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Culture War Roundup for the week of July 1, 2024

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On the one hand, I keep hearing how bureaucratically difficult it is, by the rules of the DNC, to actually replace Biden. Bordering on impossible. And even if they did, supposedly all the money they've raised is for the Biden/Harris ticket. FEC rules state that it can't just be handed over to a different presumptive nominee except for Harris, which people seem to be trying to avoid. There is also the reporting that Biden has closed his circle extremely tight, essentially only listening to advice from his wife and his son. Nobody else is even allowed near him unless they say what Jill or Hunter want them to say, and both of them seem addicted to power and the wealth and protection it provides. I've seen other reporting indicating that Biden will try to rubberstamp his nomination ASAP to burn the boats. There is no longer any retreat, ride or die. And that completely ignores the fact that there was no real DNC primary. There were no debates, a lot of states didn't even bother with the formality of a vote. Nobody else has any sort of popular support or mandate, they'd be starting from scratch. Well, I should amend that statement, nobody the DNC wants has any sort of mandate. I'm sure people would love RFK Jr as the nominee.

Every now and again, Saagar Enjeti will comment that Trump appears to be truly blessed by God. Going into the debate, all I heard was that Trump's claim that he will debate any time, any where, any rules gave away too much. That he had completely gimped himself having CNN moderate the debate, mute his mic, take him away from an audience he could do crowd work against, etc. There were conspiracy theories about the fact that other press were not allowed in the room to corroborate any mute-mic comments the candidates made, allowing CNN to spin with impunity as the only source present. Analyst were saying the debate was too early to have any impact on the election, and that historically it's difficult to say if debates have any influence at all.

Barely 10 minutes into the debate, and it's like reality collapsed. Something truly historic and unprecedented occurred.

Yeah, that debate moment is going in the history books as one of the biggest ever.