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https://apple.news/APEuOPHP2TWqeUTR_h8QypA
So the Republican speaker of the house has decided to open an impeachment inquiry into Joe Biden’s business dealings with hunter. I have serious doubts that this will go very far as democrats still control the senate. This looks like an attempt to stir up the base for re-election season.
I personally see this as a big distraction as we have a lot of very serious problems that need to be addressed. BRICs, Taiwan, Ukraine, inflation, and
The pro move for Democrats would be to use this to replace Biden with someone with a pulse.
30 years ago Bill Clinton was POTUS, John Major was PM of the UK, Kim Campbell was PM of Canada, Paul Keating was PM of Australia... these people are now half-forgotten relics of yesteryear, and all of them are younger than Joe Biden.
Funny to see Kim Campbell in that list. Amusingly, you're literally correct about her being PM 30 years ago; but her entire reign lasted 4 months, and the only reason she's remembered at all is that in the next election her party went from 156 seats in parliament to 2. (Yes, TWO. T as in Total, W as in Wipe, O as in Out.) Which was really Mulroney's fault, but she was the scapegoat.
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Problem is, who do you replace him with? Kamala Harris? She seems to be regarded as unelectable. Governor Newsom? Yeah, right. Elizabeth Warren? Shot her bolt. Any other possible candidates have all been clawed at by their rivals so that suggesting A means "yeah but remember the accusations about A the last time they ran?"
I've seen a few names floated, but they all have the same problem of not really being able to deliver on "yeah the nation as a whole wouldn't hate them". Either their appeal is strictly local and won't scale up, or they're "who?", or they've been clawed by rivals so it's "you really think people will vote for the person who bullies their staff, or the person who is a hypocrite on [thing], or the person who....".
One theory I've heard on this is that the Clinton campaign went around and made sure that there would be absolutely no prospective challengers to her running in the future after Obama, and so put pressure on the DNC to subtly shift funding and resource allocation in order to make sure that there wasn't another Obama that the people could pick instead of her. It sounds like cartoonish villainy, but it is the same campaign that made "make sure everyone sees lots of Donald Trump" their election strategy (lol).
There does seem to be some evidence that the DNC was in hock to the Clinton campaign to get it out of debt, and afterwards the campaign treated the DNC as their personal fiefdom, funnelling the money into their own hands, etc. Donna Brazile came out with a tell-all book in 2017 and excerpts/publicity in the media before it was published, but that seems to have quietly faded away. Having Trump as the all-purpose bogeyman seems to have helped there - you can't attack us while Orange Man Bad in power. Presumably the tell-all had less shock effect coming from Brazile, who had already fielded allegations of leaking to the Clinton campaign, so it could be seen as sour grapes on her part:
This was specifically before the election had started. They promoted Trump and wanted media organisations to give him airtime because they thought that he was so bad that he'd drive voters away from the Republicans just for considering him.
I like the rest of your post but I think this is being a bit too nice. "Fielding allegations" is not really a strong enough term to use given that there's clear and unequivocal evidence that the allegations were true. She actually did leak to the Clinton campaign and she even admitted it (though based on the timing on that same article she apparently then went back and said it was alleged afterwards).
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I think the situation is actually less desperate than people imagine. The problem lies with the progressive wing of the DNC having so much influence on narrative, particularly in media. There are real options for them. Sherrod Brown, Joe Manchin, and Bob Casey have shown the ability to win many elections and appeal to electorates more similar to the country than California and NY. They just so happen to be white guys that aren't known for aggressively pissing off rural and suburban people, like a certain old white guy in the White House. So they aren't treated as serious options for now. But they will be if Biden is off the table, and they could do well.
Holding an unusual position is not enough to make someone a compromise candidate. You’re not going to win elections by being “the Democrat who hates abortion” or “the Democrat who just loves coal.” Especially in a saturated field, that just pushes the moderate Democrat voters off to other candidates.
I suspect it’s much easier to rule someone out than in. That would suggest compromise candidates who are closer to blank slates—they offend the fewest members of the base. Honestly, I think Biden’s campaign was in that category. He made vaguely appropriate mouth sounds and didn’t promise much. Did he win on the strength of Not Being Trump? Maybe.
Point is, Manchin and Casey and (previously) Sinema don’t have crossover appeal any more than Bernie Sanders. They just alienate a different group of people.
No, he largely won on the strength of the intelligence community and social media knowingly suppressing true stories about his various scandals.
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Cuomo would have been good as a national candidate but the power played him out of NY. He still has the personality of being a person from a time and place that people can connect to sort of like Joe. He would have some COVID death issues but every candidate has something.
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I think they might offer an exchange: Biden for Trump. The cathedral wants to gain back respectability. Biden is increasingly a drain on respectability, Trump was in itself a drain on respectability, and the actions they're taking to prevent Trump from getting power again (indictments and at the least in the eyes of about half of the US election shenanigans) are the biggest drain of respectability of all. But they can't stop because they've made Trump very very motivated to embark on Stalinian purges if he gets back in power; they won't be able to keep him busy and sheperded in a second term.
I can imagine the system being very keen for this exchange: both Biden and Trump publically renounce politics (Trump immediately and Biden as soon as his term ends) and drop from the 2024 race. In exchange, Biden pardons Trump of federal crimes, leans on state prosecutors to drop charges for Trump, Biden pardons himself and Republicans drop the inquiries. Everyone walks away, Biden stumbles through a speech about how it was necessary to put behind divisiveness and the strain on the democratic process that prosecutions and impeachments etc... the opposing side was causing. The cathedral gets back at least the veneer of respectability. Republicans lose Trump, but having the stronger candidate field below Trump they probably win 2024. The cathedral can let that happen because they don't really care about Republicans or Democrats, just Not Trump. It would help rebuild some of the credibility the electoral system lost. Democrats lose Biden, who was never a powerful candidate and was increasingly embarassing to keep around (too old, unfocussed, dwindling coherency, increasingly appearing corrupt). They had to sacrifice everyone else to prop Biden up and now they have no credible contender under him, but without the extreme imperative to win against Trump they can send Kamala get slaughtered against DeSantis or Ramaswamy and rebuild their field for 2028. I don't know if Trump would go for it, but if he believes himself he probably should. He has 3 ways out of the indictments: legal victory, electoral victory or PR victory. But his stated opinion is that the judges are unfair, elections are rigged and the media are against him. What exactly are his paths out of this mess then?
Why would anyone trust anyone else to stick to that bargain?
I believe voters would punish a defection on a very simple unambigious sworn promise like that. Ok, maybe many/most people wouldn't but with elections being decided by razor's edge margins it wouldn't take a lot of them to effectively put victory out of reach.
That is wildly optimistic.
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Trump doesn’t act rationally and would never take the deal. He wants the throne. He would rather go to jail than give it up. In many ways he’s a lot like SBF who wasn’t able to just be a billionaire but had to keep going. And when he’s on bail he keeps doing shit.
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Seriously? So what's to stop Trump going "Well if he can do that, then when I'm back in power I can pardon myself, I don't need this deal".
He can swear it publically and drop out of the race before the pardon. As for running in 2028, he's gonna be 5 years older, obviously and unambiguously breaking a sworn oath by running, facing a more established candidate (an incumbent Republican president, quite possibly), that's probably enough to guarantee him a loss. If Trump believes he's gonna win 2024 he might not go for such a deal, but his stated position is that the last election was rigged; does he believe he can win, enough to risk jail? Enough to refuse an offer to make it a draw and walk away with dignity?
If you actually think this is a possibility I do not trust your estimations of American politics. Do you think his base would be happy with that? Do you think he'd be willing to trust the system given everything that's happened to him (crossfire hurricane, everything strzok touched, judge Chutkan's public comments...)?
I think he's just raising it as a hypothetical. I agree it's not realistic in the slightest, though for a different albeit related reason - I just think it would be wildly out of character for Trump.
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This is a fantasy scenario, because the Democrats have no reason to sacrifice 2024. They can win Biden v Trump II and still rebuild their field for 2028.
I believe he means more the deep state or regime. Desantis in my opinion is a more competent Bush era GOP. My guess is he’s very much a neocon at heart he was after all the lawyer for Guantanamo. I guess it comes down to whether the regime is all in on teaching kids to be trans in public schools. And if they actually care about black people as saints or would mostly be fine with treating them the same as white people. Those are useful tools to bash maga but I don’t know how many in the PMC actually believe that stuff.
Democrats of course would want to take their shot but a lot of people believe there’s a regime behind them that is fine with not MAGA and doesn’t really care between a Bush or Clinton type team player.
None of them have any reason to sacrifice 2024. The deep state will be happier whispering into Biden's ear than subverting DeSantis.
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There's also the possibility that Desantis himself personally doesn't care that much about these things and that as he got into power, he would pivot his priorities into ones that get bipartisan approval (read: the priorities of the PMC/cathedral) so he can line up some quick wins and would only make weak ineffectual gestures at placating his base on these topics.
Maybe but DeSantis hasn’t been overly pro PMC. What makes you think he changes?
I don't think he would himself change so much as I believe him to be more cynical than idealist, and a strategy pandering to a reddish-purple Florida would become obsolete once president. And I believe the PMC reaction to him ("Worse Than Trump!") is strategy from the PMC understanding that appearing to play ball with the establishment right now is poison to any Republican's primary campaign.
That doesn’t really explain his covid reaction or LGBT reaction. He took positions deeply at odds with prevailing PMC attitudes. Also Florida was a purple state he turned red.
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So far the Biden v Trump II is far from in the bag for either side. There's also some hidden information Biden and his inner circle know that we don't: they know how deep and how damaging the corruption story goes. If it's not much worse than what we have now they might decide to take their chances with the election, but if that rabbit hole keeps going and going, they might want to stop inquiries before they get too far.
And there's also the Cathedral element to consider; a lot of people high up in both parties care more about the system and the broad global neoliberal consensus than they care about their party winning, and to these people, Trump being sucessfully prosecuted and Biden winning 2024 is still in large part a loss. The US ends up looking increasingly like a one party banana republic where political opposition is jailed, Biden's public gaffes are only going to get worse with time and the system in general looks a lot less legitimate than it would if, say, DeSantis won.
The corruption story doesn't matter because the press says it doesn't matter. You could find a letter on stationary from the Office of the Vice President and signed by Biden says "Thanks, Hunter, for all your help in obtaining graft via Burisma" and a list of detailed figures below, and the New York Times and Washington Post wouldn't print it and nobody who didn't already oppose Biden would pay attention to Fox and the Wall Street Journal's stories on it.
If you don't mind me asking Nybbler, if we are destined to lose why aren't you jumping ship?
There's no place to go.
Become Amish.
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I think that'd be a mistake, even a year ago. Maybe if dems could privately choose the nominee, someone like Warnock - but they can't, do you want Kamala? Or a contested primary where you're just as likely to get someone worse than Biden.
Nate Silver's thoughts on why biden didn't have a primary challenger https://www.natesilver.net/p/democrats-think-kamala-harris-would
And his thoughts on how big of an issue biden's age is: https://www.natesilver.net/p/of-course-bidens-age-is-a-legitimate
It isn’t just that. If Biden has to resign in disgrace, the question is do you end up tainting the Democrats with the same brush especially after they defended him zealously until it became undeniable?
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It's obviously not going to happen. But the age issue really is a serious problem, and the corruption allegations have enough substantiation to also be a drag.
Parliamentary systems have a big advantage in that they allow parties to dump unpopular leaders. That's much harder to do in a Presidential system, so the party just goes down with the leader. One of the few opportunities a party has to offload dead weight is an impeachment proceeding like this. But I guess Americans aren't politically ruthless enough.
Harris is obviously not a particularly appealing replacement, but she could just keep the seat warm. Newsom or Whitmer or whoever could easily jump in at a moment's notice once Biden goes. But even if it's Harris, she can at least speak in full sentences and isn't going to have a stroke on stage.
Having said that, I do put some credence to the idea that part of Biden's rationale for picking Harris for VP was specifically so he didn't have a more popular replacement waiting in the wings.
To be fair, they also allow parties to play musical chairs with who's in charge; between 2007 and 2019 Australia had a mid-term ouster in every single term (a couple of them plausibly justified, a couple not). But this is somewhat self-correcting insofar as doing it gets the voters angry and often results in election losses.
I disagree, changing leader usually results in a better election result - if it didn't the party usually would not change. Yes, we went through a period of frequent political knifings - but is anyone seriously arguing that the Liberals would have won 3 elections in a row if they had stuck with Abbott? Or that the 2013 Labor wipeout would not have been far worse if they hadn't switched from Gillard to Rudd to save the furniture?
Neither do I think it's somehow inherently problematic or undemocratic to change PM mid term. You elect your local MP, he remains your local MP. If political alliances shift and change throughout the term of Parliament, well, that's the job.
I think the 2013 election would probably have gone better for Labour had they not switched back to Rudd. Knifing Abbott was a good idea.
Not sure what you mean by "save the furniture".
There is a point at which excess knifing gets in the way of governing; that's what I'm getting at. As I said, though, mostly self-correcting; note that Labour put in a "no more midterm knifings without a resignation" policy after 2013.
I feel like you've forgotten how brutal the polling for Labor was under Gillard. The last Newspoll before she was knifed had a two-party-preferred vote of 57-43 and primaries of 48 to 29 in favour of the Liberals. Those numbers immediately improved once Rudd took over, and though the sugar hit faded somewhat by the time of the actual election, the result was a much more manageable 53-47 kind of split.
This was the whole reason Labor made the change - most of them absolutely hated Rudd on a personal level and quite liked Gillard. But they also knew that they were going to get gutted and lose an extra 20 or 30 seats unless they knifed her. Thus the decision to "save the furniture" (flood metaphor - you can't stop the house from getting flooded but you can at least save the furniture and mitigate the losses a bit).
I don't follow polls that much. Only looked at the Voice polls and made the OP because somebody mentioned them.
You win this point.
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