The latest fear-raising fundraising letter from President Biden
I got another fundraising letter from Joe Biden and it’s a doozy. The words “extreme” and “extremist” are used a dozen times to describe MAGA Republicans. Other words used to describe Trump and MAGA include dangerous, threats, vengeance, vindictiveness, trample (“the American way of life as we know it”), and smashed (as in a MAGA movement that allegedly seeks to smash and destroy democracy).
Now, I’m no fan of Trump. He’s a con man, not a public servant, and I won’t vote for him. Even so, this Biden fundraising letter is the equivalent of promising a bloodbath if Trump gets elected again later this year.
I can’t recall a presidential campaign like the Biden/Harris effort. Its message is almost entirely negative. It’s based on fear. Fear of Trump, fear of MAGA, fear of “extremism.” There’s almost no hope and no promise of substantive changes for the better. It’s a singular message: Vote for Joe because Trump and his followers are very very bad.
This latest fundraising letter embraces Hillary Clinton’s rhetoric that Trump’s followers are irredeemable deplorables. It encourages Americans to fear their neighbors if they happen to wear a MAGA cap and support Trump. It stokes division rather than encouraging unity. And I simply don’t think it’s effective politics.
Biden’s message is simple: Vote for me because the other guy is even worse. Now I’m seeing claims from the Democrats that Trump is even more physically enfeebled and mentally confused than Biden.
If Biden loses this November, surely it will be due to a campaign that has no compelling and positive message to motivate and inspire people to vote for him. It’s just not enough, I think, to run on a message of fear.
Joe Biden versus Donald Trump, again. That’s America’s choice in 2024.
Biden is mainly running to “save democracy” from Trump as well as on abortion rights. Trump is running on a MAGA platform that includes stopping the flow of “illegals” into America. You’re going to hear a lot about Biden’s age and Trump’s alleged designs for a dictatorship.
It’s Biden versus Trump again!
The presence of third-party candidates might enliven the race. Jill Stein is running again for the Green Party. She has good ideas but virtually no chance. Robert Kennedy Jr. may cause some excitement. especially if he chooses former governor Jesse Ventura as his running mate. Americans, unexcited by the Biden/Trump repeat, could conceivably vote in large numbers for RFK Jr.
As grim as the Biden/Trump repeat is, it does capture the end of the American empire. I’ve been reading an interesting book: “The Leading Man: Hollywood and the Presidential Image,” by Burton Peretti. Image may not be everything for a U.S. president, but it surely is vitally important. Biden and Trump capture something of the essence of America today. Biden, obviously in decline, is thoroughly obedient to corporate and banking entities, special interests like AIPAC, and the military-industrial complex. He is the “nothing will fundamentally change” guy.
If Biden were a dinosaur, he’d be a steady, stolid, past-his-prime triceratops.
Trump, with all his bluster, his boasting, his bragging, his bullying, is the image of a swaggering imperium that refuses to recognize its time has come and gone. Self-involved, bent on vengeance, spoiling for a fight against his enemies, real and perceived, he is the image of an angry America blinded by perceived slights and grievances, always demanding respect rather than earning it.
If Trump were a dinosaur, he’d be a predatory, angry, carnage-seeking T-rex.
Trump and Biden frame the other as a danger to democracy when it’s the both of them who demonstrate democracy is just a sham. More than half of Americans said in 2021 they didn’t want to see a Biden/Trump rematch in 2024, but here we are. The DNC acted to ensure Biden had no real challenger and the RNC sold its soul to Trump, who has an ability to connect with people because he occasionally blurts out an uncomfortable truth, even as he’s spinning his usual con.
One thing is certain: It’s very difficult to reform entrenched power bureaucracies, especially when we’re given an illusion of “choice,” Biden or Trump. And when we’re so heavily propagandized to believe that we still have a democracy and that the biggest threats come from Russia and China.
As Yoda the Jedi Master once said, “You must unlearn what you have learned.” America needs to unlearn the idea that we’re a democracy, that we have choice, and it needs to learn the biggest threat to America is from within, partly our largely unaccountable government and partly a system that places nearly all the power in the hands of those with the most money.
How to effect a democratic awakening, without shedding barrels of blood, is a question for the ages. One thing is certain: no awakening is coming from either Biden or Trump. Both will ensure the further decline of the American empire; the problem is that, as empires decline, they tend to lash out militarily, in desperation, mistaking military action for a resurgence in strength and vitality.
Biden or Trump: Neither man has what it takes to manage the decline of the U.S. imperium. Neither man has the wisdom, the vision, the fortitude, to imagine a new path forward for America. Both men, in their own way, are dinosaurs.
It’s Triceratops Biden versus T-rex Trump. What drama! But both men are fossils—dinosaurs, after all, are extinct, much like democracy in America.
Biden, Shouting, Looks Good Compared to Cringe-inducing Republican Overacting
Let’s face it, the state of the union is scary. So should be the conclusion from last night’s disingenuous exercises in reading off teleprompters.
First, President Joe Biden. If the main qualification to be president is to walk without tripping, to stand for over an hour without falling, while reading somewhat fluidly from a teleprompter, I guess Biden is still qualified. I found this summary from Biden-friendly NBC News to be revealing:
Biden flubbed a few prepared lines and stumbled a bit during ad-libs — notably when he said drug prices in Moscow are lower than in the U.S. — but he belied the GOP caricature of him as an enfeebled old man who needs to retire.
“No one’s going to talk about cognitive memory now,” Rep. Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., told the president after he finished the speech and made his way out of the House chamber.
That was, of course, the idea when Biden’s speechwriters worked on the draft. The prepared text included 80 exclamation points — cuing Biden to when he needed to raise his voice and project strength. By contrast, there were no exclamation points in last year’s text.
Can somebody please tell me how cognitive memory is tested by reading from a prepared script? Also, can you imagine reading a speech with 80 (!) exclamation points embedded in it? No wonder Biden was shouting.
Incredibly, the Republican response was worse. Far worse! (Exclamation points are a virus.) Alabama Senator Katie Britt gave the response from a kitchen, but she couldn’t stand the heat of the moment. The speech was a master class in bad acting. It was so bad that it exceeded by light years the worst hamming of William Shatner in “Star Trek.” Judge for yourself:
If Katie Britt had spoken informally from her kitchen set about the rising cost of food, the difficulties of making ends meet, due to so-called Bidenomics, maybe she could have been effective. But this self-own was truly cringe-worthy.
Turning to content, Biden’s speech was replete with lies, half-truths, and misleading claims. Surprise! He’s a politician, after all. Lisa Savage does a great job of highlighting many of them here.
When all is read and done, America heard an experienced and angry old man competing with an amateurish younger woman over which one of them could mislead (certainly not lead) the American people best.
Oh for the days of JFK, Reagan, even Obama. At least they could deliver a speech. And without 80 exclamation points!
Today is Super Tuesday in America, where sixteen states go to the polls, including mine. At the presidential level, the expected winners are Joe Biden and Donald Trump, setting up a grim rematch of their 2020 contest, won by Biden, who campaigned mostly in Covid lockdown from his basement.
Down in the basement, we hear the sound of machines …
The revolution America needs, of course, isn’t going to take place at the ballot box. The big money and powerbrokers make sure of that. The DNC has acted to ensure a one-horse race for Biden, as Marianne Williamson has noted. Biden should perhaps be put out to pasture, if not sent to the glue factory, but the horse is not dead yet. Even if it stumbles to the finish line in November, losing to Trump, that’s still a win for the DNC, whose main job it is to ensure no progressive Democrat ever wins the nomination. No matter who wins in November, with Biden the DNC has already won.
On the Republican side, Trump should win easily over Nikki Haley, who’s basically a younger female version of Biden when it comes to fighting wars, kowtowing to Israel, and serving Wall Street and big finance. A conundrum in American politics is that a Con Man is the most genuine mainstream “big party” candidate, the one most likely to blurt out uncomfortable truths.
Speaking of Con Man Trump, he said something the other day that was so outrageously Trump that I had to laugh. Naturally, it was about immigrants (recall in 2015 how Trump said Mexico was sending drugs, crime, even rapists, to America, but “some I assume are good people”). This time he hit a Trumpian home run describingthe languages young immigrants speak in New York schools:
“Pupils [come] from foreign countries,” Trump explained, “from countries where they don’t even know what the language is. We have nobody that even teaches it. These are languages that nobody ever heard of.”
Something about “languages that nobody ever heard of” tickled my funny bone. OK, maybe if these young people were from previously uncontacted tribes deep in the Amazon rain forest, or perhaps from the lost island of Atlantis…
I know, maybe it’s not that funny, but if I couldn’t laugh I’d go insane, to quote the late great Jimmy Buffett.
America desperately needs a new generation of leaders
President Biden sees dead people. Recently, Biden resuscitated François Mitterand, the former leader of France who died in 1996. He’s made references to Helmut Kohl as being Germany’s leader in 2021 (he died in 2017). Yesterday, he tried to reassure Americans his memory is just fine; it didn’t go well, as CNN reported this morning:
President Biden in a speech forcefully rejected what he said were inappropriate and incorrect statements about his memory lapses. But just minutes after defending his cognition, the president misspoke and called President of Egypt Abdel Fattah al-Sisi the “president of Mexico,” a moment that undercut his forceful pushback against the report.
The report CNN is referring to is by a special counsel who investigated Biden’s illegal holding of classified information. The special counsel decided not to charge or prosecute Biden, partly because he believed a jury would sympathize with the president, seeing him as an old, forgetful man who probably made an honest mistake due to his deteriorating memory and cognitive skills.
Here’s how the British Guardian reported this yesterday:
Special counsel worried jurors would see Biden ‘as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory’
Special counsel Robert Hur wrote that he was concerned jurors would not believe that Joe Biden “willfully” kept classified documents, and that was one of the reasons why he does not think the president should face charges.
“We have also considered that, at trial, Mr. Biden would likely present himself to a jury, as he did during our interview of him, as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory,” Hur writes.
“Based on our direct interactions with and observations of him, he is someone for whom many jurors will want to identify reasonable doubt. It would be difficult to convince a jury that they should convict him – by then a former president well into his eighties – of a serious felony that requires a mental state of willfulness.”
Hur wrote that: “Mr. Biden’s memory was significantly limited, both during his recorded interviews with the ghostwriter in 2017, and in his interview with our office in 2023. And his cooperation with our investigation, including by reporting to the government that the Afghanistan documents were in his Delaware garage, will likely convince some jurors that he made an innocent mistake, rather than acting willfully – that is, with intent to break the law – as the statute requires.”
Special counsel Robert Hur wrote that in an interview last year, Joe Biden struggled to recall key chapters in his personal and professional life:
In his interview with our office, Mr. Biden’s memory was worse. He did not remember when he was vice president, forgetting on the first day of the interview when his term ended (“if it was 2013 – when did I stop being Vice President?”), and forgetting on the second day of the interview when his term began (“in 2009, am I still Vice President?”). He did not remember, even within several years, when his son Beau died. And his memory appeared hazy when describing the Afghanistan debate that was once so important to him. Among other things, he mistakenly said he “had a real difference” of opinion with General Karl Eikenberry, when, in fact, Eikenberry was an ally whom Mr. Eiden cited approvingly in his Thanksgiving memo to President Obama.
Biden’s lack of ability to remember things would make it hard to prosecute him, Hur said:
We also expect many jurors to be struck by the place where the Afghanistan documents were ultimately found in Mr. Biden’s Delaware home: in a badly damaged box in the garage, near a collapsed dog crate, a dog bed, a Zappos box, an empty bucket, a broken lamp wrapped with duct tape, potting soil, and synthetic firewood.
A reasonable juror could conclude that this is not where a person intentionally stores what he supposedly considers to be important classified documents, critical to his legacy. Rather, it looks more like a place a person stores classified documents he has forgotten about or is unaware of. We have considered – and investigated – the possibility that the box was intentionally placed in the garage to make it appear to be there by mistake, but the evidence does not support that conclusion.
*************
Box of classified documents stored haphazardly in Biden’s garage (FBI photo, 12/21/22)
Now, it’s certainly possible that some of Biden’s memory lapses were tactical in nature, i.e. better to say “I don’t remember” rather than to lie or admit a mistake that could lead to criminal charges. Still, there’s been plenty of evidence, over the last several years, that Biden is under increasing mental and physical strain due to his age, not surprising for a president in his early eighties.
My criticism is not so much directed at Biden as the DNC and media sites like MSNBC that tell us that Biden is doing just fine, that he’s still on top of his game, that we shouldn’t worry at all about reelecting a president who would be 86 at the end of his term. That, based on the evidence before us, is total BS.
Also, my criticism of Biden and his age-related gaffes does not imply an endorsement of Trump. Far from it. Trump is no spring chicken; though four years younger than Biden, Trump has a family history of dementia and recently confused Nikki Haley with Nancy Pelosi.
Outspoken as usual, Caitlin Johnstone may have put it best: “A Dementia Patient Is President Because It Doesn’t Matter Who The President Is.” Real change in America will have to come from us. The so-called Deep State isn’t about to allow the election of anyone with fresh perspectives and a truly populist agenda.
America desperately needs a new generation of political leadership. Both Biden and Trump should be passing the torch to younger public servants who actually want to serve the working and middle classes. The rich, after all, can take care of themselves.
For Democrats, it’s Trump; for Republicans, it’s immigrants; for Americans, it’s a wasteland
The 2024 presidential election: What a wasteland.
Democrats want to make the election about Donald Trump. And abortion access. Republicans want to make it about immigration. And Joe Biden’s fitness for office.
Please, for the love of Mike, make it stop.
The Bernie Sanders of 2016 is much missed. Sanders challenged war-hawk Hillary Clinton on issues that mattered to Americans. Issues like a $15 federal minimum wage. Affordable health care for all. Comprehensive student loan debt relief and more affordable college education. Policy proposals that actually helped working-class Americans. Those issues are now dead in 2024.
Foreign policy is especially bleak. The Biden administration is enabling genocide in Israel; most Republicans fully support this. Biden is planning a military strike of some sort against Iran; most Republicans are urging him to strike harder. The bipartisan consensus in DC is to rubber-stamp whatever Bibi Netanyahu wants, to give the Pentagon everything it wants, and to pursue more wars overseas. The only debate is over which foreign country is more dangerous to America. China? Russia? Iran? Maybe even North Korea? It doesn’t matter. The result is the same: more money for war, no money for peace.
I can’t recall an election season less connected to the concerns of middle- and working-class Americans. Democrats are fundraising by stressing fears about Trump and abortion access; Republicans are fundraising off fears of America being swamped by immigrants due to the Democrats’ “open border” policy.
Meanwhile, this is a sample of headlines from mainstream media coverage of the election, taken from NBC News this morning:
Where are the issues that matter to Americans? The “cash dash” is what matters to NBC, not issues like health care, wages, inflation, personal and national debt, the availability of affordable housing, mental health care, and so on.
Meanwhile, I can’t recall the last time I saw an article in the mainstream media that seriously argued for major reductions to Pentagon spending and concerted efforts in diplomacy instead of constant warmongering and weapons exports.
Trump-Biden is a wasteland. Don’t vote for the tools and fools. Find candidates who actually want to help America without killing massive numbers of foreigners overseas.
The Costs of Blanket Support of Israel and Ukraine
This morning, three headlines caught my eye from the various news sources I subscribe to. The first came from Reuters: “Israeli tanks batter hospital districts” in Gaza. Here’s the short synopsis from Reuters:
Israeli forces relentlessly bombarded areas around two hospitals in Gaza’s main southern city Khan Younis, pinning down large numbers of displaced people, residents said, in an offensive to take Hamas’ main stronghold in the enclave’s south. Follow the latest on the conflict.
The United Nations said that Israeli tanks struck a huge U.N. compound in Gazasheltering displaced Palestinians, causing “mass casualties.” Israel denied its forces were responsible and suggested Hamas may have launched the shelling. The attack prompted rare outright condemnation from the United States.
The second headline came from CNN and also focused on Gaza: “Red Cross warns of complete medical shutdown in Gaza.” Here’s a short synopsis of that story:
The Red Cross has warned that Gaza faces a complete medical shutdown unless immediate action is taken to safeguard essential services. “Every functioning hospital in the Gaza Strip is over-crowded and short on medical supplies, fuel, food and water,” said William Schomburg, the head of the Red Cross office in Gaza. This comes as Israeli forces have insisted that Hamas systematically operates in Gaza hospitals and adjacent areas, “using the residents as human shields.” Meanwhile, a United Nations building sheltering displaced Palestinians was hit by Israeli tank fire on Wednesday, killing at least 12 people and injuring 75 others. The White House said it is “gravely concerned” by the strike as Israel pushes forward with its military campaign.
It’s nice to know the U.S. government is “gravely concerned” even as it sends more tank shells to Israel so that the destruction of Gaza and its hospitals can continue apace.
The third headline came from journalist Aaron Maté and focuses on the almost forgotten war in Ukraine: “Biden’s $60 billion plan for Ukraine: prolong the war through 2024: As US weapons shipments to Ukraine dry up, Biden’s $60 billion request faces new hurdles in Washington.”
And then I saw this image on Twitter/X. Given the horrendous events in Gaza, this satirical image doesn’t seem that extreme to me:
Biden’s unequivocal support for Israel’s genocide in Gaza gives the lie to the concept of a “rules-based order” that America allegedly upholds and protects. As Biden expresses his “grave concern” about Israeli war crimes in Gaza, he keeps sending the weapons that make possible the very crimes he allegedly deplores. At the same time, his administration is opening a new front in this war with its deadly attacks on Yemen. Biden has said the bombing raids against Yemen aren’t stopping attacks on shipping even as he vows to continue them.
Meanwhile, Biden continues to fight for at least $60 billion for Ukraine in a stalemated war that’s killing untold thousands of Ukrainians and Russians. The aid that Biden wants to send this year won’t end that war; it won’t even give Ukraine a decisive edge. Most experts believe this aid will merely prolong the fighting, meaning more destruction and dead bodies on both sides.
The Biden administration’s embrace of genocide in Gaza and brutal indecisive war in Ukraine highlights the moral bankruptcy of its foreign policy. On the campaign trail, Biden is increasingly being confronted by protesters calling him out for his brutal and militaristic foreign policy. “Genocide Joe” is a nickname that stings because there’s truth in it.
When the main message of the Biden campaign is “Vote for Joe because Trump’s worse” and yet Joe’s latest nickname is linked to genocide, it doesn’t bode well for electoral victory in November.
Surprise! The results are in from New Hampshire and Donald Trump won a clear victory over Nikki Haley and Joe Biden won with write-in votes. Dean Phillips (Biden 2.0) was a distant second and Marianne Williamson a disappointing third. Interestingly, even though Phillips had a respectable showing, the Democratic chair in New Hampshire suggested he should drop out of the race to ensure a Biden/Harris victory in November. In short, there should be no alternative to Biden/Harris because that’s how democracy works best!
A “strong second” for “scrappy” Haley?
Nikki Haley, though losing in NH, did fairly well because a lot of independent and “undeclared” voters decided to cast their lot with her. Trump, exit polls show, held a commanding lead among self-identified Republican and conservative voters. Trump commands the base, the most strongly committed Republican voters, so it’s difficult to imagine a path for Haley to the nomination.
Trump versus Biden redux is looking very likely for 2024, a Caligula versus Nero scenario for the new Roman Empire. I get to cast my primary vote on Super Tuesday early in March, and the only thing I’m certain of is that I won’t be voting for Trump or Biden.
Never has it been so glaringly obvious that America needs an alternative to the duopoly and the “choices” it provides for POTUS.
America may be deeply in debt, but we the people of the United States are totally bankrupt politically.
Iowa and New Hampshire get sidelined in the cause of propping up Joe Biden
This past week’s Iowa Caucuses ended with a clear winner, Donald Trump, over the undynamic duo of Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis. Meanwhile, nothing happened on the Democratic side. The same is likely to be true next week, when New Hampshire goes to the polls. The DNC is refusing to recognize the NH primary; Joe Biden isn’t even on the ballot, though there is a campaign to write-in his name.
You’re not doing America (or “democracy”) favors by propping them up
The first primary that matters according to the DNC is South Carolina on 2/3, followed by Nevada on 2/6 and Michigan on 2/27. These states are supposedly more representative for the Democratic Party than Iowa and NH, meaning they are more racially and ethnically diverse, though to my mind any candidate running for president should be seeking to put his or her best foot forward in all fifty states. No matter. Apparently, the DNC believes this is the best way to shore up support for the Biden/Harris ticket.
Perhaps the DNC is right, but their plan has a serious drawback. If the DNC had kept the old schedule of Iowa and NH, and Biden had performed poorly in both states, it would have allowed the DNC more notice and time to pivot, or perhaps to craft a message more appealing to voters. Privileging states that are expected to support Biden, in contrast, may breed overconfidence that his support remains strong and his candidacy remains viable against the clear Republican frontrunner, Trump.
If you really want to defeat Trump in November, you need the most rigorous vetting process for the Biden/Harris ticket. Rigging the primaries for Biden by deleting Democratic rivals from the ballot, as the DNC has done in Florida, North Carolina, and elsewhere, while effectively throwing out results in Iowa and NH, may ensure both that Biden/Harris win renomination and lose the general election in November.
At which point the DNC will likely blame Jill Stein, RFK Jr., Susan Sarandon, Vladimir Putin, and white supremacists, instead of blaming themselves for putting forward a losing ticket.
Trump is not to be underestimated. The time to discover that Biden/Harris just don’t have it is now, not in October. If Trump is THE existential threat to democracy that the Democrats claim he is, why are the Democrats rigging the field to put forward what may prove to be a weak and losing ticket against him?
A friend of mine thinks Joe Biden has a strong chance of winning reelection in November. He thinks the economy will continue to get better and that Donald Trump may yet be convicted of, well, something. I am far more skeptical about Biden’s chances of victory this fall. Here’s what I wrote to him this morning:
You’re betting on an improving economy and the conviction of Trump as the catalysts for another Biden win. To me, economic growth is very uneven, with an “improving” economy measured mainly by the performance of Wall Street. Few benefits are trickling down to the working classes. Meanwhile, we don’t know if Trump will be convicted of anything; also, I don’t think a conviction that’s seen as politically motivated will hurt Trump. If anything, depending on the conviction and its seriousness, it could even help him.
The largest bloc of voters are those Americans who don’t vote. You have to give people a reason to get off their duffs and vote for you. For Obama, it was “hope” and “change” and idealism. Biden won in 2020 because of the pandemic and Trump’s incompetent leadership. In 2024, Biden is increasingly “Genocide Joe” for youth and progressives; he’s taking his own base for granted, thinking that people will opt for him over Trump because the latter is too divisive.
But what may happen is that Democrats and Independents just stay home, or vote third party, while Trump loyalists show up at the polls.
We can bookmark this conversation if you wish and come back to it this November. We are, after all, trying to predict the future. My guess is that Biden loses; you’re guessing he’s going to win. We’ll see.
I also believe that if Trump wins, the DNC will blame the voters rather than the weakness of the Biden/Harris ticket. I’m sure Putin will also be blamed, as will any 3rd-party candidates like Stein of RFK Jr. The DNC will then fundraise off of fear of Trump. No matter what, the DNC will win. What counts as a “loss” for the DNC is allowing a progressive to run.
It’s some “democracy” we live in when voters are shamed for voting for someone other than Joe Biden. (The Trumpers, of course, are universally dismissed as irredeemable deplorables.) So I know I will be shamed for not voting for Joe (or the Don) this November.
As Yoda the Jedi Master said: “Difficult to see. Always in motion the future.” I just don’t see a lot of enthusiasm for Biden. I see Biden as a figurehead of Neo-liberal economic policies at home and Neo-conservative war policies abroad. Otherwise known as Dickensian conditions for the working classes here and lots of bombs and artillery shells falling on “foreign” peoples of color.
Meanwhile, I doubt the DNC will allow Biden to appear in any presidential debates. Too risky. Biden will largely “campaign” by reading from teleprompters at carefully staged appearances.
The shadow of Trump looms again (photo from 2020)
Biden, to state the obvious, is not in his prime. If reelected, he’ll be 82 and will serve until he’s 86. Voters have legitimate concerns about his health and his endurance. Meanwhile, his vice president, Kamala Harris, isn’t popular and lends little credibility to the ticket. It doesn’t bode well.
I already had four years of Trump; they were more than enough for me. I’ve had three years of Biden and they’ve been more than enough. Yet the RNC and DNC want to offer me a Trump/Biden rematch, and I just can’t stomach it.
Bracing Views 