than a boring politician) and we built a monster that may destroy us all.
It’s certainly a condemnation of celebrity culture for sure. And it’s nothing new. We just have greater frequency and access now with all forms of mass media, cable, film and the internet. As a native New Yorker I knew he was a colossal piece of shit for as far back as I can remember. But for people who just saw his character on The Apprentice (I assume, I’ve never seen it) and believed he was a competent businessman or whatever I guess that could explain his popularity before 2016. After he became president, or even when he was running for his first term, and his glaring flaws were on full display … that appeal? I will NEVER understand. He is horrid. Stupid and hateful in equal measure.
Yep—it’s hard for a lot of people to think of him as a fascist bigot when NBC put him on prime time for a decade, he got soft focus interviews on The View and Access Hollywood, SNL had him host twice, etc.
There was also this narrative of his first term that he had a great economy. Boggles the mind that he got a pass for the pandemic recession but that’s what happened.
It’s funny. He also commits his crimes openly and people make the mistake of assuming he’s not criming because he’s never bothered to hide it. He is a unique blight on the history of the country and the media’s failures to recognize that has cost us immensely. We still don’t know how much.
I have a lot of feelings about this whole thing, which sort of includes Pres Biden’s cancer diagnosis. Had he won, the rounds of treatment would be debilitating. The hormone treatment really sucks the life out of you - my dad went through it. At first he felt great, drove himself to treatment every day for 9 weeks. Then he took the testosterone killer to fight the cancer and that was that - he is not the same person. So the “what if” about Biden in a 2nd term is a LOT.
As far as all this coverage of coverup and old….I admit. I thought he was too old. He himself had said he was a “bridge” to the next generation. Old men are stubborn, though, and often overestimate their abilities. His family should have TALKED HIM DOWN. I don’t know if the outcome would have been any different but he really had no business running.
But Trump is OLD. And STUPID. And dangerous and a fool and a narcissist. The Biden is old story/cover up story doesn’t do anyone any good, unless you’re just trying to further damage the Democratic Party (you know this will be used to smear a party that’s already under fire). Why don’t Tapper and all the others start really reporting on Trump’s daily grift, how he wants to use the military against US citizens, etc. Why not show Project 2025 and how it stacks up against what he’s doing.
Telling me Biden is old is like telling me that Grey’s Anatomy has been on television for 20 years - I already know that.
Had Biden won, he might now be preparing to hand the presidency over to his intelligent, capable vice president. Maybe he shouldn’t have run again. I supported him not because I was certain he’d serve four years, but because his opponent was Donald “Train Wreck” Trump, and because our vice president was Kamala Harris. And honestly, at the time, the talk about “who should run” or “open primaries” made me angry because Harris was standing right there the whole time, and it told me that too many our side never took her seriously. It still makes me angry. She ended up running and she came close to winning except too many people stayed home and too many bad advisers messed with her momentum.
I think the reason there was talk about an "open primary" was that if Biden's approval was tanking, it would signal a need for a candidate completely divorced from the administration. It's one thing if he was popular but had to withdraw because of health concerns. In fact, the age was arguably the excuse for withdrawing.
Excellent points, and thanks for pointing out that trump is stupid, foolish and a narcissist, and all of those qualities makes him extremely dangerous because he is POTUS.
You know, this is revealing in a way most people aren't talking about.
Blame is a funny thing. It's relative. It depends on the expectations we have of certain people and whom we choose to assign moral agency. If someone gets kidnapped when you're supposed to be guarding them, you will get blamed, not the kidnapper. When crime goes up, we blame the cops, government officials—everyone but the criminals.
The media is right now blaming Biden and his supporters for the fact that Donald Trump is President—despite the obvious fact that first and foremost, Trump is President because of a series of increasingly depraved and cynical decisions by the Republican Party, and various key individuals within it.
I suppose you might argue that this is just a factual accounting of decisions within the party that have led to a fractious rift and jeopardized the Democrats' political viability in its own right, without regard to what this means for the Republican party. And that this is newsworthy because it involved some supposed cover-up.
But given everything that's going on right now, it's hard to read "that's why the Democrats lost" as a dispassionate, impartial assertion of a party's scandalous undoing, rather than as an implicit, finger pointing "that's why we're all stuck with Trump for another four years".
In which case, the media, in it's desire to be seen as neutral and impartial, is ironically demonstrating that it implicitly sees itself as aligned with the Democrats—as well it should, because the Republican Party is corrupt beyond belief by any *objective* standard.
In other words, the media is treating Republicans like a bunch of criminals. Like people with no moral agency, who can't be held accountable for what they've done to the country because hey, they're Republicans, and Republicans gonna Republican. They're just a force of nature—a confluence of the laws of political physics which guarantee that eventually a blatantly corrupt and unfit man will be elevated to the highest office in the land if intelligent beings don't do something about it.
Don't get me wrong. I'm glad that there are apparently people within the media who understand that there aren't "two sides" to the story of Trump. There's the truth, in the presence of which no sane person would vote for Trump, and there is the complete bullshit that is responsible for the fact that anyone believes Trump is capable of even tying his shoes much less running a country.
It's just that it would have been nice to see evidence of that understanding *during the campaign*, when everyone was sanewashing Trump's economic gibberish as "a different approach" or his unhinged authoritarian statements as part of "an unconventional style".
Instead of reporting on the reality of things in a transparent manner, which would have made it clear to people that even considering voting for Trump constituted a disastrous lapse of judgement. Instead of asking about why Republicans weren't pushing back on Trump's distortions, misrepresentations and outright lies.
But Republicans are people, too. They can make choices, and they've chosen to capitulate to oligarchy and a cynically corrupt figurehead. *That* is why we're stuck with Trump for another 3-1/2 years.
Yes, Republicans have agency, but it’s reasonable to blame the people who failed to stop them. The Confederacy was bad, but if Lincoln had bungled the response to them and lost the war, he would bear significant blame historically for the fall of the union.
I don't necessarily disagree with you. Like I said, blame is relative. I have a tough time blaming Biden because I think he was a good President and got no recognition for all the good he did. But I get it.
At this point, it's entirely understandable that people expect about as much from Republicans as they do from a pack of hungry wolves encountering a person lost in the wilderness. Should the media be this jaded about them? I don't know. They claim neutrality, but there's no such thing as completely unbiased journalism. Anything that looks balanced involves not foregrounding the flurry of red flags on Trump that would destroy any other candidate.
In fact, the NYT Editor in Chief explicitly used the rationalization that Republicans had already assented to Trump's madness, as if there weren't undecided voters who might have relied on the NYT to inform them of some things they were clearly ignorant of. Trump's normalization becomes a partially self-fulfilling prophecy if the media are going to follow along with the crowd.
So we got a complete double standard, where Kamala's comment about transgendered prisoners from four years ago got more attention than Trump musing about executing his former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and subjecting his political foes to military tribunals, his palpable guilt in the federal indictments against him and how the judiciary was covering for him, his absolutely incompetent economic proposals, and his clear favoritism of Putin in the Ukraine war.
And now they're going to hold the Democrats' feet to the fire for not stopping them. Nice.
I have * opinions * about this since I made this argument multiple times in 2020. People thought that Biden was the only candidate who could beat Trump, and that Trump would go away after he lost. I’ve never agreed with the first but it’s pretty much become canon now so I don’t have much hope in it being reconsidered. The second is what we should be revisiting, since it reveals a profound misunderstanding of not only Trump but our entire country and culture. Anyway, it’s not like Democrats didn’t think there was a good chance we could lose 2024 imo, it’s that they thought it would be to a “normal” Republican.
Also, the reality is that Biden was too old to run in 2020 too, and he NEVER promised he’d be a one term president. People heard what they wanted to on both counts to avoid dealing with unpleasant realities. A lot of people are scapegoating him to avoid their own responsibility here (voters too).
One could also argue that Biden was fundamentally the wrong choice after Trump literally attacked the U.S. capitol. He promised a return to normalcy and that’s how he wanted to govern. It just didn’t work well against an insurgent movement.
I strongly dispute the idea that only Biden could defeat Trump after Covid. I think the party’s big mistake was assuming “Trump is awful” is why Biden/Dems rather than “voters don’t like their material situation and are blaming the incumbent party.” Believing that 2020 was about the former is why Biden/Dems thought until the end that Trump could lose in 2024.
Yeah, granted, my expectations for our government are probably too low, but if Biden were brain dead but his advisors had prosecuted Trump for J6 I'd be pretty happy. I'm pissed at every person with power who advocated this return to normal/ pretend Trump doesn't exist strategy. No one is talking about this, but that very much includes this little coterie of normie historians advising Biden. How can you know anything about American history and think everything would be fine if we just turned the page?? John Meacham is second only to Merrick Garland in the list of people I'm enraged at.
I completely agree with you on the 2020 election. People looked at Biden's rather slim win (in the only states that get a choice in the electoral college) and thought, thank God we didn't nominate someone else when they should have realized that Trump is actually quite powerful, it wasn't just a fluke in 2016. It took the apex of anti-Trump sentiment AND a global pandemic to beat him.
Thanks, Amy. Yeah, I differ with JVL on Biden aggressively going after MAGA. I think the obsession with normality and preserving norms might have pleased center right Never Trumpers but it only normalized Trump and his attempt to overthrow a free and fair election.
Trump wasn’t indicted until 2 years after Jan. 6. And people thought it took too long for the second season of Severance!
I don’t think this would’ve been unpopular at all. What tanked Biden was inflation and Covid fatigue. It didn’t help Democrats either that crime in Dem run cities was a mess.
so yeah, Biden is old. but he is a decent man. i am so sorry he has cancer and has that suffering ahead of him. if we had known he had cancer during the election, i would have STILL voted for him instead of the freaking nightmare in the Oval Office we have now. (yes, that one IS old, evil AND insane) Biden appointed qualified people, educated in their fields and that cared about the safety of Americans. together with President Biden, they took us out of the previous administration's Covid crisis and slide towards autocracy and brought our economy and health back up. what Jake Tapper and Alex whatever are promoting in that "tell-all" book makes me sick. i will never watch CNN ever again. it used to be my trusted go-to for news. i watched it non-stop when my son was deployed to the war in Iraq right after 9/11. Fareed Zakaria's show was my Sunday with coffee ritual. i will watch him on YouTube or Instagram now. MSM has failed us and if they had the guts to tell truth we maybe would not be in this predicament now.
"Crazy Grandpa" is a pretty malevolent choice for voters to make, I gotta say...especially since Crazy Grandpa is also one of the stupidest people that's ever existed. Of course he's also mean which fits the mean and stupid of his supporters. And those supporters at least were emboldened because of his plans for ethnic cleansing and that he hates the same minorities they do.
Sadopopulism is the third rail of politics because it always, ALWAYS ends badly. But we can't deny that it's also super powerful. Looking at the fate of the Haitians in Springfield, OH told me all I need to know about this shitty country.
And of course there's not going to be any stories about President Klan Robe being old, nor any tell-all books. Because the point of Biden Old is to have some sort of FUD that Democrats can fall for, to throw Biden under the bus...as it was important to destroy that generational progressive legislation he helped shepherd through. And the easiest way to get clout being shitting on Dems, and there you go. You can also magnify any crisis into the Worst Ever and even build clout on that too. Certainly it does not hurt to have a rightwing media human centipede to spread the smears too.
At least Democrats know the rules going forward: "Don't be old," and probably also "Don't be female, especially a Black one," and I think we'll be fine until some other thing is brought up to be FUD to dismiss whomever gets out of the primary.
I was stunned to see stories about Biden's age and cognitive abilities crop up recently, and then learned that some "journalists" have books out, or about to come out, about this "scandal."
Where to start with my rant about the MSM's obsession with Biden's age, and in fluffing up trump?
I'll start with this - the media has been saving the really juicy bits, in some cases, the criminal bits, for books to be published after the politician leaves office. Instead of reporting when they find out and verify, as they should do, they are waiting for the big bucks later. This isn't just a Biden thing, it's all part of the American media not doing its job and letting us all down as a result.
Joe Biden isn't in office, nor likely to be ever again, even if he hadn't been diagnosed with cancer, yet the media won't let it go. Maybe it's because they feel pride in hounding him out of office. The debate performance was bad, but not as disastrous as many remember it. Not their fault - I am having a hard time putting into words, but maybe the saying "the good old days weren't always so good" helps to explain it. We elevate good times of the past, and degrade bad times of the past. Could there have been a recovery from it? Not the way many Dems were acting, and they should have done it earlier, and behind the scenes, but finally they did it. repubs would have never done that to trump, which is a pity, because he has never, ever been fit for office. repubs are rewarded for propping up one of their own, no matter how vile, and Dems punished for doing the right thing.
The above got off track - faulting the MSM, but in the end, I go there - the MSM may occasionally confront trump and other repubs, and report on the bad stuff they are doing and how it's harming the country, but they really seem to save all of their ire for Biden and other Dems. It's gone beyond both-siderism, and into "all in for trump." Their billionaire owners want their precious tax cuts and sweet, sweet government contracts, so their "journalists" obey. Besides, they would probably get a tax cut too, as they all make millions yearly.
Sorry for the rant, but I don't trust the MSM anymore, and not towel is going to cover up the sorry state of American mainstream journalism.
Where polls matter for the party is where people can get the clout. In the end the only poll that matters is the ballot. Harris even had higher favorables, so we know that's meaningless too. That's one reason any time I see some people crowing about polls about "Americans don't like this," my response is always "They should show me they care with action. I don't care what they say on a stupid poll. I want to see what they DO."
I just don't understand dems obsession with polls if they're not going to ACT on them. And I don't think they necessarily SHOULD act of them because polls ARE complete crap at BEST and propaganda at worst...
In 2020 I said we are being forced to choose between two old, rich, white men who have nepotism issues. I held my nose, as I always have, and voted for the Democrat. When MAGA won the House in 2022, Biden should have stepped aside (because he was already a lame duck, and any reason would have sufficed), and let Kamala be sworn in. An open primary would have been fine, and would have solidified the Democratic party as being a party for voters, not a cult. I think Kamala would have won the Democratic primary, and she also wouldn't have had to run as a candidate handcuffed to Biden's shitty policies (cough, Gaza). I have no doubt she would have immediately fired Garland (which would have been a huge win for Democrats), and Trump would have been in prison well before 2024. But, wishful thinking is just wishful thinking.
I don't think Biden's announcement of his health issues changes anything. It is very sad, and I hope he and his loved ones get all the help and support they need - which will far exceed what most Americans get when faced with the same serious diagnosis. Because, unlike other rich democracies (barely), we can't have nice things.
Excellent piece.
If it makes anyone feel any better, I think Democrats would have lost the White House even if Biden decided not to run after the midterms. Ok that didn’t make me feel better either.
Unfortunately he got very unpopular early on and never recovered. Could have been the Afghanistan pullout, maybe inflation, maybe just a lack of coherent political communication from the WH and the party at large. I didn’t understand it because to me it was a no brainer that Biden was repairing the severe damage that the demented criminal left behind. But that’s not what the swing voters decided.
I don’t exactly get it—my theory is that Democrats have to improve political communication rather than change their policies, but that’s also my bias talking—but Democrats better figure out how to not get rolled next time. Because that whole election was a farce.
Biden's support cratered in the summer of 2021 -- Delta variant, rising inflation, and then the botched Afghanistan withdrawal.
You'll notice, though, that Democrats focus on Biden *personally* and not his policies, thus why Harris seemingly thought it sufficient to just run as "I'm not Biden," when a close look at the poll numbers would indicate that a successful nominee would need to clearly articulate how they would be different than Biden on policy.
I'm not sure blaming Trump for pandemic-related inflation would necessarily work because unlike the needless deaths, the inflationary pressures were not something Trump caused or exacerbated.
I think if Democrats could have conveyed a narrative that Trump botched the pandemic—including the economy during 2020 affecting what would happen beyond that—voters would have blamed Trump and not Biden for it. FDR presided over a bad economy but people still blamed Hoover for having handed him a Depression to deal with. But Dems in 2021-2024 simply could not or would not blame Trump for letting supply chains wither, imposing trade barriers in 2019 (both of which contributed to inflation—along with pandemic relief of course, but no one wants to complain about THAT).
Now, “blame the last guy” only goes so far, you do have to show how you’re fixing it, but that shouldn’t have been too heavy a lift when the guy who “broke” it is running against you again! Think how Republicans would have handled it if the show was on the other foot. I can only conclude that Democrats made a strategic blunder in giving Trump a pass, or they just didn’t have the capability of making that argument to swing voters.
I have a few theories about why Trump is treated the way he is. The first being he sells. He is a macabre train wreck and his ceaseless coverage feeds that insatiable need to stare.
Another is that news changes so fast around him that the desire to get the scoop causes them to trip over themselves to be the first to report on, well, anything.
Lastly, Trump is an existential threat. He just is. And the evil and cruelty he brings to the fore, that his minions happily execute, is horrifying. It’s evil so potent and blinding you can’t look at it directly, it’s like looking at the sun. (Yet another thing from which he suffers no consequences.) Despite presumably knowing their history, and the ease and stealth with which fascism can infect a country, the media still handles him with kid gloves. To report what is actually happening, would be much too a sobering reality, they can’t bring themselves to face it. Both because it’s terrifying and hard to comprehend, and because there is perhaps a fear that they won’t be believed and, perhaps even more importantly to them, that they would lose access to the WH. So they elide the truth, they say he is “taking an unorthodox approach”, or he “defies tradition” or he “has his own bombastic style”. It’s inexcusable and wrong, but almost inevitable as it’s the way access driven media has always operated. Striking a balance between attracting eyeballs while not going so far as to lose the engine driving their business model.
I still don’t believe, not to sound like THEM, that this last election was entirely on the up and up. Elon’s last minute cash infusion was highly sus, I find it hard to swallow that Harris lost all 7 swing states (despite how racist and sexist this country is) and Trump has admitted to some interference here and there because his flaccid, failing brain is constantly admitting to stuff out in the open. I also don’t think the Butler “assassination attempt” was entirely genuine either but that’s a story for another time.
All that being said, all the best to President Biden for effective treatment and recovery. He’s a dedicated public servant, was a great, under-appreciated president who accomplished a lot under impossible circumstances, and a genuinely decent human being.
not only lost all 7 swing states, but comfortably above the margin for recount. All seven.
Nope, not buying it.
Right?! I know we have a lot of dumb assholes in this country but come on!
I think there’s something to that. He’s been a “favored” celebrity for a long time, and with that baked in viewers just aren’t ready to accept that he’s a fascist and a bigot. (Notice when other candidates say the same things he does, it flops) As a society we decided to give this man a pass on everything (helped along by his being an entertainer rather than a boring politician) and we built a monster that may destroy us all.
He was on the tee-bee... Americans seem to grant special powers to people who are on the tee-bee.
It’s certainly a condemnation of celebrity culture for sure. And it’s nothing new. We just have greater frequency and access now with all forms of mass media, cable, film and the internet. As a native New Yorker I knew he was a colossal piece of shit for as far back as I can remember. But for people who just saw his character on The Apprentice (I assume, I’ve never seen it) and believed he was a competent businessman or whatever I guess that could explain his popularity before 2016. After he became president, or even when he was running for his first term, and his glaring flaws were on full display … that appeal? I will NEVER understand. He is horrid. Stupid and hateful in equal measure.
Yep—it’s hard for a lot of people to think of him as a fascist bigot when NBC put him on prime time for a decade, he got soft focus interviews on The View and Access Hollywood, SNL had him host twice, etc.
There was also this narrative of his first term that he had a great economy. Boggles the mind that he got a pass for the pandemic recession but that’s what happened.
It’s funny. He also commits his crimes openly and people make the mistake of assuming he’s not criming because he’s never bothered to hide it. He is a unique blight on the history of the country and the media’s failures to recognize that has cost us immensely. We still don’t know how much.
“Deserve’s got nothing to do with it.”
Or as my mom taught me from a very young age - life ain't fair.
I have a lot of feelings about this whole thing, which sort of includes Pres Biden’s cancer diagnosis. Had he won, the rounds of treatment would be debilitating. The hormone treatment really sucks the life out of you - my dad went through it. At first he felt great, drove himself to treatment every day for 9 weeks. Then he took the testosterone killer to fight the cancer and that was that - he is not the same person. So the “what if” about Biden in a 2nd term is a LOT.
As far as all this coverage of coverup and old….I admit. I thought he was too old. He himself had said he was a “bridge” to the next generation. Old men are stubborn, though, and often overestimate their abilities. His family should have TALKED HIM DOWN. I don’t know if the outcome would have been any different but he really had no business running.
But Trump is OLD. And STUPID. And dangerous and a fool and a narcissist. The Biden is old story/cover up story doesn’t do anyone any good, unless you’re just trying to further damage the Democratic Party (you know this will be used to smear a party that’s already under fire). Why don’t Tapper and all the others start really reporting on Trump’s daily grift, how he wants to use the military against US citizens, etc. Why not show Project 2025 and how it stacks up against what he’s doing.
Telling me Biden is old is like telling me that Grey’s Anatomy has been on television for 20 years - I already know that.
Had Biden won, he might now be preparing to hand the presidency over to his intelligent, capable vice president. Maybe he shouldn’t have run again. I supported him not because I was certain he’d serve four years, but because his opponent was Donald “Train Wreck” Trump, and because our vice president was Kamala Harris. And honestly, at the time, the talk about “who should run” or “open primaries” made me angry because Harris was standing right there the whole time, and it told me that too many our side never took her seriously. It still makes me angry. She ended up running and she came close to winning except too many people stayed home and too many bad advisers messed with her momentum.
Oh, I supported him too, with the idea that if indeed something happened, I had ZERO problem with a President Harris (supported her as well).
I think the average voter does not appreciate that degree of uncertainty.
I think the reason there was talk about an "open primary" was that if Biden's approval was tanking, it would signal a need for a candidate completely divorced from the administration. It's one thing if he was popular but had to withdraw because of health concerns. In fact, the age was arguably the excuse for withdrawing.
Excellent points, and thanks for pointing out that trump is stupid, foolish and a narcissist, and all of those qualities makes him extremely dangerous because he is POTUS.
You know, this is revealing in a way most people aren't talking about.
Blame is a funny thing. It's relative. It depends on the expectations we have of certain people and whom we choose to assign moral agency. If someone gets kidnapped when you're supposed to be guarding them, you will get blamed, not the kidnapper. When crime goes up, we blame the cops, government officials—everyone but the criminals.
The media is right now blaming Biden and his supporters for the fact that Donald Trump is President—despite the obvious fact that first and foremost, Trump is President because of a series of increasingly depraved and cynical decisions by the Republican Party, and various key individuals within it.
I suppose you might argue that this is just a factual accounting of decisions within the party that have led to a fractious rift and jeopardized the Democrats' political viability in its own right, without regard to what this means for the Republican party. And that this is newsworthy because it involved some supposed cover-up.
But given everything that's going on right now, it's hard to read "that's why the Democrats lost" as a dispassionate, impartial assertion of a party's scandalous undoing, rather than as an implicit, finger pointing "that's why we're all stuck with Trump for another four years".
In which case, the media, in it's desire to be seen as neutral and impartial, is ironically demonstrating that it implicitly sees itself as aligned with the Democrats—as well it should, because the Republican Party is corrupt beyond belief by any *objective* standard.
In other words, the media is treating Republicans like a bunch of criminals. Like people with no moral agency, who can't be held accountable for what they've done to the country because hey, they're Republicans, and Republicans gonna Republican. They're just a force of nature—a confluence of the laws of political physics which guarantee that eventually a blatantly corrupt and unfit man will be elevated to the highest office in the land if intelligent beings don't do something about it.
Don't get me wrong. I'm glad that there are apparently people within the media who understand that there aren't "two sides" to the story of Trump. There's the truth, in the presence of which no sane person would vote for Trump, and there is the complete bullshit that is responsible for the fact that anyone believes Trump is capable of even tying his shoes much less running a country.
It's just that it would have been nice to see evidence of that understanding *during the campaign*, when everyone was sanewashing Trump's economic gibberish as "a different approach" or his unhinged authoritarian statements as part of "an unconventional style".
Instead of reporting on the reality of things in a transparent manner, which would have made it clear to people that even considering voting for Trump constituted a disastrous lapse of judgement. Instead of asking about why Republicans weren't pushing back on Trump's distortions, misrepresentations and outright lies.
But Republicans are people, too. They can make choices, and they've chosen to capitulate to oligarchy and a cynically corrupt figurehead. *That* is why we're stuck with Trump for another 3-1/2 years.
Yes, Republicans have agency, but it’s reasonable to blame the people who failed to stop them. The Confederacy was bad, but if Lincoln had bungled the response to them and lost the war, he would bear significant blame historically for the fall of the union.
I don't necessarily disagree with you. Like I said, blame is relative. I have a tough time blaming Biden because I think he was a good President and got no recognition for all the good he did. But I get it.
At this point, it's entirely understandable that people expect about as much from Republicans as they do from a pack of hungry wolves encountering a person lost in the wilderness. Should the media be this jaded about them? I don't know. They claim neutrality, but there's no such thing as completely unbiased journalism. Anything that looks balanced involves not foregrounding the flurry of red flags on Trump that would destroy any other candidate.
In fact, the NYT Editor in Chief explicitly used the rationalization that Republicans had already assented to Trump's madness, as if there weren't undecided voters who might have relied on the NYT to inform them of some things they were clearly ignorant of. Trump's normalization becomes a partially self-fulfilling prophecy if the media are going to follow along with the crowd.
So we got a complete double standard, where Kamala's comment about transgendered prisoners from four years ago got more attention than Trump musing about executing his former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and subjecting his political foes to military tribunals, his palpable guilt in the federal indictments against him and how the judiciary was covering for him, his absolutely incompetent economic proposals, and his clear favoritism of Putin in the Ukraine war.
And now they're going to hold the Democrats' feet to the fire for not stopping them. Nice.
I have * opinions * about this since I made this argument multiple times in 2020. People thought that Biden was the only candidate who could beat Trump, and that Trump would go away after he lost. I’ve never agreed with the first but it’s pretty much become canon now so I don’t have much hope in it being reconsidered. The second is what we should be revisiting, since it reveals a profound misunderstanding of not only Trump but our entire country and culture. Anyway, it’s not like Democrats didn’t think there was a good chance we could lose 2024 imo, it’s that they thought it would be to a “normal” Republican.
Also, the reality is that Biden was too old to run in 2020 too, and he NEVER promised he’d be a one term president. People heard what they wanted to on both counts to avoid dealing with unpleasant realities. A lot of people are scapegoating him to avoid their own responsibility here (voters too).
One could also argue that Biden was fundamentally the wrong choice after Trump literally attacked the U.S. capitol. He promised a return to normalcy and that’s how he wanted to govern. It just didn’t work well against an insurgent movement.
I strongly dispute the idea that only Biden could defeat Trump after Covid. I think the party’s big mistake was assuming “Trump is awful” is why Biden/Dems rather than “voters don’t like their material situation and are blaming the incumbent party.” Believing that 2020 was about the former is why Biden/Dems thought until the end that Trump could lose in 2024.
I can't read beyond the preview of this, but this is basically the crux of my feelings on this issue. https://www.thebulwark.com/p/joe-biden-isnt-your-scapegoat
Yeah, granted, my expectations for our government are probably too low, but if Biden were brain dead but his advisors had prosecuted Trump for J6 I'd be pretty happy. I'm pissed at every person with power who advocated this return to normal/ pretend Trump doesn't exist strategy. No one is talking about this, but that very much includes this little coterie of normie historians advising Biden. How can you know anything about American history and think everything would be fine if we just turned the page?? John Meacham is second only to Merrick Garland in the list of people I'm enraged at.
I completely agree with you on the 2020 election. People looked at Biden's rather slim win (in the only states that get a choice in the electoral college) and thought, thank God we didn't nominate someone else when they should have realized that Trump is actually quite powerful, it wasn't just a fluke in 2016. It took the apex of anti-Trump sentiment AND a global pandemic to beat him.
Thanks, Amy. Yeah, I differ with JVL on Biden aggressively going after MAGA. I think the obsession with normality and preserving norms might have pleased center right Never Trumpers but it only normalized Trump and his attempt to overthrow a free and fair election.
Trump wasn’t indicted until 2 years after Jan. 6. And people thought it took too long for the second season of Severance!
I don’t think this would’ve been unpopular at all. What tanked Biden was inflation and Covid fatigue. It didn’t help Democrats either that crime in Dem run cities was a mess.
so yeah, Biden is old. but he is a decent man. i am so sorry he has cancer and has that suffering ahead of him. if we had known he had cancer during the election, i would have STILL voted for him instead of the freaking nightmare in the Oval Office we have now. (yes, that one IS old, evil AND insane) Biden appointed qualified people, educated in their fields and that cared about the safety of Americans. together with President Biden, they took us out of the previous administration's Covid crisis and slide towards autocracy and brought our economy and health back up. what Jake Tapper and Alex whatever are promoting in that "tell-all" book makes me sick. i will never watch CNN ever again. it used to be my trusted go-to for news. i watched it non-stop when my son was deployed to the war in Iraq right after 9/11. Fareed Zakaria's show was my Sunday with coffee ritual. i will watch him on YouTube or Instagram now. MSM has failed us and if they had the guts to tell truth we maybe would not be in this predicament now.
Same. He was old etc but I would have still voted for him without question.
"Crazy Grandpa" is a pretty malevolent choice for voters to make, I gotta say...especially since Crazy Grandpa is also one of the stupidest people that's ever existed. Of course he's also mean which fits the mean and stupid of his supporters. And those supporters at least were emboldened because of his plans for ethnic cleansing and that he hates the same minorities they do.
Sadopopulism is the third rail of politics because it always, ALWAYS ends badly. But we can't deny that it's also super powerful. Looking at the fate of the Haitians in Springfield, OH told me all I need to know about this shitty country.
And of course there's not going to be any stories about President Klan Robe being old, nor any tell-all books. Because the point of Biden Old is to have some sort of FUD that Democrats can fall for, to throw Biden under the bus...as it was important to destroy that generational progressive legislation he helped shepherd through. And the easiest way to get clout being shitting on Dems, and there you go. You can also magnify any crisis into the Worst Ever and even build clout on that too. Certainly it does not hurt to have a rightwing media human centipede to spread the smears too.
At least Democrats know the rules going forward: "Don't be old," and probably also "Don't be female, especially a Black one," and I think we'll be fine until some other thing is brought up to be FUD to dismiss whomever gets out of the primary.
"rightwing media human centipede" is so gross but so perfect.
I was stunned to see stories about Biden's age and cognitive abilities crop up recently, and then learned that some "journalists" have books out, or about to come out, about this "scandal."
Where to start with my rant about the MSM's obsession with Biden's age, and in fluffing up trump?
I'll start with this - the media has been saving the really juicy bits, in some cases, the criminal bits, for books to be published after the politician leaves office. Instead of reporting when they find out and verify, as they should do, they are waiting for the big bucks later. This isn't just a Biden thing, it's all part of the American media not doing its job and letting us all down as a result.
Joe Biden isn't in office, nor likely to be ever again, even if he hadn't been diagnosed with cancer, yet the media won't let it go. Maybe it's because they feel pride in hounding him out of office. The debate performance was bad, but not as disastrous as many remember it. Not their fault - I am having a hard time putting into words, but maybe the saying "the good old days weren't always so good" helps to explain it. We elevate good times of the past, and degrade bad times of the past. Could there have been a recovery from it? Not the way many Dems were acting, and they should have done it earlier, and behind the scenes, but finally they did it. repubs would have never done that to trump, which is a pity, because he has never, ever been fit for office. repubs are rewarded for propping up one of their own, no matter how vile, and Dems punished for doing the right thing.
The above got off track - faulting the MSM, but in the end, I go there - the MSM may occasionally confront trump and other repubs, and report on the bad stuff they are doing and how it's harming the country, but they really seem to save all of their ire for Biden and other Dems. It's gone beyond both-siderism, and into "all in for trump." Their billionaire owners want their precious tax cuts and sweet, sweet government contracts, so their "journalists" obey. Besides, they would probably get a tax cut too, as they all make millions yearly.
Sorry for the rant, but I don't trust the MSM anymore, and not towel is going to cover up the sorry state of American mainstream journalism.
"As early as summer 2022, a New York Times poll revealed that 61 percent of Democratic voters didn’t want Biden as the nominee"
Weird that a party SO FUCKING obsessed with polling wouldn't take said polling to heart
Where polls matter for the party is where people can get the clout. In the end the only poll that matters is the ballot. Harris even had higher favorables, so we know that's meaningless too. That's one reason any time I see some people crowing about polls about "Americans don't like this," my response is always "They should show me they care with action. I don't care what they say on a stupid poll. I want to see what they DO."
this^^^
I just don't understand dems obsession with polls if they're not going to ACT on them. And I don't think they necessarily SHOULD act of them because polls ARE complete crap at BEST and propaganda at worst...
" like when I spilled soda on my mother’s rug in 1985 and covered up the sticky stain with a towel."
That was YOU????!!!