Biden v. Trump - God help us all
81) I know I’m late to the party in confessing/acknowledging this, but I can’t believe Trump might actually be President again!
I clearly have not been paying enough attention to President Biden and how he moves. This is exactly why I watched the whole debate on Thursday night. Granted, I was an hour late when I started it, but I still watched it from start to finish (thanks to live rewind). But, that debate was a disaster for Biden.
And, while it was too painfully obvious to me how bad Biden was, I still feel this need to read all the commentary about how bad it was. Almost as if I need confirmation, or I’m hoping that somebody else’s pair of eyes showed something else. Nope! It was just really really really really bad for Biden!
Biden is a shadow of himself. This is the most obvious thing in the world — and it was obvious before tonight. Seriously, go ahead and watch clips comparing Biden’s 2012 debate performance against Paul Ryan or even one of his 2020 debates against Trump to virtually any of his recent prolonged public appearances.
Republicans, predictably, have begun to weaponize the issue and if Biden remains on the ballot, Democrats ought to be deeply worried about an “October surprise” in which Republicans simply run clips of Biden then compared to Biden now.
- Nate Silver
There is a very good reason why I have been sticking to NBA writing lately. There is way less volatility and unpredictability within that institution than our political ones.
Over the last few months, whenever I start drafting something new on politics, there’s been a substantial turning point that will largely invalidate what I wanted to write. First I wanted to write about Speaker Mike Johnson, and how he seemed to be an honest broker, despite his conservative politics. Then squashing all good-will he earned among Democrats, *Speaker Johnson went out and rallied for Trump outside of a NYC courthouse, essentially parroting the former President by calling the judicial system rigged.
*Of Course Speaker Johnson is only next in line after VP Harris to be President. If a tremendous calamity were to happen, and he needed to be President…
Prior to this first Presidential debate taking place on a most peculiar date, I wanted to write about all the reasons why Trump is actually quite vulnerable heading into this election. Clearly Biden’s Team knew what it was doing (or so we thought). Many people noted that doing the debate before either party’s nominating conventions, is a good insurance policy on Biden’s candidacy.
Looks like Democrats didn’t buy enough insurance.
Biden couldn’t even pass the basic test of looking Presidential. He literally looked like a frail old man that put on his Sunday best before escaping his nursing home. This is the leader of the free world?
A few days prior to this first debate, my father, who himself is a bit frail and who is only four months older than Joe Biden, said to me “Joe Biden is in such bad shape, that I could do a better job of running the country than him”.
For the record, my father honestly couldn’t. Even if I thought my dad sounded like a hater, after the debate was over on Thursday night, I realized how much more attention my dad has been paying to this circus than I have.
This was a good autopsy of the debate by Jon Stewart. Hard to believe this comedian looked more Presidential then anyone else I watched wearing a suit and tie that night.
Again, I clearly wasn’t paying that close attention until that night’s debate. I was curious to watch it, and not just read the transcripts and/or the analysis, as I wanted to know what was going to happen.
I also was curious to find out what might transpire, especially given how one of the foremost experts on election modeling published his new findings a day before this debate.
Nat Silver’s most recent forecast model had Trump’s odds of beating Biden as 66% to 33% (Updated on June 29th)
Prior to Silver’s most recent election model I really thought that this was more of a toss-up race with a slight thumb on the scale favoring Biden given all the baggage Trump has been carrying.
The number of stories that have come out just in the first twenty-four hours after the very first Presidential Debate, explaining why Biden should now drop out, pleading with him to drop out, isn’t even astonishing. What’s kind of incredible is how so many of these publications appeared to have a draft ready with the knives out, telling Biden that he needed to go. This is not a new epiphany, here.
How has political malpractice become such a norm for the Democratic Party? This is the party that time and time again has acted so virtuous against the Republican Party, *shaming them for their political malpractice.
*It’s very hard for shaming the GOP to be effective, when their guy Trump is completely shameless.
Honestly, the GOP has been way smarter in completely leaning into their malpractice. In fact, the Republicans have been so effective at it they aren’t even a conservative party anymore, but rather they are a radical right-wing, party.
The Democratic party is still the party that sputters out of control.
I wouldn’t classify myself as a former true-believer in Biden. But, I was a true believer when it came to the Democratic Party doing its due-diligence to make sure that our institutions could withstand another Presidential election with Trump on the ballot.
With inflation largely under control, abortion being a winning issue, and a convicted felon who also was the leader of a capitol insurrection, this Presidential race should be too hard for Democrats to lose.
ON THIS 30th DAY OF JUNE 2024, THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY IS MAKING AN INCREDIBLY WINNABLE ELECTION LOOK WAY TOO EASY TO LOSE!!!!
Maybe it’s Chicken Little Syndrome, or maybe it’s the decline and fall of Western Civilization. But, these are going to be an incredibly anxious next four months, heading into another dreaded and tumultuous November Presidential election.
-JPJ
Voters want alternatives to Trump and Biden. I don’t know anyone excited to vote for Biden. They are actually dreading it. The most successful presidential election in my lifetime was 2008. Obama won 365 - 173. He beat McCain by nearly 10,000,000 votes!
Did he win because people wanted to vote against McCain? No, they wanted to vote FOR Obama. It’s about enthusiasm and turnout and there are many young leaders from swing states who could do better than Biden. Imagine the contrast they would have against Trump? Biden was doing terrible before the debate. He was losing young people left and right.
We are voting for someone to be President for four years. Imagine Biden two years from now and what those midterms will be like? And you know Trump will not concede the election, we have to beat him overwhelmingly.