A series of unfortunate events:
Bernie Sanders Urges Joe Biden to Remain in the race - Weeks after Biden's disastrous debate performance, calls for his resignation from the ticket were coming from every quarter of the Democratic and Media establishments. (From the Republican quarters, not so much.). While Biden himself and his organization gave no indication of any intention to comply with the elite consensus, representatives of a certain contingent of earnest resigned Biden voter kept showing up in public forums to complain about the machinations. It was true: every 3rd tier democratic operative you've never heard of and editorial board joined in on a chorus respectfully thanking Joe Biden for his service but raising intimations that perhaps it was time for him to pass the mantle to the next generation of Democrat (or better yet, younger) to a clamor. In response to the commandeering of the ticket post primary season by a coterie of professional pols and pundits (and speaking on behalf of the bewildered stalwarts complaining of a need to stick not necessarily with Joe Biden as with the wisdom of primary voters), Bernie Sanders's appeal to leave things as voters think they left them this spring makes a populist kind of sense. Biden's steadfast refusal to leave the ticket in any hands other than his own has for the time being caused some of the clamor to mute. Still for about 10 minutes this weekend, before Joe put his foot down in Michigan and before the nasty incident at Trump's rally in Pennsylvania, I couldn't help but find myself daydreaming about the difference it would make in an otherwise dismal election year to have some new exciting juice replacing Biden's iron-poor blood at the top of the democratic ticket. It didn't last. It never does.
Trump Iconography Enhancement - I’m hoping the full account of what transpired in Pennsylvania this weekend comes out soon to militate the assured sympathy vote. It’s almost a little too perfect. How did just the ear get clipped with semi-automatic fire? Lucky motherfucker? Or did Jesus intervene? Suffice it to say the annoyance factor of campaign 2024 continues to pile on.* (If Biden had left the ticket by now would Trump's ear be intact?) Before the Trump incident, I watched a debate between Cenk Uygur and Allan Lichtman on whether Biden should drop out. Lichtman (one of those perennial NPR and PBS consultant types) is the guy who developed 13 “keys” that he claims are more predictive than polls. He’s predicted every election since 1980 except 2000 (for “excusable” reasons) — in 2016 he thought Trump would win the popular vote too; otherwise he’s been spot on. Lichtman insists Biden’s keys favor him. The two strongest of them for Biden this year are incumbency and an uncontested primary <easy... count to 10...> neither of which would transfer to Kamala Harris (or any other replacement) if Biden merely exits or is expelled from the race. Lichtman is so beholden to his keys that he thinks the best way to replace Biden on the ticket would be for him to resign the presidency so that incumbency could transfer to Kamala through proper channels. Uygur has been predicting a Trump blowout for a long time—it’s why he ran for that brief moment back in winter—and he’s of course urging the dems to switch to somebody-- anybody-- whose brain is not half gone (to use Uygur’s words.) And of course Biden doubled down on remaining the candidate. For about 5 minutes this weekend, before all of that I was daydreaming about a shake-up in the dem ticket generating some deserved excitement as the only means of deterring a Trump victory. I’m hopeless now. I wonder if any of Lichtman’s keys got re-set by Trump’s propaganda windfall.
Project 2025 Comes Out of the Closet - Kevin Roberts, president of the anti-American Heritage Foundation, the main architect and steward of Project 2025 recently explained on Steve Bannon's podcast the high hopes that he and his cohort have for what a Trump re-election will mean: "...we are in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be.” I have 0 respect for Dems—nevertheless, it’s looking like it’s once again for the third election in a row either the Dems or Trump; and Project 2025 underlines for me which of those 2 has to win, whether the name on the ticket is Joe Biden or Howdy Doody. (At least this is the panic I find myself in lately.) I am less and less convinced that my panic is a) typical and 2) necessarily warranted, as I realize I might be more panicked than necessary due to problems of personality, intellectual shortcoming and character in myself that are exceptionally egregious. But as of today I can’t see myself, given the incredibly flawed system we have, not voting against Trump, which I equate with voting Dem. I also think, and could be wrong but I’m feeling more and more like the way to stick it to the duopoly (this duopoly, the American anti-democratic system of elite maintenance of itself) is really to commandeer one and or both of the parties and force them to bend correctly to the people’s will. This strikes me as a more realistic and productive way to fritter our time until the sortition revolution than offering a third party as a landing (and dying) place for the votes of the malcontented.
J.D. Vance for Vice- Trump is officially nominated and has named former hillbilly, Trump skeptic/explainer, and venture capitalist J.D. Vance of Ohio as his running mate. Vance is a horrible muppet of Peter Thiele, but in light of everything else this has the impact of a grain of sand thrown into an abyss.
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| Do you count 8 of Lichtman's keys that apply to Biden in his present state v Trump? I don't. Even if you grant that Dems did not allow a contentious primary, a primary is a rather arbitrary time frame. There is contention now for Biden's removal from the ticket. |
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