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PaperclipPerfector  2mo ago (text post)   38672 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 15, 2024

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Biden got COVID and tweeted out this? Seeing a lot of people speculate that he's prepping to drop out of the race with the COVID as a pretense, but at the moment he still seems to be trying to play everything off.

https://x.com/JoeBiden/status/1813715902250017022

FWIW apparently that was a 2-part tweet, essentially saying he's sick of Elon trying to buy an election.

So not as bizarre as I initially thought.

Yes, although the optics of the jokey 2-part tweet about the matter are bizarrely poor.

IMO letting it be really obvious that he's letting the interns write the tweets is a bad look, especially given the widespread questioning of his competence. Jokes like that on social media are -- checks notes -- not something I'd expect someone of his current verbal wit to do, and don't seem very "Presidential" either.

It was pretty funny, but yeah, very obviously not him.

I agree.

Despite everything that has occurred over the last month, reading that tweet in particular was the most potent in making me feel like I was being spun into another reality, for some reason. I couldn't quite believe I was seeing it. That it actually tied into something more fleshed out was a slight relief, but not by much.

I had to check thrice it wasn't a parody account.

Do we know it’s Covid?

They apparently tested it.

Could be an excuse to either drop out, or to stay in and not do any more media events for a few weeks.

For many people (I imagine there is a large overlap with Bidens base) Covid is still as big of a deal as it was 3 years ago. They still post on social media about their Covid test results and have people respond about how they’re going to be okay and checking if they need anything etc. They still isolate themselves and talk about how they won’t go out until some number of negative tests etc.

I think Biden is going to use this as an excuse to drop out and still maintain some shred of dignity. To many of his voters, Covid was Trumps fault and I think to them this may play almost as something Trump is doing to Biden.

To many of his voters, Covid was Trumps fault

You say this as if it's not true. I thought it was common knowledge amongst the people who cared enough to look into it. In 2017, Trump lifted Obama's ban on gain of function research, and subsequently the NIH funded gain of function research on coronaviruses at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

Fauci has asserted repeatedly that Ecohealth Alliance and the Wuhan Institute of Virology weren't doing gain of function research. For what it's worth I think he is shamelessly lying. But it is a somewhat popular opinion to think that the Wuhan Institute of Virology had nothing to do with this.

This is not what "is Trump's fault" means in this context. To many Biden voters, Covid is Trump's fault in the sense that he is responsible for poorly responding to it.

Yeah, I don’t think Biden voters are willing to blame Trump if it also means blaming NIH and Fauci.

As an update, Chuckie is now calling for Biden to drop out. Massive.

So far the "collective amnesia in one week" predictions have not panned out.

Another congressman calling for Biden to step aside: https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2024-07-17/schiff-calls-on-biden-to-drop-out-citing-serious-concerns-that-he-can-win

Admittedly, I may have been too cynical. Biden's obvious mental decline is proving stickier post debate than I thought.

Edit: On further reflection, I think I was correct in how the Biden admin would try to manage it. Try to recover with some very selective, heavily scripted appearances where he has it at least as together as he did pre-debate. They clearly tried to execute on that, with the Holt interview and the "Big Boy" press conference. It's just not working. The vibe shift has been too much. The core of my post, that normies would be put back to sleep, seems to be false.

I guess I could double down, and say be patient, the regime will find the correct narrative xanax and the normies will resume their slumber. I can't rule it out. But that really doesn't seem to be the direction things are going. More over, all their "Trump is a unique evil that must be stopped by any means necessary" rhetoric suffered an enormous blow to it's effectiveness after the assassination attempt. All their dog whistles, or just overt statements, about how it would be justified to murder Trump to save Democracy got a lot too real, and people are recoiling. So that narrative xanax got flushed down the toilet too.

I donno. Maybe they'll still pull something out of their hat. But at this moment, my cynicism with regard to normies seems unfounded for once.

This is bad faith. Most of the "collective amnesia" arguments here on the Motte were talking about what would happen if/when Biden manages to secure the nomination. And the jury is still very much out on that.

Not sure how you go from "collective amnesia in one week" to "amnesia after the nomination". It's not bad faith just because the argument didn't pan out.

Trump shooting really should have been Biden's deliverance. If they're still pressuring despite that, hard to see him clinging on.

I still don't see the mechanism for turning "people saying Biden should drop out" into "Biden drops out". He's clearly intending to hang on and run the clock out till the convention. More people telling him not to do that is going to change what?

It's a convention challenge or a 25th amendment scenario, those are the options. No one is even hinting at them. So he stays.

I feel the continuing push from the party has to be indicative of somebody thinking there's a vulnerability there.

I don't think so. I think politicians say stuff with no intention or ability to actually change things all the freaking time.

It probably shows that more and more Democrats are making the calculation that it's better for their personal position to call for him to drop out than to keep pretending that he's fine.

That pivot has to have some correlation with perceived likelihood of him dropping out, though? There were whispers, they quietened a bit, and now they're back in action so I think there must be some sort of potential weakness displayed by Biden.

That pivot has to have some correlation with perceived likelihood of him dropping out, though?

I think it has to have some correlation with him doing badly. That could be dropping out or losing the election.

But if this is some managed kabuki theater before Biden steps down, I'd expect one of the names floating around to replace him to be solidified a bit before any of it actually goes down. Maybe I'm not plugged in enough, but that doesn't seem to have happened.

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so I think there must be some sort of potential weakness displayed by Biden.

The weakness displayed by Biden is that he hasn't responded, at all.

Your ace pitcher goes out and gets shelled. Ok, whatever, off night, it happens, no real impact on your perception of him. But then he goes out and gives up three runs in five 2/3 innings the next time around. Normal below-average outing, not reallly a sign of anything. But then he goes through two more starts and never makes it to the seventh inning. Now you're starting to wonder if he's lost his fastball.

I think Biden has been distinctly below average, but not notably so, over the time since the debate. If he had performed well at the debate, we wouldn't have any feeling that this represented a problem. But after the debate, he needed to come out and right the ship, and he hasn't. And a lot of people in the horse-race political media are saying "Why aren't the Biden people doing more?" And it's slowly becoming clear that they're not doing more because they can't, because he can't.

It is weird. If they didn’t come out and say anything, then isn’t the blame mostly with Biden? If they say something and Biden stays and loses, then isn’t some of the blame directed to them? Likewise if Harris replaces Biden and loses, isn’t some of the blame directed to them?

What is the upside play? I wonder if this helps somehow down ballot races.

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I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

This theory makes no sense. Everyone has had COVID and knows that it’s not that bad, especially if you have access to the best doctors and treatments.

Then again, if Biden’s doctors are as good as his SS he is as good as dead.

And Biden's not even masking. What a joke.

For one thing, Biden is really old, so his covid might not be as mild as most everyone else's. For another thing, I agree with what @Stellula says here. But I also want to add that while everyone knows Covid is not a big deal anymore, I don't think everyone will actively say that. It's not "common knowledge" as Scott likes to talk about. Everyone knows it, and everyone knows everyone knows it, but everyone doesn't know that everyone knows that everyone knows it, or something like that. And as such, it falls outside of the overton window to say that Covid isn't a big deal, and you can get people telling you you're an insensitive monster that's literally killing people if you say that.

And especially his critics will be sensitive about COVID, it's not like he's fighting Republicans at the moment.

He's actually in the age range where it's not negligible. I don't know if he will shrug this one off.

There is a difference between not negligible and a real problem. He is in an age range (and general poor health for that age) when most things can be non negligible risk.

But realistically covid isn’t a huge risk—not one that is big enough to cause him to drop out because of covid unless he was looking for any excuse.

Post-Omicron variants of COVID, in someone who is vaccinated or previously infected, are less bad than 'flu.

But 'flu kills people as old and frail as Joe Biden all the fricking time.

Between this and the almost-assassination of Trump, which missed by a few inches, lately we're seeing a lot of incidents where history hinges on the actions of one man in the right place at the right time. Whether Biden drops out of the race or not will ultimately come down to his own decision. That's kind of amazing. The fate of 300 million Americans in the hands of one man.

I strongly doubt that Biden runs his own Twitter account, though. He probably has a dedicated social media manager. I certainly hope he does. The POTUS has more important things to do than maintain his own social media presence.

I would usually be inclined to agree, but this particular tweet seems critically unaware of how Twitter works, in a way I'd generally consider much more characteristic of an old man with dementia than a social media team.

That would be really a weak tea excuse…

Basically in need to quit because I have the cold.

"I need to be 100% to campaign because of How Important This Election Is For America. If I'm not absolutely 100% because of Long COVID (which is totally a thing) I can't in good conscience take my party's nomination."

Even a months long cold should lead to a candidate dropping out.

It has the advantage over using senescence as a reason that he can get better later on, he can go to live another 6-10 years and not have admitted dementia.

Covid is actually a danger to octogenarians.

Is it though? Because excess death statistics in most countries don't seem to reflect that.

So is a cold…

You're thinking of the flu, which kills quite a few old people. And covid is worse than the flu. I don't know why right wingers want to downplay covid. Still sore about lockdowns impinging on freedoms in order to save lives, I guess. (Though I don't deny that lockdown regulations were often dumb and ham-handed).

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No im not. Colds can easily turn into pneumonia which is dangerous for someone in Biden’s state.

Covid after the omni variant significantly reduced its danger.

Also lockdowns didn’t save lives. Covid response was massively disproportionate to the actual disease.

It's a bit strange how well Sweden and Florida did so well without lockdowns. Especially given Florida's disproportionately old population. I would have naively thought lockdowns would have some measurable impact on infection rates.

Lockdowns decrease activity, increase isolation, and drive fear. Humans need to move and be social.

For general health and wellbeing yes. But for specifically a respiratory virus that's deadly to old people, no.

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Still sore about lockdowns impinging on freedoms in order to save lives, I guess.

Yeah, sure, the lockdowns were about saving lives — unless we’re talking about Black Lives, in which case lockdowns no longer work, since The Science said that mass gatherings in order to protest/riot (but only to do those things!) are A-okay.

I will never stop being “sore” about this.

(Edited to expand/clarify: after the shitshow of contradictory statements and lies that our experts subjected us to during 2020 (e.g. masks don’t work, until they do, oh wait only KN95s do but; mass gatherings are bad, unless you’re going to have a BLM march; the vaccine prevents transmission, until it doesn’t), many right-wingers adopted a stance of epistemic learned helplessness, and decided that they wouldn’t believe anything that comes out of these experts’ mouths. Yeah, this leads to dumb conclusions occasionally like “COVID doesn’t exist”. But it’s only a rational response to the maleficence of the adults in the room.)

I’m not saying covid doesn’t exist for the record. I’m saying its potency especially after numerous variants is low.

Not really, its more like getting the flu.

Regardless, if something simple as getting the flu or covid poses a serious risk to you, you have no business being the president or presidential candidate.

Blue Tribe still believe in the power of COVID, though.

No, not really, from what I’ve seen. A small subsection that is in the process of forming itseld into a tribe of its own does.

He's also 81 and obviously in poor health already.

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