Democracy 2024: # 45

This is always the least favorite part of my Saturdays and I am not even getting paid to do this. I guess the best way to bring any sort of structure to these ramblings, at least for this week, is to break it down by day.

 

Sunday- It was certainly a distressing morning for Democrats political types to turn on the morning shows and see the New York Times poll results showing that Donald Trump is leading Joe Biden in five out of six swing states (and basically a tie in the sixth.) 

In my view, there is definitely a combination of denial and facing reality only in hushed tones about just how unpopular Joe Biden is as President and how many people are at this point of time refusing to even consider the possibility of backing him for another four years because they simply think he is too old for the job. While true that a whole ton of Americans purely hate Donald J. Trump and would crawl over broken glass to vote for any opponent of his, he does happen to have a cadre of supporters who are proud to back him and would do so even if shot someone on Fifth Avenue while waving a Palestinian flag.

I am somewhat skeptical of all this bad polling data for Biden but that does not mean that there are not major red flags. Young voters and especially young voters of color simply have no use for him, being an old rich white guy, everything they were brought up to believe is inherently something to distrust. The situation in the Middle East has exacerbated Biden's problem with young leftist voters who want him to wave a Palestinian flag in the middle of Fifth Avenue.

Now, a year from now, with a huge financial advantage and a full on fear campaign about what Donald Trump might mean for America, can Biden get enough of these voters to hold their nose and vote for him? Maybe. Perhaps even probably if past political behavior is any indication. Still though, Democrats are in a tough and risky situation. Any sort of Biden medical episode is going to pretty much be the end of any hope for reelection and then they must have a plan B that can be put into place, no matter how late in the game it might be.

By the end of Sunday, Democrat talking head David Axelrod, who played a major role in getting Barack Obama elected was all but calling for the sitting President to leave the race. Axelrod has seemed pretty down on Biden for years now (they used to work together in the White House after all), but I also doubt he would have gone public with these statements if Obama had not given him the ok to do so. I will also add that a lot of conservatives are convinced that Biden will definitely not be the nominee and that Michelle Obama (as a figurehead for her Constitutionally ineligible husband) will be put up to run.

Monday- what happened on this day? Still a lot of talk about Biden's poll numbers and developments surrounding Israel's war on Hamas in retaliation for the horrific war crimes committed against them, that so many people seem to not even care about. I am not someone who is on TikTok, the popular app for young people in which data is being stolen and content manipulated to be presented to Americans by the communist government of China. It is being pointed out that so many young people are anti-Israel because they are getting their news exclusively from TikTok. I associate the app with a place where young folks do silly little dances, talk about "lifehacks" and pretend to be murdered by Grimace after drinking his milkshake at McDonald's. However, I may just not be cognizant that they get their news from TikTok and nowhere else and China is helping spread the Hamas propaganda to hurt Israel and America. There is already a problem where so many Americans get their news through a partisan vacuum designed to appeal to them and their current beliefs in a desire to stir up anger and that many older voters are being misinformed by crazy stuff on Facebook, but this is a whole different angle to consider. This is before we even consider the dangers associated with AI misinformation and "deepfakes."

Tuesday- Democrats had been having a bad week due to those Presidential polls, but certainly felt bette after what was seen as a successful Election Night, as their candidates won all the races that were deemed as winnable for them with a theme that the abortion issue was cutting well for them politically.

As is always the case in politics, especially during off-year elections, the "winning" side will read too much into things and the "losing" side will either panic too much or refuse to even consider the possibility of warning signs. Republicans should definitely be aware of the larger theme that MAGA related candidates continue to do poorly (as they have  every year since 2017) , especially in the once GOP friendly suburbs and that the party has been very much losing the messaging battle in the aftermath of the overturn of Roe vs. Wade.

Democrats should realize that this might be a case where "all politics is local." Yes, Democrats had a good Gubernatorial win in Kentucky (as I predicted they would) but the incumbent Governor who won would be considered more moderate than national Democrats and frankly, Democrats do seem to win far more Gubernatorial elections in Kentucky throughout history regardless of national political factors.

Democrats won most targeted races in Virginia, but before 2019 and the election of Glenn Youngkin as Governor, the Commonwealth was considered fairly blue. This was Youngkin's "midterm" in which his party should have been expected to do badly. He gambled on trying to win legislative majorities and lost  and of course in the process put to bed any possibility he might be a 2024 Republican Presidential contender, but what happened is pretty much par for the course in politics I think.

I will also point out that Democrats did well without Joe Biden on the ballot and he certainly was not out campaigning for any of these candidates.They did not talk about him. Just as a generic Republican is far more popular than Donald Trump, a generic Democrat is far more popular than Joe Biden. Again, "the age issue" is a huge reason why. It is far easier to win a specifically worded referendum on abortion in places like Ohio and elsewhere than it will ever be to get enough people to vote for Biden there.

Finally in regards to the election, I have written about abortion before. As someone who has always been strongly Pro-Life, I believe people like myself need to accept the fact that there may be political consequences, at least in the short-term, associated with seeing the right thing done. However, Republicans in many locales have pushed too far on this issue, and this has hurt the Pro-Life cause across the board, even in places where a more moderate and seemingly supported by the public approach was being taken. Simply put, the "no exceptions for rape" crowd spoils the whole pot. Those who would be very willing to vote for reasonable restrictions on abortion will stop even listening when they think that is the end-game of the other side. All the talk for years about how the issue should be "brought back to the states" is harmed when some politicians talk about federal laws, that they know have no chance of being passed. The issue of abortion is now in the hands of the states and there are going to be vastly different conclusions by the voters and the politicians whom they elect.

For those who want to see abortions reduced in America, there must be recognition that government can only do so much. This is fundamentally an issue of changing peoples hearts and minds. That will involve support for women and families during pregnancy and after. It will require making contraception more widely available. It will involve patience and hard work until the day comes when abortion is seen as unnecessary and thus unthinkable.

 

Wednesday- believe it or not there was a Republican debate in Miami, Florida which aired on NBC. Believe it or not, it was considered  the most substantive exchange between the candidates yet, even though one contender called another "scum." In spite of all of this, will it even matter that much? I have my doubts.

At the same time five candidates were debating, Donald Trump was speaking at a rally in the Hispanic-American bastion of Hialeah to a large crowd. He was proceeded by a shrieking foul mouthed Roseanne Barr who warmed up the crowd for Trump's usual insanity. Roseanne is now a folk hero among those who back the top Republican in the country. Who could have ever imagined that?

I watched most of the debate and among the five candidates, I truly despised one, had very negative feelings about another, was frustrated by the tactics of a third, and liked most (though not all) of what I heard from the other two.

 

Vivek Ramaswamy really is "scum." Nikki Haley got it right when he took the very low step of bringing up that her 25 year old daughter once used to use the app that is now very controversial and has many Republicans , such as Haley, calling for it to be banned. I wonder what the public reaction would have been if she walked over and slapped him Oscars style. I somehow think Vivek would not have brought up anything on a shared stage related to a daughter of a male political opponent because there could have been a different reaction.

This was not even the worst thing Ramasaswamy said though in this debate. He had been criticized for coming across as too aggressive and unlikable in the first debate, so in the second debate, he tried to be "sunnier" and pointed out areas of agreement with the others. That did not do much for his poll numbers, so in this debate, in true 2000 Al Gore ashion, he was a bigger asshole than ever and did such things as attack the moderators and call on the RNC Chairwoman to resign.

However, it was his parroting of Vladimir Putin Russian propaganda about Ukraine and President Volodymyr Zelenskyy that was truly pathetic. He said a variety of things that were untrue or highly distorted, but worst of all seemed to say that the Ukrainian President, a Jew who had family members killed in the Holocaust, was a "Nazi." Later on his campaign said he only meant Zelenskyy had "celebrated" a Nazi during a visit to Canada, but that whole incident is preposterous as well. The brouhaha with Haley caused many people to even forget this shameful episode of Vivek from Wednesday night. Is there not enough anti-Semitism going around these days?

Moving on to Ron DeSantis, this debate in his home state had him say things that the conservative base wanted to hear. The fact that he quietly indicates that he is opposed to aid for Ukraine makes him a non-starter for me, even putting aside the rest of the things I do not like about him. DeSantis and Haley sparred over the actions each took as Governor in regards to bringing Chinese investments to their states. Donald Trump must have loved that aspect of the fighting.

We finally got a glimpse at the end of the debate of Tim Scott's girlfriend but he continues to be in a holding pattern in terms of having any impact as a candidate. He almost certainly realizes he has no chance as long as Trump is an option and is sticking around just in case, and is basically going all in to appeal to Evangelical Christians in Iowa. When asked about Ukraine, he chose his words very carefully, which lead me to believe he would support their efforts as President but does not want the MAGA crowd to know he would. I am not a fan of that tactic.

At least all of the candidates were strong in their support of Israel (except perhaps for Ramaswamy) while also not saying anything in regards to the appeasing the crowd who is concerned (rightfully so of course) about the deaths of innocent Palestinians. I think DeSantis went way too far in his rhetoric when he claimed that efforts to fly Americans out of Israel and back to Florida was somehow on par with rescuing hostages. The talk about how anti-Semitic protestors and provocateurs on American college campuses might be foreign students was pretty interesting. I am torn between my unequivocal support for the American First Amendment and the reality that guests of the American people have no right to be supporting the cause of terrorism.

For the most part, I thought Nikki Haley had a strong night. She definitely cannot afford to take on the persona of a frontrunner. The political situation as well as the mood of the Republican electorate means she has to react toughly in regards to any political slight and thus can appear a bit desperate at times. However, she was strong on foreign policy and once again gave about as decent a response that a Pro-Life candidate can about what can be done on the abortion issue at the present time. DeSantis may finish ahead of her in Iowa (he basically must of course) but it seems like if anyone in the current field is going to somehow deny Trump the nomination, it will be Haley. Still a very long shot. Ramaswamy referred to her (and maybe DeSantis as well) as "Dick Cheney in heels." I wish a Cheney in heels was running, named Liz.

While three candidates (including DeSantis) talked about the necessity of not nominating Trump, I do not think either of them did enough to point out all the reasons why. It seems like they have basically given up knowing that Republican voters just do not want to hear it. At one point, Haley said that Trump "was the right President at the right time" before talking about how times had changed. I disagree very much on the first point. Haley was willing to call Vivek "scum" and I also believe that in her heart and of hearts she (and so many other intelligent Republicans) actually believe Donald Trump is "scum" also, but know they cannot verbalize that belief.

I agreed with most of what Chris Christie said in the debate. He was the only one who talked about Trump's legal problems. He was good on the issues but is sort of an afterthought in these debates. He did not even try to pick a fight with Vivek. He seemed to even criticize the others for fighting with each other. Christie was not supposed to get into this race to be the "voice of reason." He was supposed to stir crap up.

Rest of the week:

 

A bunch of stuff happened, but I will focus here on the not totally unexpected announcement that West Virginia Democrat Senator Joe Manchin will not seek another term. After all, his own party hates him. This will almost surely make his seat go Republican next year but the biggest factor is that Manchin is saying he will be traveling the country to see if there is any appetite for a "centrist." He was kind of non-direct in saying exactly what he meant but I will raise my hand and say, "me, me, me." So, it looks like Manchin is very interested in being the candidate of the "No Labels" effort. Recently, former Maryland Governor Larry Hogan, a Republican, has been making the same sort of noise. It is said that Manchin would demand to be at the top of any bipartisan ticket though. A draft effort is already underway to pair Manchin with Mitt Romney for Vice President. As much as I would like to see Mitt run for something, I am certain he is not intending to do so.

There should be no doubt that there is tremendous hunger in America for a choice other than Biden or Trump. We all know that Trump has a huge lead over his primary opponents. Biden also has a huge lead over announced candidates Dean Phillips, Marianne Williamson, and Cenk Uygur, a mildly prominent leftist media type who was born in Turkey and thus is not even eligible to be President.

The scary fact is that Independent candidate Robert Kennedy Jr has pretty impressive general election poll numbers at this point. There is also Cornell West whom the pro-Hamas crowd could gravitate towards. This week,  Jill Stein, the Putin apologist who was a minor player in the 2016 Hillary Clinton debacle jumped in as the once again likely Green Party nominee. So, there are seemingly going to be a lot of options who were never Republicans, for those who do not want to vote for Biden. Pollsters might as well do their due diligence and include them all, including Manchin, in conducting general election polls. Before we know it, "The Rock" may jump in also.