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Culture War Roundup for the week of July 1, 2024

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After the debate disaster, everyone's been talking about how it will affect the election and if he'll drop out. I want to ask something else: How fucked are we if any serious foreign policy crises kick off in the next 6 months? There's much to criticize in our current handling of the situations in Ukraine and Gaza, but at least they're not going totally sideways. Are those going ~neutral because they started before 'Ole Joe finally lost it? Was he already out of it then but the deep state had good plans in advance? Or is his current cabinet effectively making all the decisions as they go?

Do you think four more years of Joe as a figure head will play out roughly how the past 4 did in terms of foreign policy competence? Or do you think his decline is going to make things worse?

Before this debate I thought it'd be more of the same. At this point I wouldn't trust him to have a friendly chat with an allied leader. At this point the ship of state is effectively on auto pilot. Or drifting on momentum. How long it's been like this is an open question.

I think it would be entirely appropriate to remove him with the 25th Amendment at this point. The fact that no normies are talking about that scares me. Is everyone just quietly OK with not having anyone in charge? I think that while it would be best for the Republic, a removal would do even more electoral damage to the Dems than even the chaos of a hotswap. That's why we're not going to see it.

Do you think in the next 6 months it's possible the situation worsens enough that the 25th Amendment actually gets used? I think if there's another public meltdown like this around a crisis, it could get to that point. Call it 5% odds of removal without an international crisis, 20% with.

(First post, feedback appreciated)

Ukraine and Gaza are both proxy wars/supporting an ally, which the US deep state knows how to mismanage all on its lonesome. A major crisis like Taiwan which requires seriously high level decisionmaking is a different matter.

I think a lot of people overestimate how much power the US president has to dictate what happens everywhere else in the world. Trump himself did it during the debate - no, he can't just end the war in Ukraine with a phone call. But yes, a non compos mentis president (which I am not sure Biden is, but clearly he's heading there) is cause for concern. I'm more worried about China and Taiwan than Gaza or Ukraine.

I think removing him under the 25th might happen if he really does become unable to perform his duties to the point that they can't even keep him on task long enough to sign papers. Obviously if (big if) he wins reelection, they just have Harris step in at that point. No more worries about how "electable" she is. I think the Democrats will use every means available to avoid invocation of the 25th before the election. Even if he escaped his handlers and wandered naked into a press conference, they could still probably pass it off as "an episode" and keep him from being formally removed from office.

Keep in mind there's precedent for the president effectively not really being the one running things. It's obviously not how things are supposed to work, Constitutionally, but assuming he doesn't have to, say, manage a war, they can drag it out for a while.