Democracy 2024: # 6

It is hard to know what exactly to write/rant about and keep it as a reasonable length. There continue to be a lot of matters in the news and it is impossible to cover them all. The actual election is still a good ways away. I am more interested in the final three weeks of the first round of Chicago's Mayoral election.

There are many similarities this past week to recent weeks. More classified documents are being found. Former Vice President Mike Pence has been subpoenaed to give testimony to the Special Counsel on the January 6th matter. Then, there is the matter of UFOs are being sighted and shot down over North America. The drama of last week may not have been a one time deal. After the Biden Administration was criticized a week ago for a lack of an immediate response to a Chinese spy balloon, they seem to be more willing now to take quick action. Perhaps, there are legitimate reasons for that and major differences in the circumstances, but in the fog of political wars, it is hard to get that through. The current President and his Administration seem unwilling to speak clearly and candidly on this matter though and that is leading to the confusion. Is China really up to something sinister? Are there forces within that nation acting on their own accord and causing internal confusion? Are we just now going to shoot anything unidentified down first and ask questions later even if it may not be related to Chinese spying?

 

Along those lines of Presidential communication, it looks like Joe Biden will break with recent tradition and not take part in the official Super Bowl pre-show Presidential interview. After all, Fox is covering the big game this year. Even last year though, Biden got testy with NBC's Lester Holt during the interview and he just does not engage much with the media, given his propensity for gaffes in those situations. In an interview last week he did give, he all but blamed his staff for the fact that classified documents were found at his home. That may literally be true but it looks bad to say that. Contrast that again with Pence, who is saying that whatever mistakes were made, he holds the ultimate responsibility. In this interview, Biden also claimed that the documents were from 1974, early during his service as a U.S. Senator. It is not known if he was being literal or facetious in saying that, but I hope he was not serious. It is also probably not the best topic to joke about.

Another repeat theme of the week is Donald Trump going after Ron DeSantis on social media. This past week, he called but called him a pedophile groomer. There are indications that the Florida Governor is indeed taking steps towards a run and this has the potential to be an extremely bloody MAGA Civil War.

This big even of the past week though was Tuesday's State of the Union Address, which becomes more of a spectacle each year. There was a verbal dust-up before the debate leading up to the taking of seats between Utah Senator Mitt Romney, perhaps the most honest person in politics, and New York Congressman George Santos, perhaps the most dishonest person in America. Lip readers had some fun, but perhaps a fairly easy task to figure out what Romney said to him. Needless to say, I side with Romney on this one. Then, the Senator proceeded to sit in the House Chamber next to his colleagues and friends Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona. The latter was wearing an outfit that made her look like Big Bird. Back in 2012, the Obama/Biden campaign all but accused Romney of wanting to kill Big Bird. There is also some interesting things to watch in the near future regarding Manchin. The nominal Democrat faces a very difficult 2024 reelection campaign if he were to run in his heavily Republican state. Lately, he has not denying the possibility that he might run for President. Almost certainly, Manchin would have to do that as an Independent. 

The speech itself was considered a fairly big "win" for Biden, at least in political circles. Polls show that actual Democrats want another option, but one is unlikely to challenge the incumbent with the possible exceptions of the little known Nina Turner and Marianne Williamson. There is also been a recent report that an anti-vaccination zealot may seek the White House as well. His name is Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Biden's address was filled with a combination of big federal government proposals, statements of affirmation of left-wing wedge issue positions, and politically appealing populist "small ball" measures, reminiscent of the 1996 Clinton reelection campaign. Suffice to say, I was not a fan of much of the speech, but in the reality of political theater, the White House has to be pretty happy.

Most of the focus was on the behavior of House Republicans who yelled and made noises of disapproval at certain points during the speech. This is not completely new during Presidential speeches to Joint Sessions of Congress and many in the media are tending to forget that Congressional Democrats were pretty demonstrative in expressing their disapproval towards Donald Trump during his four wasted years in office. Then Speaker Nancy Pelosi even tore up his speech. 

Biden and his speechwriters succeeded though in goading some right-wing Republicans into notable reactions of anger, in particular a Cruella DeVille fur-collar wearing Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Green of Georgia who yelled at Biden that he was a "liar." Technically speaking, he was not lying when he said that some Republicans had spoken of "sun-setting" entitlement programs such as Social Security. Indeed some had, such as Senators Rick Scott of Florida and Ron Johnson of Wisconsin. Biden tried to point that he was not suggesting that most Republicans wanted to do this, but the reaction by some in their disagreement to bringing this up was fairly visceral.

It was all a set-up though, similar to if Trump had claimed during one of his speeches that some Democrats wanted to defund the police. Plenty of Congressional Democrats would have shouted "no!" was well but it would have been literally true. Biden took the opportunity to say something like "well, I guess we are all in agreement now then not to touch Social Security" and received a cheap standing ovation for doing so. Democrats and many in the media rushed to say how masterful the 80 year old Biden was during this moment and how he schooled his opponents in an off the cuff retort. However, I am pretty darn well convinced the entire exchange was written on the teleprompter the whole time. The White House staff knew exactly what would happen and got precisely the reaction they expected and wanted and were thus prepared to answer in kind. From a political perspective, it is hard for me to blame them. Speaker Kevin McCarthy was seen trying in vain to get some of his racuous Caucus members to pipe down and behave. In the days after the speech, Senator Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (whom Biden signaled out for praise at the top of the address) admitted that what Biden talked about was part of the "Rick Scott plan." There is definite bad blood between McConnell and his Florida colleague who failed in a challenge to depose him as Leader. McConnell has a long memory and seems like he wants to find a way to get Rick Scott defeated in a primary now. There is a lot of internal animosity among Republicans today which does necessarily speak well for their short-term electoral future.

The official Republican response to the speech was given by Arkansas's new Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders from Little Rock, in the home she partially grew up in, while her father served a Governor. I did not catch all she had to say but what I did see was pretty disheartening to me as a once proud Republican. State of the Union Addresses have been becoming more partisan and sometimes more personal but this was clearly the most negative and personal "response" ever done in that response time slot.

I admire the fact that the Governor recently fought cancer successfully and she said a couple of uniting things, but most of the speech was just dark and dystopian. She pointed out that she was half of Biden's age and said that nothing he said should be believed. This was not my version of an uplifting and patriotic recitation of conservative values and a positive agenda. It was just grievance politics. She framed the debate as not being between "left and right" but between "sane and crazy." That sounds a lot of what Democrats have been saying recently and have been winning nationalized elections on, including the last Presidential contest.

 

It felt like Sanders was perhaps auditioning to win the number two slot on the potential ticket of her former boss Trump. Many online conservatives loved what she said and how she said it, but some close to Trump, perhaps on direct orders, criticized her. After all, she never bothered to mention his name.