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As someone who likes watching US presidential elections as if they were a sport, this has been by far the most boring election season we've had since I started watching in 2008. Primary season plus the ensuing general election used to guarantee at least a year and a half of interesting coverage, with the primaries in particular being full of drama, ups-and-downs, and upsets.
In 2008 we had Obama vs Hillary, a classic for the ages. The R side wasn't that bad either, with McCain's come-from-behind victory.
In 2012 was the most volatile primary we've had, with the polling frontrunner changing no less than 11 times as Romney's weak lead was tested by Bachmann, Perry, Cain, Gingrich, and Santorum before they all imploded one after another.
In 2016 was the rise of Trump, another classic for the ages. The frontrunner didn't actually change that much, but the sheer ridiculousness of Trump's unprecedented run made it hard to turn your eyes away. Hillary vs Sanders was also somewhat interesting, albeit far less so than Hillary vs Obama 8 years earlier.
In 2020 things were somewhat less interesting with Biden's lead enduring for most of primary. But at least that lead felt tense, like the floor could drop out with a few missteps, which is indeed what happened when Biden lost Iowa and New Hampshire, although it became obvious that he would win after Super Tuesday. This election also featured the worst (best) presidential debate in US history when Biden faced off against Trump for the first time.
By comparison, what does this election season have? Biden is running as an incumbent with no credible challengers. That only leaves the Republican side, which isn't much better. Trump's lead is commanding, and that doesn't show any signs of changing. The most credible threat is DeSantis, but he's been far too timid at attacking Trump. The pitch he should be making is something like "Trump's ideas and energy were great, but he lacked the follow-through to enact lasting change and was easily distracting by people like Kushner". Alternatively, he could have done something like Hanania suggested and challenge Trump to a boxing match. Instead, he's barely attacked Trump at all, creating the bizarre situation where a man is running to be president but refuses to directly tell us why we should prefer him over the frontrunner. In the end, it might not have mattered in any case. Negative partisanship is the driving force in American politics more than anything else, and Trump's ability to make liberals seethe apparently earned him so much goodwill that Republicans will vote for him no matter how many elections he loses.
It seems like Trump isn't going to appear at the Republican debate, which will likely turn the thing into an irrelevant snooze fest. Christie will probably attack Trump and the other candidates will likely rush to his defense, which will only further solidify the current dynamics. At this point the most interesting thing that's happened is Ramaswamy's mini-surge to third place which really shows how boring this whole affair is. Him, Scott, and and maybe Haley are essentially just running to be vice president, while other candidates like Pence, Christie, and the rest are doing the old presidential-campaign-as-glorified-press-conference thing, or have too much of an ego to see they have no shot.
The only thing that could make the current race entertaining is if Biden or Trump randomly drop dead, or if Trump is convicted of sufficiently serious crimes. Those would certainly be shockers, but the ramifications are hard to forecast before they actually happen.
I feel the situation is more, as others have alluded to, a bit of a camera issue.
The Hunter Biden stuff and the J6 Trump stuff are wild from a lot of angles. But it seems like the cameras get turned off every time something wild breaks. Similar to European football games where the cameras are turned downward every time someone runs into the field naked or there is a fight in the stands.
Alternatively it's a bit like watching Eurovision the year after Russia invaded Ukraine. There was only going to be one winner and everyone knew it was Ukraine. American politics feel a bit like who is going to get 2nd kind of thing, since everyone knows the big issues aren't affected by the election. As Trump, the ultimate outsider underdog extraordinaire showed.
I haven't really kept up with the Hunter Biden stuff. My surface-level understanding is that Hunter himself has been involved in bad shit, but there's little proof it goes up to the president himself. I heard Hunter got a suspiciously good deal at first, but again this doesn't really implicate Joe.
The J6 stuff has just been glacial legal drama.
Not sure I get the analogy to Eurovision. The president absolutely does matter quite a lot in the US's system since he has a ton of power concentrated in his hands. Some of it is sapped by Congressional deadlock and much can be reversed by a successor, but it's still very important. The fact that Trump barely did anything lasting besides SCOTUS stuff is more of an indictment of him than it is of the institution.
Not only is the evidence quite good that Joe was involved, but Joe doth protest too much. He said he's never spoken to his son about his overseas business dealings.
That beggars belief. What non-estranged father and son never discuss the son's work? They didn't talk about this even when Joe was leaning on the Ukrainians to fire a prosecutor that was causing trouble for Burisma, where Hunter was a board member? A board position that paid Hunter up to a million dollars a year? Who had another board member get a White House visit with a presidential meet shortly after putting Hunter on the board?
Do you have a link from a neutral source about that?
NYP has done the most thorough reporting AFAICT. Congress also releases things from time to time, like this: https://www.hsgac.senate.gov/wp-content/uploads/imo/media/doc/HSGAC_Finance_Report_FINAL.pdf
And this: https://oversight.house.gov/the-bidens-influence-peddling-timeline/
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I have to be honest I don’t understand people like you as it seems to be more Joes involvement in Hunters deals has been obvious since 2016. They had Hunters business partner say he was involved at the 2016 debates. There have been wire transfers, request to Hunter to talk to his dad and him making phone calls, emails directly to Joes burner email, shared office space between Joe/Hunter/CCP member, dinners between Joe/Hunter/Business partners. I feel like anyone who spends time in online spaces would be familiar with these things. The left media which probably includes most of the msm likely repeats the no linkages part. They might be right that he could beat a criminal charge but there is a lot of evidence Joe was fully involved.
Perhaps, we just live in a world where repeating a narrative works.
I dunno, I think the "cash for access" (dinner with business partners) is the usual sort of political transactions we see everywhere, and I imagine everyone agrees that no company ever hired Hunter for his business acumen but solely because his surname was "Biden".
So that level of petty corruption? Sure.
But Joe knowingly taking bribes and cuts of his dodgy dealings? I remain to be convinced; after all, Hunter is about as reliable as the four-faced liar and I wouldn't take as Gospel anything he may have said about "I need more money for the cut for Dad" since that would be just as likely him trying to extort/deceive more money out of 'business partners'.
I think Joe is being deliberately blind to exactly how fucked-up Hunter is because he doesn't want to know and doesn't want to believe that his only surviving son is such a mess and should be written off.
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/yes-they-were-being-bribed-fired-ukraine-prosecutor-corroborates-biden-corruption
Prosecutor who was fired now says they are guilty.
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What? Cash for access? No that’s 100% illegal and nobody does that. Not to your PERSONAL bank account. Campaign donations sure.
Anyway there is evidence Joe was directly taking the bribes. Hunters communications atleast twice dad was getting paid and Hunters business partners testimony.
Whatever Joe was or wasn't getting to an account, I don't place much credence in either Hunter or his crooked partners. Get something solid and sure, I'll believe it. But I have no doubt Hunter would sell out Joe if he thought he could do so and get better treatment for himself, so complaining that he wasn't getting enough vigorish/he had to hand over a cut seems more like him trying to squeeze more juice out for himself.
That’s literally the point of a bag man. You need Hunter to flip to get anything. But of course his dad has pardon power so why would he flip?
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Do you have a link from a neutral source going over Joe Biden's connection?
A neutral source won’t exists. No media entity is “neutral” anymore.
But here’s a partial list. More have been discovered since and I’ve forgotten 90%.
https://nypost.com/2022/04/06/heres-a-dozen-times-joe-biden-played-a-role-in-hunters-deals/
I don’t see why the reporter matters. If things are verified their verified.
"Neutral" was probably the wrong word. "Not right-wing" would be better. Really just anything established that's not on the same tier as Infowars or Breitbart. NYP is... alright I guess.
Almost all of this list is Hunter himself selling access. I don't like it, I wish it wouldn't happen, and Joe should probably kick Hunter to the curb over this stuff. But the access seems pretty limited (typically just a meeting), and Kushner was absolutely doing this sort of thing during Trump's tenure way more egregiously. Major policy decisions actually came from Kushner's doings. If you ever wondered why MAGAworld seemed weirdly obsessed with Israel to the point of exhausting lots of political capital on the topic, that was basically just Kushner.
The one area where this exceeds "just a meeting" would be if Joe got money from one of these deals, as that would skirt close to "bribery". There was the thing over "payments for the big guy" but I've never heard of much evidence supporting it, and it hasn't gone anywhere.
The trouble is, in these polarised times, no source that is not right wing is going to cover this story, or not as anything other than "it's all lies, black ops and false flag to discredit the only threat to Trump".
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I honestly hate talking about this subject now. I’ve done it on Reddit and it always just ends the same 30 messages disagreeing with each other. Or somewhere on the right every agreeing and nodding their heads.
My guess is Joe knew how Hunter was making money, helped him some, and most likely received a cut (emails/plus Bobulinski). No clue if he changed policy to help Hunter or how much.
It’s 100% politically important. It’s probably never provable on court unless Hunter rolls over since I think they kept Joe protected.
Also think McConnells profited off influence. And perhaps as shady as Biden. But I do like his politics.
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There was holding ten for the big guy, and then there was Hunter in his texts crying about everything he does for his family, including giving half of his salary to "pop": https://nypost.com/2022/04/09/hunter-biden-frequently-covered-family-expenses-texts-reveal/
Given that Hunter quite literally spends like a drunken sailor on hookers and blow, were I his family I'd be holding as much of his salary as I could extract from him in order to make sure there was something left to cover the ordinary expenses of life and that he wouldn't be left literally destitute. Unless it can be demonstrated Joe took his money and spent it on himself and the rest of the family, and not on covering Hunter's debts, obligations, or saving it for him, I'll take the tears as crocodile.
I don't see Hunter as the responsible son fulfiling filial obligations to support his parents, I see this as the family having to step in and make sure he doesn't lose every cent he earns as though he's a kid who can't budget his allowance.
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Wasn’t that pretty transparently because every dollar Hunter has ever made fell through his hands and Joe wanted him to pay his debts, save his money and leave something to his children?
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In theory the president matters a lot. In practice it has managed to not matter all that much in recent years. You can blame Trump or you can blame the deep state or whatever, it's still irrelevant to the point that in practice it hasn't mattered. The big issues stay the same no matter who gets in there.
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Finding out/voting the winner of the contest is just one (arguably minor) part of why people watch Eurovision, though.
No, no, the voting is the best part of Eurovision! First you have to see who gets nul points or near to it, then there's the perennial disappointment of the UK that they lost again and why didn't anyone vote for them, then there's the political voting - which countries will reliably give douze points to each other (Greece and Cyprus) and which countries wouldn't piss on your smouldering corpse if you were on fire, you bastards, we still remember 1623!
Then there is the recent divide between the jury votes (they voted for who?? an outraged public asks Europe-wide) and the public votes, which often diverge dramatically.
Granted, the past couple of years it has been "Ukraine. Ukraine will win it" but that's not the whole of it.
I phrased myself unclearly, I meant that the actual winner is a minor part, not that the voting is a minor part.
Ah, right. Yeah, ABBA are about the one big Eurovision success story, other winners either already have established musical careers or end up one-hit wonders.
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