I need your help. Please explain to me how we do not get djt 47. I do not see how this doesn’t happen on January 20, 2025. I’m certainly not happy about it.
Despite some successes (the infrastructure bill et al.), Joe Biden does not engender the necessary enthusiasm. The expected recession of 2023 did not take place. The inflation rate is down, but especially without those stimulus checks, it “feels” worse. (Frank S. Robinson explains “the big misunderstanding.”)
In 2011/2012, even when he seemed to be trailing in the polls, Obama could share his Spotify playlist and show how relatable he was. Joe is… Joe, grandfatherly, a policy wonk without the requisite swagger despite the aviator glasses.
October 7, the start of the Israel-Hamas war, has been a losing issue for Biden. Those who support Palestine feel betrayed by him. Specifically, Arabs and Muslims in places like Michigan have openly indicated that they will not vote for him in 2024 as they did in 2020. The Biden administration is navigating both support for Israel and the desire that the Israelis work to minimize Palestinian casualties. As someone said at a recent book talk, Joe is schmoozing. The problem is that neither position is palatable to a wide swath of voters.
Likewise, Foreign Policy magazine indicates that Biden has no good options in Yemen. “The decision to bomb the Houthis was likely the administration’s least bad path.”
The border crisis affects not just the border states but those cities where the migrants have been shipped to. Yet djt wants to scuttle bipartisan legislation to address the issue, and House Republicans might just fall in line to do just that.
Demographic slump
According to the polls, Biden’s job approval rating is down among black voters, especially the younger ones, even more than he’s losing Hispanic and non-Hispanic white voters.
It’s not that he’s too old to do the job, but he’s an old-generation public service guy who has been prone to malaprops for a very long time. An editorial in The Hill suggests that perhaps the President is a superager, “someone generally older than 80 who has cognitive and physical function higher than their peers, more akin to people decades younger — and argued that framing Biden in particular as “too old” is both ageist and politically motivated.
Meanwhile
Nothing that happens with djt seems to affect his core supporters. His presidency has been “defined by corruption, self-dealing, and abuse of power.” He fomented violent insurrection against democracy and called the criminals convicted for their actions on January 6, 2021, “hostages.”
His legal difficulties are part of his campaign. He uses the cases as “proof” that Joe and his allies are engaging in “election interference.” He’s practically begging judges to find him in contempt – see, “they’re denying me my right to participate in my defense.” A convicted sexual predator, also guilty of defamation of character, can win a caucus and a primary.
Maybe he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue in NYC, and it wouldn’t affect his voters, as he said eight years ago.
So, in some bizarre way, it seems consistent that his attorney would speak before the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals regarding djt’s claims of absolute immunity. He posited that “a President could order the assassination of his political rival and not ever face prosecution unless the House successfully impeached him and the Senate convicted him for that crime.”
As Major Garrett of CBS News noted, djt can and does run simultaneously as an incumbent, an outsider, and a victim. djt support is a movement. If he is elected again, he’ll abuse the office of the presidency and has promised to use the government to punish his enemies.
Hope?
Joe’s only positives are negatives: djt is an existential threat to democracy. djt put those three SCOTUS justices on the court to gut abortion rights and women’s health. Is that enough? I see 2000/2016 again.
If djt isn’t convicted of something criminal by November 5, I fear the outcome of January 6, 2025. If djt didn’t think he should have had to leave office on January 20, 2021, his supporters would think he should be reinstated four years later.
So tell me, how don’t we get the return of the Orange? Please tell me how I’m wrong. I’d LOVE to be wrong.
Not entirely unrelated, here’s the trailer for a new movie called Civil War. i have no plans to watch the film.
Southerners survived the Wallace era. So, we can survive djt? But, MAGA will be here even if djt drowned in his diet coke this morning.
Yet, I have to believe in the power of redemption because I have seen it transform time after time…If we can integrate surely we can communicate?
We endure. We keep acting because every act will feel too small by itself. Nothing big has ever changed without many, many small acts.
I keep telling myself that Americans don’t generally start to dial in, attention-wise, until the fall campaign fires up, and I can’t imagine they’ll suddenly finding themselves liking 45 *more* than they did when they rejected him the last two times. The fact that JB46 isn’t more popular is mindboggling to me, though…my personal theory is that it takes people longer after each recession to realize that it’s over. That’s a half-baked thought, though….