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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   28903 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 11, 2023

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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.

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

Unless there’s a last-minute health scare or scandal, Joe Biden is almost certain to be the Democratic nominee for president again in 2024. RFK Jr. and Marianne Williamson don’t have traditional qualifications for the job — remember, Democrats still care about experience if Republicans don’t — and are nowhere close to Biden in polls.1 And it’s probably much too late for someone else to jump into the race and build out the campaign they’d need to seriously contend — let alone actually defeat a sitting president.

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'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.

Parliamentary systems have a big advantage in that they allow parties to dump unpopular leaders.

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".

If political alliances shift and change throughout the term of Parliament, well, that's the job.

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).

forgotten

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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