Mewis
4mo ago
Man who isn't President doesn't die. Is this what passes for Things Happening these days?
Mewis
4mo ago
The rules of the Democrat Party are just made up - they're not the Constitution or even the law.
The only thing actually constraining them is deadlines to get on the ballot. But in the past, states have been quite generous about accommodating the two big parties.
Mewis
4mo ago
Watergate was a manifold, confusing mess that unfolded mostly ignored by the American public. Then suddenly exploded. Nixon was around in politics for over two decades before his enemies in the press finally got their killshot. You're right to wonder if such a thing could exist for Trump, or could be found. I say it could. Trump is a fat, ugly, crude slug of a man, crooked, has terrible policies even from the perspective of the Right.
Biden is not going to get younger, but he'll have good days and bad days. I suspect hiding him away is doing more bad than good - egoist politicians like Biden draw strength from rallies, not from being sequestered with aides and drilled. But then, every hour Biden spends out of his cloister is a chance for him to shit his pants, and if the guy gets too excited he might actually try a pushup contest. I reckon Biden might have one more performance in him, even if it's his last, and if he can perform in the next debate he might get away with weaseling out of the third.
As for the economy, it's as much a matter of vibes and animal spirits as it is real data. On paper, as you say, there is not much room for improvement, but that's not how people feel and that could change.
Mewis
4mo ago
I think Trump is not unbeatable, even by Biden. Biden could pull out very convincing performances in the next two debates. Trump could get clobbered in one of his many trials. The economy could upturn. All of these things are maybes, and there's no reason there couldn't be bad news for Biden. But there is a narrow but plausible road to the presidency.
I'll remind people that for months - basically the whole campaign, in fact - Hillary Clinton, supposedly the worst election candidate ever, led by similar margins over Trump. Where is she now?
Mewis
4mo ago
Oh, for sure Kamala has a chance. Trump is himself, unpopular and difficult to like, and if not as far gone as Biden clearly is is definitely slowing down.
Mewis
4mo ago
Kamala Harris is a little bit wasted as veep, when she would be better suited to a more significant role like daytime talk show host or fun aunt. As President? She seems clueless. She's never won anything like a competitive campaign, she has California cooties, and though being Black And A Woman impresses Democrats, it doesn't impress anyone else. She will also need to own the unpopularity of the Biden administration. I would rate her chances as better than Biden's, but worse than Trump's.
Mewis
4mo ago
It's certainly within plausibility that Labour could be pro growth. The past years have been so bad that there's a lot of low hanging fruit, and in theory Labour have the ability to push through controversial changes. But at the same time, Labour is still enthralled by the Blairist civic religion of government, human rights and environment. They retain the primal socialist fear of someone, somewhere, being rich, and the liberal love of bureaucracy and process. Will anything actually happen? I think it is more likely that any ambitious project will be frustrated by endless judicial reviews, stakeholder consultations and activist action.
The median Labour activist isn't optimistic or resilient. They're bitter, envious, and neurotic. They despise most of the electorate, they despise success, they despise the country. The Tories insulate themselves from reality with a cloud of sunny complacency, but Labour wrap themselves in misery and cynicism.
Mewis
4mo ago
I think this needs to be said for the sake of those living in the US bubble - the American electoral cycle is very, very unusual. Unusually long and unusually structured. Note that in the past month, both the UK and France have held national elections, had full campaigns, and are now ready to vote. The months and months and months of campaigning and rallying and debating and convening are just not necessary to anything. And I tell you that four months is actually plenty of time for the Democrats to pick a candidate and sell them to the American population, that having the Democrats actually discuss who might be a good President will work better for them than just expecting everyone to get in line for Biden because his turn isn't over yet.
An open convention isn't chaos. It's exciting. It's drama. It's the antithesis of the top down process that gave us Hillary and Biden. It's the antithesis of the control mentality that tried to hide Biden's incapacity until it was too late.
Mewis
4mo ago
Newsom has the very real baggage of being the governor of California. My impression is that among many Americans, California is disliked, at least on the level of politics, and seen as a model of bad state government. I'm open to being corrected.
Mewis
4mo ago
These things usually don't matter, until they do. Trump was the first presidential candidate in decades to win his primary without endorsements, and to become president without experience in any elected office. Debates usually don't move the needle much, or in a permanent fashion... Until now.
Lots of voters have expressed concern over Biden's age. Lots of Democrats have. And so far they've done an alright job of sowing doubt about the veracity of that claim. So to see him, mumbling and stumbling, makes a difference.
Mewis
4mo ago
People can age differently - and when decline comes it can come very fast. Biden wasn't like this two years ago.
Mewis
4mo ago
I'd be more worried about a dementia patient failing to launch nukes than doing so accidentally. People with dementia act bizarrely but not randomly.
Mewis
4mo ago
Personality is important. So is policy. For all that Trump is based and chad, his inability to grasp policy has prevented him from getting much done. And yeah, part of that is being able to use technical language. That doesn't mean that they need to be able to rattle off trivia like an Aaron Sorkin character, but it does mean they need to know the difference between Iraqi immigrants, Iranian insurgents, immunocompromised indigents, industrial incentives and indignant indigenes.
Mewis
4mo ago
This is just the Age of Twitter working. The consensus emerges very rapidly and takes hold.
Mewis
4mo ago
My understanding is that Biden is, personally, an incredibly stubborn person and prickly about his ability or lack thereof. that's not unusual for a politician, but I don't know if anyone could do this.
The issue is not that him being removed from the candidacy looks bad. It's better to admit a mistake and fix it than to soldier on. The issue is that it raises the question - who the fuck is running the country today while Biden is apparently unable to carry a conversation?
Mewis
4mo ago
Biden was not selected democratically (a great deal of maneuvering was done to give him a royal road through the primaries) in the first place. And bemoaning the lack of democracy now is silly. If Trump was hit by a meteor tomorrow, would that be antidemocratic, in that it would deny many people their favoured candidate?
Mewis
4mo ago
To be more specific I usually have mine plain. I find sweetened yogurt disgusting,quite aside from the absurd sugar content, but greek yogurt is a bit hard to eat because it's so thick, and there are very few brands available that just do plain yogurt. But then I'm a plain eater.
Mewis
4mo ago
I also had an adult circumcision. Sensitivity does definitely reduce over the long term.
Mewis
4mo ago
I am exceptionally lazy about breakfast, beyond my typical laziness about food. So I usually just wolf down some yogurt. I do it for the sake of weight gain because I rarely get hungry before mid morning and could wait until lunch.
Mewis
4mo ago
I hate running and cardio in general, but my experience with physical jobs is that any kind of physical job massively affects my weight. My last job had me lose about 5kg in five weeks, and I've had times before where I've found it nearly impossible to gain weight while working.
It's also something that bothers me about CICO dogmatists - CO is a huge black box, and so it doesn't end up explaining or predicting weight change.
Mewis
5mo ago
The Constitution says no more than 2 consecutive terms. Since three is more than two, he can't have a third consecutive term. Unless I am misled there is nothing at all said about nonconsecutive terms.
Mewis
5mo ago
It would be his 3rd consecutive term. I don't think it would be constitutional. He could run again in 5 years, however.
The prospect of a President or major party candidate being assassinated is in 2024, positively quotidian, to the point where the real story isn't even the assassination but that it might improve Trump's chances of being reelected. Not news but drama.
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