How it happened
In April 2019, Mr. Biden embarked on his third, and given his age, almost certainly his last, bid for the White House. After Mr. Obama’s two terms and Hillary Clinton’s failed 2016 campaign, many younger Democrats, the energetic grass roots of the party, were hungering for new talent.
Mr. Biden appeared to struggle on debate stages crowded with more progressive rivals, such as Senators Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Bernie Sanders of Vermont, as well as younger and more engaging competitors, such as Mr. Buttigieg, then the mayor of South Bend, Ind., Ms. Harris and Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey among them. He finished poorly in Iowa and New Hampshire.
But he caught fire after his win in South Carolina, and his lead solidified as the Covid-19 pandemic raised his stock for Democrats looking for a more experienced hand to not only take the battle to Mr. Trump but also to guide the country through a crisis.
…
Mr. Biden’s surge to the nomination was an affirmation that emboldened him and the people around him, and it reinforced an instinct to ignore his critics and doubters. “You all declare me,” he told The New York Times editorial board in 2020, fumbling for words before finishing his thought: “declare me dead, and guess what, I ain’t dead, and I’m not going to die.”
Ah. There’s your mistake right there. Yes you are.
He’s carrying on as if aging were not a thing, but it is a thing, just as death is. This road goes only one way. Aging is a thing, and it does alter the body and the brain. Biden at this point is not aging well. He’s a lot more fragile than Trump, and that all by itself is disastrous. Trump still has energy, and a loud voice, and aggression to spare, and a fake tan. Biden looks corpse-like next to him.
We’re toast.
No, we’re not. Biden can govern; he’s doing the job right now. He can win. He did before, and he can again, if people turn out to vote against DJT. That’s the choice. DJT or not-DJT. DJT is a vote for the death of the republic. Surely, everyone knows that.
They know that stuff costs more than when Trump is president and the team that’s this far seemed to be running the country are not doing as good a job as might otherwise be argued be they’re clearly willing to lie to our faces that Biden is fine. I’ve said before that the Republicans are determined to win with a bad hand but if the Democratic party is only holding a Two of Diamonds, what challenge is there?
Maybe they’ll figure their shit out in a month or two but the longer this goes on the worse it’s gonna be assuming it’s not too late. Trump is in danger of even winning the popular vote.
Well sure Biden can win again if enough people vote for him; that’s how it works. But it’s just reckless and STUPID to assume enough people will in fact vote for him despite everything. They didn’t in 2016 and it was a close shave in 2020 so why would they do so now?
My point is not that people shouldn’t vote for Biden but that they’re not fucking going to and the Dems need to catch on.
One of the reasons Biden won in 2020 is that the Democrats had not cultivated any good alternatives to him.
Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, Cory Booker, Kamala Harris. None of them looked like reasonable choices for President to me, and surely to many other Americans, too. I’m all for youthful “energetic grassroots” lefty mojo, but at the Presidential level, I want nation-leadership and world-leadership qualities, too. Big-picture compromise, shrewdness in global geopolitics, that kind of thing. Especially so, as progressivism has begun spiralling into absurd extremism at home, and the threats from abroad have gotten more severe.
The Dems have had four years to start building up-and-coming talent, and they’ve come up with bupkis.
They should take some cues from the entertainment world. The Hollywood system plants fresh crops of future A-listers years in advance. For example, I used to be roommates with a young actress, who was then relatively unknown, who seemed to know that she was going to be on the cover of certain magazines years in advance, based apparently on contracts for films that had not yet even completed production.
Sure enough, two or three years later, a batch of films in which she was the star came out, the Vanity Fair and Vogue and Elle and Interview covers came true, and she was even a presenter at the Oscars. (She’s since gone on to become an Oscar, Tony, and BAFTA nominee, too. She’s a major movie star.)
Actors compete fiercely with each other for coveted roles in films, but the industry as a whole still manages to come together to bring new talent into the fold, for the sake of the industry overall, to prevent existing stars hoarding all the good parts, leaving the well of new stars to run dry.
The Dems have not learned how to balance the competition between politicians in their stable with fostering a system of bringing in new talent. They’re overly reliant on dynastic politics instead — Clintons, Kennedys, Bidens, etc. Trusted names over fresh new faces. Everyone’s loyal to their tribe.
I’m with Arty here. The Democratic Party are absolutely pants at developing new talent with a broad base of support. Viable national candidates don’t magically appear, they have to be developed over years – decades really. Because politics is a brutal pastime with a high cull rate, that means you need to be developing multiple candidates at once for any given future cycle, and have a pipeline of them. As an outsider looking in I haven’t seen a potential candidate that made me think America would be doing well if they got that person since Obama (and in many ways he was a disappointment).
The Republicans are better at playing the strategic long game at every level of politics both internally and externally. Just a shame they don’t use it for true National and International good.
I just don’t see any point fretting or arguing that Biden is the wrong candidate. It was obvious four years ago that barring death knocking at his door he would be the next candidate. Politics is the art of the possible. Change candidates now and all you’re telling the electorate is the Democratic Party has no idea what it’s doing. Focus on beating the shit out of Trump and every other position up for election down the ticket to dog control and school board.
In fairness, the Republicans had four years to do the same (and had a ludicrously expensive primary with no real result). None of their (supposed) hopefuls were likely to be good for the country but since they had to win the presidency at some point it was preferable that they do so with a sane and younger candidate. Both parties have shirked their duties.
This however was an unforced error and it was one we were all hoping to avoid. They did nothing and continue to refuse to do anything.
I’d argue that the modern Republican Party got exactly what it wanted – Trump. The old conservatives who might once have been respected have either left (if holding to some sort of moral compass), or are in hiding and going along with MAGA (if craven). The MAGA true believers now have absolute control of the GOP and have achieved what they have been working towards for generations – stacked SCOTUS that is giving them the ability to hurt people they don’t like. y
Yes, I know that work started before MAGA, but MAGA is just a logical progression of what has been coming since forever that with Trump reached its flowering.
Aw go on, Arty, who is she?
[…] a comment by Artymorty on How it […]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rachel_McAdams
We did not stay in touch at all after she moved out. My other roomates, however, did. I confess: she was an absolute delight, and I was the asshole. I was never overtly mean to her (that would have been impossible; she was so sunny and bright and funny and nice) but I was… distant. I made an obstinate point to not befriend her. I can’t quite explain, but in my mind it had to do with her seeming incredibly perfect and me being still in a punk, resentful kind of teenage outcast mindset (despite being 23 at the time).
Her genuine, sincere pleas of concern and anxiety over her imminent fame registered all wrong to my cynical ears: “OMG you guys, I’m about to get super famous and I’m super scared about it! I need normal friends and a sense of normalcy before everything goes crazy! Can we just do normal things?!”
She meant what she said in all sincerity and candidness, with an open heart. And it turns out this young woman’s terror of being thrust into the Hollywood monster machine was absolutely accurate, and she would almost immediately end up in a controversy when she refused to go topless under pressure from a photographer from (if I recall correctly) a Vanity Fair photoshoot, and she held to her principles.
But before all that, before her celebrity exploded, when we were just roomies in a big house full of artists and college kids, her schtick registered as narcissism and vanity to my ears, and I failed to sympathize with her situation. I look back and it was all me, the jerk. She was a genuine, sincere person looking to make friends in a very strange circumstance, and I was just too jaded to empathize. And if I’m being perfectly, completely honest: her radiant beauty and her charisma and her charm somehow increased my cynicism. Which is sexist as hell. I learned a lot of lessons from that. I owe her many apologies.
She was gracious to the very end: even though I was cold to her during our few months living together, she gave me a beautiful gift when she moved out. I never spoke to her again, and she doesn’t say hi when we pass each other on the street, which happens here an there, because she still has a house in downtown Toronto.
I believe that Rachel McAdams ticks all of the boxes. Coincidentally, she comes from my own home town of London, Ontario.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rachel_McAdams
I’ll profess to some level of vicarious curiosity, but not for us to impinge on others privacy I guess.
What I would say Arty, is that you’re someone who always comes across as very self-aware and prone to reflection and self-analysis. You clearly regret this past interaction. For what the opinion of some random internet guy is worth, next time you pass her, stop, remind her who you are and express regret. Worst that can happen is she ices you. More likely she’ll be polite (maybe not even remember), and 30 seconds later you feel just a bit lighter.
Oh dear. That’s a sad story. I think we all have those “God I was such an ASSHOLE” stories memories regrets. I certainly do.