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PaperclipPerfector  4mo ago (text post)   38813 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 15, 2024

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I would just like to say the whole thing is bullshit. The sole reason he should drop out is because he isn’t fit for office. It would be illegitimate to drop out solely because “the polls are bad.” There was an election to determine a candidate. The pick was bad but the pick was made. Now the candidate drops out? Like I said only makes sense if Biden can’t serve the office.

I am (unreasonably often) subjected to MSNBC as my wife is a diehard Democrat. The hagiography of Biden as the most selfless hero to ever walk the planet is absolutely mind-boggling. Normally I try my damnedest to keep my mouth shut but I was cooking dinner and I couldn't help myself. Usually, I can rationalize where people are coming from, but the sheer effrontery to claim that he was somehow a great president with a great career is so counter to reality that my brain just shut down for a minute. I'm going to have to crank up the music in my home office even louder than usual for the next 4+ months.

It’s honestly a pretty easy case to describe him as a great or at least above average president if you’re a general democrat ideologically.

For example Noah Smith here:

https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/the-positive-case-for-joe-biden

I'm going to have to crank up the music in my home office even louder than usual for the next 4+ months.

Protip: Closed door + white noise machine + earbuds + music completely drowns out all other noise.

A boring dystopia.

It’s distressing how, even while confined to a corner of his own home, that he still can’t have quiet enjoyment and/or a peaceful working environment, and might possibly need 4+ layers of sound-barriers to manage MSNBC/wife noises.

Yes, I am usually either listening to music with headphones or playing guitar. The wife asked if I would prefer CNN and I of course said yes. So I sat for an hour or so and tried to read a book while it was on. On the plus side, they did have a few people in touch with reality which was mildly heartening. But I can't take four months of this.

Have you asked your wife to simply not watch the news on the TV (eg watch with a screen that can have ear buds)? Seems like a reasonable request (as I’m sure she wouldn’t like it if you watched 4 hours a day of some political show that she didn’t like).

Eh, this is one of those things that I will just deal with as part of married life. Otherwise she's honestly great. And I'm exaggerating my discomfort a bit - I will simply retreat to my office (where I prefer to be 90% of the time anyway) and we'll deal. Yesterday was an outlier with all of the news and Harris hype.

4 months? you wish. It'll 4 years of this if Trump wins.

I pretty much lost my mind after 5 years of incessant anti-trump deranged news.

This feels like a right-wing talking point to damage the lefts brand of being for Democracy. Biden dropping out today is a proper response. The crime here is not that Biden is dropping out today it’s the cover-up for atleast the past 6 months.

"Biden cover up" doesn't hold any water imo. Anyone with eyes could see his stiff shuffling walk and his doddering manner of speaking and draw their own conclusions. People believed what they wanted, and CNN et. al. gave them the respectable cover they needed. Even Scott apparently wrote a post about how it was the Republicans' fault he couldn't recognize it himself sooner.

"No the president is perfectly fit for the role," is simply what I expected any DC Democrat to repeat over and over, because of course, and so I'm not shocked or even mad that they did.

Yeah, it’s very hard for family members to accept dementia in their loved ones. Plus the voter deserves some of the blame for electing them.

Bottom line, the democrats and Biden have done the right thing here, they have de-clownified the world a little. It’s a low bar, but one I am not sure republicans could clear, if Trump was as decrepit.

They did, in the narrowest sense, the partial right thing for the wrong reason. The right thing was never to run him. The next best thing was to fully force him out (since he clearly can’t be president today).

And again, they did them because they thought they’d lose. Which tells us that if they thought it gave them an advantage, they’d happily embrace the dementia patient currently residing at the WH.

I award no points to the democrats.

I award some points to democracy because a monarchy or dictatorship would definitely be stuck with Robinette I the Senile.

Do you think the republicans could force an equally-impaired Trump to renounce earlier? I don’t.

  • Trump is more stubborn

  • Personality cult around him is stronger

  • Loyalty and respect for elders are right-wing values

  • Maga siege mentality

The republicans did with J6

The republicans stopped Trump from taking the crown after J6 because he’s senile?

And to follow up, again if Biden resigned today I wouldn’t be as upset. It’s that the reason for dropping out is allegedly the polls; not his pudding for brains.

Thanks for the kind remarks /s

This is one of the worst gotchas in the history of gotchas. I can’t believe people keep saying this. He’s fit for office for a few months, he’s not fit to simultaneously run a campaign or for office for four more year. There, I just drove a truck through the widest needle in the universe.

No. He is obviously not fit for office today. He hasn’t been fit for office for at least a year. He can’t put two sentences together.

This is one of the worst gotchas in the history of gotchas. I can’t believe people keep saying this. He’s fit for office for a few months, he’s not fit to simultaneously run a campaign or for office for four more year. There, I just drove a truck through the widest needle in the universe.

It's not a "gotcha," though, it's a serious question about predicting the future. The reasons we have to believe that Biden is "not fit to simultaneously run a campaign or for office for four more year" are the same reasons we had to believe that four years ago, and two years ago, and six months ago. What has changed now isn't Biden; what has changed now is that the Left has been forced to accept that these reasons are not "cheap fake videos."

It's hard to get people to change their minds, but it's not impossible. The weight of the evidence has long been against Biden's mental competence, but for a while there people could do the political thing and ignore that evidence as cheap political tactics. The problem is that now we can look back at all the evidence and see that it wasn't cheap political tactics; if it had been, then there would be no new reason for Joe to drop out now. Trump almost getting assassinated did not change Joe's mental fitness. Trump dominating the debate did not change Joe's mental fitness. If nothing has changed about Biden, then why drop out? If it's purely a question of trying to beat Trump, that makes strategic sense, but his withdrawal is not being phrased that way, either.

So we get this Schrodinger's excuse; the narrative is that Biden has decided it's time to retire for purely personal reasons, but also somehow that those reasons have absolutely no bearing on the remainder of his term in office. Those reasons are not new, and yet they are newly relevant, and which part of that narrative you deny depends on which political point you are trying to make.

It would be simpler to just be honest about it: he can't beat Trump, and that's all the Party cares about at this point. Whether Biden is mentally competent has never been the Left's concern; if anything, his lack of competence probably made him an easier puppet to ply.

Posters here and Vance are advancing the following logical argument: unfit to run implies unfit to be president for the next 6 months. It obviously doesn’t follow. You can argue about A and you can argue about B but A doesn’t imply B.

It obviously doesn’t follow.

But the same presently available evidence that supports the proposition "unfit to run" also supports the proposition "unfit for office." We don't actually know what Biden's mental state will be 6 months or 4 years from now. But the same evidence (from his speeches, debates, public appearances, etc.) that he won't be fit for office in six months, or four years, is also evidence that he isn't fit for office now.

If the same evidence supports both A and B, then discussions of A will naturally invoke discussions of B. Your ability to frame what is being argued in a way that does not logically follow is irrelevant to the arguments that do follow, and so your focus on this one particular framing looks like cherry-picking.

Would either American party preemptively defenestrate a President because of mental competence concerns? The Reagan experience in his second term suggests not, though I suppose one could argue Republicans have shifted to caring more about mental competence since then.

The Reagan experience in his second term suggests not

Not the same at all. Look at Reagan's press conferences in December of 1988...the dude obviously had command of himself and of detail.

Would either American party preemptively defenestrate a President because of mental competence concerns? The Reagan experience in his second term suggests not, though I suppose one could argue Republicans have shifted to caring more about mental competence since then.

No, I expect the "Reagan experience" is baseline; even the White House webpage has an entry praising Edith Wilson's handling of her husband's incapacity.

But the kayfabe is important; it may be the most important thing about the office of the President. When it falls apart, it is unlikely to fall apart selectively, in the way that is most politically advantageous for the people involved. That's what I'm pointing out here, I think, about "Schrodinger's excuse." Maybe it would be better put as "Schrodinger's dementia." The same evidence that supports Biden's withdrawal, supports his immediate resignation (or removal, or etc.).

An aside: interestingly, the first time the Edith Wilson page URL was saved on the Internet Archive was January 20, 2021.

https://web.archive.org/web/20210715000000*/https://www.whitehouse.gov/about-the-white-house/first-families/edith-bolling-galt-wilson/

I don't know if it's Schrodinger's dementia; there's a consistent position that looks something like "there's a baseline for mental competence; Biden is above it now, and two months ago we believed he would be above throughout his second term; the debate added new evidence to indicate he will not be above the baseline two years from now, but that he's still above it and would be throughout the remainder of his first term; so the change in candidate while Biden remains in office is perfectly reasonable."

This is pretty tenuous, to say the least, but it doesn't require holding mutually inconsistent positions. The issues in that argument are a willful misreading of evidence (both the debate and everything that preceded it) and a decision to choose a baseline in a very narrow, convenient interval.

Political considerations are, of course, what is driving this, not logical ones, but I don't think that's a surprise to anyone.

But how could one watch that debate, especially in light of other evidence, and conclude “he is fine now.”

Is there a theoretic argument that he is just above competency now but might not be in two years. But does anyone really believe that? Does anyone think they can calibrate that well? If Biden believes Harris should be the president, then why not give her the office given his advanced age?

It’s possible to believe that his decision making isn’t a particular concern but that his ability to speak under pressure is.

Personally I’m not afraid he’s going to cause some catastrophic error in the next 6 months, but I also don’t think he has it in him to effectively campaign especially while governing at the same time.

I guess in theory. But it wasn’t bad speaking; it was incoherence. And it wasn’t just a single speech. And it wasn’t just in speeches (eg wandering off).

I have a hard time imagining how someone could honestly conclude that, but then again I've thought Biden was obviously mentally incapable since long before the debate.

(And the same for Trump! To a much lesser extent: he roughly seems at the point Biden was in the mid to late 2010s.)

The whole purpose of a political party is to win elections. Biden isn't being forced out of office, he's stepping down as a candidate for reelection. While these specific circumstances are unique, it's not unprecedented for parties to not renominate a sitting president.

The fact that the Democrats already nominated Biden was a procedural and political problem for them, but if they convinced him to step down voluntarily, there is nothing "illegitimate" about it (though I understand why Trump supporters will be unhappy since it was obviously to Trump's advantage for Biden to stay in).

(though I understand why Trump supporters will be unhappy since it was obviously to Trump's advantage for Biden to stay in)

Not sure I agree with this or that the data does either. If there did exist 'Generic Democrat' waiting in the wings - a candidate everyone had been secretly hungry for in '20 that never threw in their hat - then maybe so. If Andrew Cuomo hadn't been MeToo'd and his corona press conferences in the windbreakers were everyone's last memory of him, maybe so.

But the democrat bench is structurally unsound to a degree that's been (imo) hidden by the conspiracy of silence surrounding the topic. The GOP in '16 (their last contested primary) had an embarrassment of riches, which the media lovingly referred to as the 'clown car.' Like 6+ popular governors running (Jindal, Perry, etc), some from non-traditionally safe republican states (Bush, Kasich, Walker, etc). All those guys are completely wiped out, granted, but the GOP has been consistently spitting out new guys like Vance, Hawley, etc for '28

The democrats have had exactly 1 clear-the-benches primary this entire century. '00 was smooth sailing for Gore, '04 for Kerry, '08 was Clinton-until-it-wasn't, '12 incumbent Obama, '16 Clinton-and-it-was.

But in '20 when the opportunity was ripe and it was all hands on deck, the democrats were running Joe, Bernie, Kamala, Warren, and the mayor of some town in Indiana. There was and is no Klobmentum.

Frankly, it seems to me as though their repeated decisions to 'clear-the-board' for their preferred candidate rather than the benches, the party may have cooked itself for the foreseeable future

  • Josh Shapiro won Pennsylvania handily and has great approval ratings.
  • Jared Polis is a popular two-term libertarian-ish gay governor of Colorado who got Covid mostly right and is still only 49.
  • Andy Beshear won re-election as governor of KY by 5 even while the GOP kept a supermajority of the legislature.
  • Joe Manchin has an ego the size of the Appalachians, and a history as an effective legislator.
  • Gavin Newsom has failed to actually fix anything in CA, but he certainly looks Presidential, has boatloads of money, and is quite glib.
  • JB Pritzker has all the money in the universe and has run IL like his own personal fief for a while; he might have higher ambitions too.
  • AOC will be eligible in 2028 and remains very vivid and high-profile (though I can't vouch for whether the progressive wing of the party still likes her)
  • Gretchen Whitmer is also someone people still talk about, though I don't understand why.

And that's just off the top of my head.

/u/Outlaw83 "Yup!"

Shapiro by admission quite publicly of democrat party elders is a no go because he's a Jew

Polis (he changed his name from Schutz a few years ago 'because he liked it better'), see above. Also he's gay. A gay Jew for VP?? Maybe we're there already and I'm even more wrong then I thought I was, sure, but...to put him up as a bencher is bizarre

The rest of the 'top of your head' is the same. Beshear put all the kids in masks, closed all the small businesses, released uncountable numbers of violent criminals, and the day before it was all challenged...dropped it all. Machin is not even a democrat anymore dude. Newsome has failed to actually fix anything in CA so hard he's driven literally millions of taxpayers to other states. Pritzker is a 400lb Hermaeus Mora tentacle figure who nobody besides the two of us even knows, and if they did, I doubt they'd be enthralled. AOC???? And people still talk about Whitmer because she faked a kidnapping plot.

Yup, this weird view the Democrat's have no bench just isn't true. Roy Cooper, Tim Walz, Mark Kelly, and others you haven't listed are also reasonable contenders.

The actual dirty little secret is the GOP bench is kind of bare, when it comes to people who appeal to the median voter - yes, there are plenty of candidates who win red states by 20, but outside of that, when it comes to swing state or blue state Republican's with any crossover appeal who have a chance of winning a MAGA-tilted primary, there's Brian Kemp from Georgia and that's about it, and even he has obvious issues with the whole "not going along with Trump after 2020."

The reality is, in 2028, if Kamala wins this time, and the ticket is say, J.D. Vance/Kristi Noem, I'll have zero worries about that ticket outside of a 2008-style economic collapse.

It's a shame that DeSantis flamed out so spectacularly against Trump - someone who can take a purple state and turn it blood red through competence and effective culture-warring, as DeSantis did in FL., would definitely belong on that list.

I’m not sure he is dead. If Trump loses, then he is the favorite for 2028. He lost due to the cult of Trump (RDS still had high favorables among the base—just they preferred orange man).

I hope you're right.

Oh, I am not saying the Democrats had a particularly better candidate. But Biden in his current state was about the worst candidate they could have - just about anyone else will give them more of a fighting chance. You are right that the Democrats have left themselves with no real good options.

It might be legal and make sense from the view of the party but it's pretty skeezy from just an average citizens pov. There is no time for any democratic process to be involved in picking a successor, which is pretty amusing from a party that is "saving democracy." Also, the polls are bad because he's senile. Staying in as the president while dropping out of the race and claiming it's just has to do with the polls conveniently ignores the context around the polls. They don't exist in a vacuum.

Of course there is something illegitimate about it. There was a process to determine a candidate. After that process was followed (and that process has been followed for decades now) the democrats decided “it was no longer in our best interest to follow the process.” They then used a lot of political pressure to force Biden out.

It would’ve been legitimate if the democrats did this during the primary. The whole reason why it is illegitimate me is they broke with decades old practice because they were afraid they’d lose.

It's not illegitimate for a candidate to withdraw. Was he pressured? No doubt. But who actually disagrees that, even if the polls weren't bad, he's not fit to be President for another four years?

I just don't believe anyone is honestly upset at any alleged violation of democratic norms. Notably, I don't see many Democrats complaining about this turn of events. I see Trump supporters mad that the Democrats found an "out."

Of course democrats aren’t mad. They want to win an election! But for the party to claim “democracy is on the ballot” and then through machinations reject the result of their election…it is rich.

Party elections are as democratic as the party wants them to be. "You ignored your own democratic procedures" is certainly a charge the Republicans can use against them as a talking point, but it probably won't get much traction because no one cares about the Republicans complaining about how the Democrats select their candidates.

Except no, it isn’t a private roll call. It is a weird mixture between private and public entity. The idea that this is solely an internecine conflict is weird. We as a country believe elections are good tools for figuring out the best candidates. The democrats on the one hand claim to believe this but on the other hand did an end around that process for their primary. Do they believe democracy is not suited for the task? If so, why for the general? If not, why isn’t what they are doing a national embarrassment as it may foist on the country an untested un-vetted candidate who easily could become president?

We had this discussion a few weeks back. Legally, political parties can use whatever process they like (that isn't illegal in itself) to select candidates. Including picking names out of a hat. Literal bribery and certain forms of influence are probably illegal , and in practice they try to do what makes them look "democratic" (and avoid pissing off the party faithful), but I fail to see what law you think the Democrats are breaking. Are they "hypocrites" for not being more "democratic"? I guess, maybe - see if that sticks. But it probably won't, because Democrats will see it as the concern-trolling it is.

And you aren't even clearly articulating how you think this "anti-democratic" decision came about. The actual problem for the Democrats was that there is no mechanism under the party's own rules for them to replace a candidate after he's been selected, even if the entire party leadership wanted to. That, you are correct, they couldn't have done without probably breaking some laws (or at least triggering lawsuits that would have sunk the party).

But the candidate can choose to withdraw. There could even be a good reason. Maybe Biden really does know his health won't last and he can't handle another election campaign - supposing for a moment he really believes this and is mentally competent to make that decision, would you claim he doesn't have a right to make it and that it's "undemocratic" for him to step down?

Now supposing it wasn't entirely his own choice - putting political pressure on Biden to "voluntarily" withdraw is also not against the rules. Does it strike you as sleazy and anti-democratic, reminiscent of smoke-filled back rooms? Maybe it is! Some Democrats might feel that way too. Still not illegal, and I suspect Democrats will generally prefer a chance at winning over your notion of what they aught.

Focusing again on legality! And again the point about legitamacy is multifaceted. It goes to hypocrisy. It goes to vetting (instead of a year+ there is now a few months to get the dem candidate). It goes to fair play.

I just don't believe anyone is honestly upset at any alleged violation of democratic norms. Notably, I don't see many Democrats complaining about this turn of events.

I don't think the violation of norms now is really a big deal, and it's a lot of R's concern-trolling. But on a more nuanced level, it is representative of an avoidable past failing.

Unless Biden suddenly became much worse timed exactly with the debate itself, (which is possible tbf), the issue is best summed up as "They didn't pull biden because he had dementia, they pulled him because the voters found out". The argument is that could have forseen this and pulled it when there was still time for a democratic process.

I think the correct response should be, it's not a big deal that they have to circumvent norms at this hour. But it is a big deal that it was allowed to get this late.

Suppose I urge everyone to go to the pool and shut down debate about alternative activities. Then, when we're at the pool, it starts thundering. We have to pack it in fast, and the bowling alley is next door so we go there without a vote.

Now when we get there, you find out that I had seen the weather forecast and knew there was a strong chance of storms. Simultaneously, you can agree with my decision to call it on the pool when the thunder starter, agree that once there, the bowling alley was the only logical backup, but still be very very angry with me for hiding the forecast.

I think the correct response should be, it's not a big deal that they have to circumvent norms at this hour. But it is a big deal that it was allowed to get this late.

Correct. But that's an issue for the Democratic party, and should be punished by Democratic party members and donors.

Nobody outside the Democratic party has any legitimate reason to care if Biden's team hid the truth from their supporters. (As opposed to caring that the President of the United States might have been unfit for duty.) Republicans saying "How dare you remove the senile old guy we were almost certain to beat?" is, as you say, concern-trolling.

I'm somewhere between you and zeke's objection on this. Closer to you, and think the concern trolling is phony. But I thikn the point about neutralizing the 'threat to democracy' rhetoric has some validity.

It is gross to criticize another’s motives when you don’t know.

Look, no one ex ante would say the Dems process was good or even legitimate. This shitty process has left us with the real possibility that Harris will become president. I don’t like many Dems, but there are some I can stomach (eg Polis). A normal process might have resulted in losing not being too bad. But now?

It is gross to criticize another’s motives when you don’t know.

If you think I was saying that you are concern trolling, I'm not. I'm referring to several online R personalities on Twitter and such. If you're calling my calling that out gross, then what can I say, you're heaping woke-scolding on top of your side's concern trolling.

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Democrats claim “we are the party of protecting democracy.” Yet their actions — taken from the big view — show they are full of shit. I don’t really care too much about democracy qua democracy but democrats hypocrisy on the issue is legitimate.

The other potential concern for republicans is that there can be a honeymoon phase for candidates. If playing this shell game benefits the Dems, the. Republicans are right to call foul play.

C'mon, both parties claim they are the party of democracy and America and puppies.

You can go for the "Democrats are hypocrites" angle, but no one's going to care since they didn't break any laws and unless you can prove someone literally held Biden's hand and forged his signature, they didn't even break their own rules. The candidate is actually allowed to withdraw, even if his opponents would prefer that he didn't.

If playing this shell game benefits the Dems

Yeah, there it is, the real issue. Of course you'd prefer the Democrats just lose, and of course they are going to look for a way not to lose.

You found me out! I want the Dems to lose. Yes. True. Every word. That doesnt mean everything the republicans can do from now until November is legit. I’m saying this is not legit; changing horses mid stream simply because you think you’ll lose is unprecedented and therefore presumptively illegitimate unless there is a good argument. So far, the only thing you’ve claimed is “the parties are about winning.” But that’s untrue — they are about winning within a system.

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I just don't believe anyone is honestly upset at any alleged violation of democratic norms.

Nobody is. The news is too fresh and they haven’t coalesced around the new talking points yet. They’re in the throwing stuff at the wall to see what sticks phase.

A party breaking with their own internal practices because they’re afraid they’ll lose is, again, the most legitimate action for a party to take because the entire purpose of political parties is to win. They only started doing “democratic” primaries like this since the fiasco with Hubert Humphrey, if they think going back to the smoke filled room this time around increases their odds of winning then why shouldn’t they?

After awhile, a norm is established. That norm should be followed.

But i reject the basic premise. This is like saying the sole purpose of a corporation is to create profit so if it is profitable to Jill people corporations should kill people. No — the sole purpose of a corporation is to make profit within a certain scheme and norms. Killing is outside of that scheme and therefore is not legitimate even if killing would increase profit. So to here — the party’s job is to win within democratic norms. Violating those norms to win seems illegitimate unless you are willing to bite the bullet and say “Biden isn’t fit for office including today.”

Political parties exist to win elections and gain power. If the party doesn’t think a candidate is likely to win then that’s the most legitimate reason for a party to force that candidate out.

See my comment Amadan.

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