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Culture War Roundup for the week of September 9, 2024

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This is a fair ... enough ... reason to vote, but my perspective would be that "rule by party" resulted in an orchestrated dishonesty campaign denying the senility of an elderly man endowed with the power of the office of the President.

When no single person is "in charge" and decisions can be made with a collective diffusion of responsibility, bad things happen.

As a partisan Democrat, my issue with Joe Biden was he could not win the election. He can still do the job of President, at the very least no worse than 2nd term Ronald Reagan, he just couldn't be President & run an effective campaign due to his age.

I think it might be worth examining your biases re: Ronald Reagan.

Here is a speech from Reagan towards the end of his second term. A balloon pops and he reacts on his feet, quipping "missed me", which causes the audience to erupt in laughter.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=2IGDYGroToY

Here's Reagan giving a 36 minute speech in 1992, four years AFTER the end of his Presidency.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=WxL3OU1dwmI

In this video we can see signs of decline, but he's still quite a bit more functional than Biden today. Will Biden be giving speeches at the 2028 convention? Will he even be alive?

There's a lot of sane-washing that's being done on Biden's behalf. People are trying to claim "both sides". It's simply not true. His current decline is far beyond what we've ever seen for a President.

The reason he could not win the election was that he is a senile old man, which impacts his ability to be president quite a bit as well.

Donald Trump is the main reason to vote Democrat, and Democrats are now the party of trusting the experts. I think Democrats mostly just want "their people" (the experts) in charge, and President Kamala is just a product of circumstance. If Kamala tried to exert too much autonomy, I think the party would remove her like they did Biden, or at least freeze her out and frustrate her efforts to do anything. It could happen quite suddenly, perhaps with some scandal that had previously been denied and ignored. I think Democrats would mostly be okay with this. There is very little talk about the previous dishonesty campaign, nor the fact that the US does not and has not had a functional President for a long time. That doesn't seem to be shifting anyone to vote differently, because they're voting for the party. Attempts to build a cult of personality around Kamala have been mostly astroturfed, and it has no staying power.

Trump is entirely opposite in this regard. Much of Trump's support comes despite the party. He does have a cult of personality. This is perhaps a much weaker ideological coalition, and I am concerned about what will happen when Trump's luck runs out the next time someone shoots at him.